Working with older adults and their families – a review

This paper discusses family work with older adults by exploring some of the related literature published since Herr and Weakland's work in 1979, and compares psychoeducational and systems-based approaches to work with later life families. Issues of bias and omissions in the existing literature, and the definition of family therapy with this client group are raised. Areas for future research are indicated.     

Hiding valuables: A questionnaire study of mnemonically risky behavior

A survey investigated incidences where individuals intentionally hid objects but later forgot the item's location. Surveys from 111 younger and 99 older adults yielded the following prototypical scenario: the person hid the valuable 1 year ago to prevent theft, and waited 1 month before an initial 30-minute search, which included looking in dresser drawers plus 1.5 other locations. The person made three additional searches (total searches = 4) for the missing valuable over a 2 week period. Three-quarters of the hidden valuables were eventually found (usually by accident) about 1 month after hiding the object. About half of the time, the person had already searched the hiding area. Older adults typically hid jewellery from thieves, while younger adults hid money from friends and relatives. Older adults searched more often for longer periods of time for the hidden object, and took longer to eventually find the object, compared with younger adults.     

“I’ve said I’m sorry,haven’t I?” A study of the identity implications and constraints that apologies create for their recipients

In contrast to previous research on apologies, which has examined their role in enhancing impressions of those issuing them (e.g., Darby and Schlenker, 1989), the research reported here draws upon Goffman’s (1955) analysis of the “corrective cycle” and is concerned with constraints associated with the receipt of apologies. Study 1 examines the implications for the actor of accepting, not accepting, or rejecting apologies. It is demonstrated that across a variety of judgments, most positive views of the actor result when apologies are accepted; least positive views are associated with their rejection. A follow-up study sought to establish whether this effect would occur under circumstances in which unconvincing apologies are rejected. Results indicate that the apology’s status (convincing versus unconvincing) has no bearing on perceptions of actors. Based on a hypothetical role-play format, Study 2 addresses the matter of whether actors experience a subjective sense of constraint upon receipt of unsatisfactory apologies. The data suggest that there exists a pronounced tendency to accept such apologies, though typically with conditions that would be specified to the offender. More general implications of the data are discussed.     

Frontline,facilitated communication,and Stephen Jay Gould

Journal of Behavioral Education -     

Ideological Beliefs About Family Practices: Contemporary Perspectives Among North Indian Families

Ninety-two dual-wage and 103 single-wage Indian families with a preschool-age child residing in extended and nuclear households provided assessments regarding their beliefs about the division of household chores, financial responsibilities, childcare, and filial obligations. Analysis focused on possible differences in belief structures that may be attributed to the gender of the parent, family structural living arrangement, and maternal employment outside of the home. Husbands and wives did not differ in ideological beliefs on any of the components assessed, but differences did emerge as a function of family structural arrangements and whether or not the wife worked outside of the home. Data are discussed in terms of possible changes in ideological beliefs about family functions and practices and the broader socio-cultural factors operating within Indian society.     

Double-Agents and Trace-Deletion in Agrammatism

The Trace-Deletion Hypothesis (henceforth TDH; Grodzinsky 1986, 1995) states that syntactic traces are deleted in agrammatism and that whenever a trace is deleted, a default strategy is activated. The default strategy assigns the role of Agent to the first NP. In structures where a second NP receives the Agent role syntactically, the consequence is that the agrammatic representation contains two conflicting Agents for the same action. This is the mechanism that induces guessing and the random performance on comprehension tests that has often been observed for passives and certain other structures. In this paper, we isolate the default strategy of the TDH, using a sentence-picture matching task in which one of the pictures matches the meaning arrived at by the default strategy. Our results show that an agrammatic representation does not involve double-Agents, and thus the default strategy (and therefore the TDH) is refuted.