Training Employment Acquisition Skills for Adolescents with a Substance Abuse History

Obtaining paid employment is beneficial for youth during and following treatment for substance abuse. A training program for acquiring employment was implemented at a residential drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility for nine residents who were near to completing the program. Data are presented from three residents with the most complete data sets. Skills training was provided for completing biographic information on job application forms, job searching by telephone and in person, and job interviews. The training process included behavioral procedures of providing instructions, modeling, role‐play, and feedback. Improvements were demonstrated across all behaviors and participants after the training and generalized to real community materials and settings. All participants who remained in treatment also gained real work experience opportunities or regular paid employment. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Learning to Drink Deeply from Books: Using Experiential Assignments to Teach Concepts

This article explores how to teach students to drink deeply from books. Drawing on the work of Peter Elbow, the article argues for incorporating experiential assignments that are structured to create a mediating realm between abstract concepts and concrete experiences. The bulk of the article explores in detail the author's use of such assignments first in a course on sexuality and religion and, second, in the standard Introduction to Religion course.     

Cognition-based and affect-based trust as mediators of leader behavior influences on team performance

We develop a model in which cognitive and affective trust in the leader mediate the relationship between leader behavior and team psychological states that, in turn, drive team performance. The model is tested on a sample of 191 financial services teams in Hong Kong and the U.S. Servant leadership influenced team performance through affect-based trust and team psychological safety. Transformational leadership influenced team performance indirectly through cognition-based trust. Cognition-based trust directly influenced team potency and indirectly (through affect-based trust) influenced team psychological safety. The effects of leader behavior on team performance were fully mediated through the trust in leader variables and the team psychological states. Servant leadership explained an additional 10% of the variance in team performance beyond the effect of transformational leadership. We discuss implications of these results for research on the relationship between leader behavior and team performance, and for efforts to enhance leader development by combining knowledge from different leadership theories.     

Object naming in dyslexic children: more than a phonological deficit

In the present study, the authors investigate how some visual factors related to early stages of visual-object naming modulate naming performance in dyslexia. The performance of dyslexic children was compared with 2 control groups-normal readers matched for age and normal readers matched for reading level-while performing a discrete naming task in which color and dimensionality of the visually presented objects were manipulated. The results showed that 2-dimensional naming performance improved for color representations in control readers but not in dyslexics. In contrast to control readers, dyslexics were also insensitive to the stimulus's dimensionality. These findings are unlikely to be explained by a phonological processing problem related to phonological access or retrieval but suggest that dyslexics have a lower capacity for coding and decoding visual surface features of 2-dimensional representations or problems with the integration of visual information stored in long-term memory.     

Impressions of psychotherapists' offices

For counseling settings, research suggests that softness, personalization, and order might affect the experience and the perceived expertness, trustworthiness, and social attractiveness of the therapist. This article discusses exploratory studies on college students' perception of the counseling office environment and whether the likely client experience was associated with the softness/personalization and order of the office. As stimuli, the studies used 30 color photographs of psychotherapists' offices viewed from the client's perspective. After obtaining ratings of the characteristics of each office, we obtained ratings from different groups of students of the quality of care and comfort expected in each office (Study 1) and how qualified, bold, and friendly the therapist in the office would be (Study 2). Additional studies examined the likelihood of choosing a therapist based on the office, and the first thought or feeling that came to mind about the office, the therapist, and the patient experience. There were strong correlations in response between groups (by whether they had experienced therapy; their level in school; their gender; and their major, location, and school size). The quality of care, comfort, therapist boldness, qualifications of the therapist, and the likelihood that one would choose a therapist based on the office improved with increases in the office's softness/personalization and order. Friendliness improved with increases in softness/personalization. The office choices, open-ended responses, and reported reasons for the ratings confirmed the importance of softness (comfort) and order. Research should test longer term exposure and behavior.     

A new tool for assessing context conditioning induced by US-unpredictability in humans: The Martians task restyled

Unpredictability of an unconditioned stimulus (US) typically produces context conditioning in animals and humans. We modified the Martians task - a computer game measuring learning of Pavlovian associations through conditioned suppression - for assessing context conditioning in humans. One between-subjects and one within-subjects study are reported. Both experiments comprised four conditions: a predictable (Paired) condition in which the conditioned stimulus (CS) signaled the US, a neutral condition (No-US), one unpredictable condition in which the CS did not signal the US (Unpaired) and another one in which only unsignaled, temporally unpredictable USs were presented (US-only). Results showed more contextual conditioned suppression in the unpredictable conditions compared to the predictable condition. In contrast, more cued conditioned suppression occurred in the Paired condition than in the Unpaired condition. Consistent with animal research, context conditioning was increased by unpredictability. These data support the Martians task as a promising tool to extend research on human context conditioning.     

Vampires,Desire, Girls and God: <Emphasis Type="Italic">Twilight</Emphasis> and the Spiritualities of Adolescent Girls

Fantasy fiction long has been read for its capacity to narrate religious meanings and themes for young readers. Since its publication in 2005, Stephenie Meyer’s young adult series Twilight, in which an adolescent girl falls in love with a vampire, has become a pop culture phenomenon among U.S. teen girls. Although vampires usually represent dangerous desire, rarely have these creatures been treated as spiritually attractive figures. Using feminist perspectives on the psychology of gender and Christian feminist theology, this article offers a critical exploration of Twilight’s constructions of intimate relationships, supernatural masculinities, and girlhood, arguing that Twilight’s girl-appeal stems from its ability to tap into both the sexual and spiritual desires of girls.