The Shift from Monologue to Dialogue in a Couple Therapy Session: Dialogical Investigation of Change from the Therapists’ Point of View

As part of a larger research project on couple therapy for depression, this qualitative case study examines the nature of dialogue. Drawing on Bakhtinian concepts, the investigation shows how the conversation shifts from a monologue to dialogue. Among the findings are: first, the process of listening is integral to the transforming experience. That is, the careful listening of the therapist can evoke new voices, just as the experience of one of the partners’ “listening in” to the conversation between the other partner and the therapist can create movement and new trajectories. The latter is a qualitative difference between dialogic therapy with a couple and that with an individual. Second, the therapist not only acts as creative listener, but as the dialogue unfolds, actively contributes to meaning‐making. Third, the study upholds having a team of researchers as a polyphonic forum and the usefulness of Bakhtinian concepts in clinical research on dialogue in multi‐actor sessions.     

Religious and Spiritual Values and Moral Commitment in Marriage: Untapped Resources in Couples Counseling?

The authors investigated the relationship between religious and spiritual values and moral commitment in marriage to further inform marriage and family counselors about the nature of committed relationships. Using a qualitative research design, they examined individuals' perceptions of moral commitment in their marriage and how their religious and spiritual values influence those perceptions. Narrative text was analyzed through an iterative process, involving constant comparison of emerging themes, and 6 categories materialized. Findings build on existing knowledge regarding the importance of moral commitment to marital health specifically as it relates to the counseling profession.     

Relations between implicit measures of prejudice:what are we measuring?

Some recent findings suggest that different implicit measures of prejudice assess the same underlying construct, but other work suggests that they may not. In this experiment, White participants completed a version of a priming measure of racial attitudes that either encouraged categorization of the face primes in terms of race or did not encourage such categorization, and then completed the Implicit Association Test. Correspondence between the two measures was found only when categorization by race was required on the priming measure. Moreover, participants appeared more prejudiced when they were led to construe individuals in terms of race than when they were not so encouraged. The discussion focuses on the potential for dissociations between evaluations of a category and evaluations of members of the category.     

Beyond Discrete Categories: Studying Multiracial,Intersex, and Transgender Children Will Strengthen Basic Developmental Science

Developmental research on social categorization has overwhelmingly focused on perceptions about and experiences of individuals who are clear or prototypical members of discrete and usually dichotomous social categories. For example, studies of social categorization, stereotyping, prejudice, and social identity have generally explored how children reason about others who are gender-typical boys or girls or monoracial White or Black children. Similarly, research participants have generally been gender-typical and monoracial. However, our efforts to build theories that account for the true range of variation require acknowledging the increasing visibility of children who do not fit into these discrete categories and raise the question of whether existing theories can capture the dynamics that arise for them. Focusing on race and gender/sex, the social categories that have received the most attention in the developmental literature, we review research that has gone beyond simple dichotomies by including multiracial, gender-nonconforming, or intersex children, either as the targets of social perception or as participants themselves. We argue that this emerging work reveals problematic assumptions built into our theories and methods and highlights the value of building a more inclusive science.     

A comparison of the cognitive deficits in reading disability and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder

This study used a nonreferred sample of twins to contrast the performance of individuals with reading disability (RD; n = 93), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD; n = 52), RD and ADHD (n = 48), and neither RD nor ADHD (n = 121) on measures of phoneme awareness (PA) and executive functioning (EF). Exploratory factor analysis of the EF measures yielded underlying factors of working memory, inhibition, and set shifting. Results revealed that ADHD was associated with inhibition deficits, whereas RD was associated with significant deficits on measures of PA and verbal working memory. The RD + ADHD group was most impaired on virtually all measures, providing evidence against the phenocopy hypothesis as an explanation for comorbidity between RD and ADHD.     

Associative learning improves visual working memory performance

The ability to remember visual stimuli over a short delay period is limited by the small capacity of visual working memory (VWM). Here the authors investigate the role of learning in enhancing VWM. Participants saw 2 spatial arrays separated by a 1-s interval. The 2 arrays were identical except for 1 location. Participants had to detect the difference. Unknown to the participants, some spatial arrays would repeat once every dozen trials or so for up to 32 repetitions. Spatial VWM performance increased significantly when the same location changed across display repetitions, but not at all when different locations changed from one display repetition to another. The authors suggest that a major role of learning in VWM is to mediate which information gets retained, rather than to directly increase VWM capacity.     

Divorce in the kibbutz: Past and present

In the kibbutz today, there are no ideological or economic barriers to prevent a couple from deciding to divorce. Both husband and wife are assured continued economic security and equal opportunities for co-parenting, thus reducing fears of disruption in the daily contact with the children. In spite of these favorable circumstances, marital breakups in the kibbutz are less frequent than in the larger cities in Israel. In recent years, however, at a time when a stronger and more intensive family life has gained legitimacy within the kibbutz structure, there is a marked tendency toward a rise in the rate of divorce. In this article we analyze the possible causes of the variations in the frequency of divorce within the kibbutz framework.The authors express appreciation to Esther Mivtzari, a psychologist on the staff of the Kibbutz Child and Family Clinic and a member of the religious kibbutz Ein-Tzurim, for assistance in gathering data on divorce in the religious kibbitzum.     

Dating age and stage as correlates of adolescent sexual attitudes and behavior

Dating experiences, especially the type or stage of dating, have consistently been found to be related to premarital sexual behavior. Findings regarding the age at 1st date and sexual behavior have been less consistent. This paper examined the age at which dating began and the type of dating relationship as correlates of premarital sexual attitudes and behavior among mid-teen adolescents. The analyses were based on a sample of high school students (n=836), most of whom were between the ages of 15 and 18 when the surveys were conducted. Early dating, especially early steady dating, was related to permissive attitudes and to premarital sexual experience among both males and females. The relationship between early dating and intercourse experience was particulary strong among Mormons, a religious group which has institutionalized age 16 as the legitimate age to begin dating.