Rational Mentoring

Psychologists and other mental health professionals often serve as mentors to graduate students, interns and junior professionals. Mentor relationships are often long-term and emotionally complex and ideally involve provision of both career and psychosocial functions which prepare proteges for careers in the profession. Although experienced and accomplished, mentors often fall prey to a range of irrational thinking which may compromise their effectiveness in the mentor role. In this article we briefly define mentoring, describe the practices of effective mentors, highlight the irrational beliefs that most often prove troubling to mentors and outline several strategies for effectively coping with these beliefs. We hypothesize that routine and overt disputation of mentor-related irrational beliefs will enhance both the effect and enjoyment of mentoring.     

Emotional expression in cyberspace: searching for moderators of the Pennebaker disclosure effect via e-mail.

Research has shown that writing about emotional topics can positively influence physical and mental health. The current study tested the efficacy of an e-mail-based writing treatment and shows how such an implementation can aid in the search for moderators. Participants (N = 546) were randomly assigned to either a long- or short-interval traumatic writing condition or to a nonemotional writing control condition. In contrast to previous disclosure research, participants received and submitted their writing responses via e-mail. Health outcomes were assessed weekly for 5 weeks after treatment and were reported at the conclusion of the study. Results supported the effectiveness of an e-mail-based writing treatment in producing positive health outcomes and successfully identified several moderators of the writing treatment effect. The moderators implicated varied depending on the nature of the health outcome assessment.     

A Comparison of Function-Based Differential Reinforcement Interventions for Children Engaging in Disruptive Classroom Behavior

This study provides a direct comparison of differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO) and differential reinforcement of alternative behavior (DRA). Participants included three children in center-based classrooms referred for functional assessments due to disruptive classroom behavior. Functional assessments included interviews and brief functional analyses. An alternating treatments design was used to evaluate the relative effectiveness of function-based DRO and DRA interventions. Results indicated that both intervention procedures effectively reduced disruptive behavior, but the DRA procedure consistently resulted in greater reductions in disruptive behavior across all participants. Results are discussed in terms of directions for future functional assessment and intervention research as well as implications for applied practice.     

Peer Tutoring for Reading Fluency as a Feasible and Effective Alternative in Response to Intervention Systems

Peer tutoring is an evidence-based procedure for improving academic performance for a variety of skill areas. The current study evaluated the feasibility and impact of a peer tutoring package for reading fluency with 4 middle school students receiving Tier II remedial supports. This study used a multiple baseline design across participants to evaluate impact of the peer tutoring procedure on students’ oral reading rate on instructional passages. Results indicated that students’ oral reading rate on instructional probes increased following implementation of the peer tutoring procedure. Moreover, peer tutors implemented most steps of the procedure with a high degree of integrity. Results are discussed in terms of contributions to the peer tutoring and Response to Intervention literatures, as well as application to applied practice.     

Parental satisfaction in child abuse and neglect: A review of standardized measures

Low levels of parental satisfaction have been implicated in parents' utilization of harsh disciplining strategies and perpetration of child abuse and neglect. Although measures of parental satisfaction have been present for more than 3 decades, the employment of these instruments in child maltreatment populations has been limited, perhaps due to a lack of empirical evaluation. This paper reviews extant studies that demonstrate the need to examine the relationship between parental satisfaction and child maltreatment, and provides a critical examination of existing measures of parental satisfaction, including their psychometric support and application to child maltreatment. Recommendations are offered regarding the utility of these measures in child maltreatment.     

The Strange New World in the Church:

Hauerwas's refusal to translate the argument displayed in With the Grain of the Universe (his recent Gifford Lectures) into language that “anyone” can understand is itself part of the argument. Consequently, readers will not understand what Hauerwas is up to until they have attained fluency in the peculiar language that has epitomized three decades of Hauerwas's scholarship. Such fluency is not easily gained. Nevertheless, in this review essay, I situate Hauerwas's baffling language against the backdrop of his corpus to show at least this much: With the Grain of the Universe transforms natural theology into “witness.” In the end, my essay may demonstrate what many have feared, that Hauerwas is, in fact, a Christian apologist—though of a very ancient sort.     

Rule-Consequentialism and Obligations Toward the Needy

Most of us believe morality requires us to help the desperately needy. But most of us also believe morality doesn't require us to make enormous sacrifices in order to help people who have no special connection with us. Such self-sacrifice is of course praiseworthy, but it isn't morally mandatory. Rule-consequentialism might seem to offer a plausible grounding for such beliefs. Tim Mulgan has recently argued in Analysis and Pacific Philosophical Quarterly that rule-consequentialism cannot do so. This paper replies to Mulgan's arguments.