Multiple Effects of Messages with Multiple Goals Some Perceived Outcomes of Responses to Sexual Harassment

Sexual amassment of employees by organizational superiors is a significant and all too common problem in the workplace. Victims of harassment typically want to achieve a variety of instrumental, relational, and identity management goals. The present study tested the perceived effectiveness of different messages with respect to several of these goals. Messages varied systematically with respect to what O'Keefe (1988) has termed “design logic” and “goal structure.” Participants (N= 577) generally perceived messages reflecting advanced design logics and goal structures as being most effective at projecting desired identities and preserving relationships. However, the effects for goal structure were qualified by interactions with gender and interpersonal cognitive complexity. Significantly, none of the messages were perceived as particularly effective at stopping the Liarasser's offensive conduct. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for both O'Keefe's analysis of messages and the management of sexual harassment in the workplace.     

SEXUAL ABERRATION OR INSTINCTUAL VICISSITUDE? REVISITING FREUD'S “THE SEXUAL ABERRATIONS”

The author reconsiders Freud's “The Sexual Aberrations,” the first of his Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), in light of contemporary psychoanalytic theory. Are the concepts of sexual aberration and norm still viable? The author argues that they are necessary but insufficient elements in current theory. He then presents a competing model in which sexuality can be reduced to a more elemental level of disturbance and wish, where it is an expression of a nonsexual wish—for example, to possess or control the object to eliminate separateness. The author presents clinical material to demonstrate this alternative model.     

Enjoyment and Success: Reciprocal Factors in Behavior Change

This study assessed the role of behavior enjoyableness in development of long‐term behavior. First, as expected from the literature on attitude and behavior change ( Ajzen, 1991 ; Ryan & Deci, 2000 ), initial enjoyableness of a behavior predicted how successful participants were in performing the behavior in the short term (i.e., the time until they first violated their behavioral intentions). Of primary interest, repeated successful performance was, in turn, associated with an increase in reported enjoyableness of the behavior in the longer term. The study demonstrates the importance of a reciprocal relationship of behavior enjoyableness and performance for behavior change, such that even initially non‐enjoyable behaviors can become more enjoyable with repeated performance. These findings are particularly relevant for long‐term, goal‐related behaviors.     

A COMPARATIVE LOOK AT INTERSUBJECTIVE AND OBJECT RELATIONAL APPROACHES TO CLINICAL MATERIAL

The Search for a Relational Home: An Intersubjective View of Therapeutic Action. By Chris Jaenicke. London/New York: Routledge, 2015. 100 pp.