Community Research: The Lost Art of Unobtrusive Methods1

The use of unobtrusive methods, with special reference to community‐oriented research, is a lost art, despite their strong recommendation by Webb, Campbell, Schwartz, & Sechrest (1966) as means of supplementing reactive measures. The decline of unobtrusive measures seems to be related to the increased popularity and adherence to the doctrine of informed consent, the decrease in use of deception as a method, and the effort to conceptualize research subjects as cooperative participants. While the distaste for unobtrusive methods seems to reflect increased sensitivity toward ethics in research, the collection of partially reliable and partially valid knowledge continues, with considerable reliance on reactive measures.     

The Irreducibility of Iterated to Single Revision

After a number of decades of research into the dynamics of rational belief, the belief revision theory community remains split on the appropriate handling of sequences of changes in view, the issue of so-called iterated revision. It has long been suggested that the matter is at least partly settled by facts pertaining to the results of various single revisions of one’s initial state of belief. Recent work has pushed this thesis further, offering various strong principles that ultimately result in a wholesale reduction of iterated to one-shot revision. The present paper offers grounds to hold that these principles should be significantly weakened and that the reductionist thesis should ultimately be rejected. Furthermore, the considerations provided suggest a close connection between the logic of iterated belief change and the logic of evidential relevance.     

A portable defense of the Procreation Asymmetry

Abstract

The Procreation Asymmetry holds that we have strong moral reasons not to create miserable people for their own sakes, but no moral reasons to create happy people for their own sakes. To defend this conjunction against an argument that it leads to inconsistency, I show how recognizing ‘creation’ as a temporally extended process allows us to revise the conjuncts in a way that preserves their intuitive force. This defense of the Procreation Asymmetry is preferable to others because it does not require us to take on controversial metaphysical or metaethical commitments – in other words, it has the theoretical virtue of portability.     

The ‘Collective Pierre Rivière’: Using collective biography and ambling conversational methods to interrogate and re-present pivotal moments from the Pierre Rivière narratives

Collective biography is a research strategy that works at the level of bodily and emotional knowledge and moves beyond individualized versions of the subject, towards subjects-in-process and subjects-in-relation (Davies and Gannon, 2006). In this paper we, the authors, reflect upon and describe our experiences of using collective biography practices as a way of interrogating and writing our way into ‘pivotal moments’ within the Pierre Rivière texts (both book and film). The collective writing about ‘pivotal moments’ that our research group generated during workshops held at a university, exploring the ‘Pierre Rivière’ narratives have then been further reworked into a reflective, layered account, through an ambling conversational process.     

Self-Efficacy in Service-Learning Community Action Research: Theory, Research, and Practice

The purpose of this article is threefold: In the first section, an overview of research and theory on the self-efficacy construct is provided, and the central role of self-efficacy in service-learning community action research is demonstrated. The second section reviews over 10 years of research validating the Community Service Self-Efficacy Scale (CSSES), which measures the individual’s confidence in his or her own ability to make clinically (meaningfully) significant contributions to the community through service. Within the context of this review, recent (previously unpublished) validation research is also reviewed. Alternate versions of the CSSES, each of which was developed for a specific purpose, are presented. The third section provides recommendations for further research focused on (a) validating the CSSES and (b) examining self-efficacy as an outcome, moderator, and mediating variable in service-learning community action research.     

The Psychosocial Vulnerability Model of Hostility as a Predictor of Coronary Heart Disease in Low-income African Americans

The current study examined social support and stress as mediators of the hostility—coronary heart disease (CHD) relationship as suggested by the psychosocial vulnerability model in a sample of low-income African Americans. Among 95 CHD patients and 30 healthy controls, hostility was negatively correlated with social support, but was not related to minor stress. CHD patients endorsed higher levels of hostility; however, the relationship between hostility and CHD status was diminished once stress and social support were included in the model. This study lends partial support for the psychosocial vulnerability model of hostility in African Americans, but suggests that the relationship between hostility and stress may be impacted by socioeconomic status.     

Speaker overestimation of communication effectiveness and fear of negative evaluation: Being realistic is unrealistic

Speakers systematically overestimate their communication effectiveness (Keysar & Henly, 2002). We argue that doing so is adaptive, reducing the risk of social anxiety and withdrawal from social situations. This hypothesis was tested by having speakers who scored low and high for fear of negative evaluation (FNE), a hallmark of social phobia, attempt to convey a specific meaning of ambiguous statements to a listener and then estimate their communication effectiveness. Low-FNE speakers consistently overestimated their effectiveness, expecting the listener to understand their intended meaning more often than listeners actually did. In contrast, high-FNE speakers’ estimates of communication effectiveness were consistent with the listener’s actual understanding. Signal detection analysis revealed that low- and high-FNE speakers were equally able to discriminate communication success from failure, but low-FNE speakers exhibited a stronger positive response bias. In conclusion, overestimating one’s communication effectiveness is adaptive, and accurate estimation is associated with dysfunction.     

Usability and Utility of a Computerized Cognitive-Behavioral Self-Help Program for Public Speaking Anxiety

This study describes the use of a cognitive-behavioral computer-administered self-help program with minimal therapist contact for public speaking anxiety. Participants (N = 10) with social phobia, as measured by a structured clinical interview, completed the self-help program in an open clinical trial. The program was delivered via a CD-ROM during individual sessions at an outpatient clinic, including 4 sessions of psychoeducation/cognitive therapy and 4 sessions of exposure therapy using a virtual audience presented on a computer screen. A therapist was available in another room to answer questions and to debrief for up to 10 minutes after each session. Participants completed standardized self-report questionnaires assessing social anxiety at pretreatment, posttreatment, and 3-month follow-up. Participants also completed measures of computer usability. Results showed decreases on all self-report measures of social anxiety from pre- to posttreatment, which were maintained at follow-up (n = 8). Participants also reported that they were satisfied with treatment, that they felt improved after treatment, and that the computer program was user-friendly. This study provides preliminary evidence that a computer-administered cognitive-behavioral-based program that includes minimal therapist contact may reduce public speaking anxiety and suggests that further research with a controlled design is needed.