Preventing drug abuse: where are we now?

Counselors in many settings are involved in the development and implementation of drug abuse prevention programs. It is therefore essential that counselors be as informed as possible about the characteristics of drug abusers and about the drug abuse prevention programs that seem to hold some promise of being effective. This article provides some of this information by examining the research literature and extracting from it the common themes that have meaning for counselors in almost any population.     

AFFIRMATION AND DENIAL IN EVALUATIVE DESCRIPTIONS

Children made a series of evaluative judgements of 20 nonsense words, which they were told to imagine were people's names. Each subject judged half the names in terms of two-category rating scales containing an affirmative (A) response category which was evaluatively positive (E +) and a negative (n) category which was evaluatively negative (E -), e.g. ‘happy-not happy’, the other half were judged in terms of scales where the A category was E -, and the N category E +, e.g. ‘rude - not rude’. The main finding was a highly significant tendency for subjects to give more A than N responses, irrespective of evaluative content: in addition, a tendency for subjects to give more E - than E + responses, irrespective of grammatical form, approached significance.     

Encoding of Facial Expressions of Emotion and Knowledge of American Sign Language

The relationship between knowledge of American Sign Language (ASL) and the ability to encode facial expressions of emotion was explored. Participants were 55 college students, half of whom were intermediate-level students of ASL and half of whom had no experience with a signed language. In front of a video camera, participants posed the affective facial expressions of happiness, sadness, fear, surprise, anger, and disgust. These facial expressions were randomized onto stimulus tapes that were then shown to 60 untrained judges who tried to identify the expressed emotions. Results indicated that hearing subjects knowledgeable in ASL were generally more adept than were hearing nonsigners at conveying emotions through facial expression. Results have implications for better understanding the nature of nonverbal communication in hearing and deaf individuals.     

PROGRESS IN PSYCHOMETRICS: CAN INDUSTRIAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY CATCH UP?

Murphy and DeShon (2000) show that interrater correlations do not provide reasonable estimates of the reliability of job performance ratings, and suggest that better estimates can be obtained by applying the methods of generalizability theory. Schmidt, Viswesvaran, and Ones (2000) criticize our suggestions as radical, and argue that: (a) the reliability of ratings should be evaluated using the parallel test model rather than the more general and more realistic generalizability model, (b) reliability and validity are distinct concepts that should not be confused, and (c) measurement models have little to do with substantive models of the processes that generate scores on a test or measure. All three of these ideas were once part of the psychometric mainstream, but progress in psychometrics over the last 3 decades has moved the field well beyond these assumptions and approaches. Modern psychometric theory calls for close linkages between measurement models and substantive models of the phenomena being measured.     

In the Search for a Post-Communist Syndrome: A Theoretical Framework and Empirical Assessment

A pattern of attitudes and behaviours in the recently freed, post-communist countries is hypothesized as a post-communist syndrome. This study describes the syndrome and its aetiology. The syndrome is viewed as a direct result of long-lasting, oppressive rule and suggests a host of individual and social disorders: learned helplessness, specific manifestations of immorality/incivility, lack of civic culture and civic virtues. Using Q-factor analysis of ‘civic culture’ in a sample of Czech, Hungarian and American students it was found that contrary to the hypothesis, the Czech respondents exhibited a robust civic culture. (© 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)     

Staying friends with ex‐romantic partners: Predictors,reasons, and outcomes

In two studies, we identified predictors of staying friends with an ex‐partner, developed and validated a measure for reasons to stay friends with exes, and examined the outcomes of staying friends. We identified four reasons to stay friends with exes: Security, Practical, Civility, and Unresolved Romantic Desires. Sex, sexual orientation, attachment styles, personality traits, time since breakup, and reasons for breakup all predicted staying friends. Staying friends due to Unresolved Romantic Desires resulted in negative outcomes, whereas staying friends due to Security and Practical reasons resulted in more positive outcomes. Staying friends due to Practical or Civility reasons resulted in the friendship being less likely to last in the long term. Implications for future research and clinical work are discussed.     

REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE: A PSYCHOANALYTIC AND FAMILY‐LIFE‐CYCLE VIEW OF EMERGING ADULTHOOD IN THE FILM

The period during which grown children leave home and establish a new, self‐supporting family is called emerging adulthood. This paper uses psychoanalytic concepts and family‐life‐cycle theory to analyze the film Rebel without a Cause ( 1955 ) as a dramatic example of three families going through this phase. Freud's ( 1910 ) rescue‐motif of the child trying to save an endangered peer to repay his parents for having been nurtured is also characteristic of this period and is considered practice for parenting the next generation. Proximate conflict and support enable two of the film's families to continue the path to reproduce themselves.