Effects of level of academic training on client-perceived rapport and use of verbal response modes in counselling dyads

The Standardized Client procedure was used with 22 fifth-year counselling psychology trainees in 1 -hour interviews to assess the impact of counsellor verbal response modes upon client-perceived rapport in 1-minute segments collected during the entire interviews. In addition, the effects of level of academic training on client-perceived rapport and verbal response mode usage were investigated via comparisons with previous data collected from 10 fourth-year counselling psychology trainees. Data indicated that the higher level trainees produced higher mean levels of client-perceived rapport per minute than the lower level trainees, and that there were also different distributions of verbal response mode usage across rapport ratings for the two trainee groups. Implications for training programmes are discussed.     

Marital systems of agoraphobic women: contributions of husbands' denial and projection

The problems of measuring psychological concepts such as repression and denial are discussed in the context of the marital systems of agoraphobic women and the credibility of a couples approach to treatment. Repression, denial and projection in husbands were inferred from systematic measurement of mood, hostility and symptom changes after intensive behaviour therapy for the agoraphobia. The results suggested that the agoraphobic symptoms of about half of the women were reinforced by their husbands' habitual denial of affect and of personal problems; in this group, worthwhile symptomatic improvement occurred only in those women whose husbands relinquished repression and denial as major defence mechanisms, acknowledging their own personal problems, and allowing the patients to take more responsibility for their agoraphobia. The marital systems of the remaining couples were characterized by incompatible ways of dealing with hostility, with husbands' abnormal extrapunitiveness reinforcing patients' self-blame, which inhibited problem-solving and hence indirectly perpetuated the agoraphobia.     

The effect of psychological stress and tolerance of ambiguity on stereotypic attributions

Abstract Recent research on the relationship between cognition and affect suggests the prediction that psychological stress encourages stereotyping. Yet the empirical evidence regarding this proposition is inconclusive. This study examined the effect of stress on the perception of illusory correlations, which comprise a particular manifestation of stereotypic attributions, and the moderating role of tolerance of ambiguity. It was predicted, specifically, that the effect of stress on stereotyping will be more pronounced in persons who have a low tolerance of ambiguity than in persons tolerating ambiguity, who generally experience less stress. An Illusory Correlation Inventory and a Tolerance of Ambiguity scale were administered to a group of 46 Airforce cadets, during a particularly stressful phase of flight training, and to a comparable group of 39 cadets, during a relatively relaxed period in the course of training. As expected, stress heightened the tendency to stereotype. In addition, the response of participants whose tolerance of ambiguity is low was more stereotypic than the response of those who tolerate ambiguity. However, the combined effect of the two independent variables was additive rather than interactive. Contrary to prediction, high tolerance of ambiguity did not attenuate the effect of stress on stereotyping.     

Motivational bases in mixed-motive interactions: The effects of comparison levels

The relationship between reward level and the basic motives which underlie strategic choices (competitive and noncompetitive) in a mixed-motive game was examined from two theoretical perspectives. The “regret” interpretation proposed by McClintock and McNeel was compared to an approach based upon Thibout and Kelley's concept of comparison level (CL). Two independent variables, CL and Reward, were manipulated by varying the payoff rates in two playing series of the MDG. Initially, 50 iterations were played for high (4¢ per point) or low ($\text{1}\text{5¢}$ per point) incentive to provide subjects with outcomes upon which to base their CL's. The Reward manipulation was introduced in 150 subsequent trials of the game with subjects playing for 8¢ or 1¢ per point. The results show that the absolute magnitude of reward did not influence the extent of cooperative or competitive behavior. On the other hand, the magnitude of reward relative to CL was significantly associated with the degree of cooperative behavior—supra-CL outcomes yielding a higher frequency of cooperative behavior than infra-CL outcomes.     

The effect of spatial order on piecemeal shape recognition: A developmental study

Stationary shapes were displayed piecemeal by moving an aperture from one place to another around their contours. Shape recognition was poorer with an unpredictable order of display. This result is more consistent with hypothesis-testing than with either eye-movement or visual information models of shape recognition. Shape recognition was poorer for 9- and 11-year-old children than for adults.     

Understanding supervisor-targeted aggression: a within-person, between-jobs design

The authors investigated predictors of supervisor-targeted workplace aggression among 105 "moonlighters" (employed adults who work 2 jobs, each with a different supervisor), as a way of examining the relative role played by within-subject situational differences and between-subjects individual differences. Individual difference variables (self-esteem, history of aggression) explained a similar level of variance in aggression across both jobs, whereas situational factors (interactional injustice, abusive supervision) were job specific and explained proportionally more variance than did individual differences.