Cultural tensions in strategic marital therapy

Whether the elements of a good marital relationship are universal is the question addressed in this case study of therapy with a couple who were culturally different from the therapist. The conflicts between the therapeutic strategies, which were based on a strategic therapy model, and the customs of the couple from a foreign culture, made it difficult to evaluate whether the therapist was on target with interventions. On one hand, therapists need to guard against being misled into believing that customs are cultural imperatives which never can be changed. On the other hand, they need to be aware of the impact and possible ramifications of challenging long-held, culturally-based beliefs and behaviors. The following case study details the dilemmas faced by a therapist working with an Asian-Indian couple who presented themselves as being bound by their cultural background and heritage.Grateful acknowledgement is made by the author to Etienne Phipps, PhD, whose comments give direction and substance to all my work.     

DECREASING DANGEROUS INFANT BEHAVIORS THROUGH PARENT INSTRUCTION

One adult and three adolescent mothers with 1-year-old infants were taught to reduce their infants' potential for injury in the home. After being taught to increase their positive interactions with their infants, the mothers were taught to child-proof the home, to use playpen time-out for potentially dangerous behaviors, and to give positive attention for safe behaviors. A multiple baseline design across subjects was used to evaluate functional control. Potentially dangerous behaviors, observed during 10 min of free play, decreased from variable and, at times, high rates during baseline to stable near-zero rates after treatment. These target behaviors remained low at a 7-month follow-up assessment.     

PROMOTING PARENT-PROVIDER INTERACTION DURING YOUNG CHILDREN'S HEALTH-SUPERVISION VISITS

We prompted parents to increase their interactions with health-care providers during their children's health-supervision visits. Before scheduled appointments we asked parents of 32 infants and young children if they had specific child health questions or concerns. Sixteen parents randomly assigned to the prompted group were then prompted to initiate discussions of their concerns. Sixteen control parents discussed unrelated topics before their appointments. Prompted parents initiated significantly more interactions with health-care providers and more health and behavioral topics were discussed during their appointments. Both parent groups reported satisfaction with health-care services. Further research is needed to determine the clinical significance of outcomes associated with enhanced parent-provider interaction during children's health-supervision visits. These visits are ideal settings for behavioral research on improving health care for children and their families.     

Overconfident prediction of future actions and outcomes by self and others

In a follow-up study to Dunning, Griffin, Milojkovic, and L. Ross (1990), which had investigated the phenomenon of overconfidence in social prediction, two samples of first-year undergraduates were invited to make predictions about their own future responses (and, in the case of Sample 2, also those of their roommates) over the months ahead. These predictions were accompanied by confidence estimates and were evaluated in the light of actual responses reported later by the subjects in question. The primary finding was that self-predictions, like social predictions, proved to be consistently overconfident. As in Dunning et al., moreover, overconfidence could be traced to two sources. First, expressions of particularly high confidence rarely proved to be warranted; as confidence increased, the gap between accuracy and confidence widened. Second, predictions that went against relevant base rates yielded very low accuracy in the face of relatively unattenuated confidence levels. The implications of these results are discussed, and one potentially important underlying mechanism--the failure to make adequate inferential allowance for the uncertainties of situational construal--is proposed for further research.     

Policy evaluation in a time of fiscal stress: Some reflections from British experience

The debate on the use or nonuse of policy evaluation frequently starts from the normative assumption that is a rational and rewarding activity for governments to pursue. Failure to use evaluation is assumed to indicate political and organizational inefficiencies and weaknesses that can, and should, be corrected. This article argues that this is too simplistic an assumption that abstracts evaluation from the political and social context in which it is developed and utilized. In particular, the way that governments develop and use evaluation is conditioned, first by the macroeconomic climate in which they operate and second, by the ways they choose to respond to this and by the microeconomics of the budgetary process. These issues are explored in the context of recent developments in British central government. here a tight fiscal policy and a concern with administrative costs have led to move from top-down rational systems of evaluation to more pragmatic, bottom-up concerns with performance measures and performance indicators. It is concluded that policy evaluation is unlikely to regain and enhance its credibility unless a reshaping of administrative structures and processes take place. Andrew Gray and Bill Jenkins are respectively senior lecturer in adminiistrative studies and senior lecturer in interdisciplinary studies at the University of Kent at Canterbury, England. They have worked for a number of years on the development of management reforms in the UK government and have recently been involved in a research project on the evolution of the Financial Management Initiative (FMI) in British central government departments. Their publications includeAdministrative Politics in British Govenment (Wheatsheaf Books, 1985) and articles in such journals asFinancial Accountability and Management, Public Administration, andPublic Money and Management.     

Blocking and unblocking of conditioned analgesia

Two experiments with rat subjects assessed the blocking phenomenon using inhibition of responding to painful thermal stimulation as an index of conditioned analgesia established through conditioned stimulus (CS)-shock pairings. In Experiment 1, a group of rats receiving the standard blocking procedure ($\text{A+}\text{AB+}$) showed shorter response latencies during a hot plate test of pain sensitivity in the presence of the added CS than groups of rats receiving various blocking control procedures. Experiment 2 replicated the blocking outcome of Experiment 1 and also demonstrated that the addition of a second shock unconditioned stimulus (US) during the compound conditioning phase attenuated the blocking effect; i.e., unblocking was observed. However, the deletion of a second shock US during compound conditioning in a group that had received two shocks on each trial in the first phase of the experiment failed to result in unblocking. These data extend the associative account of conditioned analgesia to situations involving stimulus selection and the implications for the analysis of aversive learning are discussed.     

The effect of auditory and visual models on acquisition of a timing task

While research on observational learning has typically employed visual models of correct performance, the characteristics of perceptual systems support the suggestion that an auditory model may be more effective in developing a cognitive representation of tasks for which timing is essential. Therefore, it was the purpose of this study to compare the relative effectiveness of auditory and visual models in the acquisition of a timing task. Subjects were provided with an auditory model, a visual model, a combined auditory and visual model, or no model of correct performance. There were significant main effects of groups and trials during acquisition. While performance of all groups improved during acquisition, the audio and audiovisual groups had generally better performance. The same effects were significant on immediate transfer, again reflecting the superior performance of the two auditory model groups. The results suggest an important role for audition in the development of a cognitive representation of movement timing.     

A comparison of pacing contingencies in classes using a personalized system of instruction

This study compared the effects of multiple versus single deadline contingencies on distribution of unit-mastery test taking by students in four university classes taught using the personalized system of instruction. Rate of test taking was most uniform when multiple deadlines were imposed throughout the course. When deadlines were infrequent, a scalloped pattern of test taking developed.     

Community-based multiple-gate screening of children at risk for conduct disorder

The present study employed a multiple-gate screening procedure to identify children at risk for the development of conduct disorder. Measures of cross-setting disruptive behavior and parent discipline practices were administered in sequential fashion to screen a population of 7,231 children attending suburban elementary schools. Convergent validity of the respective gating measures was confirmed by significant correlations with adjustment constructs. Analyses of covariance performed between positive screens, negative screens, and low-risk comparison children on adjustment constructs at each gate supported the discriminative validity of the gating procedure. Hierarchical regression analyses demonstrated that the gating measures were predictive of diagnostic ratings of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and oppositional defiant disorder that were obtained 18 months following the screening. A stepwise logistic regression analysis indicated that the best predictors of high-risk group membership were variables related to family process, including poor family communication and involvement, poor maternal coping skills, and an external parent locus of control.This study was supported by grant MH-46584 from the National Institute of Mental Health.