Behavioral skills workshop for staff and supervisor in a community residence for developmentally handicapped adults

A behavioral skills workshop for counselors and a supervisor in a community group home was developed and evaluated. The workshop included group skills training, individual supervised in vivo practice, and supervisor training. Supervisor training taught behavioral staff management skills that were delivered in a multiple baseline design across subjects. Positive changes in staff behavior occurred for each group only after supervisor intervention. Significant positive changes occurred by the end of the workshop and were maintained at follow-up for staff self-evaluations of expertise and confidence to resolve problems, severity of client problems, and behavioral observations of positive client behaviors.     

Portrayals of women in prime-time network television: Some demographic characteristics

This paper examines demographic variables to create a partial picture of current portrayals of women on network television. All prime-time programs for all networks served as the information base. The findings were that few changes had been made in the portrayals of women from the 1970s to the 1980s in terms of observable demographic characteristics.     

Social support and cancer: Adult patients' desire for support from family,friends, and health professionals

Examined cancer patients' desire for social support from family, friends, and health professionals upon whom they most depended for support. Before a single interaction with each of these sources, nonhospitalized adult cancer patients (N = 64) completed a questionnaire indicating their desire for support from the source on 11 functional components. Results indicated that emotional and instrumental functions of support were distinct and required separate examination. Distinctiveness of primary sources was manifest by patients' overall preference for tangible aid from family, modeling from friends who had cancer, and open communication and clarification from health professionals. Family and friends were equally preferred sources for dealing with affective reactions to the stressfulness of cancer. All three sources were similarly desired for self-esteem enhancement and for relief from decision-making and problem-solving responsibilities. Finally, patients' perceived prognosis but not the objective severity of their illness was associated with a heightened desire for support, especially for instrumental support functions.     

Behavioral staff management: An analogue study of acceptability and its behavioral correlates

This study examined the acceptability of four behavioral staff management techniques: instruction/ modeling, reinforcement, punishment, and self-management. Staff working with developmentally handicapped clients were randomly assigned to these conditions, which were presented in role-plays with a handicapped confederate, while the experimenter directed the management techniques toward the reinforcing behaviors of staff. Dependent variables included number of reinforcers delivered by the staff person, number of problems attempted by the confederate, and ratings of acceptability from staff. Instruction/modeling was most acceptable, followed, in order, by self-management, reinforcement, and punishment. A significant interaction showed number of reinforcers to increase only for instruction/modeling and self-management conditions.     

Individuation through immigration to Israel: Psychotherapy with immigrant adolescents

This article focuses on psychotherapy with immigrant university students. It illustrates an earlier theoretical model which views immigration in adolescence in the context of the adolescents' search for autonomy and individual identity. A detailed case presentation is followed by a discussion of some of the pathological manifestations triggered by immigration as well as of some deviations from the normal process of immigration that necessitate therapeutic intervention. Finally some of the psychotherapeutic techniques employed with immigrant students are discussed. It is emphasized that in the majority of cases short term intervention is the treatment of choice, the aim of psychotherapy being to assist patients with their present life crisis and encourage them to resume autonomous coping in the real world as quickly as possible.     

Definitions as theories of word meaning

Dictionary definitions are often used in education and in computerized databases for processing natural language, but their accuracy as models of word meaning has not been carefully evaluated. An experiment involving fourth graders and adults measured the efficacy of dictionary definitions in marking distinctions in sense and found them to be very poor for children, but fairly helpful for adults. A second experiment compared dictionary definitions to definitions written by college students who had sorted sets of sentence citations, and found both moderately effective in teaching word use. Good definitions were produced less often for high-frequency words than for low-frequency words, given equivalent numbers of citations, suggesting that sentences using high-frequency words are less informative overall. Also, the more citations available to the definition writer, the better the definition was in teaching word use, suggesting that information about word meaning is cumulative and describable.This research was partially supported by grants from the Spencer and Sloan Foundations to George A. Miller.     

The Men's Adult Life Experiences Inventory: an instrument for assessing developmental concerns of middle age

This article describes the development and testing of a new 97-item self-report instrument assessing the frequency and intensity of 11 developmentally related domains of concerns of middle-aged men. These include relationships (child, parents, wife, friends), job, health, sex, leisure, death, pressures of time, and self-reflection. The psychometric properties of the instrument, as well as potential uses, are discussed.     

Healthy and unhealthy forms of religiousness manifested by psychotherapy clients: An empirical investigation

This study investigated whether 49 Mormon psychotherapy clients and 51 Mormon nonclients differed on a number of religious and psychological variables. The data were analyzed using analysis of covariance, controlling for social desirability, education level, and occupation status. Clients scored higher than nonclients on shame and lower on existential well-being. There were no significant differences between clients and nonclients on religious orientation, religious wellbeing, moral reasoning, and guilt. Females scored much higher on guilt, and female clients scored much higher on shame; there were no other gender differences. Subjects showed a preference for Stage 4 moral reasoning, and 92% were intrinsically motivated in their religious worship. The psychotherapy clients' religious beliefs and motivations appeared healthy and functional and could be an asset during therapy. The clients manifested some psychological issues which could predispose them to unhealthy reactions to some of the doctrines and influences of their religion. The gender differences observed were also discussed.     

Utilization of odor cues as a function of reward-magnitude contrast and delay of reinforcement

An experiment manipulating both reward-magnitude contrast and delay of reinforcement is reported. The results indicated that odor cues are produced under conditions of delayed large-reward versus nonreward contrast but not under large- versus small-reward contrast. Additional magnitude and delay manipulations that resulted in the elimination of odor-based double-alternation patterning in the straight runway are presented.     

Cognitive vulnerability to depression: A comparison of the weakest link,keystone and additive models

Multiple theories of cognitive vulnerability to depression have been proposed, each focusing on different aspects of negative cognition and utilising different measures of risk. Various methods of integrating such multiple indices of risk have been examined in the literature, and each demonstrates some promise. Yet little is known about the interrelations among these methods, or their incremental validity in predicting changes in depression. The present study compared three integrative models of cognitive vulnerability: the additive, weakest link, and keystone models. Support was found for each model as predictive of depression over time, but only the weakest link model demonstrated incremental utility in predicting changes in depression over the other models. We also explore the correlation between these models and each model's unique contribution to predicting onset of depressive symptoms.