Conceptual models and functions of meditation in psychotherapy

Although meditation is increasingly being employed as an adjunct in psychotherapy, there has been practically no comprehensive evaluation of its usefulness in this respect. This paper seeks to address this issue through conceptual models of the meditation experience. It is concluded that meditation practice may be associated with the acquisition of some useful skills (e.g., focused attention), that practice may be physiologically relaxing, that meditation may decrease anxiety, insomnia and drug usage, while enhancing hypnotic induction and self-actualization. There is still no compelling evidence, however, that meditation practice is associated with unique state effects compared with other relaxational procedures. Those who appear to benefit most from meditation appear to be those who present with milder disorders. The clinical value of meditation, therefore, appears to be limited. Furthermore, the long-term objectives of meditation are not in general congruent with those of mainstream psychotherapy, as they go beyond therapeutic gain in the clinical sense.     

The Job Search Process: An Attitudinal and Behavioral Analysis

Job search attitudes and behaviors among college students were studied. Major job-seeking factors were identified and discussed in relation to job search experience.     

Liberal Arts Graduates and the Job Search: The Employer's Perspective

In a survey of recruiters whose companies hire liberal arts graduates, employers suggested the educational qualities they found most attractive and offered recommendations for the job search.     

Swazi children's understanding of time concepts: a Piagetian study

The development of conservation skills in tasks dealing with temporal and nontemporal concepts was investigated. Contrary to findings of previous researchers, time conservation tasks presented few difficulties for children from a non-technological culture. Consistent with the results of previous research, however, time conservation tasks did appear to be more difficult than related tasks employing similar materials.     

Differences in academic performance at school depending on handedness: matter for neuropathology?

Two studies found that left-handed children had significantly poorer academic records than did right-handed children, though the effect was small. Study 1 provided evidence that, for some academic disciplines, the important difference appeared to be between those children whose family history of handedness was concordant with their own handedness and those children whose family history of handedness was discordant with their own handedness. The inclusion of gender in asymmetry research was bolstered by Study 2. When predicting idiosyncrasies in left-handers' cognitive performance, it should be borne in mind that left-handers form a minority group as well as a neurologically distinct one.     

Selection, evocation, and manipulation

This article proposes three key mechanisms by which personality and social processes are intrinsically linked. Selection deals with the manner in which individuals choose to enter or avoid existing environments. Evocation is defined by the ways in which individuals unintentionally elicit predictable reactions from others in their social environments. Manipulation deals with the tactics that individuals use intentionally to alter, shape, exploit, or change the social environments they inhabit. Empirical findings from 57 dating couples (undergraduates), and previous research within social, personality, and developmental psychology, are used to illustrate the heuristic value of this framework.     

Fantasy proneness and psychopathology

Fantasy prone persons ("fantasizers") selected from "normal" populations report experiences associated with psychopathology in clinical populations (e.g., fantasies that reach hallucinatory proportions, difficulty discriminating reality from fantasy). In Study 1, we administered objective (MMPI) and projective (Rorschach) measures to high fantasy prone individuals (upper 4% of college population), medium fantasy prone individuals (middle range), and nonfantasizers (lowest 4%). Subjects who were fantasizers appeared to use fantasy for defensive or adaptive purposes compared with others and produced 8/9 modal code types on the MMPI. On the basis of the MMPI findings, a subset of fantasizers could be described as exhibiting a significant degree of psychopathology. In Study 2, a second sample of fantasy prone individuals could not be distinguished from comparison groups in contacts with professionals for help with psychological problems, use of psychotropic medication, or number of close friendships. Although fantasizers perceived themselves as less well adjusted than comparison subjects and reported greater difficulty in distinguishing fantasy from reality, most fantasizers rated their psychological functioning as adequate and above and did not differ from less fantasy prone subjects in ratings of positivity of self-concept. As demonstrated in Study 1, a subset of fantasizers did appear to be more pathological than other subjects were, with three fantasizers reporting a history of psychiatric hospitalizations. It is estimated that between 10 and 20% of fantasizers exhibit significant signs of maladjustment/psychopathology; however, as a rule, fantasy proneness does not appear to be antecedent to severe manifestations of psychopathology.     

Fusing Apples and Oranges: A Rejoinder to Carver & Scheier and to Fenigstein

ABSTRACT A simple parable is introduced that serves as an analogy to the private/public self-focus distinction The analogy elucidates that the reliability of the effects observed by the private/public research direction is not the focus of the Wicklund and Gollwitzer critique Rather, the critique questions the validity of the explanations offered More importantly, the analogy implies the conclusion that construing social dependency as an issue of self-focus does injustice to both the social dependency and self-focus concepts