Comments on DeRose's “Single Scoreboard Semantics”

Philosophical Studies -     

Technical Considerations When Handling Questions in the Initial Phase of Psychotherapy

Responding to patients' questions throughout the therapeutic process can be challenging. Questions posed at the beginning of treatment have unique features which make them especially difficult to negotiate. When handled skillfully and tactfully, questions asked during this phase can provide the therapist with important opportunities to foster engagement in treatment. Questions can provide valuable information about the patient's internal world, afford the opportunity to socialize the patient to the therapeutic process, and aid in rapport-building. This article will focus on ways to understand and handle questions patients ask during the initial phase of treatment. Vignettes will be presented and specific responses therapists can offer to patients will be discussed.     

Re-examining the relationship between age and voluntary turnover

In their quantitative review of the literature, Healy, Lehman, and McDaniel [Healy, M. C., Lehman, M., & McDaniel, M. A. (1995). Age and voluntary turnover: A quantitative review. Personnel Psychology, 48, 335–345] concluded that age is only weakly related to voluntary turnover (average r = −.08).However, with the significant changes in mobility patterns among employees over the last two decades, the strength of the age–turnover relationship may have changed as well. In a meta-analysis of studies published between 1990 and 2008 (49 studies, N = 71,053), we found that the age–voluntary turnover relationship was in fact stronger (−.14) than what Healy et al. (1995) found. In addition, moderator tests revealed that race, tenure, and education level help explain differences in effect sizes across studies linking age to turnover. That is, the age–turnover relationship is stronger when there are more racial minorities in the sample (−.16), when organizational tenure is higher (−.18), and when education level is lower (−.20). In addition, the relationship is strongest when the timeframe for measuring turnover behavior is 1–2 years and when the research is conducted with U.S. samples.     

The Effectiveness of Audiovisual Self-Instructional Materials in Teaching Child-Care Skills to Parents with Intellectual Disabilities

Children of parents with intellectual disabilities are at risk for neglectful care due to parenting skill deficiencies. Previous studies have shown that parents with intellectual disabilities can improve child-care skills with intensive behavioral training, but self-instruction has not been explored. We evaluated the efficacy of self-instructional pictorial child-care manuals with and without accompanying audiotaped instruction using a multielement design with 13 parents with intellectual disabilities. The self-instructional materials were effective in teaching 22 of 26 skills to levels seen in parents without intellectual disabilities. Eighty-one percent of the skills maintained over a 1-15 month follow-up period and self-learning effects were replicated when the parents received self-instructional materials for the original no-training control skill. Despite the low literacy skills of the parents, for most of them no advantage was found in adding the audiotape to the illustrations. Three parents only reached criterion after an audiotape was added to the manual alone skill. Consumer satisfaction ratings were uniformly high and those parents who stated a preference, preferred the pictorial manuals without, as opposed to with, the audiotape. These findings suggest that a majority of parents with intellectual disabilities may improve their parenting skills with low cost, low tech, self-instructional materials.     

Computers in biofeedback research and therapy

While biofeedback is being used extensively in the clinic and the laboratory, a great deal of variability exists among biofeedback users with respect to instrumentation, treatment protocols, techniques of data acquisition, and methods of data analysis. It is argued that the use of computers in biofeedback will help reduce some of this variability. Other advantages of computers in biofeedback are discussed. Several presently available automated systems are reviewed. Implications for future biofeedback research are also discussed.