The Search for Reliable Generalizations About Messages A Comparison of Research Strategies

Two ways of conducting the search for generalizations about messages are considered: Morley's (this volume) proposal that single-message research designs be used, with subsequent meta-analytic summaries, and Jackson and Jacobs's (1983) proposal that multiple-message designs be used, with messages treated as a random factor in the statistical analysis. Jackson and Jacobs's approach is shown to provide a more dependable, efficient, and practical means for gathering the requisite evidence for dependable generalizations. The charge that multiple-message designs suffer from irreparable problems of experimenter bias is refuted. The treatment of messages as a random factor is defended as statistically appropriate and as clearly preferable to the statistical alternatives.     

THE MORAL STATUS OF ENABLING HARM

According to the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing, it is more difficult to justify doing harm than it is to justify allowing harm. Enabling harm consists in withdrawing an obstacle that would, if left in place, prevent a pre‐existing causal sequence from leading to foreseen harm. There has been a lively debate concerning the moral status of enabling harm. According to some (e.g. McMahan, Vihvelin and Tomkow), many cases of enabling harm are morally indistinguishable from doing harm. Others (e.g. Foot, Hanser) support the Equivalence Hypothesis, according to which enabling harm is morally equivalent to allowing harm. Here I argue that there is every reason to embrace, and no reason to reject, the Equivalence Hypothesis.     

Factors Associated with Engagement in Family Therapy

Thirty-eight families who continued in conjoint family therapy were compared on a variety of antecedent variables to 13 families who dropped out. Three potentially important predictors of continuance in family therapy were found: (a) which spouse initiated the search for treatment; (b) the level of authoritarianism in the spouses; and (c) family socioeconomic status. Families that dropped out of treatment tended to be of lower socioeconomic status and contained spouses who had more highly authoritarian attitudes as measured by the California F Scale ( 1 ). Families that contained a severly disturbed member had a poor rate of engagement in treatment, but if both spouses in such a family were low in authoritarianism, the engagement rate was 100 per cent. When both spouses initiated the search for treatment, engagement was also nearly perfect. The difficulty in engaging families from the lowest socio-economic class may be attributed partly to the authoritarian attitudes of the husband.     

Coping with the Stresses of Travel as an Opportunity for Improving the Quality of Work and Family Life

The relationship between the working lives and family lives of people in our society is little explored. This article describes a case in which heavy business travel created problems both for the industrial organization and the families of the employees involved. To cope with the problem, the family perspective was brought into the organization by means of a husband-wife workshop. The workshop used structure to fit privacy norms of industry, to help couples explore aspects of their relationships that determined their individual and joint response to organizational and family stress, and to develop collaborative resources for coping with those stresses. The benefits to the families and the organization went beyond coping with the stresses of business travel and extended to other important aspects of both business and family life.