A counseling/pastoral approach to the homosexual client

This article focuses on a practical approach to dealing with homosexual concerns within a pastoral context. The manner in which a church worker and a mental health professional can practice co-therapy is detailed with some of the limitations and advantages associated with such a team outlined.     

The effects of control on perceived fairness of procedures and outcomes

On the basis of Thibaut and Walker's theory of procedural justice, it was predicted that subjects who experienced control through choosing a trial decision rule would be more satisfied with the outcome of a dispute and the conflict resolution procedure than would yoked subjects who were not given control. Two additional conditions were added to the design in order to investigate the extent to which control had an influence on trial evaluations independent of being allowed to discuss the rules and obtaining a preferred rule in the absence of actual choice. Regardless of role in the dispute (accuser, accused, or no knowledge) and the nature of the rule adopted, those subjects who exercised control through rule choice evaluated all aspects of the trial experience more positively than subjects who did not exercise control through rule choice. The results also revealed that discussion of the rules and obtaining the preferred rule without choice contributed positively to evaluations of the trial procedure and verdict.     

Disentangling Type A behavior: The roles of ambition,insensitivity, and anxiety

This study identified stable components of Type A behavior as usually defined, and examined their relationships with more traditional psychological constructs. Overall scores on the most popular Type A measure (a version of the Jenkins Activity Survey) were moderately associated with ambition but largely unrelated to measures of adjustment. An item analysis yielded subcomponents of Drivenness and Involvement. Drivenness was unrelated to ambition, but was positively related to anxiety and negatively related to interpersonal perceptiveness. Involvement was positively related to ambition and to interpersonal competence. It is suggested that the Jenkins Activity Survey measures a heterogeneous mixture of constructive commitment and self-defeating responses that clouds its psychological interpretation.     

Age and cohort effects on personality factor scores across sexes and racial/ethnic groups

Substantial differences exist across ethnic groups and sexes in generational changes in status among groups residing in Hawaii. Despite these generational differences across groups, age differences in personality are remarkably consistent across sexes and racial/ethnic groups, and the few Sex x Age, Ethnicity x Age or Sex x Ethnicity x Age interactions account for little variance in scores. It is concluded that age/generational differences in personality factor scores in these populations result from age and not, to any major degree, from cohort effects.     

Focus shift and individual differences in the Sternberg memory-search task

One consistent finding in research using the memory search task developed by Sternberg (1966) is that negative set size has no effect on search reaction time, even when the negative set contains fewer items than the positive set. Such inefficient behavior appears to result from an intense positive focus generated by standard memory search task instructions. The present research was designed to explore the conditions under which a subject will switch focus to a smaller negative set. Two experiments were carried out using standard Sternberg instructions. The first experiment examined the effects of making the contents of the negative set explicit. The result was a shift to negative focus when the negative set was much smaller than the positive set. In the second experiment the size of the positive set was increased systematically to induce a shift to negative focus. The second experiment also examined the relationship between focus shift and measures of intelligence (Raven Progressive Matrices) and information storage capacity (digit span). The results are evidence that negative set size can affect reaction time in the memory search task, and that individual differences in ability to shift focus are related to intelligence.     

Multifactorial assessment of bulimia nervosa

We investigated a multifactorial approach to the assessment of bulimia nervosa by means of hierarchical factor analysis. Two hundred forty-five bulimia nervosa patients and 68 patients with either anorexia nervosa or eating disorders not otherwise specified were administered a self-report battery that was organized into 21 dimensions relevant to eating disorder patients. When dimensions from this battery were subjected to hierarchical factor analysis, support for bulimia nervosa as a unique diagnostic category was obtained. However, the emergence of 3 secondary factors and 6 primary factors suggests that bulimia nervosa can also be described more complexly. The emergence of a multifactorial model of bulimia nervosa that incorporates several existing undimensional models suggests the potential for both divergent and complicated clinical presentation in bulimia nervosa patients.     

Personality Characteristics and Self-esteem in Pet Owners and Non-owners

Previous research suggests that pet owners are psychologically different than non-owners in terms of self-esteem and other personality characteristics. In this study, 82 pet owners and 48 non-owners were tested on self-esteem, extraversion, neuroticism, and social self-esteem. Special emphasis was placed on highly attached pet owners compared with non-owners. Level of attachment was determined by scores from the CENSHARE pet attachment survey. No significant differences were found between the groups using analysis of variance and multivariate analysis of variance statistical procedures. It was concluded that pet owners and non-owners may not be different in terms of personality but may have become victims of stereotyping by both the general population and scientific researchers. Discussion was given to related significant findings and recommendations for further research.     

Newborns' preferential tracking of face-like stimuli and its subsequent decline.

Goren, Sarty, and Wu (1975) claimed that newborn infants will follow a slowly moving schematic face stimulus with their head and eyes further than they will follow scrambled faces or blank stimuli. Despite the far-reaching theoretical importance of this finding, it has remained controversial and been largely ignored. In Experiment 1 we replicate the basic findings of the study. In Experiment 2 we attempt a second replication in a different maternity hospital, and extend the original findings with evidence suggesting that both the particular configuration of features, and some aspects of the features themselves, are important for preferential tracking in the first hour of life. In Experiment 3 we use a different technique to trace the preferential tracking of faces over the first five months of life. The preferential tracking of faces declines during the second month. The possible causes and consequences of this observation are discussed.     

The Stroop congruency effect is more observable under a speed strategy than an accuracy strategy

Naming the ink color of an incongruent color word (e.g., RED printed in green) usually takes longer than naming the ink color of a color bar. However, when the ink matches the word (e.g., RED printed in red), naming tends to be faster. These phenomena are known as the STroop interference effect and the Stroop congruency effect, respectively. Although the interference effect has been robust and reliable across studies, the congruency effect tends to be elusive. It was hypothesized that this variation in outcomes might be related to subjects' response strategy. The experiment conducted to test this hypothesis induced either a speed or an accuracy strategy in two separate groups of subjects. Significant interference effects were found for both groups and the magnitudes did not differ. At the same time, the congruency effect was observed in the speed group but not in the accuracy group. These results suggest that researchers who wish to observe and study the Stroop congruency and interference effects should place special emphasis on speed. Implications of the study for a model of the Stroop effect are also discussed.