A Cylindrical Model of Communication Behavior in Crisis Negotiations

This article integrates existing theoretical perspectives on message content and negotiator motivation to formulate a comprehensive definitional model of the interrelationships among communication behaviors in crisis negotiation. A sample of 189 nuclear dialogue spans were transcribed from 9 resolved cases of hostage negotiation and each utterance coded at the level of thought units across 41 behavioral variables. Results of a nonmetric, multidimensional scaling solution provided clear support for the hypothesized cylindrical structure of communication behavior, revealing 3 dominant levels of suspect‐negotiator interaction (Avoidance, Distributive, Integrative). At each level of the structure, interactions were found to modulate around 3 thematic styles of communication (Identity, Instrumental, Relational), which reflected the underlying motivational emphasis of individuals' dialogue. Finally, the intensity of communication was found to play a polarizing role in the cylinder, with intense, functionally discrete behaviors occurring toward the boundary of the structure.     

Disguised Ideologies in Counseling and Social Justice Work

A social justice orientation for counseling is appealing to many but appears to some to violate counselor neutrality and respect for client freedom and rights. Confusion about neutrality and advocacy in the counseling field seems to reflect confused assumptions and values in the wider culture. As a result, counseling is guided more by a disguised ideology of liberal individualism than an objective theory or value‐neutral principles. The authors suggest that a hermeneutic, dialogical framework for counseling has the potential to resolve much of this confusion and to refine and broaden a social justice approach in needed ways.     

Association of Poor Kin Relations,College Adjustment and Psychological Well-Being among African American Undergraduates

The purpose of this study was twofold. The first was to examine the association of poor kin relations with students’ psychological distress and college adjustment in a sample of 83 African American undergraduates. The second was to assess whether the relationship of poor kin relations with both psychological distress and college adjustment was mediated by perceived stress and self-esteem. Fifty-nine female and 24 male African American undergraduates were administered the study measures via online survey. Findings revealed that poor kin relations were positively associated with psychological distress and negatively related to college adjustment. Evidence of the meditational role of perceived stress and self-esteem was found. Poor relations with kin were linked to increased vulnerability to stress and decreased self-esteem, which in turn, was associated with increase in psychological distress and decrease in college adjustment. For counselors, administrators and faculty concerned with the adjustment and retention of ethnic minority undergraduates, understanding the role of extended family and other off-campus relations in students’ psychological well-being may be highly important.     

Audio-visual simultaneity judgments

The relative spatiotemporal correspondence between sensory events affects multisensory integration across a variety of species; integration is maximal when stimuli in different sensory modalities are presented from approximately the same position at about the same time. In the present study, we investigated the influence of spatial and temporal factors on audio-visual simultaneity perception in humans. Participants made unspeeded simultaneous versus successive discrimination responses to pairs of auditory and visual stimuli presented at varying stimulus onset asynchronies from either the same or different spatial positions using either the method of constant stimuli (Experiments 1 and 2) or psychophysical staircases (Experiment 3). The participants in all three experiments were more likely to report the stimuli as being simultaneous when they originated from the same spatial position than when they came from different positions, demonstrating that the apparent perception of multisensory simultaneity is dependent on the relative spatial position from which stimuli are presented.     

Subtyping obsessive-compulsive disorder: A taxometric analysis

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a heterogeneous condition comprising multiple symptoms. Researchers have identified OCD subtypes using a range of symptom-based research methods, including factor and cluster analyses and examination of differential treatment response. These methods can be challenged on the grounds that they fail to demonstrate the existence of discrete taxonomic entities. Furthermore, no study has examined subtyping on the basis of cognitive characteristics. In the present study, the categorical vs. dimensional status of 6 possible subtypes of OCD was examined using taxometric methods. Three potential cognitive subtypes (based on high levels of responsibility/threat estimation, perfectionism/certainty, and importance/control of thoughts) and 3 potential symptomatic subtypes (based on elevated levels of contamination obsessions and cleaning compulsions, checking, and obsessionality) were examined using the MAXEIG and MAMBAC procedures in a sample of 404 diagnosed cases of OCD. Findings favored dimensional models of the potential responsibility, perfectionism, checking, and contamination subtypes, but offered qualified support for taxonic models of the importance/control of thoughts and obsessional subtypes. Implications for the subclassification of OCD are discussed.     

Transforming mental health care for children and their families

In April 2002, the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health was created by executive order to study the mental health care delivery system in our nation and to make recommendations for improvements so that individuals with serious mental disorders can live, work, learn, and fully participate in their homes and communities. In its report, "Achieving the Promise: Transforming Mental Health Care in America," the commission provided strategies to address critical infrastructure, practice, and research issues. This article focuses on the work of the commission's Subcommittee on Children and Families, describing its vision for mental health service delivery for children and providing suggestions for strengthening community-based care for youths with or at risk of behavioral health disorders. Training, research, practice, and policy implications for psychologists are discussed.     

Affirmation of personal values buffers neuroendocrine and psychological stress responses

Stress is implicated in the development and progression of a broad array of mental and physical health disorders. Theory and research on the self suggest that self-affirming activities may buffer these adverse effects. This study experimentally investigated whether affirmations of personal values attenuate physiological and psychological stress responses. Eighty-five participants completed either a value-affirmation task or a control task prior to participating in a laboratory stress challenge. Participants who affirmed their values had significantly lower cortisol responses to stress, compared with control participants. Dispositional self-resources (e.g., trait self-esteem and optimism) moderated the relation between value affirmation and psychological stress responses, such that participants who had high self-resources and had affirmed personal values reported the least stress. These findings suggest that reflecting on personal values can keep neuroendocrine and psychological responses to stress at low levels. Implications for research on the self, stress processes, health, and interventions are discussed.     

Role rigidity: a problem of identity misclassification?

When nonstigmatized individuals enact certain role-violating behaviors, they risk becoming "falsely accused deviants" (H. S. Becker, 1963, p. 20). For instance, when heterosexual men perform stereotypically feminine behaviors, they are liable to get misclassified as homosexual. Findings presented here reveal that expectations of identity misclassification fuel nonstigmatized individuals' negative reactions to role violations (Studies 1-2) and that using a disclaimer--that is, informing their audience of their nonstigmatized identity--assuages people's discomfort during a role-violating behavior (Studies 3-4). Moreover, when not concerned about being misclassified, nonstigmatized individuals benefit psychologically from the enactment of a challenging role violation (Study 4). Discussion considers the nature of the threat that misclassified role violators face and compares the plight of the falsely accused deviant to that of the truly stigmatized individual.     

Can eyewitnesses correct for external influences on their lineup identifications? The actual/counterfactual assessment paradigm

Real-world eyewitnesses are often asked whether their lineup responses were affected by various external influences, but it is unknown whether they can accurately answer these types of questions. The witness-report-of-influence mental-correction model is proposed to explain witnesses' reports of influence. Two experiments used a new paradigm (the actual/counterfactual paradigm) to examine eyewitnesses' abilities to report accurately on the influence of lineup manipulations. Eyewitnesses were administered either confirming feedback or no feedback (Experiment 1, n = 103), or a cautionary instruction or no cautionary instruction (Experiment 2, n = 114). Eyewitnesses then gave actual responses (retrospective confidence, view, and attention measures in Experiment 1; identification decision in Experiment 2) as well as counterfactual responses stating how they would have responded in the alternative condition. Results across both studies showed an asymmetric estimation of influence pattern: Eyewitnesses who received an influencing manipulation estimated significantly less of a change in their responses than eyewitnesses who did not receive an influencing manipulation. A 48-hr delay between actual and counterfactual responses did not moderate any effects. Results are explained by witnesses' implicit theories of influence.