Countering perfectionism in research on clinical practice II: Retrospective analysis of treatment progress

A simple correlational study is described which has methodological advantages, when compared with an equivalent manipulative (i.e., quasiexperimental) research design, for examining exploratory questions about treatment outcome. These advantages stem from the fact that retrospective designs, when compared with prospective ones, are much less likely to involve ethical problems due to offering relatively ineffective or unnecessary treatment, and less likely to involve confounds from newly hypothesized differential expectations about treatment. Based on Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI) scale scores, clients with high levels of histrionic or narcissistic (and possibly also those with antisocial, compulsive and paranoid) personality traits seemed to profit more from RET than those without such traits. Clients with high levels of schizoid, avoidant, and schizotypal traits (and probably also clients with strong passive-aggressive traits, and possibly also clients with strong dependent and borderline traits) seemed to profit less from RET than those without such marked traits. We have previously shown that the relatively healthy personality traits and disorders are associated with global self-upping and the relatively sick ones with global self-downing, as well as contrasting patterns of positive and negative reactions to stressful events. Our findings here support the concept that clients who consistently handle life situations well will tend to progress most rapidly in therapy, and those who generally handle life situations badly will tend to progress slowly. Personality traits may be especially significant markers for therapeutic attention to problems stemming from global self-rating. Expectations based on the severity of global self-upping and/or self-downing may be good predictors of therapeutic progress. In contrast, expectations about RET outcomes based on severity of distress or neediness will probably be less accurate.Dr. Russell C. Leaf is Associate Professor of Psychology at Rutgers. He also directs a research project at the Institute for Rational-Emotive Therapy, in collaboration with the four other authors of this article, on the relationships between intake personality and mental health. He is an Institute Fellow and Supervisor, and previously served as a staff therapist and as the Institute's Director of Clinical Evaluation.Albert Ellis is President of the Institute for Rational-Emotive Therapy.Roslyn Mass is Professor at Middlesex County College. She is in charge of data processing and analysis for the collaborative research of this authorial team, and is a Fellow of and previously served as Administrative Director of the Institute for Rational-Emotive Therapy.Raymond DiGiuseppe is Associate Professor of Psychology at St. Johns and Director of Research and Director of Training at the Institute for Rational-Emotive Therapy.Diane Alington is Assistant Director and a member of the core faculty of the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research at Rutgers, where she conducts a research program on sex differences in adult development.     

Left hemisphere superiority for pronounceable nonwords,but not for unpronounceable letter strings

Right-handed adults were asked to identify bilaterally presented linguistic stimuli under three experimental conditions. In Condition A, stimuli were three-letter pronounceable nonwords (such as TUP), and subjects were asked to report them by naming them. In Condition B, stimuli were three-letter pronounceable nonwords, and subjects were asked to report them as strings of letters. In Condition C, stimuli were more or less unpronounceable letter strings (such as UTP) created by rearranging the letters of pronounceable nonwords, and subjects reported them as strings of letters. Pronounceable nonwords were found to be better identified from the right visual hemifield irrespective of the way in which they were reported. Unpronounceable letter strings did not produce any visual hemifield difference. Nonwords are of interest because they can be seen as potential words that lack both specific semantic properties and entries in the subject's internal lexicon. The results of the experiment are consistent with the view that both the left and right cerebral hemispheres are able to identify letters but the left hemisphere is more sensitive to the pronounceability of the nonwords. This may happen either because the left hemisphere can make better use of resemblances to real words or because it has access to spelling to sound correspondence rules.     

Repeated exposure to objects and peers in a play setting

Two hypotheses were contrasted. One posed a positive relationship between mere repeated exposure and preference for stimulus of concern; the other predicted that preference for stimuli would be modulated by their relative novelty and complexity. These hypotheses were tested within the context of a naturalistic play situation in which 40 4- to 5-year-old children were repeatedly exposed to and interacted with play settings differing in complexity. Overt preference for play objects declined with repeated exposure, the rate of decline being inversely determined by the complexity of the play stimuli. Preference for peers, however, increased as a function of repeated exposure, with the amount of increase being an inverse function of the complexity of the external setting.     

Fragmentation of fixated line stimuli as a function of gravitational orientation

The differential propensity of fixated line stimuli to fragment and disappear from view was studied as a function of the gravitational orientation of the stimuli. The propensity to fragment was measured in terms of three intercorrelated dependent variables: the number of fragmentations per fixation period, the total duration of fragmentation per fixation period, and the latency to the first fragmentation. Unlike some anisotropic visual phenomena, which may reflect orientation-independent aspects of pattern perception, the observed anisotropy of propensity to fragment can be attributed overwhelmingly to the retinal orientation of the stimuli. Accordingly, this property of fragmentation need nof be ascribed to higher order aspects of pattern perception.     

Accessing stored information about familiar people

Summary Two experiments investigating access to occupations and names of familiar people are reported, in which the response requirements of occupation and name-categorization tasks were made equivalent. In Experiment 1 matching tasks were used, in which subjects were required to determine whether simultaneously presented pairs of faces, surnames, or full names were those of people with the same or different occupations (politician or nonpolitician) or with same or different first names (Michael or David). Experiment 2 required binary classification of individual faces or surnames in terms of the bearer's occupation (politician or nonpolitician) or first name (Michael or David). In both experiments responses to faces were faster in tasks involving access to occupations than in tasks involving access to first names, whereas for surnames there was no difference in reaction times between occupations and first names in matching or classification tasks. These findings are consistent with the idea that identity-specific semantic codes and name codes are accessed sequentially from faces, but in parallel from written names.     

Alcoholism, aging, and functional cerebral asymmetries

Reviews research concerning the possible relationship between cognitive decline and abnormal hemispheric asymmetries in alcoholic and aging individuals. Because the deteriorative effects of alcoholism on the central nervous system have suggested greater visuospatial than language-related functional impairments, numerous investigators had hypothesized that right-hemisphere integrity may be selectively disrupted (rather than the left hemisphere). Furthermore, performance on diverse perceptual and cognitive tests used to measure right-hemisphere functions in alcoholics had been observed to decline with normal chronological aging as well, thereby raising the possibility that certain neuropsychological deficits associated with alcoholism (presumably related to right-hemispheric decline) are identical to those associated with aging. However, an extensive review of empirical research findings on cerebral asymmetries both in alcoholics and in aging individuals suggested that their patterns of functional laterality are similar to those of normal controls.     

Effects of auditory masking on lingual vibrotactile magnitude-estimation scaling responses of young children

Studies of lingual vibrotactile magnitude-estimation scaling have focused primarily on the responses of normal young adults. Little is known about the scaling responses of young children to suprathreshold vibratory stimulation because of the complexities of the experimental procedure. Binaural auditory masking is one aspect of the procedure that has recently been studied in adults. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of binaural auditory masking on lingual vibrotactile magnitude-estimation responses of young children. Four children whose mean age was 4.6 yr. completed magnitude-estimation scaling tasks for eight lingual vibrotactile suprathreshold intensity levels (6, 10, 16, 20, 26, 30, 36, 40 dB SL) under masking and no masking conditions. Results suggest possible effects of auditory masking on the lingual vibrotactile magnitude-estimation scaling responses of these young children that have not been found for such responses of adults.