Friendship and Reasons of Intimacy

Reasons of intimacy, i.e. reasons to care for friends and other intimates, resist categorization as either subjective Humean reasons or as objective consequentialist reasons. Reasons of intimacy are grounded in the friendship relation itself. not in the psychological attitudes of the agent or in the objective intrinsic value of the friend or the friendship. So reasons of intimacy are objective and agent-relative and can be understood by analogy with reasons of fidelity and reasons of prudence. Such an analogy can help us to understand which objective agent-relative reasons we have and which, such as deontological constraints, we do not have.     

Factors Related to Counselor Preference Among Gays and Lesbians

This study explored the preference for counselor's sexual orientation among gay and lesbian clients. Recognizing that the perceived reaction of participants to hypothetical situations may be a viable predictor of future choices, respondents were administered a comfort/discomfort index intended to probe a number of potential counseling concerns. Internalized homophobia (Hudson & Ricketts, 1977) and a scale measuring degree of same- or opposite-sex sexual preferences (Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin, & Gebbhard, 1953) were also investigated in an attempt to account for variance in the comfort/discomfort ratings. Findings indicated that gay men and lesbians tend to prefer gay or lesbian counselors, although a sizable number believe that counselors' sexual orientations do not make a difference. Internalized homophobia was found to predict discomfort in discussing various topics with a counselor of unknown sexual orientation.     

THE JOINT EFFECTS OF CONSCIENTIOUSNESS AND SELF-LEADERSHIP TRAINING ON EMPLOYEE SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR IN A SERVICE SETTING

This field investigation examined the effects of conscientiousness and self-leadership training on employee self-direction. Conscientiousness correlated significantly with supervisor evaluations of self-direction for employees working in a hotel/resort. Self-leadership training was then conducted for a group of the employees. Gain score analysis failed to detect an overall effect for training on self-direction. However, conscientiousness was found to moderate the effect of self-leadership training in that training group employees who initially scored low on conscientiousness improved their behavior more than their high conscientiousness coworkers. Implications of these findings for the practices of employee training and selection are discussed.