The effects of mental context reinstatement on children's accounts of sexual abuse*

Forensic interviewers guided 46.4‐ to 13‐year‐old alleged victims of sexual abuse to recall the context in which the reported incidents had taken place. A comparable group of 50 alleged victims were interviewed using an interview protocol that was identical except that the mental context reinstatement (MCR) techniques were not included. MCR did not increase the total number of event‐related details reported, but it did lead children to reported proportionally more details (55% versus 46%) in response to invitations rather than focused prompts. Such information is more likely to be accurate. MCR had an especially powerful effect on the youngest children (4‐ to 6‐year‐olds) studied. The results suggest that non‐suggestive contextual cues may indeed be useful in forensic interviews. Published in 2001 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Knowing Versus Caring: The Role of Affect and Cognition in Political Perceptions

This paper examines the importance of political knowledge in shaping accurate perceptions of the political world—specifically, how levels of general political knowledge influence the accuracy of specific political judgments, how those judgments might also be shaped by "wishful thinking," and how political knowledge attenuates the impact of wishful thinking on political judgments. Predictions of who would win the U.S. presidential election in 1984, 1988, 1992, and 1996, as surveyed in the National Election Studies conducted in those years, were used as a measure of the accuracy of political perceptions. Analysis of these data reveals that both political knowledge and wishful thinking are important determinants of the accuracy of people's perceptions; in addition, the impact of wishful thinking on perceptions is attenuated by political knowledge.     

Group and Leadership Effects on Social Anxiety Experienced During an Exercise Class1

This study examined the effects of the group environment and group leadership style on social anxiety experienced by participants (N= 90) in a 40‐min step aerobics class. In a 2±2 factorial design, group environment (enriched/bland) was manipulated, along with the fitness instructor's leadership style (enriched/bland). Participants in the enriched group condition had significantly higher social anxiety (M= 15.1) than did those in the bland group condition (M= 12.0, p < 0.05). Also, participants tended to have less social anxiety when the instructor used an enriched leadership style (M= 12.4) than when she used a bland leadership style (M= 14.8, p= 0. 08). Discussion focuses on aspects of the social environment that can affect social anxiety during group exercise classes.     

Structure of the Indonesian Emotion Lexicon

Based on a prototype approach to emotion concepts, two studies were conducted: (1) to identify the mental state words that Indonesian speakers are most certain name emotions ( perasaan hati ) and (2) to map the hierarchical and family-resemblance structure of the top 124 emotion concepts. As in an earlier study of emotion terms in American English (Shaver, Schwartz, Kirson, & O'Connor, 1987), cluster analysis of sorting data collected in Indonesia revealed five basic-level emotion categories: cinta (love), senang (happiness), marah (anger), kawatir/takut (anxiety/fear), and sedih (sadness). Also in line with the American results, the five basic-level categories formed two large categories at the superordinate level: positive emotions and negative emotions. Each of the five basic-level categories contained several subordinate-level categories, totaling 31 in all. The results suggest that the emotion lexicons, and corresponding conceptualizations of the emotion domain, in Indonesia and the U.S.A. are similar at the superordinate and basic levels but somewhat variable at the subordinate level. This outcome – like other kinds of psychological research on emotions and emotion concepts – suggests that the gross structure of representations of the emotion domain are similar worldwide, perhaps for biological reasons, but that different cultures make different fine-grained distinctions and emphasize different subordinate-level emotion concepts.     

Construct validation of a state version of the Social Physique Anxiety Scale among young women

This study examined the validity of a state version of the Social Physique Anxiety Scale (Hart, Leary & Rejeski, 1989) by conducting tests of concurrent and discriminative validation. Participants were four separate samples of young women (N=221) who exercised ≤ 2 days/week and who participated in various experiments examining body image and self-presentation. Participants' scores on the state SPAS (S-SPAS) were significantly correlated, in expected directions, with scores on both trait and state measures of body image and self-presentation, and with body mass index (BMI). In addition, S-SPAS scores discriminated between women who exercised in a mixed-sex versus a same-sex environment, but trait SPAS scores did not. Together, these results provide evidence of construct validity of a state version of the SPAS and demonstrate that social physique anxiety can be conceptualized and measured as a situational variable. The S-SPAS, rather than the trait SPAS, should be employed in experiments designed to detect differences in state social physique anxiety.     

Growing Up in Violent Communities: Do Family Conflict and Gender Moderate Impacts on Adolescents’ Psychosocial Development?

This study examined the moderating effects of family conflict and gender on the relationship between community violence and psychosocial development at age 18. The study sample consisted of 728 children and families who were part of the Infant Health and Development Program study of low-birth-weight, pre-term infants. In this sample, adolescent psychosocial outcomes were predicted by community violence differently for male and female children and based on their experiences of conflict at home. For male children, being in a high conflict family as a child exacerbated the negative effects of community violence such that internalizing problems (depression and anxiety) and risk-taking behaviors increased as community violence increased, while being in a low conflict family protected the child against the negative impacts of the community. For female adolescents, there were no moderating effects of family conflict on the relationship between community violence and externalizing problems. Moderating effects for internalizing problems demonstrated that being in low conflict families did not serve as protection against community violence for girls as was demonstrated for boys. These findings demonstrate the long-term effects of community violence on child development, highlighting the importance of gender and family context in the development of internalizing and externalizing problems.     

An evidence-based group coping intervention for women living with HIV and history of childhood sexual abuse

Women living with HIV/AIDS and a history of childhood sexual abuse often exhibit sexual trauma symptoms and elevated rates of HIV-risk behaviors. In this paper, we describe a coping skills group intervention that reduced traumatic stress and sexual-risk behavior in a recent randomized clinical trial. We focused on clinical issues that emerged among female participants receiving the intervention. Clinical observations showed that recognizing connections between trauma, psychological distress, and high risk behaviors was a new and powerful experience for many participants. Participants successfully applied psychoeducational material, expressing an increased sense of power and control over their relationships and behaviors as they developed more adaptive cognitive and behavioral skills. Women expressed high levels of satisfaction with the intervention. Recommendations for clinical practice are provided.     

Burnout,Secondary Traumatic Stress,and Social Support

The current study examines the extent to which selected work-related variables differentially predict burnout and secondary traumatic stress (STS) and the degree to which social support mitigates both of these occupational stress syndromes. Multiple regression performed on responses from 331 professional chaplains found that: (1) the number of years worked in the same employment position was positively associated with burnout but not STS; (2) STS, but not burnout, was positively associated with the number of hours spent per week counseling patients who had had a traumatic experience; and (3) social support was negatively related to burnout and STS. Only specific sources of social support (supervisory support and family support), however, were negatively associated with burnout. Results highlight the need for counselors to be attuned to not only their clients but also to their own inner dynamics in order to mitigate the possible deleterious effects of their work.     

Orthography influences the perception and production of speech

One intriguing question in language research concerns the extent to which orthographic information impacts on spoken word processing. Previous research has faced a number of methodological difficulties and has not reached a definitive conclusion. Our research addresses these difficulties by capitalizing on recent developments in the area of word learning. Participants were trained to criterion on a set of associations between novel pictures and novel spoken words. Spelling-sound consistent or spelling-sound inconsistent spellings were introduced on the 2nd day, and the influence of these spellings on speech processing was assessed on the 3rd day. Results showed significant orthographic effects on speech perception and speech production in a situation in which spelling-sound consistency was manipulated with perfect experimental control. Results are discussed in terms of a highly interactive language system in which there is a rapid and automatic flow of activation in both directions between orthographic and phonological representations.     

Journal of Counseling & Development Publication Patterns: Author and Article Characteristics From 1994 to 2009

Publication patterns of articles in the Journal of Counseling & Development from 1994 to 2009 were reviewed. Trends over time were analyzed in article content (e.g., type, content topic) and author demographic characteristics (i.e., gender, nation of domicile, and employment setting). Of particular interest because of the scientific underpinnings of the counseling profession, research articles were analyzed specifically for type of research approach, classification, methodology, sample, sample size, and statistics used.