A look at social support patterns

The issue of how to provide support for patients with a life-threatening illness continues to be a problem for pastors and chaplains. The authors discuss the significance and reasons for looking at the present day social support patterns as an unnatural problem. Unless the unnatural nature of support in the modern medical setting is understood pastors and chaplains can miss the target on answering the question of how to provide support. The authors conclude the article by addressing this question from the position of reserving the unnatural nature of providing support.Dr. Bergen is Professor of Psychiatry, Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, NH 03755. Dr. Nelson is affiliated with the Chaplain Service, Veterans Administration Center, White River Junction, VT 05001 and Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, Dartmouth Medical School.     

Parent and child causal attributions during clinical interviews

Attributions made by children and their parents for the cause of the child's clinical problem were monitored during assessment interviews. Results support previously observed differences obtained through questionnaires, with parents making more attributions than their children to characteristics of the child. This pattern was affected by variations in interview format. Parents and children differed in the locus of their attributions when interviewed individually, but these differences were not present when families were interviewed with both parents and children present. Implications for the methodology of attribution research with child-clinical populations are highlighted.     

Response-contingent stimulation as a treatment for developmental failure in infancy

An 8-month-old infant with a developmental quotient of $\text{1}\text{1}\text{2}$ months was given response-contingent stimulation using a pressure-sensitive pillow which turned an overhead mobile. The subject learned to control the mobile by kicking the pillow, and concurrently began smiling at both the mobile and her mother for the first time. After mastering three contingencies on arm, head, and leg movement, she displayed what appeared to be a Piagetian coordinated secondary circular reaction, in which one response provided 4 seconds of access to another contingency. Although the subject remains severely retarded, the results suggest that some forms of developmental delay may be treated at least in part as a failure to develop contingency awareness.     

Effects of retention interval and modality on sensory and semantic trace information

Subjects studied a long list of individual words that were presented either visually or auditorily. Recall was tested immediately or after a filled delay by using either word endings or taxonomic categories as extralist retrieval cues. Two interactions were of particular interest. First, word ending cues were just as effective as taxonomic cues on the immediate test. On the delayed test, however, ending cues were less effective. This result suggests that sensory information encoded about a word decays at a faster rate than semantic information. Second, although modality had no observable influence on the taxonomic cues, word ending cues were more effective when all items were shown visually than when they were presented auditorily. Taken together, these findings indicate that the visual features of words are encoded at study and that this information can be accessed during test if it is recapitulated by the retrieval cue shortly after acquisition.     

A Peer Assertiveness-Training Program

The demand for assertiveness-training groups and the effective use of paraprofessionals in skills training were influential factors in the authors' decision to develop a peer assertiveness-training program. This program extends the availability of assertiveness training to students through the use of paraprofessionals as group leaders. This article describes a format for developing a peer assertiveness-training program and is based on the authors' experience conducting this program during the 1977–78 academic year at Pennsylvania State University.     

The use of teachers as behavioral observers

The effect of using teachers as behavioral observers on both student and teacher behavior was examined with eight teachers and 32 elementary school children. The frequency of prompts (but not praise or criticism) to those students observed by the teacher increased significantly from nonobserver to teacher observed experimental phases. In addition, students observed by the teacher showed more change in appropriate behavior than students who were not observed. The significance of these findings for research and therapy is discussed.     

Training teachers as mediators: Efficacy of a workshop versus the bug-in-the-ear technique

The implementation of behavior modification techniques in school settings often relies on effective training of teachers as mediators. At the conclusion of Phase I, the performance of an experimental group of 13 teachers who were taught behavior modification by means of an inservice workshop was compared with a no-treatment control group. Although the experimental group scored higher on a paper-and-pencil test of behavior modification, there were no differences between the two groups on selected observed in-class behaviors. During Phase II, half of the experimental group of teachers received two hours of bug-in-the-ear (BIE) training in their own classrooms. BIE resulted in changes in the classroom behaviors of praise and contingency statements. These results are discussed in terms of the situation and response mode specificity of behavior and in terms of the implications for future workshops and research.     

Personality Characteristics of Women of Distinction

Eight hundred and sixty-three women psychologists, scientists, artists and writers, and politicians were compared on the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire through a multiple discriminant analysis. The four groups were set apart by personality characteristics adaptive to their professional role expectations. Politicians were more sociable, conscientious, self-controlled, and group-dependent; artists and writers were more affected by their feelings, spontaneous and natural, and inclined to follow their own urges; scientists were the more reserved, serious, and tough-minded; and psychologists were more flexible, liberal, and accepting. When contrasted with women in the general population, the four groups of career women were all found to be brighter, more assertive, more adventurous, and less conservative.     

Internet-Based Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: A Transdiagnostic Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis for Mental Health Outcomes

Internet-based acceptance and commitment therapy (iACT) primarily targets the process of psychological flexibility. Its accessibility and low-intensity delivery are applicable across different treatment and prevention scenarios. This transdiagnostic meta-analysis reviews the effectiveness of iACT on anxiety, depression, quality of life, and psychological flexibility across individuals with different psychological and somatic conditions/complaints, or undiagnosed complaints. Seven databases were searched for randomized controlled trials that reported on anxiety, depression, quality of life, and psychological flexibility outcomes from iACT in any adult population. Engagement with iACT was summarized and methodological and population-related variables were investigated as potential moderators of effectiveness. Across 25 studies, small pooled effects were found for all outcomes at post-assessment and maintained at follow-up time-points. Interventions with therapist guidance demonstrated greater effectiveness in improving depression and psychological flexibility outcomes compared to nonguided iACT, and populations defined by a psychological condition or symptoms (e.g., depressed samples) demonstrated greater improvements in anxiety compared to nonclinical or somatic populations (e.g., chronic pain samples or students). Participants completed on average 75.77% of iACT treatments. While we found iACT to be effective in improving and maintaining mental health outcomes across diverse populations, there was limited evidence of reliable, clinically significant effects. PROSPERO registration number: CRD42020140086.