Reflections of a Psychoanalyst at Mass

This article reports the ministry experience of a priest / psychoanalyst, including reflections on seminary education and training analysis. Freudian and Jungian insights are contrasted with reference to Christian tradition. Experiences as an interim priest in an Episcopal church are assessed psychoanalytically. Psychodynamics of liturgy, pastoral care, and spiritual development are illustrated with clinical vignettes.     

Coping styles as predictors of college adjustment among freshmen

Based on Tyler's model of psychosocial competence, the present study tested the hypothesis that students' differential coping styles could impact their adjustment to college. A college adjustment measure and a coping styles instrument were administered to 161 freshmen at a small eastern college. First-year students were chosen because college adjustment is particularly salient in the freshmen year. The results indicated that academic adjustment and personal/emotional adjustment were related to the coping strategies, while social adjustment and attachment/goal commitment were not related to coping strategies. Active coping, which focuses on doing something positive to solve the problem, was predictive of academic adjustment. Academic adjustment was negatively predicted by suppression of competing activities which consists of attending to one problem at a time to the exclusion of other things. Personal/emotional adjustment was negatively related to the focus on emotion/venting of emotions dimension which is coping by emotional catharsis. Personal/emotional adjustment was also positively predicted by active-coping. Gender differences were also examined and discussed. These findings were interpreted as supportive of Tyler's model and their counselling implications were discussed.     

Communal Orientation and Burnout Among Self-Help Group Leaders

To assess the relationship between burnout, communal orientation, and leaders' perceptions of balance in their relationships with group members 102 self-help group leaders were interviewed. Leaders had low to moderate levels of burnout as measured by the Maslach Burnout Inventory subscales of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment. As hypothesized, leaders' communal orientation was negatively related to the burnout subscales of depersonalization and personal accomplishment. Contrary to the study hypothesis, burnout was not related to balance. It was speculated that the salience of need-based norms in the group's helping relationships reduced expectations of reciprocity. The findings illustrate the usefulness of applying equity theory to studies of helping relationships within the setting of self-help groups.     

Self-focused attention and the placebo effect: Fooling some of the people some of the time

An experiment tested the hypothesis that mirror-induced self-awareness would minimize a “placebo” effect. Some subjects were led to believe that a drug that they were about to ingest would produce arousal symptoms as a side effect. Self-aware subjects in this condition subsequently reported experiencing less arousal from the placebo, and fewer of the side effects ascribed to it, than did less self-aware subjects. Discussion centered on the implications of these findings for placebo research and implications for two common alternative interpretations of self-awareness effects.     

A cognitive model of planning

This paper presents a cognitive model of the planning process. The model generalizes the theoretical architecture of the Hearsay-ll system. Thus, it assumes that planning comprises the activities of a variety of cognitive “specialists.” Each specialist can suggest certain kinds of decisions for incorporation into the plan in progress. These include decisions about: (a) how to approach the planning problem; (b) what knowledge bears on the problem; (c) what kinds of actions to try to plan; (d) what specific actions to plan; and (e) how to allocate cognitive resources during planning. Within each of these categories, different specialists suggest decisions at different levels of abstraction. The activities of the various specialists are not coordinated in any systematic way. Instead, the specialists operate opportunistically, suggesting decisions whenever promising opportunities arise. The paper presents a detailed account of the model and illustrates its assumptions with a “thinking aloud” protocol. It also describes the performance of a computer simulation of the model. The paper contrasts the proposed model with successive refinement models and attempts to resolve apparent differences between the two points of view.     

Chemical aversion treatment of alcoholism: Lithium as the aversive agent

Animal work indicating flavour aversion produced by chemical aversion therapy (CAT) with lithium might be effective in the treatment of alcoholism led to this treatment being given to 25 patients. The abstinence rate six months later of 36% was significantly better than the 12% rate for an equivalent group of patients, treated with a disulfuram-like drinking deterrent, calcium carbimide. The rate for the CAT group improves to 47% if 8 patients are excluded who did not develop sickness reactions to lithium. CAT with lithium appears safe given proper medical precautions.     

Students' Preferences for Information About Their Test Performance: A Social Comparison Study1

College students received their test scores and letter grades for an actual examination and were asked to indicate their degree of interest in obtaining information (average score, highest score, etc.) in order to evaluate their performance. Overall, the students were most interested in knowing the average test score and least interested in knowing the lowest test score and the number of others who received worse test scores. There was some evidence supporting Festinger's unidirectional drive hypothesis in that most of the students were moderately interested in knowing how many others obtained better scores. Surprisingly, students who failed the examination displayed the greatest interest in the available information. There was little evidence suggesting defensive comparison on the part of low scorers. The results have implications for the self evaluation of ability, for social comparison research, and for educational practice.     

Stimulus position functions in tachistoscopic identification tasks: Scanning,rehearsal, and order of report

Three experiments were conducted to investigate the locus of attentional control under the information-overload conditions stemming from tachistoscopic presentation of a horizontally arranged row of letters. In Experiment 1, left-right visual field accuracy differences were greater in a whole- than in a single-report task, reflecting a pronounced influence of report order bias effects. However, accuracy in the single-report task, which is relatively unaffected by report order biases, also declined from left to right across stimulus positions. In Experiment 2, single-report task requirements which provided an opportunity for rehearsal had negligible effects on the shape of the stimulus-position function. In Experiment 3, the leftright accuracy differences were observed to vary as a function of cue delay interval in a single-report visuospatial probe task. The degree of left-field superiority was negligible with a short delay interval, and much greater with longer delay intervals. The results are discussed in terms of a cognitive scanning operation.     

Influences of sex composition,decision rule,and decision consequences in small group policy making

Previous research has indicated sex differences in style of interaction for members in small groups. It was assumed that some of these sex differences could be attributed to demand characteristics in relation to specific topics discussed by group members in earlier investigations. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relative importance of two such demand characteristics, decision rule (consensus rule vs. majority rule), and decision consequence (high vs. low consequences), in addition to the sex composition of the group membership. Adherence to the group decision was also studied. On a topic previously rated as important, 16 four-person groups of males and the same number of female groups met and deliberated on a decision regarding an academic policy. Later these undergraduate students indicated their preference on the decision topic. The results showed male—female differences not accounted for by decision rule, decision consequence, or group decision post-test change. Explanation of the sex differences was offered in terms of varying academic aspiration levels and incongruency with attained academic achievement. The results also lend partial support for the importance of some operating demand characteristics, as yet unidentified.