Professional Development in Social Justice: Analysis of American Counseling Association Conference Programming

This study was designed as a content analysis of 2012–2017 American Counseling Association conference sessions to examine how social justice was presented. Four findings emerged from the qualitative content analysis: (a) rates of social justice sessions varied over time; (b) there were more multicultural sessions than social justice sessions; (c) populations that were addressed least often and most often were identified; and (d) there was a decline in the number of social justice content sessions. Implications are presented.     

Analyzing the Impact of the Medicare Coverage Gap on Counseling Professionals: Results of a National Study

The authors surveyed 6,550 members of the American Counseling Association regarding the current impact of Medicare policy on counseling professionals. More than half of respondents (54.8%) had been directly affected by Medicare reimbursement barriers, including 70.0% of practicing counselors. Statistical analyses indicated significant associations between years in the profession, direct experience with the Medicare coverage gap, and participation in professional advocacy related to Medicare. Implications for counselors, counselor educators, and counseling scholarship are discussed.     

Understanding the attraction process

A comprehensive model of interpersonal attraction is presented in which attraction is an emotion expressed to regulate interpersonal relationships. The model proposes that cognitive appraisals, the subjective experience, and the expression of affiliative behavior are fundamental to understanding how attraction operates. Specifically, we discuss how (a) cognitive appraisals (willingness and ability) are fundamental to the subjective experience of attraction, (b) social dilemma considerations affect when and why the subjective experience aligns with the expression of affiliative behavior, (c) the interplay of the components of attraction explain the panoply of extant attraction phenomena, and (d) the attraction process operates in both initial interactions and enduring relationships. We conclude with a discussion of methodological and theoretical directions to fuel future growth.     

The assessment of child sexual abuse allegations: using research to guide clinical decision making

As reports of child sexual abuse (CSA) have risen, greater attention has been focused on how clinicians evaluate allegations of abuse. A common theme in the CSA assessment literature is to encourage comprehensive, multimodal assessments. This recommendation, however, is rarely accompanied by suggestions regarding how clinicians might integrate and differentially weight the information gathered. The present article is designed to address the issue of which sources of information clinicians should rely upon when conducting CSA assessments. Specifically, the commonly used indicators and procedures for assessing allegations of abuse are identified and then examined in light of their respective empirical literatures. It is concluded that medical examinations and the child's report are among the best sources of information, and should therefore be most heavily relied upon to arrive at accurate decisions. Clinicians are encouraged to adopt the mind set of a scientist conducting an a priori, hypothesis-driven research investigation. This approach should help clinicians avoid the temptation of post hoc analyses that reflect personal biases more than the actual data. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The role of prosody in the interpretation of structural ambiguities: a study of anticipatory eye movements

An eye-tracking experiment examined whether prosodic cues can affect the interpretation of grammatical functions in the absence of clear morphological information. German listeners were presented with scenes depicting three potential referents while hearing temporarily ambiguous SVO and OVS sentences. While case marking on the first noun phrase (NP) was ambiguous, clear case marking on the second NP disambiguated sentences towards SVO or OVS. Listeners interpreted case-ambiguous NP1s more often as Subject, and thus expected an Object as upcoming argument, only when sentence beginnings carried an SVO-type intonation. This was revealed by more anticipatory eye movements to suitable Patients (Objects) than Agents (Subjects) in the visual scenes. No such preference was found when sentence beginnings had an OVS-type intonation. Prosodic cues were integrated rapidly enough to affect listeners' interpretation of grammatical function before disambiguating case information was available. We conclude that in addition to manipulating attachment ambiguities, prosody can influence the interpretation of constituent order ambiguities.     

An experimental investigation of emotion dysregulation in borderline personality disorder

Despite the prominent role of emotion dysregulation in theoretical accounts of borderline personality disorder (BPD), few studies have examined emotion dysregulation in BPD. This study extends extant research by providing an experimental investigation of emotion dysregulation among outpatients with BPD. Specifically, this study modified an experimental measure of distress tolerance to examine differences between outpatients with BPD (n = 17) and those without a personality disorder (n = 18) in 2 aspects of emotion dysregulation: (a) the unwillingness to experience emotional distress in order to pursue goal-directed behavior and (b) the inability to engage in goal-directed behavior when distressed. As hypothesized, BPD participants were less willing to experience distress in order to pursue goal-directed behavior. However, BPD participants did not evidence greater difficulties engaging in goal-directed behavior when distressed. Results highlight directions for future research and suggest that particular aspects of emotion dysregulation may be more or less relevant to BPD.     

Relational correlates of interpersonal citizenship behavior: a social network perspective

This study examines the role of social network ties in the performance and receipt of interpersonal citizenship behavior (ICB), one form of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). A field study involving 141 employees of a manufacturing firm provided evidence that social network ties are related to the performance and receipt of ICB. Results support hypothesized relationships, which are based on social exchange theory, suggesting strength of friendship is related to performance and receipt of ICB. Support was also found for impression management-based hypotheses suggesting that asymmetric influence and 3rd-party influence are related to the performance and receipt of ICB. These relationships were significant when controlling for job satisfaction, commitment, procedural justice, hierarchical level, demographic similarity, and job similarity. Implications and directions for future research are addressed.     

Self-regulatory processes defend against the threat of death: Effects of self-control depletion and trait self-control on thoughts and fears of dying

Nine studies (N = 979) demonstrated that managing the threat of death requires self-regulation. Both trait and state self-control ability moderated the degree to which people experienced death-related thought and anxiety. Participants high (vs. low) in self-control generated fewer death-related thoughts after being primed with death, reported less death anxiety, were less likely to perceive death-related themes in ambiguous scenes, and reacted with less worldview defense when mortality was made salient. Further, coping with thoughts of death led to self-regulatory fatigue. After writing about death versus a control topic, participants performed worse on several measures of self-regulation that were irrelevant to death. These results suggest that self-regulation is a key intrapsychic mechanism for alleviating troublesome thoughts and feelings about mortality.     

Cognition and belief in paranormal phenomena: gestalt/feature-intensive processing theory and tendencies toward ADHD, depression, and dissociation

Belief in paranormal phenomena and cryptids--unknown animals such as Bigfoot--may predispose individuals to interpret real-world objects and events in the same way that eyewitness identification can be biased by unrelated information (P. James and N. Thorpe, 1999). Psychological tendencies toward attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), dissociation, and depression, even at subclinical levels, may be associated systematically with particular paranormal or cryptozoological beliefs. The authors evaluated these psychological tendencies using the Conners Adult ADHD Rating Scales (C. K. Conners, D. Erhardt, and E. Sparrow, 1999), the Dissociative Experiences Scale (L. Coleman & J. Clark, 1999), and the Beck Depression Inventory-II (A. T. Beck, 1996). They performed regression analyses against beliefs in ghosts, unidentified flying objects (UFOs), extrasensory perception (ESP), astrology, and cryptids. ADHD, dissociation, and depression were associated with enhanced tendencies toward paranormal and cryptozoological beliefs, although participants who believed in each of the phenomena differed from one another in predictable and psychologically distinguishable ways. Cognitively biasing influences of preexisting psychological tendencies may predispose individuals to specific perceptual and cognitive errors during confrontation of real-world phenomena.     

Replacing relative reinforcing efficacy with behavioral economic demand curves

Relative reinforcing efficacy refers to the behavior-strengthening or maintaining property of a reinforcer when compared to that of another reinforcer. Traditional measures of relative reinforcing efficacy sometimes have led to discordant results across and within studies. By contrast, previous investigations have found traditional measures to be congruent with behavioral economic measures, which provide a framework for integrating the discordant results. This study tested whether the previously demonstrated congruence between traditional relative reinforcing efficacy measures and behavioral economic demand curve measures is sufficiently robust to persist when demand for one reinforcer is altered. Cigarette smokers pulled plungers for cigarettes or two magnitudes of money on progressive-ratio schedules that increased the response requirement across sessions. Demand for the two different reinforcers was assessed in single-schedule and concurrent-schedule sessions. Demand curve measures Pmax and Omax correlated significantly with traditional measures of breakpoint and peak response rate, respectively. Relative locations of demand curves for money and cigarettes under single schedules predicted preference in concurrent schedules in most cases. Although measures of relative reinforcing efficacy for money changed with money magnitude, the congruence between traditional and behavioral economic measures remained intact. This robust congruence supports the proposal that demand curves should replace measures of relative reinforcing efficacy. The demand curve analysis illustrates why concordance between traditional measures is expected under some experimental conditions but not others.