Young adults' contraceptive practices: an investigation of influences

This study investigated young adults' contraceptive behaviors and attitudes through application of a comprehensive, theoretical framework. Specifically, a social-psychological approach to understanding preventive behaviors (e.g., contraceptive practices), was developed, incorporating the Health Belief Model and other factors, which offered a means for evaluating the extent to which contraceptive behaviors were influenced by individual and group characteristics. The study group consisted of 283 unmarried students at several schools who were, on average, 19 years of age. Results suggested that effective contraceptive behavior associated most strongly with respondents' perceiving relatively few barriers to their use of contraception, their maintenance of extensive interpersonal skills, and their regarding peer norms as consistent with effective contraceptive behavior. Findings also underlined a need for continuing education about sexuality and contraception. Dangerous misinformation prevailed regarding respondents' knowledge of areas that include anatomy, physiology, and appropriate use of effective contraceptive methods. Finally, results implied a need to consider broad behavioral, social, and interpersonal issues as they relate to young adults' effective contraceptive behavior. Future studies of contraceptive risk taking are encouraged to examine both individual and social factors affecting sexual and contraceptive practices if unplanned pregnancy is to be minimized, if not eliminated.     

Keeping juvenile delinquents in school: a prediction model

The purpose of this study was to test an empirically based prediction model of school dropout on a sample of 137 juvenile delinquents, some who have dropped out and some who have remained in school. The specific factors among the many found in previous research that are salient for predicting whether delinquent youths will drop out or remain in school were determined. An important finding of this study is that it required only four factors to yield a high level of prediction: misbehavior in school, disliking school, the negative influence of peers with respect to dropping out and getting into trouble, and a marginal or weak relationship with parents. The four factors identified create a model that is directly applicable to prevention strategies and is extremely parsimonious.     

Validity and reliability of the EOM-EIS for early adolescents

The Extended Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status (EOM-EIS) was examined for reliability and validity among early/middle adolescent subjects. The EOM-EIS represents a combination of the Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status and a structured interview of identity status. The instrument was designed to measure ego identity with regard to occupational, religious, political, philosophical, and social contexts along ideological and interpersonal dimensions. A total of 467 students aged 12 to 18 (median = 15.73) responded to the instrument. In general the results from the analyses of reliability, validity, demographic characteristics, and psychosocial maturity yielded results which parallel the theoretical framework and the results from college-aged subjects.     

An intervention program for adolescents with behavior problems

Adolescents with behavior problems (aged 12 to 14) attending a regular public high school were in need of an intervention program. The purpose was to enhance their personal and interpersonal functioning as well as to structure a stimulating learning environment. In order to improve their social, educational, and psychological functioning, program objectives were established to help students develop the ability to listen to one another, respect others as well as their opinions, become aware of their own emotions and those of their peers, and recognize and minimize derogatory remarks toward one another. To attain these objectives, relaxation sessions, magic circle activities, art sessions, future planning groups, and decision-making groups were used. Meetings with teachers enabled them to examine and improve their attitudes and relationship with students. Upon completion of the program, the adolescents manifested less disruptive classroom behavior, increased their class participation, and displayed a more positive attitude toward school. The achievement of these behavioral changes indicates that a psychologically oriented intervention program is a feasible addition to a conventional curriculum. Teachers learned the basic skills of program formation, implementation, and evaluation, and most importantly, revitalized their attitude toward troubled students and their profession.     

Redundancy: a similar principle in independent adaptation techniques

The present study examined the similarities between four auditory adaptation techniques to determine whether the effects were correlated. The four adaptation techniques compared were: Simultaneous Dichotic Loudness Balance technique (SDLB; Hood, 1950), Magnitude Estimated Binaural technique (MEB; Botté, Canévet, & Scharf, 1982), Magnitude Estimated Monaural technique, (MEM; Weiler, Sandman, & Pederson, 1981), and the Monaural Reaction Time technique (RT; Davis & Weiler, 1976). Results did not show significant correlations between the four techniques, except (r = 0.39) between MEB and MEM procedures. This correlation was much less than the reliability of the measures would allow (r = 0.98 and r = 0.99, respectively). Thus, it appears that the different methods either produced different adaptation effects or measured different aspects of auditory adaptation. The normal ear apparently shows several forms of adaptation, which reduces the perceptual strength of a continuing stimulus, in favor of an intermittent, less redundant one.     

Chronic Illness and the Life Cycle:A Conceptual Framework

This article provides a conceptual framework for thinking about the system created at the interface of chronic illness with the family life cycle. First, a psychosocial typology and time phases of illness schema is described as a necessary, preliminary step to create a common language that bridges the worlds of illness, individual, and family development. This schema organizes similarities and differences between diseases in a manner useful to psychosocial-developmental rather than biomedical inquiry. Then, drawing on several major life-cycle theories in the literature, key concepts (periods of transition, life-structure building and maintaining, centripetality, and centrifugality) are used in a complementary fashion to link these three lines of development. Equipped with these psychosocial languages, consideration is given to transgenerational aspects of illness, loss, and crisis, and the interwoven threads of illness, family, and individual development. Clinical vignettes are provided to highlight this conceptual framework.     

Toward a generative theory of the therapeutic field

In the various models of family therapy, family systems are described as being patterned and programmed in their operations and development. The regularities and patterns found in family life are believed to be the expression of a program that determines the behavior of the family system and each of its members. Therapists holding this view will use "programming methods" in order to map family phenomena, and therapeutic work will consist of disrupting the problematic sequences in a deterministic way. However, if we take into consideration the impossibility of always linking inputs and outputs and the inability to evaluate consistently the behaviors in a system, problems associated with indeterminancy appear. Under such conditions, it may be impossible for therapists to formulate programs of family functioning. Therefore, we have operationalized a set of methodological principles that can be applied in such conditions. In this article we present the theoretical and practical implications for the field of therapy of "nonprogramming methods." A videotaped session is analyzed in order to show the application of the nonprogramming methods in clinical practice.     

Interventive Interviewing: Part I. Strategizing as a Fourth Guideline for the Therapist

A clinical interview affords far more opportunities to act therapeutically than most therapists realize. Because so many of these opportunities remain outside the therapist's conscious awareness, it is useful to elaborate guidelines that orient his or her general activity in directions that are liable to be therapeutic. The Milan associates defined three such basic guidelines: hypothesizing, circularity, and neutrality. Hypothesizing is clear and easy to accept. The notions of circularity and neutrality have aroused considerable interest but are not as readily understood. These guidelines may be clarified and operationalized when reformulated as conceptual postures. This process is enhanced by differentiating a fourth guideline, strategizing, which entails the therapist's decision making, including decisions about how to employ these postures. This paper, the first in a series of three, explores these four interviewing guidelines. The other papers will appear in a subsequent issue. Part II will focus on reflexive questioning, a mode of inquiry oriented toward mobilizing the family's own healing capacity. Part III will provide a scheme for analyzing and choosing among four major types of questions: linear questions, circular questions, reflexive questions, and strategic questions.     

Getting More by Asking for Less: The Effects of Request Size on Donations of Charity1

In the context of an annual fundraising drive for the American Society, two field experiments were conducted to test the relative effectiveness of suggesting either small or large contributions. In experiment 1, as part of a door-to-door campaign 300 people were randomly assigned to: (a) a standard request for contributions (control); (b) the standard request plus the words, “even a penny will help”; or (c) the standard request plus the words, “a generous contribution would really help.” As hypothesized, asking for a generous contribution significantly decreased the percentage of people who donated and failed to increase the average size of contribution by those who gave. Inconsistent with previous findings, the even-a-penny condition did not increase donating. In the second experiment conceptually similar requests were made in a mail-out campaign: 6,000 requests were made—2,000 suggested relatively small amounts (options beginning at $5); 2,000 suggested large amounts (options beginning at $5); and 2,000 were unspecified with regard to recommended amount (control). As expected, compared to the control condition, asking for small amounts increased the proportion of donors to nondonors without decreasing the average size of contributions, while asking for large amounts decreased the proportion of donors to nondonors without increasing the size of contributions. It is suggested that the findings have important implications for charitable fundraising.     

Stability and Change in Type A Components and Cardiovascular Reactivity in Medical Students During Periods of Academic Stress1

This study examined the effects of academic stress upon components of Type A behavior and cardiovascular reactivity. In a longitudinal design, heart rate and blood pressure responses to the Type A Structured Interview (SI) and additional laboratory challenges were measured in medical students at three points during an academic semester. Sessions 1 and 3 were scheduled during vacation periods; Session 2 took place during an intensive examination week. Results indicated that three “stylistic” components of Pattern A derived from the SI—loud and explosive speech, short response latency, and potential for hostility—increased significantly during the exam period. Similar increases achieved marginal significance for another stylistic component, rapid and accelerated speech. By contrast, global Type A assessments did not increase with academic demands. Cardiovascular reactivity was significantly but only moderately stable across the three sessions, showing less consistency than has been reported in previous research. In addition, there was little evidence in this study that cardiovascular reactivity was potentiated by academic stress or by Type A behavior. These results demonstrate the influence of naturalistic environmental factors on overt behavioral components that have recently been suggested as coronary risk factors. Therefore, it is advisable for future experimental and epidemiological research to examine the social and environmental context in which these behaviors occur.