Naturalistic Research

Naturalistic research is offered as an alternative to the more familiar hypothesis-testing methods of research. Naturalistic research is disciplined inquiry conducted through personal, long-term contact between the researcher and the object of research. Rather than arbitrarily operationalizing the variables and specifying the hypotheses in advance of contact with the case, the meanings held by persons involved with the case and the effects of the context on the case are allowed to emerge from the data and thus become the objects of study. In this article the assumptions of the methodology of naturalistic inquiry are contrasted with those underlying traditional hypothesis-testing methods.     

Cross-Cultural Family Therapy — A Malaysian Experience

This case report illustrates the possibilities and difficulties of family therapy in a non-Western culture. Malaysia is a truly multiracial society with diverse ethnic groups having different religions, languages, and cutural patterns of relationships. In addition, the nation as a whole, and each ethnic group in particular, is in the process of cultural change, which produces stress on the traditional family's style of relationships. The therapists working in this culture are often crossing religious, linguistic, and socioeconomic barriers, as well as encountering the cultural pressures placed upon families. We will formulate some general problems in cross-cultural psychotherapy, discuss some aspects of this specific culture and family with a case report, and offer some suggestions for handling problems in family therapy under these circumstances.     

RECRUITMENT EVALUATION: THE CASE FOR ASSESSING THE QUALITY OF APPLICANTS ATTRACTED

We argue that assessing attraction outcomes is critical to systematic improvement of recruitment effectiveness and offer a new assessment framework that can be adapted by all organizations for any position in any staffing scheme. These methods (a) permit outcomes of different recruitment processes–attraction, status maintenance, and gaining job acceptance–to be evaluated independently, (b) support concurrent evaluations of attraction outcomes, (c) enable cost-benefit analyses of alternative recruitment processes, (d) allow meaningful comparisons of applicants from different recruitment events, and (e) support more aggressive management of the recruitment function than is otherwise possible. An illustrative example demonstrates these methods using attraction outcome data from 5 organizations' recruitment of associate engineers and shows that not only do attraction outcomes differ, the value of those differences can be substantial.     

Functions of Christian Prayer in the Coping Process

This research project sought to examine the multiple functions that prayer serves in the coping process for members of Christian groups. We used concept mapping to describe and organize a small group of participants' perceptions concerning the functions of prayer when coping with personal difficulties, as well as examined the frequency and perceived effectiveness of these prayer functions. The number and variety of items generated by participants indicates that prayer can be used in multiple ways to deal with personal problems. Inspection of these items and the resulting concept map yielded three bipolar dimensions that describe a variety of prayer functions: approach/avoidance; internal focus/external focus; and deferring/self-directing. The arrangement of items also corresponded roughly to a three-factor structure found in several existing coping measures. Participants reported that the most effective prayer functions involve seeking guidance and expressing gratitude .     

ROGER HAIGHT'S MEDIATING CHRISTOLOGY

Roger Haight's Christology is an instance of distinctively modern Vermittlungstheologie, to be distinguished from biblical or traditional versions of mediation because it employs an apologetic method to restore putatively lost Christological immediacies. In so far as such a theology seek to communicate (mediate) Christian doctrine “in a language of commonly shared principles”, it cannot do justice to Jesus Christ's singularity—although the best way to further criticize any mediating Christology would be by developing an alternative neither traditionalist, modernist, or mediating.