Primal Alternatives to Talk Therapy: The Batak “Tondi” of North Sumatra

Although talk therapy has tended to rely on exogenous or outside the person resources, many primal alternatives to talk therapy have emphasized the importance of endogenous or inside the person sources of empowerment. The Toba Batak of North Sumatra provide an internalized means of mediating mental health through a religious-based notion of the tondi, or source of power, inside the person as the source of mental-physical health and illness. The rituals necessary for maintaining health are discussed with the rationale supporting those rituals. Applications of these historical beliefs among contemporary university students are also discussed.     

The NEO Personality Inventory: Using the Five-Factor ModeI in Counseling

Personality psychologists have recently concluded that five major dimensions account for most individual differences in personality traits. The NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI) is a concise measure of this Five-Factor Model and of some of the important traits that define the factors. Characteristics of the test, features for administration and scoring, and studies of reliability, stability, and validity are summarized. The NEO-PI may be particularly appropriate for use in counseling because it is brief, nonpsychopathological in content, and sensitive to client strengths as well as weaknesses. We suggest several ways in which the counselor can learn how to use the NEO-PI effectively.     

THE EFFECTS OF FORMING MULTI-PREDICTOR COMPOSITES ON GROUP DIFFERENCES AND ADVERSE IMPACT

A common assumption exists which asserts that the formation of composites of predictors represents a method for dealing with adverse impact. It is often expected that including predictors that demonstrate smaller group differences with others that demonstrate larger group differences will help to alleviate the amount of adverse impact observed at the composite level. The purpose of this paper is to answer the question “If two or more predictors are combined to form a composite, what will be the magnitude of group differences and, consequently, of adverse impact, of using that composite for selection?” In answering this question, a set of tables, figures, and formulas are presented that highlight variables influential in affecting how composites of predictors influence observed group differences. A number of conclusions are drawn that clarify the extent to which forming composites decreases group differences and subsequently adverse impact.     

Potential Sources of Countertransference Among Religious Therapists

Relational approaches to counseling emphasize the monitoring of countertransference responses as a crucial component in the therapeutic process. Six potential sources of countertransference are discussed that are specific to religious therapists and which may be easily overlooked. These responses are related to the therapist's identification with a community of faith, and they may have a detrimental impact on therapy if they are not monitored. A brief overview of the historical and contemporary understanding of the concept of countertransference is presented. Recommendations are offered for the effective management of these countertransference responses.     

The Minnesota Studies of Creative Behavior: National and International Extensions

ABSTRACT On the basis of over 300 reports by independent investigators and voluminous correspondence from all of the United States and over 36 foreign countries, the author summarizes some of the national and international extensions of the Minnesota (now Georgia) Studies of Creative Behavior. In these extensions, other investigators have used the research instruments and instructional materials developed by the author and his associates. Instruments have been translated into at least seventeen different languages, and one book, Gifted Children in the Classroom, has been published in both Spanish and Japanese. In the judgment of the author, there is little relationship between the kinds of effort that have an impact on research and the ones that influence educational practice. The most popular topic of the research studies collected was the validity of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. Unfortunately, most of these studies have been preoccupied with the relationship between measures of creativity and measures of intelligence and school achievement. Nevertheless, these studies did yield a variety of evidence of construct, concurrent, and predictive validity, and test-retest reliability. The author makes a plea for future investigators to build upon rather than endlessly repeat these studies and make use of the theoretical rationales upon which the instruments and materials have been developed.     

Explaining a Religious Anomaly: A Historical Analysis of Secularization in Eastern Germany

The sociology of religion is engrossed in a debate concerning the process of secularization. Some theories of secularization hold that religiosity decreases under the effects of modernization. In opposition, supply-side models of religious change maintain that declines in religiosity can be explained only through changes in the supply of religious goods. To further examine mechanisms of secularization, this article investigates the emergence of the most secularized society in the world today—eastern Germany. The extremely high percent of atheists in contemporary eastern Germany suggests that the public demand for religion has diminished. But the process of modernization did not bring about this change; instead, current drops in religious demand and religiosity in eastern Germany are the result of dramatic interventions in the supply of religious goods over the past two centuries. We trace the historical conditions that have created the most atheistic society ever.     

RETEST EFFECTS IN OPERATIONAL SELECTION SETTINGS: DEVELOPMENT AND TEST OF A FRAMEWORK

This study proposes a framework for examining the effects of retaking tests in operational selection settings. A central feature of this framework is the distinction between within-person and between-person retest effects. This framework is used to develop hypotheses about retest effects for exemplars of 3 types of tests (knowledge tests, cognitive ability tests, and situational judgment tests) and to test these hypotheses in a high stakes selection setting (admission to medical studies in Belgium). Analyses of within-person retest effects showed that mean scores of repeat test takers were one-third of a standard deviation higher for the knowledge test and situational judgment test and one-half of a standard deviation higher for the cognitive ability test. The validity coefficients for the knowledge test differed significantly depending on whether examinees' test scores on the first versus second administration were used, with the latter being more valid. Analyses of between-person retest effects on the prediction of academic performance showed that the same test score led to higher levels of performance for those passing on the first attempt than for those passing on the second attempt. The implications of these results are discussed in light of extant retesting practice.     

Family Secrets and Family Functioning: The Case of Donor Assistance

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between adult offspring's perception of family functioning and of parental use of topic avoidance to maintain secrecy regarding the use of donor assistance to conceive. A cross‐sectional design was used to study a convenience sample of 69 young adult donor offspring who completed a demographic questionnaire, a topic avoidance scale relative to each of their rearing parents, and the Beavers Self Report Family Instrument. Findings indicated that participants perceived both parents as avoiding the topic of donor assistance more than other topics, mothers as avoiding all topics less than fathers, and topic avoidance was negatively associated with family functioning. Mothers' general topic avoidance was the strongest predictor of family functioning. Parents' disclosing together was predictive of higher family functioning. Implications for practice and future research are suggested.     

Any Given Sunday: Weekly Church Attendance in a Midwestern City

I analyze the weekly attendance figures from 71 Protestant churches from across the conservative‐to‐liberal spectrum in a Midwestern city using multilevel modeling (HLM 6.0). The impact on attendance of factors that are experienced by all churches in the city (bad weather, summer, religious holidays, and secular holidays) and factors unique to individual churches (size, if the church is liturgical or nonliturgical, and denominational affiliation) are assessed to determine if all churches experience similar week‐to‐week fluctuations or if differences exist based on congregational factors. I interpret the results in light of rational choice theory and the strict church hypothesis in an effort to explain changes in church attendance from one week to the next.