The Effects of Measurement Strategy on Attributions for Marital Problems and Behaviors1

The present study examined the relation of attributions for spouse behaviors, attributions for global conjugal conflict, and marital adjustment. The sample consisted of 74 French-Canadian couples who completed the Marital Attribution Style Questionnaire, the Conflict Rating Scale, and the Dyadic Adjustment Scale. Results showed that the relation between attribution and marital satisfaction is stable across culture. In addition, specific and general attribution measures were low to moderately correlated. However, multiple regression analyses demonstrated that attributions for global conjugal conflict entered the regression equations more often than attributions for hypothetical spouse behaviors. These findings suggest that the comparability of marital attribution measures should not be taken for granted. The need to develop standardized measures is underlined.     

Perceived Control, Drive for Thinness, and Food Consumption: Anorexic Tendencies as Displaced Reactance

Although loss of perceived control has been implicated in the development of eating disorders, previous research has not directly tested the relationship between perceived control and food consumption. This study investigated the hypothesis that individuals with anorexic tendencies react to low perceived control by restricting food intake as a means of regaining a sense of control. Forty female undergraduates who scored either low or high on the Drive for Thinness Scale (Garner & Olmsted, 1984) were led to believe they would be participating in two separate studies. Perceived control was experimentally manipulated such that half of the subjects experienced low control and half experienced high control over a social situation. Under the guise of a second experiment, subjects tasted breakfast cereals and completed measures relevant to eating and body image. Results showed that subjects who were high in drive for thinness (DT) who experienced low control ate less sweetened cereal and planned to eat less at dinner than high DT subjects who experienced high control. Low DT subjects were unaffected by the control manipulation. The results are discussed in terms of displaced reactance.     

A comparative evaluation of parent-training interventions for families of chronic delinquents

Fifty-five families of chronically offending delinquents were randomly assigned to parent-training treatment or to service traditionally provided by the juvenile court and community. The families in the parent-training group received an average of 44.8 hours of professional contact (23.3 hours of which were phone contacts), and each control group family received treatment estimated at more than 50 hours on the average. Comparisons of police contact data at baseline and subsequent years for the two groups showed that subjects in both groups demonstrated reduced rates of offending during the followup years. The finding most relevant was significant treatment-by-time effect for offense rates, with most of this effect accounted for by a greater reduction in serious crimes for the experimental group during the treatment year, and a similar reduction of the community control group occurring in the first of three followup years. These early decrements in offense rates persisted during followup for both groups. Throughout the study, boys in the experimental group spent significantly less time in institutional settings than did boys in the control group. Parent training had a significant impact, but the reduction in offending was produced at very high emotional cost to staff. Although it is clear that this population requires substantial treatment resources, this study underscores the need for more work on prevention.Research for this paper was supported by grant MH 37938 from the Center for Studies of Antisocial and Violent Behavior, National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), U.S. Public Health Service (PHS). The writing was supported in part by grants MH 17126 and MH 37940 from the same Center, grant DA 05304 from the National Institute of Drug Abuse, U.S. PHS., and grant MH 38730 from the Child and Adolescent Disorders Research Branch, NIMH, U.S. PHS. The authors gratefully acknowledge the enduring commitment of the treatment staff that made this study possible: Patricia Chamberlain, Marion Forgatch, and Kate Kavanagh.     

Effects of background anger,provocation, and methylphenidate on emotional arousal and aggressive responding in attention-deficit hyperactivity disordered boys with and without concurrent aggressiveness

We investigated the effects of background anger, provocation, and methylphenidate on emotional, physiological, and behavioral responding in children with attentiondeficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with and without concurrent aggression. Our study revealed that ADHD boys showed more emotional and physiological distress when exposed to an interaction in which an administrator chastised each boy's favorite counselor, compared to a friendly interaction between the two adults. The background anger manipulation did not affect the aggressive behavior of the boys against an opponent in an aggressive game. High-aggressive (HA) ADHD boys were more likely to respond to provocation with aggression than low-aggressive (LA) ADHD boys, but only LA boys showed increased physiological reactivity with increasing provocation. Methylphenidate resulted in increased heart rates under all conditions and did not interact with any of the other findings.This project was conducted while the first author had the support of National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism grant AA 06267.The authors wish to thank the staff members of the 1987 Summer Day Treatment Program who assisted in conducting this project. The authors also express their appreciation to Karen Guthrie for coordinating the medication assessment and to Hart Blanton for computer programming.     

A practitioner's guide to meta-analysis

Describes the application to community issues of the meta-analytic research strategies increasingly used in many field of psychology. First, we highlight the potential value of meta-analysis to community research. Second, we describe six major steps involved in conducting an effective meta-analysis. These steps include formulating the initial research question(s), locating relevant studies, abstracting critical information from each study, and presenting, analyzing, and interpreting the resultant data. In this guide, the major aspects of meta-analysis are discussed with particular emphasis on the procedures that are most critical to the validity of its conclusions. Greater familiarity with the techniques, issues, and potential of meta-analysis may stimulate investigators to make more effective use of this powerful approach to integrating research in community psychology.     

Peer support telephone dyads for elderly women: Was this the wrong intervention?

Tested a preventive intervention in which peer telephone dyads were developed for low-income, community-living, elderly women with low perceived social support. After an initial assessment, respondents were randomly assigned to either an assessment-only control or received 10 weeks of friendly staff telephone contact. After a second assessment, participants receiving the staff contact were randomly assigned to continue that contact or were paired in dyads to continue phone contact with one another. Dependent variables were measures of perceived social support, morale, depression, and loneliness. All groups, particularly the staff contact group, showed some improvement in mental health scores over time, but there were no significant differences between intervention groups, or between intervention and assessment-only control groups. The results suggest that participation in the study and in personal assessment interviews at home were probably morale enhancing, and that additional telephone contact did not significantly add to that effect. Evidence also indicates that, in this sample, low perceived family support was significantly related to poor mental health, so it is possible that a program designed to increase friend support may have been the wrong intervention.     

Growth coping,work satisfaction and turnover: A longitudinal study

A longitudinal organizational field study examined work satisfaction and employee growth coping as joint predictors of turnover. Three employee categories were examined: 1) No Turnover, 2) turnover within the same occupational field (Intraoccupational Turnover), and 3) turnover to a new occupational field (Interoccupational Turnover). Work satisfaction was moderate in the first two groups and low in the third group. As predicted, a specific strategy of employee coping, growth, was lowest in the first group, moderate in the second group, and highest in the third group. Through the use of linear discriminant analysis, 66.4% of the employees were correctly classified into No Turnover, Intraoccupational Turnover, and Interoccupational Turnover groups based only on information regarding work satisfaction and growth coping. The first squared canonical correlation was found to equal .30, far surpassing the modest work satisfaction/turnover correlations found in all previous studies.The authors wish to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments.     

A systemic belief approach to epileptic seizures: A case of being spellbound

A systemic treatment approach, namely systemic belief therapy, has been found to be useful when dealing with families constraining beliefs when experiencing physical health problems. Two interventions which facilitate the altering of constraining beliefs are the externalization of physical symptoms and therapeutic letters. Epileptic seizures are examined in the context of the interaction between families and health care professionals. A case example is presented which highlights the use of this systemic approach to assist a young couple in challenging their beliefs about their ability to control and monitor epileptic seizures.