Counseling and moral change

Conclusion Counseling can be and often is an instrument of moral change. More precisely, we can say that as counseling approaches the point of being maximally successful, it produces significant personality change. This change is manifested in the moral sphere of life and is marked by the following characteristics: 1) the individual's moral perspective tends to become more adequate and realistic, 2) the individual's moral response tends to become more authentic, and 3) the individual's ability to be the locus of moral action and the object of divine forgiveness is increased and deepened. Each characteristic is a vital and essential contribution to morality in the deepest sense of that word, that is, to morality as authentic fulfillment of self within a community of persons.     

Why is it so hard to do my work? The challenge of attention residue when switching between work tasks

In many jobs, employees must manage multiple projects or tasks at the same time. A typical workday often entails switching between several work activities, including projects, tasks, and meetings. This paper explores how such work design affects individual performance by focusing on the challenge of switching attention from one task to another. As revealed by two experiments, people need to stop thinking about one task in order to fully transition their attention and perform well on another. Yet, results indicate it is difficult for people to transition their attention away from an unfinished task and their subsequent task performance suffers. Being able to finish one task before switching to another is, however, not enough to enable effective task transitions. Time pressure while finishing a prior task is needed to disengage from the first task and thus move to the next task and it contributes to higher performance on the next task.     

The effects of cystic fibrosis on couples: marital satisfaction, emotions, and coping strategies

An earlier diagnosis and better overall multidisciplinary care enable people suffering from Cystic Fibrosis (CF) to have a life expectancy of 40. Consequently, new populations and questions about the development of the life of couples have arisen. This study by questionnaires takes a first look at marital adjustment, anxiety, depression, and emotion focused, social support focused, and problem focused coping strategies in 16 CF patients and their partners. As a whole, the couples' marital adjustment level was good; it was higher for men who were patients than men who were partners, and vice versa for women. Anxiety was high for at least one partner in 10 of the couples; depression, for at least one partner in seven of them. The participants seem to use coping strategies to a lesser extent than the general population. The results are discussed in terms of how the quality of life as a couple with one partner suffering from CF is affected by the proper mutual adjustment of the partners.     

Self-Differentiation in Christian Perspective

This article examines the concept of self-differentiation in family systems theory and therapy from an explicitly theological perspective and seeks to advance the discussion of its pastoral applications begun by the late and revered Edwin Friedman.     

Toward a Shortened Measure of Adaptive Selling

This study investigates the psychometric properties of the adaptive selling scale (ADAPTS) developed by Spiro and Weitz (1990). A multiple industry sample of 1042 salespeople is employed, which provides the ability to more fully explore the dimensions of adaptive selling within a diverse cross-section of sales situations. An assessment utilizing confirmatory factor analysis suggests a shortened version of the scale consisting of five items that represent four of the facets originally proposed by Spiro and Weitz (1990). Based on its psychometric properties and measurement efficiency for business applications, this scale (labeled ADAPTS-SV, for shortened version) is recommended for future applications where appropriate.     

Object salience is transiently represented whereas object presence is not: evidence from temporal order judgment

We investigated the temporal dynamics in the processing of object salience and object presence by using a temporal-order-judgment task. In two experiments, observers were presented with displays containing one or two orientation singletons embedded in a background of homogeneously oriented lines. Observers had the task to indicate the temporal order of two colour changes which occurred either at two singleton locations differing in salience (experiment 1) or at two locations differing in singleton presence (experiment 2). Singleton displays were presented for a short or a long duration prior to the colour changes. The results demonstrated that salience affects the perceived temporal order of two colour changes more strongly after a short than after a long presentation duration (experiment 1). Singleton presence affects the perceived temporal order of two colour changes equally after a short and a long presentation duration (experiment 2). The results suggest that object salience and object presence are differently represented in the visual system.