Client,Treatment, and Therapist Variables Related To Outcome in Brief,Systems-Oriented Family Therapy

Client, therapist, and treatment characteristics were examined with respect to how much of the variance they could account for in a variety of outcome measures. Multiple regression analyses were used to examine relationships among each of the client, therapist, and treatment characteristics studied and the various outcome measures. For the 219 families that were treated with brief family therapy, only a relatively low amount of variance in any of the outcome measures could be accounted for. The amount of explained variance, however, varied considerably from one outcome measure to the other. When the more homogeneous groups of clients (single parents or adolescent identified patients) were considered, the amount of explained variance generally showed an increase. Different sets of client, therapist, and treatment variables accounted for the variance in these outcome measures across client groups, demonstrating both the complexities of the relationships and the relative independence of various outcome measures. New variables are suggested for future research.     

An Assessment of the Effectiveness of Two Tactics to Reduce Arousal in Crowded Mass Transit Settings1

Studies of crowding in various settings have shown that individuals are aroused and frequently suffer from ill health. Several studies have shown that it is possible to successfully intervene in residential, shopping, and classroom settings to reduce the negative effects of crowding. The present laboratory experiment assessed the effectiveness of two tactics commonly used by passengers in crowded mass transit settings. Results indicated that the two tactics, reading a newspaper or talking to others, failed to reduce arousal. An explanation for the failure of these tactics is offered.     

Rape Myths, Rape Definitions, and Probability of Conviction

Feminist analyses of rape hypothesize that adherence to rape myths affects the inclusiveness or restrictiveness of rape definitions, with numerous practical consequences. The results of this research support that hypothesis. The paper also critiques the experimental vignette methodology frequently used to investigate rape definitions. In the process of exploring its cectral hypothesis, this analysis demonstrates the importance and feasibility of using additional techniques to achieve a fuller understanding of factors affecting rape definitions.     

TEACHING THE HANDICAPPED TO EAT IN PUBLIC PLACES: ACQUISITION,GENERALIZATION AND MAINTENANCE OF RESTAURANT SKILLS

This study examined classroom-based instruction in restauranting skills for handicapped persons. Three male students were taught each of four skill components in sequential order: locating, ordering, paying, and eating and exiting. Training was implemented in a multiple baseline design across subjects and consisted of modeling and role playing in conjunction with photo slide sequences and a simulated ordering counter. The use of a menu containing general item classes and a finger matching procedure for identifying errors in the delivery of change greatly reduced the reading and math skills necessary to enter and complete the program. Periodic probes were conducted in a McDonald's restaurant prior to, during, and up to one-year following the termination of training. In addition, two probes (overt and covert observation) were conducted in a Burger King restaurant to assess further generalization to a location different from the one depicted throughout training. Results showed that students' performance on restaurant probes improved as a result of training, generalized to novel settings, maintained over an extended period of time, and was comparable to that of a normative sample of nonretarded persons.     

TRAINING PARENTS IN BEHAVIORAL SELF-MANAGEMENT: AN ANALYSIS OF GENERALIZATION AND MAINTENANCE

This study examined the generalization and maintenance effects of three phases of parent training (Instructions plus Feedback and two Self-management Training phases) on levels of disruptive child behavior and the accuracy with which parents implemented programs. Data were collected from five families in three main settings: the initial training setting (the home), a variety of generalization settings in the community, and the family breakfast. A multiple baseline across subjects design was used. Instructions plus Feedback comprised instructing parents to use a range of behavior management procedures and provided home-based differential feedback concerning accuracy of program implementation. Self-management Training phases involved training parents in goal setting, self-monitoring, and planning skills, specific to their performance of appropriate parenting skills in generalization settings. Results indicated that the Instructions plus Feedback phase was sufficient to produce reduced levels of problem behavior at home and high levels of accurate implementation, but generalization effects out of home were equivocal. Self-management maintained reduced levels of problem behavior at home but, in addition, resulted in generalization effects in community settings for both children and parents. Maintenance probes 3 months following the program revealed the effects had been maintained.     

The effect of modification of expressive displays on vicarious emotional arousal

Several recent experiments have demonstrated that modulation of the facial expressive response is accompanied by changes in autonomic arousal and subjective response to painful stimuli. The present study asked whether facial self-regulation may also bring about changes in covert vicarious emotional experience. Three groups of subjects were exposed to a videotaped model displaying intermittent pain to shock in a differential vicarious autonomic conditioning paradigm. Subjects in the inhibit and amplify groups were asked, respectively, (a) to inhibit their facial muscles or (b) to pose a facial response of pain when the model was shocked. It was predicted that the inhibit group would show less autonomic arousal to the model's expressive display (empathy) and less conditioning (as measured by skin conductance and heart rate change), and the amplify group more empathy and conditioning, than a third group who was given no facial instruction. In fact, the amplify group showed more skin conductance arousal, heart rate acceleration, and activity in response to the model's expressive display of pain than did the other two groups (which were not different from each other), but no more autonomic or facial conditioning. The overall pattern of physiological data is interpreted as generally supportive of a facial feedback theory of emotion: where significant between-groups' differences were obtained in facial activity, as in vicarious instigation, autonomic arousal differences also emerged; where no expressive differences were obtained, as in vicarious conditioning, no differences in autonomic arousal were found.     

Unemployment in the Postindustrial Age: Counseling Redundant Workers

Currently, in the United States, redundancy counseling, dealing with jobless or displaced workers, is the exception rather than the rule in cases of plant closures. It is likely, however, that redundancy counseling will become more common in the future, as more U.S. manufacturers turn to production sharing. Indeed, it has been suggested that redundancy counseling might replace the traditional unemployment compensation system as a better method of dealing with unemployment in a rapidly changing, highly technological world.     

Time-series analysis of long-term cardiovascular response

The purpose of this study was to illustrate the use of time-series analysis with long-term cardiovascular responding. Analyses of two successive 1000-minute mean blood pressure and heart-rate series in five chronically instrumented dogs showed that the autocorrelation function of the original series appeared highly nonstationary and that differencing the data produced a simple autocorrelation pattern which could be successfully modeled with stepwise autoregression. Evidence for reliable individual differences as well as change over sessions is presented and discussed.     

Parafoveal information is not sufficient to produce semantic or visual priming

Marcel (1978) has shown that semantic priming can occur in the lexical-decision task even if the prime is masked to the point at which its presence cannot be detected. The purpose of the present experiments was to determine if primes that begin four or five spaces to the right of fixation can also produce semantic facilitation even though they are very difficult to recognize. Experiment 1 showed that facilitation did occur when the parafoveal primes used in the subsequent experiments were presented foveally. In Experiment 2, the primes were moved to the parafovea, but the task demands directed the subject’s attention toward the fovea. When subjects were ignoring the information presented to the parafovea (an allocation pattern that should correspond to that used during normal reading), neutral primes were just as effective as either semantically related or identical primes. In Experiment 3, the task demands were altered so that subjects were actively attending to the parafoveal primes. Although subjects were trying to process the primes, there was still no evidence that benefits could be derived from parafoveal primes. A final experiment showed that subjects given extensive practice with the materials will produce large amounts of identity and semantic priming. The results support the conclusion that readers can benefit little from the preprocessing of information in the parafovea unless that information can be supplemented with contextual expectations.     

Salient features of color space

Recent research has demonstrated that focal regions of color space are cognitively more salient than nonfocal regions. Employing a linguistic hedge task, the experiment here sought mainly to verify the cognitive primacy of loci representing Berlin and Kay’s first four chromatic categories over foci representing the remainder. The experimental results failed to support the primacy hypothesis, an outcome that gives rise to a number of theoretical implications. Additional questions in the analysis concerned the relationship between the salience of a color and its lightness (Munsell value) and saturation (Munsell chroma). While the results permit no simple interpretation for lightness, a definite trend emerged in the case of saturation.