Accreditation Standards for University and College Counseling Centers

The accreditation standards outlined in the article are used by the International Association of Counseling Services, Inc., as the basis for the formal accreditation of college and university counseling programs throughout the United States and Canada. They reflect the program elements and practice standards that are deemed essential in a counseling center that provides high-quality services to students.     

Attributional Style,Self-Esteem,and Celebrity Worship

Two studies were carried out to investigate the relationship between attributional style (Study 1), self-esteem (Study 2), and different forms of celebrity worship. Entertainment social celebrity worship (the most normal form considered) was unrelated to attributional style or self-esteem; intense personal celebrity worship was related positively to self-esteem but also to a propensity toward stable and global attributions; and borderline pathological celebrity worship (the most negative form considered) was related to external, stable, and global attributions. These results were independent of whether participants were located in Europe or North America, and are discussed in terms of whether celebrity worship should be regarded as positive or negative and as a unitary concept.     

Personality predictors of smoking behavior in a sample of physicians

Abstract

The smoking status of 239 physicians was obtained from a mail survey in 1981. MMPI data, which had been obtained from these men 25 years earlier, was used to prospectively predict smoking status at follow-up. Those who never smoked had scores indicative of social conventionality (low scores on L, Pd, and Schubert scales; high scores on Ego-control). A similar pattern was found among smokers who quit after a relatively short smoking history. Compared to ex-smokers, those who continued to smoke at the time of follow-up were characterized by high scores on the Pd and Ma scales. These results were discussed in terms of a multi-stage conceptualization of the smoking cessation process.     

Preadaptation to the feeding schedule does not eliminate activity-based anorexia in rats

To test whether activity-based anorexia (ABA) still occurs after preadaptation to the feeding schedule, 20 rats were first exposed to a feeding schedule of one 90-min meal per day until adaptation occurred (measured by maintenance of stable body weight). Then, during ABA training, half the rats (wheel group) were confined in running wheels except during the daily meal, and half (cage group) were not. Wheel running suppressed feeding—that is, food intake in the wheel group was less than that in the cage group. Also, the rats in the wheel group lost weight, whereas those in the cage group did not. Wheel running increased over days. Thus, the defining characteristics of ABA were evident in rats that were not subjected to ABA training until after they had become well adapted to the feeding schedule. These findings support the view that the suppression of feeding produced by wheel running triggers the vicious circle of ABA. They also cast doubt on the hypothesis that activity-induced interference with adaptation to the feeding schedule plays a key role in causing ABA.     

Integration of the pleasant events and activity restriction models: development and validation of a "PEAR" model of negative outcomes in Alzheimer's caregivers

This study examined an activity restriction/pleasurable activities mismatch model for psychosocial and health-related outcomes. A total of 108 spousal caregivers of patients with Alzheimer's Disease (AD) were assessed for their experience of social and recreational activities over the past month as well as their perception of how restricted they were for engaging in social and recreational activities. Participants were divided into three groups based on their reported activities and activity restriction: HPLR = High Pleasant Events + Low Activity Restriction (i.e., reference group; N = 28); HPHR/LPLR = Either High Pleasant Events + High Activity Restriction or Low Pleasant Events + Low Activity Restriction (N = 43); LPHR = Low Pleasant Events + High Activity Restriction (N = 37). We hypothesized that participants reporting low pleasant events combined with high activity restriction (LPHR) would demonstrate greater disturbance relative to other two groups in multiple outcome domains, including: (a) greater mood disturbance, (b) greater use of negative coping factors, (c) reduced use of positive coping strategies, (d) reduced report of psychological resource factors (e.g., personal mastery, self-efficacy), and (e) increased report of subjective health difficulties (e.g., sleep disturbance). Results generally supported our hypotheses, suggesting that assessment of both constructs is important for best predicting quality of well-being in AD caregivers, and potentially for establishing maximal effect in behavior therapy for caregivers.     

A comparison of escape and avoidance conditioning in wild and domesticated rats

In the first of two experiments, three cotton rats (Sigmodon hispidus) and three albino rats were exposed to instrumental escape, unsignaled avoidance, and signaled avoidance, in that order. All subjects learned the escape procedure quickly, with the albino rats having generally shorter latencies, higher response rates, and requiring fewer sessions to reach the criterion. When the avoidance contingency was introduced, the cotton rats continued to respond almost entirely in the presence of the shock, whereas the albino rats responded in its absence, thus displaying effective avoidance behavior. Introduction of a pre-aversive stimulus did not improve the performance of the cotton rats. In the second experiment, five cotton rats and four albino rats were exposed to a free-operant (Sidman) avoidance procedure with a shock-shock interval of 3 sec and a response-shock interval of 20 sec. The cotton rats initiated responding at lower shock intensities than the albino rats, but their asymptotic avoidance responding was far less effective.     

Biasing the development of response topography with nonspecific positive and negative evocative verbal stimuli

Conditioned response (CR) rate and development of CR latency, rise time, and airpuff attenuation were examined for V- and C-form responders using two nonspecific command words, do and don't, as conditioned stimuli (CSs) in single-cue, double-cue, and differential eyelid conditioning. In both single-cue and differential conditioning, regardless of the command word used to signal the unconditioned stimulus (UCS), the Vs produced a higher response rate and learned a better UCS-attenuating response topography than the Cs. However, in a double-cue conditioning paradigm in which both command words were presented alone on different trials and reinforced, response latency was longer and puff attenuation poorer among Vs than when the UCS was signaled by a unique cue. In contrast, adding a second reinforced cue actually enhanced the development of puff-avoidant CR topographies among Cs compared to single-cue conditioning. These results and others indicate that response topography development is to some extent a labile process that can be biased toward either good or poor puff-avoidant properties and that the factors responsible for influencing CR topography differ for Vs and Cs.