A transcontextual model for intervention with problems of school underachievement

Abstract

This paper presents a transcontextual model for intervening with families of underachieving school children. Following a brief review of the literature, the model is presented with specific guidelines for implementation. Finally, the results of a pilot study, using this model, indicate an improvement of general school functioning and of grade point averages in 81.3% of those surveyed in the study.     

The Roles of Religiosity and Spirituality in Moral Reasoning

To better understand the influence of religiosity and spirituality on moral reasoning, 1,037 college students completed a survey including demographic questions, a religiosity measure, a spirituality measure, and Forsyth's Ethical Position Questionnaire. Religiosity and spirituality positively correlated with moral idealism, whereas spirituality negatively correlated with moral relativism. However, religiosity and spirituality accounted for a very little variability in moral reasoning, suggesting that they do not directly influence moral reasoning. In addition, female participants reported higher spirituality, but there were no gender differences on a spirituality measure. Future research is needed to examine other factors that may influence moral reasoning.     

The vicissitudes of attitudes and similar representational constructs in twentieth century psychology

‘Attitudes’ has been the central concept of social psychology in three different periods, over which the interest evolved to three progressively more sophisticated topics. The first of these three peakings was the 1920s and 1930s preoccupation with the static topics of attitude scaling and relation to behaviour. Then, after a 1935–1955 interlude in which the study of group processes supplanted attitude as the central concern of social psychology, attitude research re-emerged as the dominant interest during the 1950s and 1960s enthusiasm for the dynamic topic of attitude change, approached by a convergent style in the 1950s and a divergent style in the 1960s. During the 1965–1985 period interest shifted from attitudes to social cognition, including representational reductions in information encoding and decoding as well as inferential extrapolations in meaning attribution, person perception, and cognitive ramifications. Now we are experiencing the beginnings of a third flourishing of attitude research likely to dominate the 1980s and 1990s, this third peaking focused on more evolved structural issues, including the structure of individual attitudes, of systems of attitudes, and of attitudinal systems as they relate to other systems within the person. Intrinsic and extrinsic forces underlying these shifts of interest are considered.     

Gender stereotypes of parents with two-year-olds and beliefs about gender differences in behavior

A sample of British parents of two-year-olds was asked about gender-related adult roles, beliefs about gender differences in children's behavior, and whether they perceived their own child in terms of gender-specific behaviors. The majority of the children were perceived as conforming to gender stereotypes, and in particular, boys were seen this way by fathers. Parents cited as evidence behavior that corresponds closely to the content of adult sex role inventories. The parents were not positive about changes in the traditional gender-related work/child care division of labor.     

Demands for Privacy Among Adolescents in Multimodal Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Treatment

Adolescent clients' perceptions of the limits of confidentiality, as well as their privacy demands within the counseling relationship, were assessed. A total of 30 adolescents involved in individual, group, and family counseling for alcohol and other drug abuse served as participants. Participants were asked to respond to vignettes of confidentiality issues in terms of what they believed the counselor should do and what they would prefer the counselor to do. Results suggested that adolescents generally want higher levels of confidentiality than they expect to receive. This group of adolescent clients, however, made clear distinctions in their privacy expectations and demands according to specific situations.     

Caregiver-patient dyads: Documenting the verbal instructions caregivers provide in joint cognitive tasks

Thirty spousal caregivers and their partners (who had been diagnosed as having primary degenerative dementia) jointly performed four cognitive tasks: Block Design (from the WAIS-R), the Token Test, and two memory tasks. Two of the tasks were unstructured, and two were structured. Caregivers served as the instructor on all tasks. Interactions were videotaped. Results showed that caregivers provided appropriate verbal instructions to a greater extent on the unstructured nonverbal task (Block Design) than on the unstructured memory task. Results are discussed in terms of implications for dyadic cognition research and intervention in dementia.     

Do diagnostic patterns exist in the sleep behaviors of normal children?

We investigated the factor structure of the Children's Sleep Behavior Scale in an unselected sample of children (N=838), ages 6 to 12.5 years, drawn from an elementary school population. Although no factor emerged that corresponded exactly to the parasomnias, as described by the Association of Sleep Disorders Centers (1979), all of the variables that loaded on Factor 1 were behaviors characteristic of the parasomnias, with the exception of recalled nightmares. Variables that were expected to load on this factor, but did not, were sleeptalking, teeth grinding, and enuresis. Enuresis was not related to any of the sleep behaviors assessed, and teeth grinding shared less than 9% of the variance with any of the other variables. Many of the variables loaded on more than one factor. The second factor, which was labeled bedtime resistance, was the only clearly unambiguous factor. Of the five factors that emerged, the third reflected positive affect, the fourth was a motor factor, and the fifth was an anxiety factor. Nightmares loaded on the anxiety factor as well as the first factor. The results of the study offered no support for the category of Disorders of Initiating and Maintaining sleep (DIMS), which has a childhood onset.This research was supported by a grant from the University of New Brunswick Research Fund.     

Feminine sex role and depression in middle-aged women

The present study was designed to investigate the relationship of sex-role orientation and depression in middle-aged women. It was hypothesized that middle-aged females who were clinically depressed would score higher in feminine characteristics on the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) than similar women who were not depressed. The subjects were two groups of women between the ages of 35 and 50. The clinical group consisted of 15 women who were currently diagnosed as depressive and who were undergoing treatment for depression at three local mental health centers. The nonclinical group consisted of 24 women who were not currently seeking treatment for depression and who had never undergone psychiatric treatment or therapy. All subjects were administered the BSRI and Beck's Depression Inventory.Results supported the hypothesis that depression in middle-aged females is related to their degree of acceptance of the traditional feminine role. For all subjects, depression scores were positively correlated with femininity scores. It was concluded that the woman who subscribes to a traditional feminine role stereotype has a greater vulnerability to depression in her middle years.