Factors influencing therapist selection among gays,lesbians and bisexuals

For this study 609 gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals were surveyed with respect to openness about sexual orientation and preference for a therapist with a particular sexual orientation. Other factors considered important in selecting a therapist such as licensure, referral source, gender, cost and specialty were also examined. Data for this study was collected using two different methods. In the first method, data was collected from respondents subscribing to internet listervers serving gay, lesbian and bisexual subscribers. In the second, more traditional method, surveys were distributed by mail or hand delivered to various organizations serving gay, lesbian, and bisexual communities in two southwestern states. Findings suggest that significantly more lesbians than gay men and bisexuals in the e-mail sample prefer a therapist of the same sexual orientation. No significant relationships were found between degree of openness and importance of the therapist's sexual orientation. Other factors related to therapist preference were explored, and results are discussed.     

Changing attitudes of women towards family-related tasks in young adulthood

Sex Roles - This study adds to the research on sex-role attitudes by examining the importance women of varying age groups place upon marriage and family-related tasks of young adulthood. Two...     

A riboflavin tracer method for assessment of medication compliance in children

A series of studies was implemented to adapt a riboflavin tracer method of medication compliance detection that could be employed easily and accurately by parents in a behavioral program aimed at targeting and improving compliance in children. Results of these studies indicated that, with minimal training in the use of an inexpensive fluorescent “black light,” adults could reliably detect the presence of riboflavin (vitamin B₂) in the urine of children who had ingested 10 mg of the vitamin at bedtime. Implications for the use of this technique in a home-based behavioral program that targets medication compliance are discussed.     

Sex-role orientation as related to psychological and physiological responses during achievement and orthostatic stress

The Bem sex-role inventory was used to select, from an Irish student population, females and males who differed with regard to feminine and masculine personality characteristics. Four groups were established for each sex: (1) subjects with low scores in both femininity and masculinity, i.e., undifferentiated subjects; (2) subjects with high scores in both femininity and masculinity, i.e., androgynous subjects; (3) subjects with high scores in femininity and low scores in masculinity; (4) subjects with high scores in masculinity and low scores in femininity. The Cattell 16 PF scale showed that the undifferentiated groups were more reserved and detached and more cautious and taciturn than the androgynous groups. Each subject was exposed to mental stress in one session and orthostatic stress in another session. Mental stress was induced by five different intellectual performance tests. Males and females differed significantly only on a test of perceptual speed, with females performing better than males, as expected. The group of androgynous females was superior to all other groups on four of the five performance tasks. The group of androgynous males was not superior in terms of objective performance but reported feeling more confident andThis collaboration was made possible by a twinning grant to Dr. John Cullen and Professor Marianne Frankenhaeuser from the European Training Programme in Brain and Behaviour Research, European Science Foundation. Financial support was also obtained by grants from the Swedish Medical Research Council (Project No. 997) and the Swedish Council for Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences. satisfied with their performance than most other groups, particularly the undifferentiated males. Blood pressure and heart rate were significantly elevated in all groups during both stress conditions. Heart rate was significantly higher in the high-femininity and androgynous females than in the other female groups.     

Probability Distortions and Outcome Desirability: Experimental Verification of Medical Folklore1

A belief common among medical personnel is that in conveying diagnoses or prognoses to patients, it is always best to emphasize the positive. In order to see if emphasis on the positive does make a difference in one's expectation of the more desirable of two alternative outcomes actually occurring, this laboratory experiment was conducted. College students were led to believe they had a low, moderate, or high probability of being assigned to one of two tasks, which differed in desirability. For some students the instructions focused on the probability of being assigned to the desirable task, whereas for others the instructions focused on the probability of being assigned to the undesirable. The two probabilities were always complementary; that is, the probability of being assigned to the desirable task was equal to one minus the probability of being assigned to the undesirable task. Following an interpolated activity, each subject's expectation of being assigned to the desirable or undesirable task was measured. Across all probability levels, subjects for whom the instructions had focused on the probability of being assigned to the desirable task viewed that assignment as significantly more likely than did subjects for whom the instructions had focused on the complementary probability of being assigned to the undesirable task. The implications of this for communicating with patients, for preventive medicine, and for coping with serious illness are briefly discussed.     

Teaching chained skills in a non-school setting using a divided half instructional format

This investigation evaluated the use of dyadic instructional arrangements in teaching chained skills to four students with moderate mental retardation. Each instructional dyad consisted of two students. Each of the three cooking skills was divided into two equal parts, and each student in a dyad received direct instruction on one part of the task analysis during each instructional session. During the following session, the two parts were reversed and a student received instruction on the second part. A constant time delay procedure was used to teach the targeted skills in an off-campus setting. A multiple probe design across skills and replicated across students evaluated the effectiveness of the instructional procedure and teaching arrangement. Results indicate that each of the four students learned the three cooking skills. Implications for future research are discussed.     

The Relationship Between Individual Inputs, Perceptions, and Multidimensional Pay Satisfaction

Within the framework of revised discrepancy theory, this study examines the relationships of individual inputs and perceptual variables on four facets of pay satisfaction among 301 university faculty members. Statistically controlling for common method variance, actual pay exerted a strong direct effect on such satisfaction. While individual inputs were differentially related to the four measures of pay satisfaction, the perceptual variables (performance, pay fairness, contingent pay, commitment, and job satisfaction) were directly related to at least one dimension of pay satisfaction but did not generally interact with actual pay. The findings suggest perceptual variables affect pay judgments directly, while individual variables may directly or indirectly be related to aspects of pay satisfaction.