The clinical vignette: Use in teaching and evaluation of group therapists

This paper describes the use of a written vignette as an aid in teaching group psychotherapy. Educators can determine in advance their expectations of the students' understanding of the vignette. Trainees evaluate the salient data, recognize patients' and therapist's contributions to the process, and conceptualize at three levels: intrapsychic, interpersonal and group-as-a-whole. This method supplements the usual training methods, and offers information about both the individual student and the entire class. This approach has an advantage of enabling educators to assess students in a relatively standardized fashion.     

The relationship between daily events and mood: The mood measure may matter

Measures of daily mood have been used as immediate indicators of the effects of the psychosocial environment, the latter concept often measured by daily events. We examined the prediction of two measures of daily mood, the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) and Nowlis Mood Adjective Checklist (MACL), by daily desirable and undesirable events and by day of the week. Unlike prior studies, the event assessment and type of subjects studied (community residents) were the same in both studies, allowing an attribution of differential associations between the two mood scales and either daily events or day of the week to the different mood measures. The mood measures had similar and expected associations with daily events, although the MACL scale generally had stronger associations with events. Surprisingly, the pattern of day of the week effects for positive, yet not negative, mood were different for the two mood measures. Consistent with the weekend's increase in desirable daily events, MACL positive affectincreased on weekends, relative to weekdays, whereas PANAS positive mooddecreased on weekends. Also, for both positive and negative affect scales, the MACL scales had stronger associations with day of week than the PANAS scales. These results suggest caution in the choice of mood measure to use in studies of daily events and pose questions about the meaning of these mood measures.This work was supported, in part, by grant MH39234 from NIMH. The authors thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.     

Determinants ofthe perception of sagittal motion

This study examines the change in the perceived distance of an object in three-dimensional space when the object andlor the observer’s head is moved along the line of sight (sagittal motion) as a function of the perceived absolute (egocentric) distance of the object and the perceived motion of the head. To analyze the processes involved, two situations, labeled A and B, were used in four experiments. In Situation A, the observer was stationary and the perceived motion of the object was measured as the object was moved toward and away from the observer. In Situation B, the same visual information regarding the changing perceived egocentric distance between the observer and object was provided as in Situation A, but part or all of the change in visual egocentric distance was produced by the sagittal motion of the observer’s head. A comparison of the perceived motion of the object in the two situations was used to measure the compensation in the perception of the motion of the object as a result of the headmotion. Compensation was often clearly incomplete, and errors were often made in the perception of the motion of the stimulus object. A theory is proposed, which identifies the relation between the changes in the perceived egocentric distance of the object and the tandem motion of the object resulting from the perceived motion of the head to be the significant factor in the perception of the sagittal motion of the stimulus object in Situation B.     

Disability Harassment: A New Term for a Long-Standing Problem

The authors present definitions of the term harassment from the literature and government sources and propose a definition of disability harassment, Existing literature related to disability harassment is reviewed, including anecdotal accounts. Legal findings are summarized from several cases concerning disability harassment of federal employees, and data on disability harassment complaints filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are provided. The authors suggest that the harmful psychological effects of any form of harassment are similar and a model from the literature on sexual harassment is used as a basis for understanding the effects. Implications for counseling practice and future research are discussed.     

The development and validation of computer self-efficacy and outcome expectancy scales in a nonvolitional context

Computer self-efficacy and outcome expectancy scales were developed using 306 responses to a questionnaire distributed by a national mail survey to end users of computer systems in a variety of functional business areas. Confirmatory factor analysis using a structural equations approach was used to develop three scales. The scales were found to demonstrate satisfactory psychometric properties. The reliability coefficients for these scales were as follows: .85 for computer self-efficacy; .88 for work-related outcome expectancy; and .89 for personal outcome expectancy. The scales provide a strong foundation from which to refine the measurement of computer self-efficacy and outcome expectancy. From these refinements, empirical models that include self-efficacy and outcome expectancy as determinants of information technology acceptance at the individual level of analysis can be improved.     

Commentary

Conclusion Self psychology has added several dimensions to working with difficult oral patients in group psychotherapy. Elucidation of selfobject transferences provides a new understanding of members' linkages to the therapist, to one another, and to the group-as-a-whole. The emphasis on the process of narcissistic injury and repair has shed light on subtle processes that precipitate provocative, self-defeating behaviors that are compatible with dynamic constellations subsumed under the rubric of oral character neurosis.Glatzer paved the way for further advances when she accurately began to explore many facets of these individuals' characteristic behavioral patterns and their underlying dynamics. She provided a sound treatment base, using available theory, for patients who had been previously thought to be unacceptable or untreatable in group psychotherapy.One of the challenges that lies ahead is development of satisfactory evaluation of our treatments. Unless we can begin to demonstrate that long-term treatment is necessary and that group treatment is cost effective, extended insurance support for these deserving individuals will disappear. If our dynamic formulations are accurate, these personality malformations are not amenable to brief interventions, although acute symptoms might be alleviated. In light of our current knowledge, significant change will only take place with extended treatment.     

An International Comparison of Personality Differences between Hospitality and Other Service Sector Managers

This paper seeks to examine the hypothesis that reliable and valid personality instruments could have international applicability. Utilising data from 327 practising managers drawn from service industries in the United Kingdom, Hungary and the Czech Republic, the research offers a basis for discriminating between the profiles of hospitality and other service sector managers employing stepwise discriminant function analysis, F-tests and classification ratios. The findings, based on a subsequent ANOVA, suggest that these personality profiles extend across the three countries under study. Also, the research provides a methodological approach for consideration in future meta-analytical studies of the processes of management development.     

Soft tissue anatomy of the tongue and floor of the mouth: An ultrasound demonstration

Ultrasound technology has not been used extensively in the study of normal and abnormal oral physiology and speech. Features such as soft tissue detail, real-time motion display, and subject safety make ultrasound ideal for imaging the tongue and the floor of the mouth. This study demonstrates visualization of the muscles of the tongue and floor of the mouth for a normal subject using ultrasound imaging. By employing submandibular transducer placement of real-time sector scanners, tongue anatomy and motion were continuously visualized in sagittal or coronal planes. In addition to the entire tongue surface, much of the intrinsic anatomy was identified including: the genioglossus, geniohyoid, mylohyoid, and digastric muscles; fascial boundaries such as the median fibrous septum, floor intermuscular septum, and paramedian septums; and the hyoid bone. A tongue excised from a human cadaver was scanned using ultrasound and dissected to confirm the anatomy seen in the live tongue. Tongue surface shape and configuration of the intrinsic tissue structures were observed and compared for the phonemes /k/, /u/, and /i/. Anatomical landmarks in the resting and speaking tongue are discussed as well as applications in the fields of speech science and speech pathology.     

Is hostility linked with affiliation among males and with achievement among females? A critique of Pollak and Gilligan

This investigation attempted to replicate and to clarify methodologically an investigation by Pollak and Gilligan (1982). Those investigators reported sex differences in violence imagery to Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) pictures depicting affiliation and achievement situations. Pollak and Gilligan concluded that men perceive danger in situations of affiliation whereas women perceive danger in situations of achievement. It was demonstrated in the present study that Pollak and Gilligan incorrectly classified TAT cards into motivational categories, which may have resulted in incorrect inferences. In addition, their findings could not be replicated when using four different systems for classifying TAT cards into motivational categories. Other potential sources of error in their research, including a restrictive scoring scheme for hostility, unusual instructions, and failure to control for sex role in the TAT pictures, did not influence the pattern of results.