Convening Strategies in Family Therapy

Specific strategies for assembling or convening significant and often reluctant family members for family therapy seem undeveloped in the literature. The author develops and organizes specific convening methods and exemplifies these methods for clinical application. Methods adopted from strategic family therapists, including Haley, Selvini Palazzoli, and Watzlawick, are presented.     

The Vietnam Veteran Revisited: Implications for Counseling

Vietnam veterans are plagued by an emotional sense of having failed at what society once considered an important job; careful attention, therefore, must be paid to the type of counseling that counselors give them. This article discusses common concerns among the Vietnam veterans and offers suggestions for initiating programs of service.     

Relations between parent–child affect and synchrony and cognitive outcome at 5 years of age

This investigation involved the longitudinal assessment of 30 preterm and 39 full-term infants from 2 to 5 years of age. Measures of cognitive outcome at 2 and 5 years of age and mother-child dyadic synchrony and affect during free-play interaction were obtained at 5 years of age. Correlational and regression analyses indicated that 5-year cognitive outcome was predicted by 2-year cognitive status, mother education, and 5-year dyadic interaction. In addition, 5-year maternal positive affect contributed independently to children's cognitive status at age 5, above and beyond the contributions of early cognitive status and maternal education. Also, affect and synchrony interacted in predicting lower cognitive abilities. Findings are discussed in relation to the importance of maternal affect and synchronous interactions in transactional explanations of development during early childhood.     

On the instability of attachment style ratings

We examined the stability of ratings on the Hazan and Shaver (1987) single-item attachment style scale in a number of data sets, gathered by us and other researchers. Approximately 30% of subjects overall changed their attachment style classifications over a relatively short time span (ranging from 1 week to several months). The highest rate of instability was observed in subjects who classified themselves as anxious-ambivalent–the majority of whom changed their ratings from one time to the next. Given these findings, we explore the methodological and conceptual implications of instability in attachment style ratings. With regard to the former, we question the current practice of selecting subjects for participation in research based on responses to the attachment style questionnaire administered on a different occasion. Our findings suggest that a substantial proportion would change their style rating in the interim. In terms of conceptualization, we examine a number of different explanations for the observed instability and propose that it may reflect variability in the underlying construct, rather than a lack of continuity in style or unreliability of measurement. From this perspective, an individual's response to an attachment style questionnaire reflects the relational schema that is activated at that moment, rather than an enduring general disposition or trait. Stability in ratings is therefore neither assumed nor expected.     

EMPLOYEE ATTITUDES AND CUSTOMER SATISFACTION: MAKING THEORETICAL AND EMPIRICAL CONNECTIONS

Previous research has established links between employee attitudes and customer satisfaction. Little theory has been used to help explain and build on the results of these studies. A theoretical model of the employee attitude-customer satisfaction process is proposed based on Bagozzi's (1992) model of attitudes, intentions and behavior. Employee attitudes and intentions, and customer satisfaction data from a service-oriented organization with 160 offices is used to provide an initial test of the usefulness of the model. Cross-validations of the model with and without common method variance were conducted. The results provide strong support for the model. Suggestions are offered on extensions of the model in future research.     

A Case for Uncertainty in Career Counseling

This article suggests that an important aspect of the career decision-making process is the awareness that uncertainty (i.e., “1 don't know”) is normal, natural, and most likely unavoidable. The essential message of this article is that it is as useful, and even vocationally mature, to be both certain and uncertain about making a career decision.     

An Addendum to Measuring the Agreement Among Several Holland Codes

The contents of this short article suggest that alternative methods for measuring agreement among Holland (J. L. Holland, A. B. Powell, & B. A. Fritzsche, 1994) codes are appropriate and helpful.     

Understanding How Creative Thinking Skills,Attitudes and Behaviors Work Together: A Causal Process Model

Managers (N = 112) from a large international consumer goods manufacturer participated in a field experiment in which they learned and applied the Simplex process of creative thinking to solve real management problems. The interrelationships among six attitudinal and behavioral skill variables learned during the training were measured to improve understanding of how these variables contribute to the process. Predicted relationships were tested and a best‐fit causal model was developed. Behavioral skill in generating quantity of options was the most important variable overall: it was directly associated with behavioral skill in both generating quality options and evaluating options. The key attitudinal skill and the second most important variable overall was the preference for avoiding premature evaluation of options (deferral of judgment). The other attitude measured, the preference for active divergence, played only an indirect role in the process.     

A Conversation Analysis of the ‘Acquiescence’ of People with Learning Disabilities

Contrary to received wisdom, ‘acquiescence bias’ in the responses of people with learning disabilities to questioning is not a simple phenomenon, and certainly not one to be laid at the door solely of people with learning disabilities themselves. Rather, it is probably an artefact of the conversational organization of interviews as tests. Analysis of Quality of Life assessment interviews show, we argue, that there is probably no uniform ‘acquiescent’ motivation which accounts for all inconsistencies and agreements that might be produced under such circumstances. Rather, the interview's logic produces a range of pseudo-acquiescent responses in the face of interviewers reformulations, and their pursuit of plausible and acceptable answers. There is also evidence of ‘anti-acquiescence’, in which respondents resist pressure to change their answers. We conclude that the traditional notion of submissive, willing-to-please acquiescence is probably unsustainable on current evidence, and ought to be replaced by a more respectful account of the linguistic and interpersonal competence of people with learning disabilities.     

Communicating Intentions Through Nonverbal Behaviors Conscious and Nonconscious Encoding of Liking

The fundamental components of interpersonal transactions at the nonverbal level often include the cognitively held intention of one person to increase or decrease affiliation with his or her partner, the encoding of this intention into behavioral displays, and the decoding of the behavioral displays by the other. Nonverbal encoding of relational information may be conducted at less than conscious levels of information processing although intentions may be held consciously. A study was conducted in which naive confederates were induced to either increase or decrease their displays of liking for their partner. It was found that confederates’intentions to show increased or decreased liking toward their partners were positively correlated with the partners’liking for the confederate. However, less than one quarter of the confederates could demonstrate an accurate conscious awareness of the behaviors they used and how they used them. Of this small number, those who were given the conscious intention of showing decreased liking demonstrated the most conscious awareness of their nonverbal behaviors.