Need for social approval: Impression management or self-deception?

A bogus pipeline technique was employed to separate the self- and other-deceptive components in social desirability responding and need for social approval. The self- and the other-deceptive components of social desirability responding were found to be independent of each other but to be positively and independently related to individual differences in need for approval score. Self-deceptive persons demonstrated diminished recall while other-deceptive persons exhibited enhanced recall of negatively evaluative characteristics. Such differential association with repressive and sensitizing defensive styles is discussed within the context of defensive denial and impression management conception of approval motivation.     

PARENTAL INFLUENCES ON CHILDREN'S EATING BEHAVIOR AND RELATIVE WEIGHT

We investigated the relationship between selected parent behaviors, child mealtime behavior, and infant relative weight. Subjects were 7 male and 7 female children varying in age from 12 to 30 months (mean = 23.9 months). Each subject and parents were observed during the dinnertime meal on two occasions using the BATMAN (Bob and Tom's Method of Assessing Nutrition). The children spent 58% of the mealtime eating. They spent very little time making active decisions about what and how much they ate (food requests = 2% of the time; food refusals = 1% of the time). We found significant correlations between child relative weight and (a) parental prompts to eat (r = .81, p < .001), (b) parental food offers (r = .51, p < .05), and (c) parental encouragement to eat (r = .82, p < .001). Thus, the present study suggests a relationship between certain parental variables and the relative weight of their children.     

Integration of problem-oriented and mystery-centered approaches in existential psychotherapy

Existential psychotherapy can be understood as a treatment orientation directed towards helping the client discover, actualize and honor the meanings and meaning potentials in life. In this article, the authors outline the problem-oriented and the mystery-centered elements of existential treatment and how these two components of existential treatment are both poles of a relationship of tension and complimentary to each other. The article further explores treatment activities, treatment goals, assessment activities and the treatment relationship as these notions are understood in both the problem-oriented and the mystery-centered aspects of existential psychotherapy.     

Basic concepts in existential psychotherapy with couples and families

Existential psychotherapy with couples and families is a treatment approach that pays close attention to both problems and the meanings and meaning potentials to be found in daily marital and family life. The author reviews both the elements and treatment dynamics to be found in existential treatment with couples and families and overviews the practice of creative interaction between the existential psychotherapist and the marital and/or family members requesting help.     

Telephone counsellors' conceptualising abilities and counselling skills

Telephone counsellors must make accurate assessments of callers' needs so as to provide appropriate counselling help or referral. But few researchers have examined counsellors' conceptualising abilities in relation to their counselling skill. Two studies involving telephone counsellors were carried out. The first relied on counsellors' post-interview conceptualisations of callers' problems and needs and found no link between the accuracy of these conceptualisations and counselling skill. The second used Kagan's Interpersonal Process Recall (IPR) to retrieve counsellors' conceptualisations made during the course of their interviews. The accuracy of these conceptualisations-in-action was related to level of counselling skill. Implications for training and research are discussed     

Existential psychotherapy with fast-track,suburban couples

In this article, the authors describe the existential situation of the fast-track suburban couple and a treatment approach based upon the philosophical concepts of Gabriel Marcel and Viktor Frankl. In this treatment approach, the therapist uses availability, primary reflection and secondary reflection treatment experiences to host the client couple's discovery and actualization of the meaning potential in their intimate life.     

Frankl's concept of time: Existential psychotherapy with couples and families

In this article, Viktor Frankl's ideas about time are used to outline the basic curative factors in an Existential approach to psychotherapy with couples and families. In this approach, the future includes meaning potentials that are available to the couple or family; the present is the time to actualize such meaning potentials; and the past includes these meaning potentials which have been actualized by the couple or family and deposited forever in the past. The function of the psychotherapist in the described approach to treatment is to help the couple or family notice, actualize,and honorfamily meanings and family meaning potentials.     

Counsellor training: An evaluation of the effectiveness of a residential outdoor pursuits activity weeked on the personal development of trainee counsellors

Trainee counsellors were taken on an outdoor development weekend training course, organised as a component of a two year part-time professional counsellor training course. The weekend was held during the final term of the second year of the course at an outdoor pursuits centre in the Lake District. The weekend's activities included canoeing, abseiling, onenteering, hill walking, rope work and climbing as well as other adventure exercises. Attendance at the weekend was compulsoy for all the 17 students on the course. This training weekend was an innovation in counsellor training and therefore a pilot study was designed to evaluate its effectiveness in making a contribution to the overall development of the trainees as counsellors. The study used a same subject experimental design and data was collected pre and post the weekend. The assessment procedure adopted for the purpose of this research included the use of repertoy grids and a series of questions with analogue scales for responses. There was some evidence to suggest that as a result of the weekend the participants experienced an increase in their self esteem, changes in their level of self confidence, felt more co-operative towards their fellow students, felt more helped by and helpful towards others and had an increased awareness of their competitiveness and stamina. It was concluded that the weekend made some contribution to the personal development of counsellors in training, particularly with regard to team building, co-operation and group cohesion.     

Free Will as a Gift from God: A New Compatibilism

Philosophical Studies -     

Ethnic Identity, Legitimizing Ideologies, and Social Status: A Matter of Ideological Asymmetry

This paper examines the ideological asymmetry hypothesis with respect tothe interface between legitimizing ideologies and psychological attachment to one's ethnic group. The ideological asymmetry hypothesis suggests that hierarchy-enhancing legitimizing ideologies should be positively associated with ingroup attachment among high-status groups, but that among low-status groups these associations should be either less positive in magnitude (isotropic asymmetry) relative to high-status groups or negative in direction (anisotropic asymmetry). The opposite pattern should be found with respect to the interface between hierarchy-attenuating legitimizing ideologies and ingroup attachment: Among high-status groups these associations should be negative, but among low-status groups these associations should be either less negative in magnitude (isotropic asymmetry) relative to high-status groups or positive in direction (anisotropic asymmetry). The presence of isotropic versus anisotropic asymmetry is hypothesized to depend on the degree of disparity in status between the groups being compared: Wider status gaps should tend toward anisotropic asymmetries. The relationships between legitimizing ideologies and ingroup attachment were compared for (1) relatively high-status ethnic groups (European and Asian Americans) versus relatively low-status ethnic groups (Latinos and African Americans) in the United States, (2) the higher-status Jewish ethnic group (Ashkenazim) versus the lower-status Jewish ethnic group (Mizrachim) in Israel, and (3) the high-status Israeli Jews versus the low-status Israeli Arabs. The data were largely consistent with the ideological asymmetry hypothesis. The implications of these findings are discussed within the theoretical frameworks of social dominance theory and other approaches to intergroup relations.