Group Premarital Counseling Using a Premarital Assessment Questionnaire: Evaluation from Group Leaders

No research to date addresses premarital assessment questionnaire (PAQ) use within group settings. The current study evaluated the benefits and drawbacks of group use of one PAQ (the RELATE Inventory). Results were obtained via semi-structured interviews of group leaders and indicate overall leader agreement on the perceived desirability, benefits, and drawbacks of using PAQs in group premarital efforts. Recommended principles/guidelines for effective group PAQ use are organized into four categories: PAQ Considerations, Group Leader Considerations, Couple Considerations, and Group Content/Process Considerations.     

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do: Dismissing Students From MFT Training Programs

Dismissing a student from an MFT training program can be challenging from an ethical and professional perspective. A thorough review of the literature regarding dismissal procedures in MFT training programs was conducted in order to increase discussion around circumstances under which dismissal is warranted and necessary for the protection of the public, the student, and the profession with specific attention to the dismissal process. The authors present the current state of the literature, include a case scenario for facilitating a conversation about this topic, and provide guiding principles for faculty and supervisors who might engage in a dismissal process.     

Triggering Conservation of the Self's Regulatory Resources

Three experiments investigated people's motivation to conserve the self's limited regulatory resource after it is depleted by initial self-control exertion. Across the experiments, the results supported the idea of a conservation process. In Experiment 1, depleted participants' subsequent performance decreased when expecting to engage in a future self-regulation task compared to engaging in no task at all. In Experiments 2 and 3 we employed the “end-effect” pattern found in past vigilance research to further examine conservation. In Experiment 2, depleted and nondepleted participants who knew the study ran for 30 min performed similarly following 20 min of self-regulation, whereas 3 min or 10 min of self-regulation produced typical depletion effects. Likewise, the findings from Experiment 3 revealed this same conservation pattern using a shortened 6-min initial task. Specifically, when depleted participants believed the study was finished their task performance was better compared to those who believed the study would run for another 20 min. In short, the current findings support the idea of conservation—decrements in self-regulatory performance may represent an adaptive inclination to conserve the self's diminished resources rather than an inability to wield further self-control.     

Person–Job Fit and Work-Related Attitudes Among Chinese Employees: Need for Cognitive Closure as Moderator

The current research examined the moderating role of employees' need for cognitive closure in the relationship between their perceived person–job fit and their work-related attitudes. In Study 1, a survey was conducted among 176 Chinese employees from various organizations, and the results confirmed that both demand–ability fit and need–supply fit were positively related to employees' job satisfaction; moreover, these relations were stronger among people with higher need for closure than those scoring lower in need for closure. In Study 2, a survey was conducted among 242 employees from a Chinese city government, and the results replicated the findings of Study 1, but also found that need for closure moderated the relation between demand–ability fit and turnover intention. These results have important implications for research in organizational psychology and human resource management.     

Discrepant Data and Improbable Results: An Examination of Vohs,Mead, and Goode (2006)

A highly cited article by Vohs, Mead, and Goode (2006) reported several experiments in which an incidental reminder of money produced large effects on subsequent behaviors unrelated to money. We attempted 2 high-powered direct replications of the first experiment, which found that money-primed subjects worked on a puzzle nearly twice as long as controls before quitting. The replication studies showed no evidence of money priming. Moreover, 25% of the subjects in our studies solved the puzzle correctly or incorrectly, whereas none reportedly did so in the original study. We also list anomalies in the reported results of the original study.     

Overgeneral autobiographical memory and chronic interpersonal stress as predictors of the course of depression in adolescents

This study investigated whether overgeneral autobiographical memory (OGM) predicts the course of depression in adolescents. As part of a larger longitudinal study of risk for emotional disorders, 55 adolescents with a past history of major depressive disorder or minor depressive disorder completed the Autobiographical Memory Test. Fewer specific memories predicted the subsequent onset of a major depressive episode (MDE) over a 16-month follow-up period, even when covarying baseline depressive symptoms. This main effect was qualified by an interaction between specific memories and chronic interpersonal stress: Fewer specific memories predicted greater risk of MDE onset over follow-up at high (but not low) levels of chronic interpersonal stress. Thus, our findings suggest that OGM, in interaction with chronic interpersonal stress, predicts the course of depression among adolescents, and highlight the importance of measuring interpersonal stress in OGM research.     

The motivational effects of thinking and worrying about the effects of smoking cigarettes

We tested a strategy to encourage cigarette smokers to think more frequently about the negative consequences of smoking, reasoning that increased thought might lead to greater worry and motivation to quit. College students who smoked daily were randomly assigned to one of three conditions in which they wore watches for one week that sounded an alarm randomly four times each day. When alerted, the students read one of eight cards that either had a written statement about studying (control condition), a statement about the negative effects of smoking behaviour (text condition), or a negative smoking statement accompanied by a picture (e.g., a blackened lung; image condition). Measures collected at week's end revealed that the smoking cards had no effects on perceived risk, but they increased worry and reports of intrusive thoughts, and had a small but reliable effect on plans to quit. Correlational data also supported the relationship between worry and motivation to quit, and we discuss the possible benefits of “normal” worrying and strategies for capitalising on the worry–motivation relationship to encourage smokers to abandon cigarettes.     

Reading Comprehension: Effects of Individualized,Integrated Language Arts as a Reading Approach with Struggling Readers

This study examined the effects of individualized, integrated language arts as a reading approach on struggling readers' comprehension scores obtained from oral narrative, silent narrative, and silent expository passages at three levels: below-grade, on-grade, and above-grade levels. Students (N = 93) in grades four through eight, who were reading below grade level, participated in the study. Treatment group students (n = 51) received individualized, integrated language arts as a reading approach once a week in place of basal reading instruction. Comparison group students (n = 42) received basal reading instruction for the duration of the study. Multivariate analysis of covariance was used to analyze posttest Analytical Reading Inventory (ARI) comprehension scores. Several statistically significant (p < .001) differences in comprehension performance were found for on-grade-level scores and for above-grade-level scores, but few differences were found between treatment and comparison groups on below-grade-level scores. All statistically significant differences favored students in the treatment group. The findings of the study strongly suggest that the use of individualized, integrated language arts as a method for teaching reading is an effective approach for improving the reading comprehension performance of struggling readers.