The facilitative interpersonal skills method: Difficult psychotherapy moments and appropriate therapist responsiveness

The Facilitative Interpersonal Skills (FIS) task is a performance test of therapists’ use of common relational skills (e.g. empathy, building expectations). The FIS method includes (a) materials that simulate difficult client moments on video, which are used to collect therapists’ responses to these situations; and (b) independent ratings of these responses. Many of the FIS items are informed by psychotherapy processes that have been linked to outcome and facilitative conditions that have been reframed as individual therapist skills (e.g. alliance bond capacity). Overall, the FIS has predicted psychotherapy outcome. A single study is described in which FIS predicted the therapist effect using multilevel modelling of a large sample of clients who were nested within therapists. We also summarise two additional outcome studies that used experimental designs. One future direction is to better understand how therapists form responses to these difficult moments. We conclude that forming an optimal therapeutic response during challenging, emergent in‐session situations involves responsiveness (Stiles et al., 1998), or finding a response that fits the clients’ needs within any moment.     

Mediation and moderation of the effects of watching the angiography screen on patients

It has been reported that allowing patients to watch the coronary angiography screen during the procedure results in psychological benefits. This study aimed to investigate the roles of illness perceptions as mediators of this outcome and to examine whether individual differences in monitoring coping style moderated these effects. The experiment compared patients who were instructed to watch the monitor screen (n = 57) with those who were not (n = 51). Questionnaires were used to measure the research variables at one day and one month after the procedure. Results showed that watching the angiography screen increased patients’ personal and treatment control perceptions that mediated changes in self-assessed health, risk perceptions, negative affect, general and diet outcome expectancies, and diet and physical activity intentions. The behavior-related outcomes were moderated by monitoring coping style. These findings illustrate the significance of illness perceptions, perceived control and monitoring coping style in achieving desirable outcomes among patients undergoing coronary angiography, and reveal opportunities for interventions using medical imaging technologies.     

What do the young (old) people think of me? Content and accuracy of age-based metastereotypes

Increasing age diversity in the workforce points to the need to understand the dynamics of interpersonal relations across age groups. An important element of these interactions involves interpersonal perceptions, including both what an individual believes about members of other age groups (stereotypes) and what individuals believe other age groups think of their own group (metastereotypes). We explore the content and accuracy of the stereotypes and metastereotypes in a sample of 247 younger, middle-aged, and older workers. We compare the stereotypes and metastereotypes of and by different groups in terms of their affective valence (positive/negative) and compare the results produced by open-ended and closed-ended methods. We map out the usefulness of these data for future work towards enhancing cross-aged interactions in the workplace.     

Enhancing Compassion: A Randomized Controlled Trial of a Compassion Cultivation Training Program

Psychosocial interventions often aim to alleviate negative emotional states. However, there is growing interest in cultivating positive emotional states and qualities. One particular target is compassion, but it is not yet clear whether compassion can be trained. A community sample of 100 adults were randomly assigned to a 9-week compassion cultivation training (CCT) program (n = 60) or a waitlist control condition (n = 40). Before and after this 9-week period, participants completed self-report inventories that measured compassion for others, receiving compassion from others, and self-compassion. Compared to the waitlist control condition, CCT resulted in significant improvements in all three domains of compassion—compassion for others, receiving compassion from others, and self-compassion. The amount of formal meditation practiced during CCT was associated with increased compassion for others. Specific domains of compassion can be intentionally cultivated in a training program. These findings may have important implications for mental health and well-being.     

When friends exchange negative feedback

In four studies, we document an increase in the amount of negative feedback friends and colleagues exchange as their relationship deepens. We find that both actual and perceived relationship depth increase the amount of negative feedback people seek from and provide to each other, as well as their tendency to invest in a focal (relationship or performance) goal in response to negative feedback. The amount of positive feedback on goal pursuit, by contrast, remains stable as the relationship deepens. We attribute the increase in negative feedback to the different meaning of such feedback for people in deep versus shallow relationships: only in the context of deep relationships does negative feedback signal insufficient resource investment in the focal goal, and hence close friends and colleagues seek, provide, and respond to negative feedback.     

Coding modality vs. input modality in hypermnesia: Is a rose a rose a rose?

Recent experiments indicate that recall of pictures, unlike recall of words, may increase (hypermnesia) with time and effort. This study demonstrates that by recoding word inputs into ‘mental pictures’, i.e., images, subjects can transform inert word lists into hypermnesic ones. Thus, when word inputs are recoded into images, recall increases over time, and resembles in other respects the recall of pictures.     

Comparison of changes in sensitivity and sensation: implications for the response-intensity function of the human photopic system

Brightness magnitude estimations of foveally presented flashes deviate from a power function. Increment threshold functions for test lights presented upon these same flashes deviate drastically from a constant Weber fraction. These departures from the classic laws of sensation and sensitivity are shown to be in qualitative agreement and to be affected in similar ways by changes in steady adapting fields. Both sets of data can be fit over the lower range of flash intensities by models based on a saturating response function; both sets deviate from these models at high flash intensities in ways consistent with a nonsaturating response function.