The impact of aggressive priming, rumination, and frustration on prison sentencing

We tested the hypothesis that ruminating about a previous aggressive prime interacts with a subsequent minor frustration to augment aggression. Sixty participants watched a video showing a murder during a bank robbery (the aggressive prime). Those in the rumination condition were asked to write about the video for 20 min. In the no rumination condition, participants were given 20 min to complete an irrelevant task. Participants were then either frustrated or not frustrated. Our results supported the main hypothesis. Relative to the control condition, neither rumination nor frustration alone impacted aggression. Rumination, in combination with a minor frustration, however, increased the recommended prison sentence towards the targets. We discuss the implications of our findings.     

Enhancing treatment for school-age children who stutter I. Reducing negative reactions through desensitization and cognitive restructuring

This paper describes several treatment strategies that clinicians can use to address negative affective, behavioral, and cognitive reactions that school-age children who stutter may experience as part of their disorder. Specific strategies include desensitization to stuttering, cognitive restructuring, self-acceptance, purposeful self-disclosure, and a combination of both fluency enhancing and stuttering modification approaches. To facilitate clinicians' application of these techniques, the strategies are presented in the context of a case study involving a 9-year-old boy who participated in a comprehensive treatment program for stuttering. Following treatment, the child exhibited improved communication attitudes and a reduced frequency and severity of stuttering, combined with reduced concern about stuttering, as indicated through formal and informal assessments. Findings suggest that clinicians can help children overcome the negative reactions associated with stuttering through a number of treatment strategies that can be applied in a variety of clinical settings. Educational objectives: After reading this article, participants will be able to: (1) define desensitization and cognitive restructuring and provide two arguments in favor of using these strategies in treatment for school-age children who stutter; (2) describe two treatment strategies for helping school-age children achieve desensitization through stuttering therapy; (3) describe two treatment strategies for helping school-age children engage in cognitive restructuring in the context of therapy.     

Beacon training in a water maze can facilitate and compete with subsequent room cue learning in rats

In Stage 1 of 4 experiments in which rats completed a water-maze blocking procedure, experimental groups were trained to use a predictive beacon (hanging above, connected to, or displaced from the platform) to find a submerged escape platform in the presence of predictive or irrelevant background cues and in the presence or absence of irrelevant landmarks. In Stage 2, a fixed beacon, landmarks, and background cues all predicted the platform location. A Room Test (landmarks and background cues only) showed that Stage 1 training with a fixed hanging beacon or the moving displaced beacon facilitated Stage 2 learning of predictive room cues for experimental relative to control subjects. In contrast, Stage 1 training with a moving pole beacon interfered with Stage 2 learning about predictive room cues relative to controls, whereas training with a fixed pole or moving hanging beacon had no effect. We conclude that multiple spatial learning processes influence locating an escape platform in the water maze.     

School Psychologist and Teacher Perceptions of Social Power in Consultation

Social power has been recognized as central to understanding aspects of school consultation. This study examined school psychologist and teacher perceptions of the effectiveness of 11 bases of social power that psychologists might use with initially resistant teachers. Results suggested that psychologists and teachers held similar views about power within consultation: Both groups rated expert and informational power as the most effective bases, ranked the 11 power bases in a similar way, and indicated that psychologists would be more effective using “soft” (i.e., subtle, positive, noncoercive) bases rather than “hard” bases. Findings also suggested that the groups held different views of social power: Psychologists rated impersonal and personal reward power as more effective than did teachers, and teachers rated psychologists' use of legitimate position, informational, and legitimate dependence power as more effective than did psychologists.     

The Common Beliefs Survey-III and the Situational Self-Statement and Affective State Inventory: Test-Retest Reliability, Internal Consistency, and Further Psychometric Considerations

The Common Beliefs Survey-III (CBS-III), a factored measure of general irrational beliefs, has satisfactory convergent and discriminant validity. The Situational Self-Statement and Affective State Inventory (SSSASI), also with acceptable basic psychometric properties, assesses specific thoughts and feelings in response to vignettes describing frustrating events. Both inventories are potentially useful in assessing dimensions important to REBT, but information on test-retest reliability is needed. The CBS-III and the SSSASI were administered to 101 undergraduate students on two occasions, two or three weeks apart. Satisfactory test-retest reliability coefficients were obtained on all subscales of both inventories, but in the case of the SSSASI reliabilities were generally stronger when the same form of the test was used on both occasions (Form 1 presented the thoughts before the feelings, whereas Form 2 presented the feelings before the thoughts). Further exploration showed that responding to the thoughts before the feelings significantly attenuated scores on the feelings, but responding to the feelings before the thoughts had no effect on scores on the thoughts. This unexpected finding also held true in a previously unexamined data set obtained with a different sample of students several years earlier. Taking careful stock of one's emotional reactions before embarking on cognitive modification interventions seems essential to REBT, and it follows that asking questionnaire respondents to rate their affective states before they rate their self-statements could be desirable conceptually. These results provide empirical support for that strategy.     

Punishment Without Cause: Regression and the Effects of Leader Attribution Errors1

Kahneman and Tversky (1973) observed that failure to understand simple regression to the mean could cause leaders to falsely learn that punishment was more effective than reward in shaping subordinate performance. This fundamental hypothesis and other attribution theory hypotheses were tested in a field experiment in which subordinate performance was entirely random. The basic hypothesis was partially supported, but leader belief about subordinate ability was found to moderate leader reinforcement behavior. Leaders who believed that their subordinates had high ability subjected them to increasing amounts of punishment over time, while reward amounts remained relatively unchanged. The opposite pattern was evident but not statistically significant for leaden who believed that their subordinates were of low ability. Rewards were decreased over time, while punishments were left unchanged.     

Spiritual Practices: The True Test of Spirituality

"Spirituality" may be the most loaded word in conversations on religion today. In this article I want to examine the current tensions between spirituality and religion and also suggest that "spiritual practices" are the key to authentic spirituality.