Impressions of psychotherapists' offices

For counseling settings, research suggests that softness, personalization, and order might affect the experience and the perceived expertness, trustworthiness, and social attractiveness of the therapist. This article discusses exploratory studies on college students' perception of the counseling office environment and whether the likely client experience was associated with the softness/personalization and order of the office. As stimuli, the studies used 30 color photographs of psychotherapists' offices viewed from the client's perspective. After obtaining ratings of the characteristics of each office, we obtained ratings from different groups of students of the quality of care and comfort expected in each office (Study 1) and how qualified, bold, and friendly the therapist in the office would be (Study 2). Additional studies examined the likelihood of choosing a therapist based on the office, and the first thought or feeling that came to mind about the office, the therapist, and the patient experience. There were strong correlations in response between groups (by whether they had experienced therapy; their level in school; their gender; and their major, location, and school size). The quality of care, comfort, therapist boldness, qualifications of the therapist, and the likelihood that one would choose a therapist based on the office improved with increases in the office's softness/personalization and order. Friendliness improved with increases in softness/personalization. The office choices, open-ended responses, and reported reasons for the ratings confirmed the importance of softness (comfort) and order. Research should test longer term exposure and behavior.     

Diminished response to pleasant stimuli by depressed women

This study examined the self-report and facial expressions of emotional response to pictorial stimuli and the incidental learning of pleasant and unpleasant words by depressed (n = 20) and nondepressed (n = 20) women. Depression was associated with reports of diminished emotional response and reduced frequency and intensity of facial expressions only to pleasant stimuli. The 2 groups did not differ in response to hedonically unpleasant stimuli, even those specifically relevant to the emotion of sadness. In a similar vein, depressed and nondepressed participants showed differences in incidental recall for only pleasant self-referential terms. There was no difference in recall of unpleasant words. These findings suggest the importance of hedonic deficits on psychological processes in clinical depression.     

An Emotion Regulation Treatment for Young People With Complex Substance Use and Mental Health Issues: A Case-Series Analysis

Individuals accessing treatment within the youth alcohol and other drug (AoD) sector represent a highly vulnerable population who present with complex patterns of substance use and mental health comorbidity. Current treatments often fail to address this complexity. Emotion regulation (ER) has been identified as a promising transdiagnostic treatment target for this population of young people. The current study aimed to investigate the acceptability and feasibility of an adjunct ER intervention, ERIC (Emotion Regulation and Impulse Control) in young people receiving AoD treatment at a residential rehabilitation service. A mixed methods case series design was utilized. Ten participants aged between 16–20 years old completed 4–6 sessions of ERIC as an adjunct to their existing residential treatment. Participants undertook a post intervention feedback session and completed a number of self-report measures of ER, depression and anxiety at baseline and 2 weeks after receiving ERIC. Qualitative feedback from young people following the delivery of ERIC was positive, and suggested that ERIC was a viable and useful intervention. Participants reported that the components of ERIC, which involved metaphors and experiential exercises, were particularly beneficial and memorable. Pre-post measures indicated that 60% of the young people had both reliable and clinically significant reductions in overall emotion dysregulation, while reliable and clinically significant reductions in depression and anxiety were observed in 50% and 60% of participants respectively. Results support the acceptability of ERIC for this cohort of young people with complex substance use and mental health needs. Furthermore, these findings support the viability of delivering flexible and adjunctive ER treatments to young people seeking AoD treatment.     

Widening the temporal window: processing support in the treatment of aphasic language production

Investigations of language processing in aphasia have increasingly implicated performance factors such as slowed activation and/or rapid decay of linguistic information. This approach is supported by studies utilizing a communication system (SentenceShaper) which functions as a "processing prosthesis." The system may reduce the impact of processing limitations by allowing repeated refreshing of working memory and by increasing the opportunity for aphasic subjects to monitor their own speech. Some aphasic subjects are able to produce markedly more structured speech on the system than they are able to produce spontaneously, and periods of largely independent home use of SentenceShaper have been linked to treatment effects, that is, to gains in speech produced without the use of the system. The purpose of the current study was to follow up on these studies with a new group of subjects. A second goal was to determine whether repeated, unassisted elicitations of the same narratives at baseline would give rise to practice effects, which could undermine claims for the efficacy of the system.     

The Facial Expression Coding System (FACES): development, validation, and utility

This article presents information on the development and validation of the Facial Expression Coding System (FACES; A. M. Kring & D. Sloan, 1991). Grounded in a dimensional model of emotion, FACES provides information on the valence (positive, negative) of facial expressive behavior. In 5 studies, reliability and validity data from 13 diverse samples, including students, psychiatric patients, and community adults, are presented, and results indicate that raters can reliably agree on instances of positive and negative expressive behavior. Validity studies indicate that FACES ratings are related in predictable ways to another observational coding system, facial muscle activity, individual-difference measures of expressiveness and personality, skin conductance, heart rate, and reports of experienced emotion. FACES can be a useful tool for assessing expressive behavior in a variety of contexts.     

Does altering the writing instructions influence outcome associated with written disclosure?

This study examined the effect of changing the instructional set for written disclosure on psychological and physical health reports among traumatized college students with current posttraumatic stress symptoms. Eighty-two participants were randomly assigned to one of three writing conditions that focused on emotional expression (EE), insight and cognitive assimilation, or to a control condition. Participants assigned to the EE condition reported significant improvements in psychological and physical health 1 month following the writing sessions relative to the other two conditions. The EE participants also reported and displayed significantly greater initial psychophysiological reactivity and subsequent habituation compared with the other two conditions. These findings suggest the importance of emphasizing emotional expression during written disclosure and underscore the importance of examining how modifying the written disclosure protocol can affect outcome.     

Plagiarism,Integrity, and Workplace Deviance: A Criterion Study

Plagiarism is increasingly evident in business and academia. Though links between demographic, personality, and situational factors have been found, previous research has not used actual plagiarism behavior as a criterion variable. Previous research on academic dishonesty has consistently used self-report measures to establish prevalence of dishonest behavior. In this study we use actual plagiarism behavior to establish its prevalence, as well as relationships between integrity-related personal selection and workplace deviance measures. This research covers new ground in two respects: (a) That the academic dishonesty literature is subject to revision using criterion variables to avoid self bias and social desirability issues and (b) we establish the relationship between actual academic dishonesty and potential workplace deviance/white-collar crime.     

Bullies,victims, and meanies: the role of child and classmate social and emotional competencies

Social Psychology of Education - This study used a personal oriented approach to identify distinct combinations of children’s experiences of bullying and victimisation in the Irish primary...     

Intrasexual peer aggression and dating behavior during adolescence: an evolutionary perspective

It has been suggested that the use of intrasexual aggression is a form of competition associated with reproductive opportunities. Here the authors investigated the relationship between retrospective dating and flirting behavior and peer aggression and victimization during middle and high school. Results indicate that the use of peer aggression was associated with adaptive dating outcomes in both sexes, whereas experiencing peer victimization was correlated with maladaptive dating behaviors among females only. Females who perpetrated high levels of indirect (i.e. nonphysical) aggression reported that they began dating at earlier ages in comparison to their peers, whereas aggressive males reported having more total dating partners. Experiencing female-female peer victimization was correlated with a later onset of dating behavior, more total dating partners, and less male flirtation while growing up. This report strengthens the connection between adolescent peer aggression and reproductive competition, suggesting a potential functionality to adolescent peer aggression in enhancing one's own mating opportunities at the expense of rivals.