Dreams of Life and Death

This article examines the personal and archetypal aspects of images from six dreams that occurred during the illness and after the death of the dreamer's sister. It connects the dream images to the unresolved issues in the relationship between siblings and to the dreamer's own reflections on typology. It also explores the larger questions concerning the psychological process of grief, the common occurrence of synchronistic events related to death and loss, and includes Jung's comments on life and death. Finally, the article suggests solutions to our very human fears of death and encourages the development of our capacity to discover a personal mythology, a working sacred story, of “the beyond” or “life” after death.     

An Indecent Proposal: The Dual Functions of Indirect Speech

People often use indirect speech, for example, when trying to bribe a police officer by asking whether there might be “a way to take care of things without all the paperwork.” Recent game theoretic accounts suggest that a speaker uses indirect speech to reduce public accountability for socially risky behaviors. The present studies examine a secondary function of indirect speech use: increasing the perceived moral permissibility of an action. Participants report that indirect speech is associated with reduced accountability for unethical behavior, as well as increased moral permissibility and increased likelihood of unethical behavior. Importantly, moral permissibility was a stronger mediator of the effect of indirect speech on likelihood of action, for judgments of one's own versus others' unethical action. In sum, the motorist who bribes the police officer with winks and nudges may not only avoid public punishment but also maintain the sense that his actions are morally permissible.     

Gender Differences in Experiences with Couples Treatment for IPV

Evidence suggests that conjoint treatment can be effective for certain violent couples in certain situations (Finkel in Rev Gen Psychol 11:193–207, 2007; LaTaillade et al. in J Cogn Psychother 20:393–410, 2006; Fals-Stewart et al. in J Consult Clin Psych 73:239–248, 2005; Stith et al. in J Marital Fam Ther 29(3):407–426, 2003). However, not as much is known about which aspects of conjoint treatment make a difference, nor if male and female participants experience these elements of treatment differently. Knowing which components of couples’ treatment clients perceive as helpful—and whether their perceptions differ by gender—will allow us to redefine models with an eye toward making them more effective. In this study we used qualitative methods to examine the aspects of a particular couples’ treatment program (Stith and McCollum in Aggress Violent Beh 16(4):312–318, 2011) that clients found useful while also considering the differences between men’s and women’s responses. Fourteen couples, in which the male had been identified as the primary aggressor, were interviewed multiple times to gain their perspectives about components of the program they found helpful and their suggestions for program improvement. Themes are analyzed by gender. Implications for treatment and future research are provided.     

Analysis of Live Modeling Plus Prompting and Video Modeling for Teaching Imitation to Children with Autism

Previous researchers have demonstrated that training in imitation can significantly improve the learning capabilities of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and that children within this population show a preference for video presentations. Video‐based instruction has been used to teach a variety of behaviors to individuals with ASD. However, only a small number of studies have examined the use of video modeling to teach initial imitation. Furthermore, there are limited and conflicting data on the effectiveness of a video modeling procedure that does not incorporate prompting when used to teach imitation to young children with ASD. Thus, the purpose of this study was to evaluate a video‐modeling‐alone procedure and a live‐modeling‐with‐prompting procedure for teaching imitation to young children with ASD. The results suggest that the live modeling with prompting procedure was more effective, and implications related to this finding are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Low-income African American women's attempts to convince their main partner to use condoms

In this cross-sectional study the authors examine condom use attempts and condom use among 305 high-risk, low-income African American women who reported having a main partner. Women who had recently attempted to convince their main partner to use condoms were almost 10 times more likely to have recently used condoms with their partner than women who had not made an attempt. Among the subsample of 116 women who had recently made a condom use attempt with their main partner, having a history of childhood abuse and having one's main partner raise infidelity questions in response to the condom use attempt were negatively associated with recent condom use with this partner. Findings provide initial insights into the importance of women's condom use attempts, as well as subgroups of women who may encounter special challenges convincing their main partner to use condoms.     

Imitation Is the Sincerest Form of Cheating: The Influence of Direct Knowledge and Attitudes on Academic Dishonesty

What effect does witnessing other students cheat have on one's own cheating behavior? What roles do moral attitudes and neutralizing attitudes (justifications for behavior) play when deciding to cheat? The present research proposes a model of academic dishonesty which takes into account each of these variables. Findings from experimental (vignette) and survey methods determined that seeing others cheat increases cheating behavior by causing students to judge the behavior less morally reprehensible, not by making rationalization easier. Witnessing cheating also has unique effects, controlling for other variables.     

Seeing “us vs. them”: Minimal group effects on the neural encoding of faces

Faces are inherently social, but the extent to which social group information affects early face processing remains unknown. To address this issue, we examined cortical activity associated with structural encoding of novel ingroup vs. outgroup faces. Participants were assigned to one of two arbitrarily-defined groups using the minimal group procedure, and event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants categorized faces of people identified as members of their novel ingroup vs. outgroup. Our analysis focused on the N170 component of the ERP, which peaks 170 ms following face onset and reflects face structural encoding. Ingroup faces elicited larger N170 amplitudes than outgroup faces, suggesting that mere group information affects this initial stage of face perception. These findings show that social categories influence how we “see” faces, thus providing insight into the process through which categorizations may lead to biased intergroup perceptions.     

National Survey of Psychologists' Test Feedback Training,Supervision, and Practice: A Mixed Methods Study

In this empirical, mixed methods study, we explored test feedback training, supervision, and practice among psychologists, focusing specifically on how feedback is provided to clients and whether feedback skills are taught in graduate programs. Based on a 48.5% return rate, this national survey of clinical, counseling, and school psychologists' suggests psychologists provide test feedback to clients but inconsistently. Most respondents, 91.7%, indicated they give verbal feedback at least some of the time, whereas 35% do so every time. However, 2.8% indicated they never give feedback. A negative correlation exists for clinical psychologists between years since graduation and providing verbal feedback. Of particular interest, approximately one third of respondents indicated predoctoral coursework, practica, and internship were of little-to-no help in preparing them to provide feedback. Also, feedback training in predoctoral coursework, practica, and internship was not correlated to actually providing feedback. There was, however, a significant correlation between postdoctoral training and providing feedback. Consistent with existing ethical exceptions, the most frequent reason for not providing feedback was using assessments in forensic settings. Individuals who indicated their training was not helpful cited “trial and error” and self-instruction as ways in which they learned feedback skills. We discuss implications and suggestions for feedback training, research, and practice.