Counselling foreign students: A review of strategies

This article focuses on the unique counselling needs of foreign students as reflected from a review of the literature. As more and more students from developing countries opt to further their education in the West, knowledge about counselling foreign students is of increasing interest. Distinctive aspects of foreign student clients and the typical problems faced by them are described. The issues which need to be addressed and the competencies which need to be developed in order to effectively counsel foreign students are discussed. Finally, specific strategies for counselling foreign students are suggested in the context of general guidelines for cross-cultural counselling.     

THE IMPORTANCE OF NONGENETIC INFLUENCES ON ROMANTIC LOVE STYLES: A Twin-Family Study

Research in several disciplines reveals large individual differences in orientations to romantic love, yet the origins of the differences have been unclear In this first behavior genetic study of romantic love, biometric model fitting reveals that in contrast to other personality and attitude domains, where genetic factors account for approximately 50% of the reliable variance and shared environment has little effect, individual differences in romantic love are due almost exclusively to environment Moreover, the common family environment plays a sizable role in determining love styles, a finding compatible with theories stressing the importance of family interactions in personality development     

Accreditation Standards for University and College Counseling Centers

The accreditation standards outlined in the article are used by the International Association of Counseling Services, Inc., as the basis for the formal accreditation of college and university counseling programs throughout the United States and Canada. They reflect the program elements and practice standards that are deemed essential in a counseling center that provides high-quality services to students.     

An additional measure of availability derived from theOxford English Dictionary

In order to develop an additional measure of availability for the nouns from Paivio, Yuille, and Madigan’s (1968) list, we used a CD-ROM version of theOxford English Dictionary (OED) to obtain the number of times a word was used to define other words. This variable was added to Rubin and Friendly’s (1986) set of measures for these words. In multiple regression analyses, our measure proved to be a useful predictor of free recall. These results suggest that the OED may be useful for providing additional psycholinguistic measures.     

An empirical study of the diathesis-stress theory of disease

One thousand, one hundred and twenty-one Jewish concentration camp survivors were compared with 367 Jewish controls who had not been in a concentration camp, and had not lost any family members in such a camp. Of interest was the mortality of camp and comparison groups, on the hypothesis that the stress of being in a camp would adversely affect inmates. It was found that former camp inmates were over twice as likely to die of cancer, coronary heart diesease, or other causes as the comparison subjects of similar age and sex composition, and that severity of stress was correlated with mortality in the expected direction. Diathesis, determined by means of a special interviewer-administrated questionnaire, was found to interact synergistically with stress in producing high mortality.     

Optimism and coping as determinants of psychosocial adjustment to rheumatoid arthritis

Psychosocial adjustment in 66 patients with chronic rheumatoid arthritis, with a mean duration of 12 years with the disease, were evaluated in a prospective design, with 62% of the sample followed up 16 months later. It was predicted that dispositional optimism would predict adjustment over time and that perceived support and perceived control would be related to psychosocial adjustment at the time of concurrent measurement. At Time 1, psychosocial adjustment was associated with greater optimism and perceived support and less disability. Optimism at Time 1 was the only significant predictor of changes in adjustment at Time 2 controlling for Time 1 adjustment and Time 2 disability. It was found that optimism temporally precedes increases in psychosocial adjustment. In terms of coping strategies, wishful thinking was related to poorer social adjustment, whereas problem-focused coping was marginally related to positive adjustment. Neither coping strategy predicted adjustment across time. Optimism at Time 1 did predict problem-focused coping at Time 2. Perceived social support regarding a specific circumstance at a given point in time enables one to persist in solving a task. Interventions to enhance the quality of life of individuals coping with progressive deteriorative disease must look at the influence of their behavior and attitude on those who provide care for them.     

Reflections on change in science and religion

Science and the Catholic church are both conservative, slow-to-change institutions. However, science has institutionalized procedures that ensure that ample amounts of criticism of currently accepted theories and methodologies will always be present. This arrangement of continuous conjectures and refutation in science ensures often slow but steady change. Because supporters often think of religions as trafficking in timeless truths, criticism of church beliefs and practices (even when intended to stimulate reflection and improvement) is frequently seen as being disloyal to the institution. Because of the growing crises caused by world overpopulation, I argue that the Catholic church's opposition to all artificial methods of birth control now lacks whatever moral force it might have had when originally promulgated. By highlighting theological perspectives that might be appropriate for the ecological realities of the 21st century, I hope the church will see the wisdom of reevaluating many of its positions in the light of rapidly approaching ecological imperatives.     

Facilitator influence in facilitated communication

The use of facilitated communication with individuals with autism has generated considerable controversy over the past several years. Only recently has research begun appearing which examines the procedure using reasonable scientific controls to establish the validity of this form of communication. The present study assessed the validity of facilitated communication and evaluated the effects of facilitator influence with seven individuals with autism and mental retardation. Three individuals showed clear evidence of facilitator influence, another three showed no such influence, and one subject performed at chance levels. A follow-up session with the three subjects who showed no facilitator influence demonstrated that they also showed no unexpected language competence compared to their measured IQ and to assessment under standard conditions. Results are discussed in terms of significance for facilitated communication in general and in terms of the utility of the methodology as a means of demonstrating language competence or facilitator influence.     

Human sensitivity to temporal proximity: The role of spatial and temporal speed gradients

Estimates of temporal proximity (sometimes called time-to-collision) from random-dot flow patterns are shown to be based upon retinal speed, rather than upon changes in dot density. Neither the spatial nor the temporal gradient of motion is essential to the task, but estimates can be made from either alone. Performance is unaffected by the addition of rotational motion, suggesting that observers axe capable of extracting the radial component of motion, which contains all the relevant information, from complex stimuli.