Welfare Rights and Conflicts of Rights

The fact that welfare rights – rights to food, shelter and medical care – will conflict with one another is often taken to be good reason to exclude welfare rights from the catalogue of genuine rights. Rather than respond to this objection by pointing out that all rights conflict, welfare rights proponents need to take the conflicts objection seriously. The existence of potentially conflicting and more weighty normative considerations counts against a claim’s status as a genuine right. To think otherwise would be to threaten the peremptory force – and hence the analytical integrity – of rights. The conflicts objection is made more pressing once we have conceded that welfare rights give people entitlements to what are potentially scarce goods. I argue that welfare rights can survive the conflicts objection if, and only if, we take scarcity into account in the framing of a given welfare right. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Nuffield Political Theory Workshop in Oxford and the Canadian Philosophical Association Congress 2006 at York University. I am grateful to Adam Swift, David Miller, Idil Boran, Sarah McCallum and two anonymous referees for their comments, and to the Economic and Social Research Council for research funding.     

Assessment of counselling skills development: The learning record

The RSA Certificate in Counselling Skills in the Development of Learning has emerged as a significant nationally validated course and award for staff working in post-compulsory education and training. The award encourages the uses of experiential learning and of self-assessment. The approach used to reflect on experience is the Learning Record, which is also the basis of, and mechanism for, assessment of the learner's progress. The precise nature of the Learning Record has however been unclear, since the form as well as the content is decided by the learner. Experience of approaches to the creation of Learning Records by Youth Training Scheme staff following this course suggests that they always include a diary or journal but that this may either be integral to, or separate from, the Learning Record itself. The form taken by the reflective and analytical element also varies, and the authors identify four main approaches to the creation of Learning Records adopted by learners. They suggest some principles underlying the successful compilation and use of Learning Records and commend this approach to organising reflection for experiential learning in staff training and development.     

The children's depression adjective check lists (C-DACL) with emotionally disturbed adolescent boys

In this study of the reliability and validity of the Children's Depression Adjective Check Lists (C-DACL; Brewer & Lubin, 1987) with emotionally disturbed adolescent boys (N=50),data were collected on two occasions. Internal consistency (alpha) was .89 and .94 for form H and .89 and .95 for form I. Alternate form reliabilities were .86 and .95. Split-half reliabilities were .80 and .89 for form H and .68 and .86 for form I. Concurrent validity was determined by correlations between C-DACL and the Self-Rating Scale of Depressed Mood. Correlations were .65 and .80 for H and .54 and .80 for I. Data from the present study were tested against data from emotionally disturbed adolescent girls (Sokoloff & Lubin, 1983), with boys scoring significantly lower on both forms (H and I) of the C-DACL.     

Family therapy training research: systems model and review

This paper proposes that a systems approach to the organization of family therapy training courses would be advantageous to trainers and researchers alike. A family therapy training programme development model is outlined. Using the stages of this model as a framework, the research into family therapy training is reviewed. The field still remains in its infancy and the quantity of research is relatively sparse. Developments have, however, been made and these auger well for the future.     

Dimensional asymmetry in attributional inference

A number of bipolar personality dimensions were investigated, some of which were selected a priori as being primarily concerned with interpersonal differences in skill (such as unintelligence-intelligence), and others of which were thought to describe differences in preferences (such as indoor-outdoor). Two findings emerged. First, persons at opposite poles of skill dimensions were assumed to possess differential role-taking ability: a skillful person was perceived as relatively more competent at portraying the opposite behavior than was an unskilled person. Second, attributions based upon skillful behavior tend to be less affected by contextual factors than attributions based upon unskillful behavior. An alternative interpretation of the results is discussed.     

Interaction of asthmatics and their spouses: A preliminary study of individual differences

Some asthmatics show evidence of airways reactivity triggered by strong emotions. Six case studies of married patients with severe asthma are reported. The videotaped interactions of the asthmatic and his/her spouse were coded for affect and behavior. Repeated measures of pulmonary function and affective state were recorded before and after two interaction tasks. Over the course of the experimental period, two patients' pulmonary function improved and four patients' deteriorated. In general, decreased pulmonary function was associated with more self-rated hostility and depression. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for the intra- and interpersonal factors that are important in asthma management.     

‘Informal polygamy’: a suitable case for treatment?

The authors describe an atypical family structure which they term 'informal polygamy' and give two examples from their therapeutic practice. They go on to outline a number of dilemmas in helping such families, including whether such a family structure is more usefully viewed as transitional or stable.     

Counterfactual Production and Achievement Orientation in Competitive Athletic Settings1

Two studies examined the impact of achievement orientation on counterfactual production in competitive sporting situations. In Study 1, participants created counterfactuals after reading 4 vignettes. Results indicated that participants reading about winners created more subtractive and downward counterfactuals than did participants reading about losers, while participants reading about losers created more additive and upward counterfactuals than did participants reading about winners. In Study 2, using participants in 3-on-3 basketball games, achievement orientation interacted with game outcome to produce adaptive responses for participants who held a mastery orientation and maladaptive responses for participants who held an outcome orientation. In addition to achievement orientation, the margin of victory played an important role in determining the type of counterfactual produced. The implications of these findings are discussed.