Creativity in Teaching Case Conceptualization Skills: Role-play to Show the Interconnectedness of Domains

Case conceptualization is an important skill for counselors to master in order to meet treatment needs of clients. Some students struggle while learning this skill, as it requires advanced cognitive complexity, reflection skills, and affective awareness. Further, it is difficult for developing counselors to understand the interconnectedness of clients’ presenting problems, history, and strengths to form a holistic case conceptualization. The authors of this article describe a role-play for teaching the complexity of case conceptualization, in which students role-play various perspectives of psychosocial information and process the experience to create a holistic conceptualization. Activity steps are outlined with examples, and process questions to facilitate classroom discussion are included. Suggestions for implementation are also provided.     

Whose Line Is It,Anyway? Using Improvisational Exercises to Spark Counselor Development

New counselors often struggle to respond to the unpredictability and ambiguity inherent in clinical interactions. Improvisational acting exercises can be used to help counselors-in-training become more comfortable thinking on their feet. By creating a safe environment for students to engage in extemporaneous expression, educators can model ways of developing rapport while helping students increase their sense of interactional self-efficacy. This article describes the benefits of using improvisational exercises in the classroom to encourage spontaneity, experimentation, and self-reflection. Example exercises that may be incorporated into counselor education courses are provided.     

Building Solutions in Youth: Evaluation of the Human–Animal Resilience Therapy Intervention

The effectiveness of the human-animal resilience therapy (HART) intervention was examined using a randomized comparison group design with youth ages 10–18 (n = 29). Paired samples t-test analyses revealed statistically significant differences between pretest and posttest scores for anxiety, depression, and disruptive behavior inventories for participants in both the treatment and comparison groups. No significant differences were found for the self-concept or anger inventories. An analysis of variance on gain scores of the treatment and comparison groups revealed no between group differences. The implications of the findings are discussed.     

视觉注意离散性的实验范式

注意离散性是注意间歇性地采集外界信息的特性。文章综述了视觉注意离散性的4种实验范式:(1)车轮错觉范式,刺激强度大、实验条件少、被试任务量小,较早地证实了视觉注意的离散性;(2)视觉探测范式,同时观察了被试的行为表现与电生理信号,确定了视觉注意离散性与神经振荡的关联;(3)线索靶子范式和视觉搜索范式,通过系统地变化SOA大幅提高了行为数据的时间分辨率,直观地探测到注意离散性调制的行为振荡。     

Meaning in life and adjustment to daily stressors

People perceive their life as meaningful when they find coherence in the environment. Given that meaning of life is tied to making sense of life events, people who lack meaning would be more threatened by stressful life events than those with a strong sense of meaning in life. Four studies demonstrated links between perceptions of life’s meaningfulness and perceived levels of stress. In Study 1, participants with lower levels of meaning in life reported greater stress than those who reported higher meaning in life. In Study 2 and Study 3, participants whose meaning in life had been threatened experienced greater stress than those whose meaning in life had been left intact. In Study 4, anticipation of future stress caused participants to rate themselves higher on the quest for meaning in life. These findings suggest that perceiving life as meaningful functions as a buffer against stressors.     

Making sense of agency: Belief in free will as a unique and important construct

Belief in free will is the general belief that human behavior is free from internal and external constraints across situations for both self and others. In the last decade, scholars in social‐cognitive psychology and experimental philosophy have made progress in defining free will terms, exploring how laypersons think of free will, discovering related cognitive processes and biases, and examining the behavioral outcomes of believing in free will. The growing interest in this construct raises the need for a discussion of what is new about free will beliefs, and how this construct differs from and relates to other well‐known agency constructs in the literature. In this review, we integrate conceptual discussions and empirical findings in the existing literature to highlight the belief in free will as a separate and important construct, different from existing constructs in the literature, and capturing unique aspects of agency. We conclude by calling researchers to recognize these differences and to leverage the potential in the construct of the belief in free will as a predictor of cognition and behavior.     

One test,five scoring procedures: different ways of approaching the cognitive reflection test

Although the cognitive reflection test (CRT) represents a frequently used instrument within the field of judgement and decision-making, its scope and detailed characteristics are still not well understood. Therefore, the present article discusses 5 different ways of scoring the CRT that include the regular CRT scoring procedure (CRT-Regular), adding up the intuitive answers (CRT-Intuitive), calculating the proportion of intuitive in total incorrect answers (CRT-Proportion Intuitive), scoring only non-intuitive answers irrespective of their correctness (CRT-Reflection) and calculating the proportion of correct in total non-intuitive answers (CRT-Calculation). We conducted 2 studies aimed at investigating the associations among these scoring techniques and their relationships with thinking dispositions, specifically the need for cognition, faith in intuition, superstitious thinking, maximising and post-choice regret. The results indicate that thinking dispositions play a modest role in explaining the performance on the CRT. The specific associations among the investigated dispositions and different CRT scoring techniques are discussed.     

Perceiving a calling and well-being: Motivation and access to opportunity as moderators

The current study examined moderator variables that may accentuate the effect of perceiving a calling on well-being amongst a large and diverse sample of working adults (N = 746). Drawing from Self Determination Theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 2000) and the Psychology of Working Theory (PWT: Duffy, Blustein, Diemer, & Autin, 2016), perceiving a calling was hypothesized to have greater effects on wellbeing for individuals with greater calling motivation and access to vocational opportunity, as assessed by income and work volition. Three moderated, multiple mediator models using structural equation modeling were run to test these hypotheses. Specifically, life meaning and living a calling were positioned as mediator variables in the relation of perceiving a calling to life satisfaction and the paths from perceiving a calling to the mediators were proposed to be significantly moderated. Calling motivation was found to be a significant moderator for both paths, supporting propositions of SDT. As the motivation to pursue one's calling increased, the direct effects on life meaning and living a calling and the indirect effects on life satisfaction were stronger. Income was also found to be a significant moderator, supporting propositions of the PWT, but only in the relation of perceiving a calling to living a calling. It was proposed that work volition—a variable related to the perception of vocational opportunity—may be better positioned as correlate of calling variables versus a moderator variable affecting the impact of having a calling. Practical implications are discussed.     

The Experience in Personal Social Systems Questionnaire (EXIS.pers): Development and Psychometric Properties

This study presents the theoretical background, development, and psychometric properties of the German and English versions of the Experience in Personal Social Systems Questionnaire (EXIS.pers). It assesses how the members of a personal social system experience their situation within that system. It is designed as a research tool for interventions in which only one member of the system participates (e.g., Family Constellation Seminars). The EXIS.pers was created to measure change on the individual level relating to one's own important personal social system. In Study 1, we used exploratory factor analysis (EFA) for latent variable identification of the original German EXIS.pers (n = 179). In Studies 2 and 3, we used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to examine the dimensionality of the German (n = 634) and English (n = 310) EXIS.pers. Internal consistencies and cross‐cultural structural equivalence were assessed. EFA indicated that a four‐factor model provided best fit for the German EXIS.pers. For both the German and English EXIS.pers, CFA provided the best fit for a five‐factor bi‐level model that included a general factor (Experience In Personal Social Systems) and four dimensions (Belonging, Autonomy, Accord, Confidence). Good internal consistencies, external associations, and cross‐cultural structural equivalence were demonstrated. This study provides first evidence for the German and English EXIS.pers as an economical and reliable measure of an individual's experience within his or her personal social systems.     

New work for a theory of ground*

There has been much recent interest in a distinctively metaphysical kind of determinative explanation: ground. This paper concerns various skeptical challenges to ground’s relevance to metaphysics, such as that it is an empty posit, that the work it is supposed to do is appropriated by other notions, and that it is inapt for specific issues it should serve. I argue against these challenges. My strategy is both critical and constructive. Critical because I argue that versions of these challenges raised by Elizabeth Barnes, Kathrin Koslicki, Mari Mikkola, and Jessica Wilson are not persuasive. Constructive because we may nevertheless learn from them new work for ground.