Use of paradoxical techniques in a school setting

Abstract

Family therapists have used paradoxical methods of intervention in a variety of settings and with a variety of problems. This case study report is the first to demonstrate the use of paradoxical interventions with pre-adolescent and adolescent children in a school setting. These types of interventions could be of great value because they require limited verbal ability and insight on the part of the students, produce rapid results, and are particularly suitable for oppositional students.     

The Impact of Race and Inclusionary Status on Memory for Ingroup and Outgroup Faces

We explore how rejection by racial ingroup or outgroup members influences the Other Race Effect (ORE; the tendency to have better memory for same-race [SR] relative to other-race [OR] faces). White and Black participants were rejected or accepted by two racial ingroup or outgroup members during an online game. Participants then completed a face recognition task assessing SR and OR targets. Those playing with ingroup members showed the classic ORE. However, inclusion by outgroup members led to the ORE, while exclusion by outgroup members eliminated this effect by increasing outgroup face memory. We discuss future work on exclusion and the ORE.     

Does stress enhance or impair memory consolidation?

Three experiments examined the hypothesis that stress-induced arousal enhances long-term memory for experiences associated with arousing events. Contrary to expectations, in each experiment exposure to a stressor (arm immersion in ice water) interfered with, rather than enhanced, long-term memory for associated material. Despite varying the stimuli (words, pictures), their emotional value (positive, negative, neutral), the time between learning and stress inductions (0 to 1 minute), and opportunities for post-learning rehearsal, each experiment produced a significant reversal of the hypothesised effect. That is, in each experiment, exposure to a stressor interfered with, rather than enhanced, long-term memory for associated material. We conclude that the relationship between stress and memory consolidation is more bounded than previously believed.     

Affective facilitation and inhibition of cultural influences on reasoning

Research in South Korea and the United States examined how affective states facilitate or inhibit culturally dominant styles of reasoning. According to the affect-as-information hypothesis, affective cues of mood influence judgements by serving as embodied information about the value of accessible inclinations and cognitions. Extending this line of research to culture, we hypothesised that positive affect should promote (and negative affect should inhibit) culturally normative reasoning. The results of two studies of causal reasoning supported this hypothesis. Positive and negative affect functioned like “go” and “stop” signals, respectively, for culturally typical reasoning styles. Thus, in happy (compared to sad) moods, Koreans engaged in more holistic reasoning, whereas Americans engaged in more analytic reasoning.     

Does Motivational Interviewing (MI) Work With Nonaddicted Clients? A Controlled Study Measuring the Effects of a Brief Training in MI on Client Outcomes

This study investigated the relationships between motivational interviewing (MI) and client symptoms, attendance, and satisfaction. Seventy‐nine clients attending a university‐based counseling center were purposefully assigned to treatment or control conditions. Statistical analyses revealed client symptoms in both groups improved. However, clients assigned to treatment conditions attended more sessions and missed fewer sessions than clients in the control group. Implications for using MI and suggestions for additional research are explored within the study.     

Clarifying Construct Validity: Definitions,Processes, and Models

Despite definitions in standard sources, personnel managers, psychologists, and psychometricians persistently encounter problems that are best referred to as the ambiguous nature of validity. The purpose of this article is to pro- vide an overview of construct validity and personnel testing, to demonstrate its practical utility, and to clarify with concrete examples certain theories and models, as well as to illustrate the meaning of the terminology used by com- mentators on the topic. A brief historical overview of testing and validation is presented; the progress of construct validity and its acceptance by various sec- tors of society is discussed parsimoniously in the section The Seven Wonders of Personnel Psychology. In the past, personnel psychologists have not done a very good job of understanding the constructs that underlie test perform- ance. Some new approaches can help to correct this. A process should be rou- tinely used on all tests in order to develop an understanding of the constructs that underlie performance on an employment test; only by knowing the cor- rect criterion and method of measuring it can we ascertain the intrinsic valid- ity of our measures.     

Is Person–Organization Fit Beneficial for Employee Creativity? Moderating Roles of Leader–Member and Team–Member Exchange Quality

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the effect of person–organization (PO) fit on employee creativity. We draw on social exchange theory and identify leader–member exchange (LMX) and team–member exchange (TMX) as moderating contingencies. Our empirical analysis based on 167 employee–supervisor dyads confirms that LMX activates the significance of PO fit toward creativity. In addition, under high LMX, PO fit effect on creativity is positive when TMX is high. Subsequent analyses show that employees with high PO fit exhibit the highest level of creativity when LMX and TMX are high. Findings on the three-way interaction among PO fit, LMX, and TMX toward creativity offer new insights into a phenomenon that is mostly neglected in the literature.     

Risk Factors for Misconduct in a Navy Sample

Understanding antisocial behavior and organizational misconduct is an important objective, because these maladaptive behaviors are disruptive and costly to organizations and to society as a whole. The objective of this study was to identify psychosocial risk factors for misconduct and antisocial behavior in a sample of Navy personnel. A group of sailors (n = 158) who had engaged in significant misconduct were compared with a demographically similar group of sailors (n = 288) who had not engaged in misconduct and who were in good standing with the Navy. The psychosocial variables that emerged as the most important risk factors for antisocial behavior were alcohol use (odds ratio [OR] = 2.42), high impulsivity (OR = 2.20), high trait hostility (OR = 1.79), and antisocial behavior of friends (OR = 1.65). The implications of these results for the military and for research on antisocial behavior are discussed.     

Marital role strain,illness intrusiveness,and their impact on marital and individual adjustment in end-stage renal disease

Abstract

A marital role theory approach was used to investigate individual psychosocial well-being and marital adjustment in 89 end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients and their spouses. Four different patient groups were selected according to a continuum of clinical milestones in the treatment of ESRD, including pre-dialysis (n=17), incenter dialysis (n=18), home dialysis (n=19), and posttransplant patients (n=17). A nephrology clinic control group (n=18) was also included. Standardized instruments were employed to investigate marital role strain (Marital Role Questionnaire, KDS-15), marital adjustment (Locke-Wallace Marital Adjustment Test), subjective well-being (Affect Balance Scale, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Inventory), and psychopathology (Symptom Checklist 90-R). Hierarchical multiple regression analyses provided strong and consistent support for the major hypotheses relating elevated marital role strain to compromised marital adjustment and individual well-being. Further analyses demonstrated that increased perceived intrusiveness of ESRD was significantly related to greater marital role strain, poorer marital adjustment, and decreased individual well-being. This is consistent with the idea that perceived intrusiveness may be an important mediator of marital role strain and of coping with chronic illness. “Objective” intrusiveness, defined in terms of patient group, was not significantly related to marital or individual well-being. These findings support a dyadic approach to the psychosocial study of chronic illness.     

Cue competition effects in the planarian

The learning abilities of planarian worms (Dugesia tigrina) were assessed by using a number of Pavlovian conditioning paradigms. Experiment 1 showed that planaria were susceptible to basic conditioning in that they readily developed a conditioned response to a change in ambient luminance when it was consistently paired with an electric shock over a number of trials. In Experiment 2, the change in luminance was presented in a compound with a vibration stimulus during conditioning. Subsequent tests revealed poor conditioning of the elements compared with control groups in which the animals were conditioned in the presence of the elements alone, an instance of overshadowing. In Experiment 3, pre-training of one of the elements before compound conditioning resulted in blocking of learning about the other element. These results add to other studies that have reported cue competition effects in animal species belonging to different phyla (chordate, mollusk, arthropod), suggesting that learning in these phyla could be ruled by similar principles. The results are discussed adopting an evolutionary-comparative approach.