Previous mental health service utilization and change in clients' depressive symptoms

Although a potentially important factor in case conceptualization and treatment planning, the impact of previous treatment on subsequent counseling response has received little empirical attention. Using archival data, this study aimed to (a) report the prevalence of previous treatment utilization in a counseling population, (b) examine potential differences in symptom severity by treatment history, and (c) test whether the rate of change in symptoms over a course of counseling is moderated by previous treatment utilization, when also accounting for initial severity. A sample of 1,262 college students presenting for treatment in university/college counseling centers across the United States provided information on previous treatment history and completed the Counseling Center Assessment of Psychological Symptoms, administered at intake and up to 4 additional time points, with an average of 3-5 weeks between assessments. Data from the 13-item Depression subscale were used for the present study. Half the clients reported previous counseling, one third psychotropic medication, and one tenth psychiatric hospitalization. Previous treatment was associated with increased baseline depressive symptom severity. Results from latent growth curve models showed that previous counseling and medication correlated with a slower rate of symptom response, and previous counseling reduced the probability of being labeled a treatment responder. Previous counseling remained a significant predictor of counseling response when controlling for baseline severity. Hypothesized mechanisms through which previous treatment experience impacts subsequent treatment response remain largely theoretical and should be the focus of future research.     

Relating Engagement to Outcomes in Prevention: The Case of a Parenting Program for Couples

Analyses of program engagement can provide critical insight into how program involvement leads to outcomes. This study examines the relation between participant engagement and program outcomes in Family Foundations (FF), a universal preventive intervention designed to help couples manage the transition to parenthood by improving coparenting relationship quality. Previous intent-to-treat outcome analyses from a randomized trial indicate FF improves parental adjustment, interparental relationships, and parenting. Analyses for the current study use the same sample, and yield statistically reliable relations between participant engagement and interparental relationships but not parental adjustment or parenting. Discussion considers implications for FF and the difficulties researchers face when examining the relation between engagement and outcomes in preventive interventions.     

Early information processing biases in social anxiety

Considerable controversy persists regarding the nature of threat-related attention biases in social anxiety. Previous studies have not considered how variations in the temporal and energetic dimensions of affective stimulus delivery interact with anxiety-related individual differences to predict biased attention. We administered a visual dot-probe task, using faces that varied in affective intensity (mild, moderate, strong) and presentation rate (100, 500, 1,250 ms) to a selected sample. The high, compared to the low, socially anxious group showed vigilance towards angry faces and emotionally ambiguous faces more generally during rapid (100 ms) presentations. By 1,250 ms, there was only a non-specific motor slowing associated with angry faces in the high socially anxious group. Findings suggest the importance of considering both chronometric and energetic dimensions of affective stimuli when examining anxiety-related attention biases. Future studies should consider using designs that more closely replicate aspects of real-world interaction to study processing biases in socially anxious populations.     

Rational Choice, Deterrence, and Theoretical Integration

The old version of rational choice theory is that people engage in conscious and deliberate cost–benefit analysis such that they maximize the values and minimize the costs of their actions. The new version of rational choice theory is that people intuit the values and costs of an action; but because they are imperfect processors of information, they pursue what they perceive as most satisfying. The possibility that legal punishments deter is consistent with the new version of rational choice theory, which can be used to integrate deterrence with other criminological theories, such as strain and social learning. An integrated theory of deterrence is presented and tested with experimental data.     

Effects of Internal and External Pay Comparisons on Work Attitudes1

The effects of internal and external pay comparisons on several work attitudes were assessed within an experimental design. Participants responded to hypothetical scenarios in which their pay was greater, less, or equal to an internal and external individual or group referent. As predicted, internal and external pay comparisons predicted pay satisfaction and perceived pay fairness. Also as expected, internal equity was the stronger predictor of work motivation and perceived organizational support, and external equity predicted turnover intention more strongly. Partial support was found for the hypothesis that work attitudes would be impacted more strongly when individuals made pay comparisons with a group referent than with an individual referent other. Implications for the design of compensation systems are discussed.     

Symmetry, direct measurement, and Torgerson's conjecture

Two forms of direct measurement are considered in the article: a strong form in which ratio productions named by number words are interpreted veridically as the numerical ratios they name; and a weak form in which the ratio productions named by number words may have interpretations as ratios that are different from numerical ratios they name. Both forms assume that the responses to instructions to produce ratios are represented numerically by ratios, and thus the word “ratio”—and supposedly the participants concept associated with it—is being “directly” represented. The strong form additionally “directly represents” the number mentioned in the instruction by itself. The article provides an axiomatic theory for the numerical representations produced by both forms. This theory eliminates the need for assuming anything is being “directly represented,” allowing for a purely behavioral approach to ratio production data. It isolates two critical axioms for empirical testing. An measurement-theoretic explanation is provided for the puzzling empirical phenomenon that subjects do not distinguish between ratios and differences in a variety of direct measurement tasks.