CONSTRUCT ACCESSIBILITY AND THE MISATTRIBUTION OF AROUSAL:

Abstract— Schachter and Singer (1962) showed that people search the immediate environment for emotionally relevant cues to label and interpret unexplained physiological arousal We investigated how unobtrusively activated cognitions and physiological arousal interact to produce emotional experience when the immediate environment is devoid of relevant cues Subjects were primed with positive, negative, or neutral concepts They then either exercised or sat still and, either immediately or after a delay, rated their emotional state Consistent with what Schachter and Singer found, subjects in the exercise, delayed-rating condition, who lacked an obvious explanation for their arousal, made the most extreme affective self-ratings, which were consistent with the valence of the primed concepts These subjects apparently interpreted their residual arousal in terms of the primed concepts Subjects in the exercise, immediate-rating condition, who had an explanation for their arousal (i e, the exercise), were not influenced by the primes Subjects in the no-exercise condition showed typical priming effects, with prime-consistent self-ratings that decayed over time Implications for emotion formation, misattnbution of arousal, and cognition are discussed     

Counselling foreign students: A review of strategies

This article focuses on the unique counselling needs of foreign students as reflected from a review of the literature. As more and more students from developing countries opt to further their education in the West, knowledge about counselling foreign students is of increasing interest. Distinctive aspects of foreign student clients and the typical problems faced by them are described. The issues which need to be addressed and the competencies which need to be developed in order to effectively counsel foreign students are discussed. Finally, specific strategies for counselling foreign students are suggested in the context of general guidelines for cross-cultural counselling.     

Accreditation Standards for University and College Counseling Centers

The accreditation standards outlined in the article are used by the International Association of Counseling Services, Inc., as the basis for the formal accreditation of college and university counseling programs throughout the United States and Canada. They reflect the program elements and practice standards that are deemed essential in a counseling center that provides high-quality services to students.     

Psychological determinants of decision attitude

Decision attitude — an analog of risk attitude — is the propensity to make (or avoid making) a decision: in decision aversion, a person finds it more desirable to receive through fiat the better of two options than to have a choice between them; in decision seeking, the choice is more desirable, even though it can lead to nothing better than the best option. Both decision aversion and decision seeking were found in hypothetical scenarios. Experimental manipulations and subjects' justifications point to anticipated regret, fear of blame for poor outcomes, and desire for equitable distributions as sources of decision aversion. One source of decision seeking (for self) and decision aversion (when deciding for others) appears to be the desire for the self-determination of the affected parties. We consider the implications of our results for personal choice and public policy decisions.     

Bearing bad news: Dealing with the mimics of denial

Denial is a common label for certain reactions to bad news. However, true denial is rare, and most cases actually represent a variety of responses with very different causes and needs. Three of these, disbelief, deferral, and dismissal, are characterized according to origins and needs. Failure to differentiate between these seemingly similar behaviors can result in inappropriate counseling, and interfere with attempts to convey information and provide support during a time of crisis.     

“I’ve said I’m sorry,haven’t I?” A study of the identity implications and constraints that apologies create for their recipients

In contrast to previous research on apologies, which has examined their role in enhancing impressions of those issuing them (e.g., Darby and Schlenker, 1989), the research reported here draws upon Goffman’s (1955) analysis of the “corrective cycle” and is concerned with constraints associated with the receipt of apologies. Study 1 examines the implications for the actor of accepting, not accepting, or rejecting apologies. It is demonstrated that across a variety of judgments, most positive views of the actor result when apologies are accepted; least positive views are associated with their rejection. A follow-up study sought to establish whether this effect would occur under circumstances in which unconvincing apologies are rejected. Results indicate that the apology’s status (convincing versus unconvincing) has no bearing on perceptions of actors. Based on a hypothetical role-play format, Study 2 addresses the matter of whether actors experience a subjective sense of constraint upon receipt of unsatisfactory apologies. The data suggest that there exists a pronounced tendency to accept such apologies, though typically with conditions that would be specified to the offender. More general implications of the data are discussed.     

Facilitator influence in facilitated communication

The use of facilitated communication with individuals with autism has generated considerable controversy over the past several years. Only recently has research begun appearing which examines the procedure using reasonable scientific controls to establish the validity of this form of communication. The present study assessed the validity of facilitated communication and evaluated the effects of facilitator influence with seven individuals with autism and mental retardation. Three individuals showed clear evidence of facilitator influence, another three showed no such influence, and one subject performed at chance levels. A follow-up session with the three subjects who showed no facilitator influence demonstrated that they also showed no unexpected language competence compared to their measured IQ and to assessment under standard conditions. Results are discussed in terms of significance for facilitated communication in general and in terms of the utility of the methodology as a means of demonstrating language competence or facilitator influence.     

Feeling good and feeling close: Affective influences on the perception of intimate relationships

Two experiments investigated the role of short-term affective states on the way people perceive various aspects of their personal relationships. Using an unobtrusive mood induction in a field setting, Experiment 1 found significant mood congruency in evaluative judgments about well-established intimate relationships. Experiment 2 used a controlled laboratory procedure and found that evaluations of the relationship and the partner, as well as preferred styles of conflict resolution were all significantly affected by the respondents' transient mood state. Increasing relationship longevity did not reduce affective influences on judgments in either study. The results arc discussed in terms of the role of affective states in cognition and judgments, and the influence of affect on everyday judgments about personal relationships is considered.     

Sensorimotor synchronization: Motor responses to pseudoregular auditory patterns

Musically trained and untrained subjects (N=30) were asked to synchronize their finger tapping with stimuli in auditory patterns. Each pattern comprised six successive tonal stimuli of the same duration, the first of which was accented by a different frequency. The duration of interstimulus onset intervals (ISIs) gradually increased or decreased in constant steps toward the end of the patterns. Four values of such steps were used in different trials: 20, 30, 45, and 60 msec. Various time-control mechanisms are hypothesized as being simultaneously responsible for subjects’ incorrect reproduction of the internal temporal ratios of the stimulus patterns. The mechanism of assimilation (of a central tendency) led subjects to enforce a regular (isochronous) structure on the patterns. The influence of other time-control mechanisms (distinction, subjective expression of an accent, sequential transfer) was expressed mainly in differences between intertap onset intervals (ITIs) and the corresponding ISIs at the beginning of the patterns. The duration of the first two ITIs was in the majority of the trials in an inverse ratio to the ratio of the respective ISIs. The distortions resulting from the timing mechanisms concerned were more pronounced in the performance of nonmusicians than in that of musicians.     

Human sensitivity to temporal proximity: The role of spatial and temporal speed gradients

Estimates of temporal proximity (sometimes called time-to-collision) from random-dot flow patterns are shown to be based upon retinal speed, rather than upon changes in dot density. Neither the spatial nor the temporal gradient of motion is essential to the task, but estimates can be made from either alone. Performance is unaffected by the addition of rotational motion, suggesting that observers axe capable of extracting the radial component of motion, which contains all the relevant information, from complex stimuli.