Worry and the suppression of imagery

This experiment investigates Borkovec's theory that the function of worry is to protect people from potentially distressing emotional imagery. The experiment builds on a previous one of Borkovec and Inz (Behaviour Research and Therapy, 28, 153–158, 1990) comparing the frequency of thoughts and images in imagery and relaxation. The present experiment confirms the previous finding that worry is associated with less imagery than relaxation, but shows that this is not distinctive to worry. Indeed, an additional control condition, ‘present-oriented mentation’, was associated with even less imagery than worry. The fact that other kinds of thinking are at least as effective as worry in suppressing emotional imagery indicates that this property of worry is not sufficient to explain its occurrence.     

The cognitive representation of persons and groups and its effect on recall and recognition memory

A conceptualization of the manner in which trait and behavioral information is organized in memory is proposed and applied in predicting both the recall and recognition of information about persons and groups. Three information presentation conditions were considered: (1) Subjects are told to form an impression of a target (person or group) on the basis of the target's behaviors, and are given a trait-based concept of what the target is like before learning about these behaviors. (2) Subjects are told to form an impression of the target, but a general traitbased concept of the target is not induced until after they learn about the target's behaviors. (3) Subjects receive information about the target's behaviors with instructions to remember the information, and only subsequently are told to form an impression and are given more general information about the target's traits. The proposed model accounted for between-condition differences in both the recall and recognition of behaviors that were consistent and inconsistent with a general trait-based concept of the target, and for contingencies of these differences on whether the target was a single person or a group.     

Spirituality,Religion, and CACREP Curriculum Standards

Survey data of the general population, counselors, and counselor educators indicate that spiritual and religious issues are therapeutically relevant, ethically appropriate, and potentially significant topics for counseling and counselor education in secular settings. In this article, the authors propose that a balanced, thoughtful inclusion of these topics in Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) core curriculum areas is a reasonable and sound approach to preparing counselors to work ethically and effectively with these issues in secular counseling settings. Methods and examples for achieving this inclusion are presented for each of the CACREP core curriculum areas.     

The Careers Service and Schools: A Changing Relationship

The changing relationship between the Careers Service and schools is examined. From a base-point in the 1960s and early 1970s, the implications of the changing context are explored: notably the much greater difficulties which young people have experienced in entering the labour market, the advent of new transition programmes, and the political pressures associated with the economic recession and the growth in unemployment. The effects of these changes on careers education in schools, and on the activities of the Careers Service, are described, as are their implications for the relationship between the Careers Service and schools. Finally, a typology for defining this changing relationship is outlined as a basis for further research.     

FORTH,a software solution to real-time computing problems

Some common real-time computing problems are discussed, namely, the programming and testing of devices, problems relating to program execution speed, the timing of experimental events, and the programming of multiple parallel events. The programming language FORTH is shown to be capable of providing solutions to all of these problems. In addition, FORTH has the advantages of being an interpretive and extensible language with both high-level and low-level capabilities, while at the same time being efficient and fast in execution.     

Loving: A developmental challenge of middle age

The capacity to love fully is one of the central developmental challenges of middle age. Loving is predicated upon the dynamic synthesis of trusting, autonomous, and creative relationships during childhood and adolescence. With the emergence of a productive orientation during middle age, it becomes increasingly clear that it is important to work for that which we love. It is impossible to encapsulate the essence of loving, but it can be partially delineated in terms of care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge. As a loving relationship develops, sexuality may emerge as another phase of mutuality. However, many loving relationships have no sexual overtones. In summary, loving is an end experience, for it engenders the joy that comes from being fully alive.     

Perceptual centres for Dutch digits

In two experiments, analogous to those reported by Marcus (1976) with English words and subjects, we determined the psychological moment of occurrence (p-centre) of Dutch digit names. In the first experiment we determined the p-centres for the digits 1 through 10 and compared the empirical results with values calculated from the formula that Marcus defines over the acoustic characteristics of stimulus words. We found good agreement between empirical and predicted values. In a second experiment we studied the effect of cycle time and repeated measurement on perceptual centres. The results confirm the independence of the p-centre phenomenon from practice and periodicity. A comparison of ‘identical’ and ‘non-identical’ stimulus pairs shows that larger variances are associated with the former condition.     

TEACHING SEVERELY MULTIHANDICAPPED STUDENTS TO PUT ON THEIR OWN HEARING AIDS

Two experiments were conducted with six severely multihandicapped students with hearing impairments to: (a) train the six students to put on their own hearing aids independently, and (b) provide an empirical evaluation of a comprehensive instructional program for putting on a hearing aid by assessing acquisition, maintenance, and generalization of that skill across environments. All six students acquired the skill rapidly, with two students requiring remedial training on one step of the program. Because for two of the original three students the newly learned skill failed initially to generalize to other environments, a second experiment was initiated to assess generalization across environments as well as to replicate the efficiency of the acquisition program. When a variation of the multiple-probe baseline technique was used, the behavior of three additional students generalized to other settings without direct training in those settings.