Humor and Its Contributions to Mental Health

Self control assistance includes steady doses of humorous comment and reflection. Getting past the perfect person syndrome en route to an emotionally healthier existence can be done by the appreciation of use of humor. Distinguishing between commercialized and rational humor allows for more permanent long range happiness and survival. To be able to laugh and learn at the same time are two bull's-eyes that promote more optimal emotional well-being. Humor ignites thirty-seven listed provisions in the service of emotional health. Fifteen precise dimensions of mental health that humor can pave the way toward are reviewed. Twenty-nine irrational beliefs about humor are fleshed out followed by nine types of rational humor. Stories and stormy anecdotes from the wiles of the author's practice of psychotherapy and parenting misdemeanors further document the topic under consideration.     

How Do Consumers Transfer Existing Knowledge? A Comparison of Analogy and Categorization Effects

The trend in recent consumer research has been to emphasize the similarities between analogy and categorization. In this investigation, we merge the literature on analogy, categorization, and structure mapping theory to reach a better understanding of their differences. In 3 experiments, we compare consumers’ responses to analogy and categorization cues and find that analogy places much greater constraints on knowledge transfer than categorization by focusing consumers on relational similarities. Illustrating this, the analogy group in Study 1 was just as likely as the categorization group to generate relational inferences, but much less likely to generate attribute inferences. Likewise, the results of Study 2 indicate that the analogy group restricted their processing of features lying outside the common relational system, leading to inferior recall relative to the categorization group. Building on these findings, Study 3 demonstrates that, under certain circumstances, analogy and categorization work together syn‐ergistically to enhance consumer memory.     

Psychological analyses of haptic and haptic-visual judgements of extent

Magnitude estimates of haptic extent resulted in positively accelerated psychophysical power function with an exponent of 1.18. However, in two further experiments right-handed male subjects made rating-scale judgements of the combined width of two stimulus blocks. Six widths were used and five replications of the 36 factorial combinations were presented to each subject. In Experiment II both stimuli were out of view and one was held between the thumb and index finger of each hand. In Experiment III one stimulus was held out of view between thumb and finger of the right hand and the second was shown to the subject. Mean ratings in both experiments were fit by a model which assumes that responses are a weighted average of the scale values of the two stimuli (Anderson, 1974a).     

Reinforcement and Helping Behavior1

A study was conducted to determine the effects of reinforcement following helping in one situation on subsequent helping behavior. It was predicted that helping behavior would increase following positive reinforcement and decrease following negative reinforcement. It was also predicted that the attractiveness of the dispenser of reinforcement would affect subsequent helping. The study was conducted using a 3 × 2 × 2 design with the variables bemg nature of reinforcement, attractivcness of the confederate, and sex of S. The data indicated that subsequent to negative reinforcement, helping responses decrease. There were no differences between the positive, neutral or control conditions. Sex of S interacted with reinforcemcnt condition, with mcn helping more than women following negative reinforcement. Malcs and females also differcd in quality of help given, with men offering more physical help than women, particularly following neutral reinforcement.     

Counselling psychology in New Zealand

This article offers a brief overview of the history of counselling psychology in New Zealand. It describes current postgraduate study options and registration pathways as well as the institutions and organisations that provide legislative and professional membership and support to counselling psychologists in New Zealand. Data collected from a national survey in 2014 provide insight into the demographics of the profession in New Zealand, the theoretical frameworks that are utilised and employment opportunities that exist for counselling psychologists. The article also highlights the uniqueness of a cultural and contextual approach that aligns itself with New Zealand’s founding document, the Treaty of Waitangi/te Tiriti o Waitangi which is based on the principles of partnership, participation and protection. It concludes with the challenges the profession face as a new scope of practice. These challenges include establishing a professional identity in the mental health delivery system in New Zealand and responding to an ever increasing multicultural society.