Family therapy outcome research: a trial for families, therapists, and researchers

This article describes the process of an evolving research project. Initially conceived as a study investigating outcome measures and their sensitivity to change after a course of family therapy, the project soon changed its focus. As unexpected results were recorded, the clinical research team became destabilized and the individual team members responded by making their own "sense" of the data, reflecting their respective clinical and scientific positions. As clinicians and researchers began to challenge each other's belief systems, the project entered a new stage. The interactions within the team became of increasing interest and themselves objects of research. The recursive nature of re-search was demonstrated, and the act of writing this report completed the circle, as the various authors tried to achieve a balance between reporting the content and the process of this project.     

Effects of movie violence on aggression in a field setting as a function of group dominance and cohesion.

In this quasi-experimental field study, delinquent members belonging to two cottages viewed aggressive commercial movies every evening for a week, while at the same time, subjects from two other cottages were exposed to neutral commercial movies. Behavioral observations were obtained through a nonhier-archical, minimally inferential procedure of a time-sampling nature; they were taken during a baseline week (at noon and in the evening), a treatment week (noon and evening) and a posttreatment week (noon). The main immediate effects of the violent films were an overall increase of both active behaviors and physical aggression; the effects on verbal aggression were more persistent but limited to one of the two cottages. On the other hand, more interactions occurred as an immediate consequence of viewing the films in both neutral treatment cottages; moreover, one of these two cottages also decreased its level of physical (short-term effect) and verbal (short- and long-term effects) aggression. In the aggressive treatment cottage, which was most affected, subjects who were most dominant, most popular, and least popular were influenced the most: an opposite effect was exhibited by those subjects who were judged as least aggressive by their peers. Complementary data are presented and discussed; the difference between the single individual laboratory paradigm and the existing group field paradigm is especially stressed.     

Revealing the Cues Within Community Places: Storiesof Identity, History, and Possibility

Place-based approaches to community change have become increasingly popular strategies for addressing significant social problems. With their intentional focus on 'place,' most efforts have sought to gain greater understanding into how neighborhood contexts affect people. However, while both aggregate characteristics and social dynamics of neighborhoods have been subject to scrutiny in the literature, less attention has been paid to understanding how the environmental characteristics of neighborhoods and communities as places have meaning for residents. The present study used an innovative methodology called Photovoice to obtain a greater understanding of the meanings residents ascribe to the salient characteristics of their neighborhoods and communities. As part of a place-based initiative, 29 adult and youth residents in seven distressed urban neighborhoods photographed and dialogued about the meaningful physical attributes of their community. According to participants, place characteristics provided cues about their personal histories as members of the community; communicated messages about the value and character of the community and its residents; defined social norms and behavior within the community; and provided markers that could remind residents of who they are and inspire a sense of possibility for who they could become. Implications for practice are discussed.