Sweet sorrow: the color-shading response in an adult cystic fibrosis population

Research on the color-shading response on the Rorschach has been limited previously to its use as a predictor of suicide. The theoretical understanding of this response was addressed by some of the major Rorschach authors. Adult cystic fibrosis patients were administered a battery of psychological tests, including the Rorschach. While these patients face a premature death, none of these patients were suicidal. A higher than usual incidence of color-shading responses occurred. Rapaport's hypothesis that the color-shading response is an expression of a simultaneously conflicting emotion, or similar to "sweet sorrow," was suggested as a possible hypothesis.     

Multidimensional assessment of depression

A brief version of the Multiscore Depression Inventory was evaluated. Good coefficient alpha and test-retest reliabilities were obtained for the total score and the subscales. Two factor analyses were reported which appear to justify the use of a multiscore approach for at least 8 of the 9 subscales: helplessness, energy level, guilt, social introversion, cognitive difficulty, irritability, pessimism, and low self-esteem. Sad mood apparently overlapped with energy level on one analysis (replicating findings with the 118-item Multiscore Depression Inventory), and with self-esteem on the second analysis. Normative data are provided on diverse samples totaling 849 subjects.     

Attitude accessibility following a self-perception process

Self-perception processes have been postulated to occur only to the extent that initial attitudes are weak. The present research asked whether the outcome of such a process is a strengthening of the attitude in question. Two experiments investigated the accessibility of attitudes from memory following self-inference from behavior. Experiment 1 examined the consequence for attitude accessibility of reviewing and considering previously performed religious behaviors that were recent and primarily unmanded versus distant in time and "manded" in nature. Experiment 2 involved the performance of a new behavior that was either required or freely chosen. In each case, control subjects either did not review prior behaviors or did not perform a new behavior. In both experiments, attitude accessibility, as measured by the latency of response to attitudinal inquiries, was enhanced by the consideration or performance of unmanded behavior, but not by manded behavior. The relevance of this finding to issues regarding attitude-behavior consistency and attitudinal persistence is discussed.     

Considering the opposite: a corrective strategy for social judgment

It is proposed that several biases in social judgment result from a failure--first noted by Francis Bacon--to consider possibilities at odds with beliefs and perceptions of the moment. Individuals who are induced to consider the opposite, therefore, should display less bias in social judgment. In two separate but conceptually parallel experiments, this reasoning was applied to two domains--biased assimilation of new evidence on social issues and biased hypothesis testing of personality impressions. Subjects were induced to consider the opposite in two ways: through explicit instructions to do so and through stimulus materials that made opposite possibilities more salient. In both experiments the induction of a consider-the-opposite strategy had greater corrective effect than more demand-laden alternative instructions to be as fair and unbiased as possible. The results are viewed as consistent with previous research on perseverance, hindsight, and logical problem solving, and are thought to suggest an effective method of retraining social judgment.     

Personal control and stress and coping processes: a theoretical analysis

Laboratory and field research indicates that the relationships between personal control and stress, coping, and adaptational outcomes are more complex than was once assumed. Believing that an event is controllable does not always lead to a reduction in stress or to a positive outcome, and believing that an event is uncontrollable does not always lead to an increase in stress or to a negative outcome. These complex relationships involving control are examined in the context of Lazarus's cognitive theory of stress and coping. The first part of the article elaborates this theory and shows how two forms of control, generalized beliefs about control and situational appraisals of control, fit into the overall model. Situational appraisals of control are explored in this section, including the question, Control over what? which must be addressed in order to explain some of the perplexing findings. The second part of the article draws on the theoretical formulation of stress and coping to examine three important issues: (a) how believing one has control in a stressful transaction can heighten threat, (b) the relationship between control and coping, and (c) pathways through which control can affect the adaptational outcomes of stressful encounters.     

Depressive attributions: selection of different causes or assignment of dimensional meanings?

Attributional models of depression suggest that depression is associated with internal, stable, and global causal explanations of events. However, the models do not specify whether the depressive attributional process involves the selection of certain causes, the assignment of dimensional meanings to those causes, or both. A distinction between these two processes was suggested by the findings that the choice of causes does not reliably indicate the perceived dimensions and that there is poor convergence between existing methods that assess causes and those that assess dimensions. When causes and dimensions were each measured in a manner that avoided confounding by the other, each made a unique contribution to the prediction of depression scores. Cause ratings alone were significantly associated with depression scores, but the optimal prediction of depression included both causes and dimensions. The implications of the distinction between these two processes for experimental manipulations of attributions and for reattribution training programs are discussed.     

Conceptual,methodological, and clinical issues in the assessment of anxiety disorders

Many conceptual, methodological, and clinical issues remain unresolved in the assessment of anxiety disorders. Despite the prevalence, incidence, chronicity, and severity of anxiety disorders, research efforts and funding have fallen behind with regard both to other disorders and to addressing critical issues in the field. The primary objective of this paper is to provide a scientific critique regarding a number of often ignored yet salient considerations in anxiety-disorders assessment. Critical analyses of and recommendations regarding the multidimensional nature of anxiety, comorbidity, uniformity myths, synchrony, normative comparisons, psychometric properties of measures, and treatment integrity are offered. Finally, promising areas of clinical research are presented to enhance further the current understanding of the complexities inherent in assessing anxiety disorders.Preparation of this paper was supported in part by NIMH Grant MH36299.     

Problem-Solving Training as Prevention with College Students

Problem-solving processes play an important role within remedial and human effectiveness models of development. This article discusses the use of preventive problem-solving training with college students.     

Variables related to reported learning in brief experiential groups held at professional meetings

Reports of learning from 119 participants of 18 general psychodynamic groups from the 1981 and 1982 annual meetings of the Canadian Group Psychotherapy Association were investigated. Two main learning factors emerged from a factor analysis of participant ratings, learning about oneself in a small group (factor one) and learning how to be an effective leader with professional skills (factor two). Participants reported moderate to considerable learning for both factors even though the stated task of the groups did not emphasize the learning of professional skills. Relationships between several classes of variables (group, leader, demographic) and reported learning were studied. Results that were consistent with several previous investigations were found. The discovery of a participant, sex-difference finding, i.e., greater reported learning by the women, generated a number of questions that may be addressed in future investigations.This article was derived from a paper presented at the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Canadian Group Psychotherapy Association, October 27, 1983, Banff, Canada.     

Process and content in an outpatient schizophrenic group

Process and content issues were evaluated during the first six months of an outpatient schizophrenic group. Compared with groups composed of neurotic and characterological patients, the schizophrenic group scored higher in the Avoiding dimension of the Group Climate Questionnaire (GCQ-S). There was more cohesion and less interpersonal conflict as time went on. Although topics related to engagement and differentiation were discussed, there was no obvious GCQ-S evidence of these first two stages of group development. However, the data supported the presence of stage 3 (individuation) during sessions 20–26. Interpersonal topics dominated the group discussions, followed by issues involving reality-testing, expression of emotions, and advice-giving.The authors wish to thank Dr. K. Roy MacKenzie for his helpful comments on a draft of this paper.