Festinger's Theory of Cognitive Dissonance Applied to School Counseling

Aspects of Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance were partially integrated with a Rogerian type of orientation to school counseling. Festinger's term “dissonance” was presented as complementary to Rogers' term “incongruence.” A number of counselor activities were derived from the two complementary orientations which, if employed, would seem to enhance the probability of a self-directed change occurring within the student. These included such activities as the school counselor attempting to: (a) provide an accepting non-threatening atmosphere; (b) assist students or counselees in developing sufficient dissonance; (c) have his counselees inform significant others (teachers, parents, or peers) of the outcomes or decisions they arrived at during the counseling process (public commitment).     

Elementary School Counseling and Peer Relations

It was the purpose of this study to compare the effects of counseling and selected guidance techniques upon 5th and 6th grade elementary school students' peer relationships. Sociometric status and teacher ratings of their students' social skills were selected as criteria. Subjects were selected from students who were in the lower half of their classes in sociometric status and who indicated that they wanted to get along better with their peers. From each of 7 classrooms an equal number of subjects was randomly assigned to each of 3 treatment conditions: (1) counseling, (2) teacher-guidance, and (3) control. When the treatment conditions were compared, no statistically significant differences were found among them.     

Perceiving affective content in ambiguous visual stimuli: a component of emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence involves the accurate appraisal and expression of emotions in oneself and others and the regulation of emotion in a way that enhances living. One aspect of emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize the consensually agreed upon emotional qualities of objects in the environment. One hundred thirty-nine adults viewed 18 reproductions of faces, color swatches, and abstract designs and rated the emotional content of these visual stimuli. Three scores were extracted, including consensual accuracy, amount, and range of emotion perceived. These scores were compared with other aspects of emotional intelligence such as empathy and related to constructs such as alexithymia and neuroticism. A general ability to perceive consensual emotional content in visual stimuli was found, and it was most strongly associated with the ability to respond empathically to others.     

Assessing mood with affect-sensitive tasks

It is hypothesized that when an individual experiences a change in mood there are concomitant changes in performance at cognitive and psychomotor tasks. The present study attempts to identify tasks which are mood-sensitive. The nature of affect-sensitive tasks will yield information about how mood influences behavior. Further, to the extent that relationships between mood and affect-sensitive tasks are found, clients may be motivated to change their mood by a knowledge of expectable improvements in performance. Ten tasks and a mood-adjective checklist were administered to 106 subjects. Four of the tasks showed statistically significant relationships with self-reported mood. Results were promising for further investigations of affect-sensitive tasks.     

Naturally occurring mood and learning: comment on Hasher, Rose, Zacks, Sanft, and Doren

We comment on the article by Hasher, Rose, Zacks, Sanft, & Doren (1985) in which they failed to find mood-congruent learning (MCL). MCL occurs whenever subjects learn more about materials that are congruent with their moods (e.g., depressed subjects learn more sad material). Hasher et al. failed to observe MCL with normal college students who scored high versus low on the Beck Depression Inventory and an affect checklist; in contrast, positive MCL has been observed with clinically depressed patients and with normals given laboratory mood inductions. Hasher et al. argue that moderately depressed normal students may be qualitatively different from clinically depressed patients and mood-induced subjects. Although we accept the findings of Hasher et al., we think it is also plausible that MCL may be a general though small effect which is present among normal college students as well.     

“Care for the Common Home”: Responses to Pope Francis’s Encyclical Letter

Journal of Religion and Health - This article aims to build awareness of the growing global crisis in social, economic and environmental terms from different disciplinary approaches. The authors...     

Visceral sensitivity as a mediator of outcome in the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome

Patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) experience anxiety about visceral sensations, leading to avoidance behaviors and hypervigilance that maintain IBS symptoms. The current study used data from a clinical trial that compared a treatment aimed at reducing anxiety about visceral sensations (interoceptive exposure; IE) to an attention control (AC) and a CBT-based stress-management treatment (SM) to examine whether changes in visceral sensitivity mediated IBS symptom and quality of life outcomes. Data from participants who completed one of the three treatments (N = 76) were subjected to mediation analyses. Visceral sensitivity mediated treatment outcomes across all outcome measures and across all treatment groups, with no differences between IE and the other treatment groups. This finding suggests that psychosocial treatments for IBS may work by decreasing visceral sensitivity, and the degree to which visceral sensitivity is decreased is related to outcome, suggesting IE may be the preferable treatment option.     

Omission of expected reward agitates Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar)

The evolutionary background for cognition and awareness is currently under ardent scrutiny. Poikilothermic vertebrates such as teleost fishes are capable of classical conditioning and have long-term memories, but it remains unknown to what degree such capabilities are associated with affective states. Here, we investigate whether the concept of frustration may apply to Atlantic salmon. In mammals, this paradigm comprises the omission of an expected reward (OER), which elicits behavioural and physiological coping responses (e.g. aggression and stress reactions). Six groups with 200 fish in each were conditioned to associate a flashing light (CS) with feeding. Conditioning over 22?days led to a change from aversion to attraction to the CS. Subsequently, 3 groups served as control, and 3 groups were subjected to an OER paradigm for 9?days, in which the expected food reward was delayed for 30?min during two out of three daily meals. Compared to controls, OER groups displayed higher levels of aggression and more heterogeneous growth rates, indicating a more pronounced social hierarchy. Cortisol levels did, however, not differ between treatments and both groups responded similarly to acute stress. These results indicate that teleost fishes, like mammals, respond aggressively to OER. The capacity to respond behaviourally to frustrating conditions thus likely reflects an adaptive response to environmental unpredictability, which has been conserved throughout vertebrate evolution.