Tenacious goal pursuit and flexible goal adjustment: explication and age-related analysis of assimilative and accommodative strategies of coping

Crises and critical life transitions activate 2 distinct but complementary modes of coping, (a) transforming developmental circumstances in accordance with personal preferences (assimilative tendency) and (b) adjusting personal preferences to situational constraints (accommodative tendency). Assimilative and accommodative tendencies were measured by a questionnaire comprising 2 independent scales (Tenacious Goal Pursuit and Flexible Goal Adjustment). Both scales predict high life satisfaction and low depression and are positively related to generalized internal control beliefs. The scales evinced an opposite relation to age: Cross-sectional analyses on a sample of 890 Ss in the age range from 34 to 63 years revealed a gradual shift from an assimilative to an accommodative mode of coping. Implications for theories of depression and successful aging are discussed.     

Adult age comparisons in the processing of event frequency information

The usual superiority in frequency-of-occurrence judgments of younger vs. older subjects was hypothesized to result from greater strategic encoding of the materials conveying frequency information. A subject-paced, visual search task was designed to control nontarget word encoding. Relative frequency judgments for the nontarget word pairs were equally accurate for younger and older subjects, and performance of both groups was above chance. Results suggest that strategic cover-task encoding can induce age differences in incidental frequency processing. Consistent with a nonoptimal as opposed to an optimal view, automatic processes require only minimal capacity for above-chance performance, but additional strategic resources can increase performance. When such additional resources are used more by younger than by older subjects, the former are better in frequency performance.     

Relations between source amnesia and frontal lobe functioning in older adults

A study is reported in which the relations among normal aging, source amnesia, and frontal lobe functioning were explored. Twenty-four older adults (aged 60-84 years) were tested on their ability to remember where they had acquired new factual information; they were also given the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), a test of verbal fluency, and other psychometric tests. The degree of source amnesia in this normal sample correlated with age, verbal fluency, and some measures from the WCST. Source amnesia was not related to Performance IQ, however, or to a measure of fact recall. The implications for the relations among aging, memory, and frontal lobe functions are discussed.     

Effect of Client Sense of Humor and Paradoxical Interventions on Test Anxiety

This study investigated the effectiveness of paradoxical and non-paradoxical interventions with clients [henceforth known as participants] possessing a high or low sense of humor. Fifty-three test-anxious participants were divided into a low sense of humor group and a high sense of humor group and were assigned to a paradoxical intervention condition, a nonparadoxical intervention condition, or a no-treatment control group. Participants in all groups improved over time but, contrary to the hypothesis, low sense of humor participants improved significantly more with a paradoxical intervention than high sense of humor participants with a paradoxical intervention. There were no differences in improvement due to treatment condition for the high sense of humor group. Low sense of humor participants perceived the counselor as more able to help than did high sense of humor participants. The paradoxical intervention was seen as more surprising than the nonparadoxical intervention. Implications for the use of paradoxical interventions are discussed.     

Gender Aware Therapy: A Synthesis of Feminist Therapy and Knowledge About Gender

The time has come to integrate feminist therapy and knowledge of gender into principles of counseling for both women and men. Gender Aware Therapy (GAT) is such a synthesis. GAT encourages counselors to facilitate the development of women and men through exploration of their unique gender-related experiences. The foundations, principles, stages, and applications of GAT are described.     

Social uncertainty and interdependence: A study of resource allocation decisions in groups

Social uncertainty about the behavior of others with whom one is interdependent for rewards is hypothesized to encourage self-interested behavior and inhibit behavioral commitment to the group. This paper examines the roles of uncertainty, expectations, and feedback about other group members' contributions to the group in interdependent decision making. In the absence of feedback, resources tend to be divided between individual and group interests. Resource allocations to the group are found to increase significantly if group members receive feedback about other members' allocations, particularly if that feedback is at the individual level, not an aggregated group level. However, the effects of feedback presence and type are eliminated when group members state their expectations about other members' future contributions to the group. Implications for expectancy value theories of motivation and commitment to groups in organizations are discussed.     

Gender Role Conflict and Depression in College Men: Evidence for Compounded Risk

This study investigated the relationships between attitudes toward the male role, gender role conflict factors, and depression in 401 college men. Results indicated that all four of the gender role conflict factors were significantly correlated with depression. Hence, more traditional men may experience a compounded risk comprising increased likelihood of depression coupled with decreased use of counseling services. Both directions for future research and the implications for counselors and student services are discussed.     

Humility as a psychotherapeutic formulation

Humility training is conceptualized as an appropriate treatment for persons who occasionally describe themselves, but are most frequently described by others as overbearing, insensitive and deceitful. Procedures are outlined to identify unrecognized fears and improve interpersonal skills. Humility is presented as a counterpoint to assertiveness and aggression/anger control interventions.