Seven Good Reasons Why Counselling Psychologists Should Listen to B. F. Skinner

Repetition is known to be an effective procedure for helping people to remember a message. B. F. Skinner is clearly aware of this, and he has, for many years, re-described and repeated the fundamentals of a science of behaviour. I will extract some of these basics and paraphrase them here in a manner which makes their relevance clear to counselling psychologists.     

Homeostasis-anhomeostasis: Goliath and David

Organisms indeed demonstrate adaptability and relative stability in the face of external change. This is not only true along the physiochemical dimension, so well described by Bernard and Cannon, but it has been shown to obtain also along the behavioral dimension. The latter has been particularly evident in total body regulation via specific food hungers. Nevertheless, accepting the homeostatic model as the all-inclusive blueprint in explaining these phenomena is heuristically limiting. There are enough instances of nonregulation (anhomeostasis), particularly behavioral nonregulation, to preclude glib generalizations and conclusions. It is contended here that attention given to these anhomeostases should lead to a fuller understanding of food regulation in general and specific hungers in particular.     

Performance differences among four organizational commitment profiles

The authors drew from prior research on organizational commitment and from configural organizational theory to propose a framework of affective and continuance commitment profiles. Using cluster analyses, the authors obtained evidence for 4 of these profiles in an energy industry sample (N=970) and a sample of 345 employed college students. The authors labeled the clusters: allied (i.e., moderate affective and continuance commitment), free agents (moderate continuance commitment and low affective commitment), devoted (high affective and continuance commitment), and complacent (moderate affective and low continuance commitment). Using a subset of the employed student sample (n=148), the authors also found that the free agents received significantly poorer supervisor ratings of performance, organizational citizenship behavior, and antisocial behavior than any other group.     

Changing Constructions of the Pagan in the Irish National Print Media 1900–2013

This research note examines how the terms ‘pagan’ and ‘paganism’ have variously been used in Irish national print media. It does this to investigate how Irish identity was constructed as the Republic of Ireland changed to a secularising society where the hegemony of the Roman Catholic Church substantially weakened. It finds that the trope of ‘pagan’ has been used to represent moral threats or political threats (such as the growth of Nazism or secularism) or acknowledge the influence of paganism (defined as ancient religious elements) on Irish culture. Research on Irish Pagans and related eco-spiritualities is a nascent field of study and this research note aims to contribute to its development. Limitations of the present study are outlined and avenues for future research are discussed.     

Serial murderers' spatial decisions: factors that influence crime location choice

The outcome of German serial murderer spatial decision making was measured as the straight‐line distance (km) between murderer home locations and each crime location (i.e. body recovery location). Geographic and series development data, as well as information on age, intelligence, motive, marital status, employment status, and mode of transportation of 53 German serial murderers was collected from police and prosecution service files and judicial verdict records. Potential effects of the aforementioned factors on spatial decisions were assessed. Results showed that 63% of the murderers lived within 10 km of their crime locations. Home‐to‐crime distance was negatively correlated with murderer age and positively correlated with murderer IQ score. Results also showed that the mode of transportation used by murderers had an effect on their spatial decisions. Results are discussed in terms of understanding serial murderer spatial decision‐making and implications for police investigations. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.