Connotative Meaning as a Determinant of Response to Test Item Content

The purpose of this study was to determine if responses of like or dislike to Perceptual Reaction Test (PRT) designs — and thus, its ability to discriminate among criterion groups — were related to the connotative meaning of the designs. Seventy-four Ss were administered the PRT designs to which they responded on the traditional like-dislike alternatives as well as rating each design on a semantic differential. Correlations between the like-dislike dimension of the PRT designs and the semantic differential ratings of those designs indicated that when a S checks like for a design, he is expressing a positive evaluation of that design and probably sees it as less potent than those designs for which he checked dislike. Expression of like or dislike for a design appears to be inconsistently related to the activity dimension of meaning.     

Maintaining Order and Following the Rules: Gender Differences in Punishing Inmate Misconduct

For this article, we examine gender differences in how staff members address inmate misconduct. Using in-depth interviews with forty-three correctional employees, we focus on how their various disciplinary styles create interpersonal conflict between staff members. We find that over half of interviewees are identified as “formal responders” who consistently punish inmate misconduct with formal sanctions, even if doing so creates conflict within the organization. However, female formal responders also claim that they work closely with male inmates to explain the importance of following the rules. They state that this puts them at odds with their male co-workers who misinterpret this behavior as instigating sexual relationships.     

Facilitated Disclosure Versus Clinical Accommodation of Infidelity Secrets: An Early Pivot Point in Couple Therapy. Part 2: Therapy Ethics,Pragmatics, and Protocol

In couple therapy, one partner's private disclosure of infidelity presents a potentially polarizing issue involving the therapist's decision to facilitate disclosure or accommodate non-disclosure. Some therapists may assume accommodating an infidelity secret is the most compassionate and efficient option. We consider this decision in the context of therapy ethics of equal advocacy and confidentiality, implications for individual and relationship healing, and pragmatic aspects of conducting therapy. We conclude that measured disclosure of infidelity, determined by the aggrieved spouse, best resolves the potential collision of multilateral advocacy with confidentiality and offers the best prospects for a working therapy alliance and couple healing and renewal. A clinical protocol for facilitating disclosure of infidelity secrets is presented.     

Training Considerations for MFTs in Couple and Financial Counseling

Evidence suggests that many couples attending marital therapy report that financial concerns have a significant impact on their distress. Despite the complaint, many Marriage and Family Therapy (MFT) training programs do not offer courses that teach therapists how to properly address financial concerns as a part of their training or curriculum, leaving many practitioners unaware of the processes associated with remediating the distress. The authors address the concepts of financial literacy and financial problems, and suggest a training curriculum to guide therapists in decisions about treating financial concerns for couples. Suggestions of future research and core competencies are discussed.     

The Relationship Between Academic Oral Proficiency and Reading Performance: A Comparative Study Between English Learners and English-Only Students

This study investigates the relationship between oral proficiency and reading proficiency in English-learning children (L2 students) and native English-speaking children (NE students). A set of oral activities measuring students’ academic oral skills in science classes was developed and administered to 61 fourth graders. Both the meaning-related aspects and the formal aspects of the students’ academic oral proficiency were compared between strong and struggling readers and between NE and L2 students. The study thus used a 2 × 2 factorial design (Strong/Struggling Readers × NE/L2 Students). After controlling for the students’ nonverbal analytic and reasoning skills, this study found that strong and struggling readers showed different levels of performance with respect to the meaning-related aspects of oral academic language but not with respect to the formal aspects of language. Conversely, differences between NE and L2 students were found in components related to the formal aspects but not in those related to the meaning aspects of oral language.     

Treating PTSD in active duty service members using cognitive processing therapy or prolonged exposure therapy: Examining everyday practice at a military outpatient clinic

The Institute of Medicine has stressed the need for evaluations of evidence-based treatments (EBTs) for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among active duty service members (AD) using a variety of evaluation approaches (Institute of Medicine, 2012). The current study examined the clinical files of 134 service members who completed treatment for PTSD using either prolonged exposure (PE) or cognitive processing therapy at an outpatient clinic. At the completion of each session, therapists made a clinical rating as to whether or not the session was protocol adherent. The total number of treatment sessions and the proportion of sessions rated as being protocol adherent were calculated. Multi-level models estimated the change in patient PTSD and other psychological symptoms over time as a function of clinician-rated protocol adherence and total number of sessions. Approximately 65% of clinic encounters were rated by therapists as being protocol adherent. Significant reductions in PTSD and psychological symptoms were associated with protocol adherence, and this was particularly true for patients who began treatment above clinical thresholds for both PTSD and other psychological symptoms. However, as the number of sessions increased, the impact of protocol adherence was attenuated. Patient characteristics, including gender, ethnicity, and co-morbidity for other psychiatric disorders were not related to symptom change trajectories over time. These findings suggest that protocol adherence and efficiency in delivery of EBTs for the treatment of PTSD with AD is critical.     

Race and Ethnicity: An 11‐Year Content Analysis of Counseling and Values

Using the Dimensions of Personal Identity Model proposed by Arredondo and Glauner (as cited in Arredondo et al., 1996 ), the authors reviewed the last 11 years of the Association for Spiritual, Ethical, and Religious Values in Counseling's journal, Counseling and Values, specifically regarding the “A” dimensions of race and ethnicity. Twenty‐five of the 235 articles reviewed (11%) contained a multicultural perspective defined in these terms. Other aspects of cultural inclusion, such as authorship and type of study, were also considered.     

More Than a Sex Machine: Accomplishing Masculinity Among Chinese Male Sex Workers in the Hong Kong Sex Industry

Situated in the masculinity and deviance literature, this article examines a “deviant” masculinity, that of the male sex worker, and presents the ways men who engage in sex work cope with the job. Based on in-depth interviews of Chinese male sex workers (n = 18) in the Hong Kong sex industry, I argue that the stigma management techniques these men employ are simultaneously gender strategies they use to accomplish masculinity. It is through this process that they negotiate a masculine identity within the hierarchy of masculinities in order to become “respectable” and “responsible” Chinese men.     

Brief pitch-priming facilitates infants’ discrimination of pitch-evoking noise: Evidence from event-related potentials

Pitch is derived by the auditory system through complex spectrotemporal processing. Pitch extraction is thought to depend on both spectral cues arising from lower harmonics that are resolved by cochlear filters in the inner ear, and on temporal cues arising from the pattern of action potentials contained in the cochlear output. Adults are capable of extracting pitch in the absence of robust spectral cues, taking advantage of the temporal cues that remain. However, recent behavioral evidence suggests that infants have difficulty discriminating between stimuli with different pitches when resolvable spectral cues are absent. In the current experiments, we used the mismatch negativity (MMN) component of the event related potential derived from electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings to examine a cortical representation of pitch discrimination for iterated rippled noise (IRN) stimuli in 4- and 8-month-old infants. IRN stimuli are pitch-evoking sounds generated by repeatedly adding a segment of white noise to itself at a constant delay. We created IRN stimuli (delays of 5 and 6 ms creating pitch percepts of 200 and 167 Hz) and high-pass filtered them to remove all resolvable spectral pitch cues. In experiment 1, we did not find EEG evidence that infants could detect the change in the pitch of these IRN stimuli. However, in Experiment 2, after a brief period of pitch-priming during which we added a sine wave component to the IRN stimulus at its perceived pitch, infants did show significant MMN in response to pitch changes in the IRN stimuli with sine waves removed. This suggests that (1) infants can use temporal cues to process pitch, although such processing is not mature and (2) that a short amount of pitch-priming experience can alter pitch representations in auditory cortex during infancy.     

Comprehension of the Referential Intent of Looking and Pointing Between 12 and 15 Months

Butler, Caron, & Brooks (2000) tested the gaze following of 14-and 18-month-olds under 3 conditions: (1) when the adult's view of the targets was blocked by barriers, (2) when the barriers contained open windows, and (3) no barriers. Contrary to a nonmentalist "ecological" model (adult turns serve as cues to the location of interesting events), frequency of gaze following by 14-month-olds was not equivalent across the 3 conditions. Contrary to a mentalist model (infant wants to see what the adult is seeing), gaze following was not substantially less in the barrier than in the window and no-barrier conditions (as was the case for 18-month-olds). To examine whether the barriers posed vector projection problems for essentially nonmentalist, or line-of-sight problems for essentially mentalist younger infants, 3 experiments were conducted. In Experiment 1, a 12-month group was tested in the same 3 conditions to determine if, being younger, they might yield a more clearcut nonmentalist pattern. Contrarily, they behaved like Butler et al.'s 14-month-olds. In Experiment 2, a 14-month group was tested in the barrier and window conditions, but now combining pointing with turning. Infants behaved as predicted by the mentalist model: strong responding in the window condition and minimal in the barrier (where many strained to look inside the partitions). In Experiment 3, an attempt was made to differentiate between mentalist and "geometric" (vector projection) interpretations of the results of Experiment 2 by testing another 14-month group with the adult's eyes closed while pointing. Gaze following now dropped precipitously in the window condition as did looking inside the solid barriers, indicating (1) that infants in Experiment 2 had not simply been guided to target by an extended arm, but construed it as part of a referential act that was as much visual as gestural, and (2) that by 14 months, infants may have acquired a mentalistic concept of seeing.