Group cohesion: A new multidimensional model

Based upon a careful perusal of all major theoretical reviews and most available controlled, empirical studies from the last 30 years, a five factor model of group cohesion is proposed. These factors are: attraction and bonding; support and caring; listening and empathy; self-disclosure and feedback; and process performance and goal attainment. To understand more fully the complex phenomenon of group cohesion, certain preconditions to the cohesive therapy group must be considered. The most significant of these are: selection of suitable participants; a balanced composition of the group; and effective orientation, training, and contracting. Important early group conditions are: resolving conflict and rebellion; constructive norming and culture building; and reducing avoidance and defensiveness. This new, generic, multidimensional model of group cohesion should prove of great value both to the clinician and the researcher in the group psychotherapy field and related areas.The author is indebted to the following colleagues for constructive criticisms of earlier versions of this report: S. Budman, R. R. Dies, K. R. MacKenzie, W. E. Piper, M. A. Richardsen, and I. D. Yalom.     

The psychological treatment of tinnitus: An experimental evaluation

Disabling tinnitus in 27 patients was treated in an experimental setting with two different types of therapy aiming at the development of coping behaviour. One was focused on behavioural control procedures, while the other aimed at more cognitive control methods such as distraction. The results of the two forms of therapy were compared with each other and with observations of the untreated control subjects. Assessments of subjective loudness, discomfort from tinnitus and controllability were made on analogue scales and at a questionnaire follow-up. Psychoacoustic measures such as personal loudness units (PLU) were used in connection with these self-recordings and for evaluation of treatment effects. The results confirmed favourable reports on behavioural methods in tinnitus. However, no differences were found between therapies. The results are discussed in the light of the coping and adaptation theory.     

Language Delay and Externalizing Problems in Preschool Age: A Prospective Cohort Study

This study sought to examine the direction of causation between language delay and two externalizing problems; inattention and aggression. Autoregressive fixed effects models were fitted to data from 25,474 children (age 1.5 to 5 years; 50.8% boys) in the population-based longitudinal Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa), to model the direction of causality for language delay and inattention and aggression, respectively. The most parsimonious model for the relationship between language delay and inattention was one where both common factors and reciprocal causation were estimated. Adjusted for common factors, language delay was estimated to have a non-significant effect on inattention by b?=?0.12 (p?=?0.06), and inattention to have a significant effect on language delay by b?=?0.19 (p?=?0.03). The most parsimonious model for the direction of causality for language delay and aggression was one where the entire association could be explained by language delay having effect on aggression b?=?0.12 (p?<?0.02). It appears that while language delay can best be conceptualized as an epiphenomenon of inattention partly related to both common factors and causal processes, aggression can best be conceptualized as caused by language delay. This illumination of the hypothetical causal links between two common problem domains in preschool-aged children has clear implications on where to implement interventions to prevent co-occurrence of language delay and externalizing problems.     

Repeated Interrogations –Stretching the Deception Detection Paradigm

In real life, suspects are often subjected to repeatedinterrogations. Psycho-legal research on deception has neglectedthis fact. To remedy this mismatch a series of studies wasconducted mapping how repeated interrogations affectlie-catchers' judgemental processes, deception detectionperformance, and meta-assessments. In two experiments we foundthat lie-catchers given access to consecutive statements from onesuspect did not perform better than lie-catchers given access toone statement only. In addition, access to repeatedinterrogations inflated the lie-catchers' confidence in thecorrectness of their veracity judgement, which had a detrimentaleffect on the accuracy-confidence relation. As the basis forassessing veracity was changed from one to several statements thelie-catchers, to a large extent, seemed to trust the `consistencyheuristic'. The assumption underlying this heuristic is thatinconsistency implies deception and consistency implies truth.The data show that (a) people tend to disagree as to whether aparticular set of consecutive statements is consistent or not,and (b) deceptive statements are at least equally consistent astruthful statements. In order to explain the latter finding a`repeat vs. reconstruct' hypothesis was suggested, assuming thatliars try to repeat their initial statement, whereastruth-tellers try to reconstruct a previously experienced event.The low predictive accuracy found for the `consistency heuristic'strongly questions beliefs held by professional lie-catchers,opinions expressed in the psycho-legal literature andrecommendations found in applied interrogation manuals.     

A matching method of successive approximations and its instrumentation

The present paper reports a method of successive approximations. The technique is optimal for matching stimuli with respect to time and all Ss are forced to use the same strategy. The S’s answer to the question of which is more intense, a reference or a matching stimulus, initiates a new matching stimulus according to an algorithm that bisects intervals up or down in successive trials and gives a new matching stimulus to judge. A circuitry that governs the method of successive approximations is reported. The method is exemplified by an experimental set-up for odor intensity matching.     

Seeing approach motivation in the avoidance behavior of others: implications for an understanding of pluralistic ignorance

Four studies tested the hypothesis that observers tend to interpret others' actions as approach motivated even when they recognize that their own identical choices were motivated by avoidance. Study 1 found that voters in the 2000 U.S. Presidential election who chose a candidate primarily because of their aversion to the alternative thought that others who voted for the same candidate liked him more than they themselves did. In Studies 2, 3, and 4 participants who learned that others made the same choice as themselves between 2 unappealing flavors of soda orjelly beans estimated that the others would pay more than they would for their common choice. The relevance of these findings for an understanding of pluralistic ignorance is discussed.