Whole-school guidance?

The present status of guidance as a whole-school feature of the British secondary school is explored. The ingredients and issues in the development of such an approach are clarified. The status and terminology of 'cross-curricular' initiatives are examined. The need for re-asserting the rationales for guidance within an overarching whole-school view of pupils' personal-social development is suggested. Finally, a new window of opportunity for schools is identified in recent developments regarding the National Curriculum in England.     

The Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler: Toward an Adlerian vocational theory

Within the past couple of decades, the Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler has become increasingly popular among consultants, educators, and psychotherapists alike. The approach also has gained the attention of several vocational researchers, and some vocational investigations on Adler's theory have appeared. Unfortunately, such empirical studies have been all too few, seemingly because no articulated framework exists of an Adlerian vocational theory. In this article, an Adlerian vocational theory is proposed. Specific hypotheses and corollaries, each derived from the substantive base of Individual Psychology, are presented and explained.     

Speech-like coding of pictures in short-term memory

Memory span for pictures of common objects and for the names of these objects was examined as a function of three speech-related variables. Both picture span and name span were found to be influenced by the phonological similarity (Experiment 1) and the length (Experiment 2) of the names, as well as by the subject’s engaging in “irrelevant” vocalization during item presentation (Experiment 3). Moreover, for each variable the effect was in the same direction and of comparable magnitude for the two types of items. Experiments 4-6 replicated these findings with the procedure modified such that the retention of order information was not required. It is concluded that under the present conditions, there is a substantial functional equivalence between short-term memory for readily nameable pictures and for words and that this equivalence may be thought of as due to mediation by a common, “speech-like” code.     

Some thoughts about a scientist-practitioner approach to assessment training in counselling psychology

Training effective scientist-practitioners has long been an issue of concern in counselling psychology. In a recent paper, Friedlander (1992) developed a useful prototype to foster science-practice integration in a counselling seminar. Drawing on Friedlander's prototype, the question of “how to foster science-practice integration in assessment” is considered. Some assessment reading lists and class exercises designed to illustrate such integration are proposed. These teaching materials are presented: (a) in hopes that they might prove useful for some assessment instruction purposes; and (6) in hopes that they might stimulate further thinking about how to best foster science-practice integration in counselling psychology assessment courses.     

To Use or Not to Use: The Prenatal Genetic Technology/Worry Conundrum

We conducted an exploratory, qualitative study investigating the factors influencing the use of genetic counseling and prenatal genetic testing for two groups: pregnant women 35 years of age and over (AMA) at the time of delivery and pregnant women with an abnormal maternal serum triple screen (MSAFP3). The convenience sample consisted of 25 semistructured interviews of women/couples and 50 observations of genetic counseling sessions. Worry turned out to be the most important variable influencing decision making about prenatal genetic testing and was greater in the MSAFP3 group than in the AMA group. The women in the AMA group appeared to assign the risk of having a child with Down syndrome to their age category rather than to themselves individually, whereas, the risk perception for women with an abnormal MSAFP3 appeared to have shifted from a general population risk for pregnant women to an individual, personal risk. There was a general lack of understanding and also more misinformation about the MSAFP3 screen compared to amniocentesis. Women in both groups were torn between fear of an invasive test and worry about the health of their fetus for the rest of their pregnancy if they did not undergo amniocentesis.     

Interobserver Agreement in Behavioral Research: Importance and Calculation

Behavioral researchers have developed a sophisticated methodology to evaluate behavioral change which is dependent upon accurate measurement of behavior. Direct observation of behavior has traditionally been the mainstay of behavioral measurement. Consequently, researchers must attend to the psychometric properties, such as interobserver agreement, of observational measures to ensure reliable and valid measurement. Of the many indices of interobserver agreement, percentage of agreement is the most popular. Its use persists despite repeated admonitions and empirical evidence indicating that it is not the most psychometrically sound statistic to determine interobserver agreement due to its inability to take chance into account. Cohen's (1960) kappa has long been proposed as the more psychometrically sound statistic for assessing interobserver agreement. Kappa is described and computational methods are presented.     

Mission,Reconciliation, and the Politics of Place

Through the retelling of some familiar biblical stories – Jonah, Acts 1, Acts 10 – and gospel narratives of inclusion, this paper looks at the transformation of politics and identities made possible by the sending of the Holy Spirit and the mission of reconciliation to which Christians are called. Through an examination of the themes of power, prejudice, partnership, and identity, the paper aims to offer a concrete approach to rethinking the spaces and places where a reconciling mission can be enacted. Central to an understanding of reconciliation are the disruption and transgressing of boundaries in which Jesus engaged. In addition to this, Jesus creates these unique spaces for reconciliation around his very person, and the Spirit leads the church into these same contexts. Finally, selections of John 17 are examined through a biographical lens in order to offer a new understanding of the politics of identity and the surprising contexts where God’s Spirit reconciles all things in Christ.     

Distinct modes of ruminative self-focus: impact of abstract versus concrete rumination on problem solving in depression

One account for the negative effects of rumination on social problem solving (SPS) is the symptom-focus hypothesis, which proposes that focus on symptoms amplifies the vicious cycle between depressed mood and negative cognition. The authors tested a contrasting account, the reduced concreteness hypothesis, which postulates that the abstract thinking typical of rumination impairs SPS. In 40 depressed patients and 40 never-depressed controls, SPS was assessed before and after versions of symptom-focused rumination known to differentially induce abstract versus concrete self-focus (E. Watkins & J. D. Teasdale, 2001). As predicted by reduced concreteness theory, relative to abstract self-focus, concrete self-focus improved SPS in depressed patients, suggesting that the particular mode of symptom-focus, rather than symptom-focus per se, determines the effects of rumination on problem solving.     

When birds of a feather flock together and when they do not: status composition, social dominance orientation, and organizational attractiveness

Although similarity-attraction notions suggest that similarity--for example, in terms of values, personality, and demography--attracts, the authors found that sometimes demographic similarity attracts and sometimes it repels. Consistent with social dominance theory (J. Sidanius & F. Pratto, 1999), they demonstrated in 3 studies that when prospective employees supported group-based social hierarchies (i.e., were high in social dominance orientation), those in high-status groups were attracted to demographic similarity within an organization, whereas those in low-status groups were repelled by it. An important theoretical implication of the findings is that social dominance theory and traditional similarity-attraction notions together help explain a more complex relationship between demographic similarity and attraction than was previously acknowledged in the organizational literature.