Scholars’ preferred solutions for research misconduct: results from a survey of faculty members at America’s top 100 research universities

Research misconduct is harmful because it threatens public health and public safety, and also undermines public confidence in science. Efforts to eradicate ongoing and prevent future misconduct are numerous and varied, yet the question of “what works” remains largely unanswered. To shed light on this issue, this study used data from both mail and online surveys administered to a stratified random sample of tenured and tenure-track faculty members (N = 613) in the social, natural, and applied sciences at America’s top 100 research universities. Participants were asked to gauge the effectiveness of various intervention strategies: formal sanctions (professional and legal), informal sanctions (peers), prevention efforts (ethics and professional training), and reducing the pressures associated with working in research-intensive units. Results indicated that (1) formal sanctions received the highest level of support, (2) female scholars and researchers working in the applied sciences favored formal sanctions, and (3) a nontrivial portion of the sample supported an integrated approach that combined elements of different strategies. A key takeaway for university administrators is that a multifaceted approach to dealing with the problem of research misconduct, which prominently features enhanced formal sanctions, will be met with the support of university faculty.     

Coping with Age‐related Threats to Role Identity: Older Couples and the Management of Household Money

As more couples live together into old age, difficult decisions have to be made about money matters, including the financing of late‐life care. This paper analyses in‐depth qualitative data from six older heterosexual couples, part of a wider study concerning money management in later life. Research when these cohorts were younger found that the organisation of money management within households was specialised and highly gendered, leading to substantive imbalances of power and access to financial resources, while also being core to the formation and maintenance of gendered role identities and couple identities. We find in this study that if a partner's ability to fulfil a money management role identity is threatened by later‐life issues such as poor health and cognitive decline, the other partner may try to protect that aspect of the spouse's role identity, using various covert strategies. This might be done to shore up the spouse's self‐esteem in the face of such age‐related threats to role identity, to ‘keep up appearances’ to the outside world or to maintain their identity as a couple at a time of life when there may be multiple difficulties to deal with. These findings have implications for practice and policy in the realm of money and identity management in later life. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Growing Up with Child Sexual Abuse in an Experimental Commune: Making Sense of Narrative Variation

The legitimacy of adult's accounts of child sexual abuse depends on the consistency of the story they tell about this experience. But there are a variety of influences that conspire to create dynamic variation in retrospective accounts of child sexual abuse. In a study of an experimental New Zealand commune called Centrepoint, participants showed considerable variation in accounting for the child sexual abuse that was known to have occurred there. We used a narrative methodology to show the variation between stories that highlighted abuse and suffering and others that represented an idyllic childhood within which sex between children and adults was normalised. There was also considerable variation within individual participant's accounts. The variation within and between accounts was shaped by features such exposure to contradictory experiences, different social positioning in relation to child sexual abuse, shifts in memory and interpretation over time, differences between insider and outsider perspectives on child sexual activity at the commune and alternative perspectives on victimhood. This research challenges the mythology that accounts of child sexual abuse should be expected to be clear and consistent. Instead, variation should be treated the rule rather than the exception in these accounts. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

OCCUPATIONAL AND INDUSTRIAL THERAPY

No abstract available for this article.     

Utilization of Individual versus Family Therapy Among Adolescents with Severe Emotional Disturbance

Service utilization patterns among children with severe emotional and/or behavioral disturbances are described for 89 children and families, interviewed at two time points across a 6-month period. Children received a greater number of individual therapy sessions than family therapy sessions, and children significantly decreased their levels of internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Family therapy was associated with decreases in internalizing behaviors when children reported outcomes. Individual therapy was not associated with changes in either internalizing or externalizing behaviors regardless of reporter. Symptom severity did not dictate whether children were provided individual or family therapy. Recommendations for individualized treatment plans are offered.     

Psychophysiological Arousal and Perceived Support during Couple Support Interactions: The Role of Attachment Anxiety and Avoidance

Abstract

Couple support processes—typically occurring in the context of non-relationship distressing issues—are crucial to our understanding of relationships (Pasch, Bradbury, & Sullivan, 1997 Pasch, L. A., Bradbury, T. N., & Sullivan, K. T. (1997). Social support in marriage: An analysis of intraindividual and interpersonal components. In G. R. Pierce, B. Lakey, & I. G. Sarson (Eds.), Sourcebook of social support and personality (pp. 229–256). New York, NY: Plenum Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). These couple support processes influence important relationship outcomes, including relationship satisfaction and longevity (i.e., Collins & Feeney, 2010 Collins, N. L., & Feeney, B. C. (2010). An attachment theoretical perspective on social support dynamics in couples: Normative processes and individual differences. In K. T. Sullivan, & J. Davila (Eds.), Support processes in intimate relationships (pp. 89–120). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). In this study, we examined 51 couples’ support perceptions and physiological arousal during individually distressing support conversations. Using dyadic data analysis, results reveal important findings in terms of avoidant attachment and couple support perceptions. Additionally, significant results were found between attachment anxiety and psychophysiological arousal. Implications of the current findings for couple relationships and therapy are discussed.     

Chaotic attractors in the therapeutic system 1

Because little research had been done on the presence and role of latent communication in the context of team‐conducted family therapy, the writers set out to monitor unconscious responses generated under these conditions. Specifically, they investigated an ongoing family treatment situation conducted according to the “reflecting team model.” One team of therapists handles the actual treatment session, while the other observes from behind a one‐way mirror. During the course of a session, the second team makes suggestions to the treatment team either by telephone or by calling the therapists out of the treatment room.

As the project developed, the writers found that the unconscious responses of both family and treatment teams indicated a process at work beyond the conscious intentions of the participants. That is, the therapeutic enterprise was functioning as a dynamical system, whose increasing complexity suggested a self organizing principle at work. This paper traces the development of the system's movement toward greater complexity, identifies the specific interventions that indicate this process, describes how all participants demonstrated a high degree of resonance and synchronization with this overarching‐self organizing pattern. This paper serves to alert therapists to the role of unconscious communication within the therapeutic system and postulates that the generation of form within psychotherapy follows many of the same self organizing processes found in other human and non human systems.     

APP conference summary

This is an account of the extended assessment of a 22-year-old man who was initially sent for a court report, having been accused of setting fires. He had a history both of delinquency and, importantly, of childhood asthma. Although he proved unable to engage in psychotherapy, some management was provided, such as Winnicott advocates in cases of delinquency. This paper explores the symbolic meanings and functions of the patient's delinquent acts, drawing upon theoretical concepts from Freud, Aichhorn, and Deutsch. Of particular importance is the link between this patient's delinquency, his asthma, and the unresolved mourning for his dead mother which he carried not simply for himself but for his whole family.     

The development of a brief group intervention (Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy) for patients with medically unexplained somatic symptoms: a pilot study

The primary aim of this equivalence study was to compare the outcome of a brief group therapeutic intervention, based on the principles of dynamic interpersonal therapy (DIT) with an intervention based on cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) in patients suffering from medically unexplained somatic symptoms (MUSS). Participants were 89 patients (aged 18 to 62) who were offered 20 sessions of either DIT or CBT, as central part of a treatment package, consisting of art therapy, psychomotor therapy, social therapy and physical therapy. Measurements were conducted at baseline, 10 weeks and 20 weeks, using self-rating scales measuring the level of anxiety and depression, the severity of medically unexplained symptoms and quality of life. Results showed that CBT and DIT were comparable. The conclusion was that it is recommended to design a larger scale randomised controlled trial to further elaborate the short-term and long-term effects of this novel psychodynamic group therapy for MUSS patients.     

The empathizing–systemizing (E–S) model of autism and psychoanalytic theories of truth,play and symbolization

Little psychoanalytic material or theory features today in psychological work on autism and autistic traits and vice versa. Baron-Cohen's (2003) empathizing–systemizing (E–S) model of the autism spectrum posits two main clusters of autistic features: those surrounding impaired empathy, and those surrounding heightened systemizing behaviours. (Baron-Cohen, 2009) speculates that the common root of these two clusters is the individual's concept of truth. Psychoanalysis has addressed the related issue of internal and external reality since (Freud, 1897) differentiated ‘psychic’ from ‘historical’ truths. This could be of interest to those espousing the E–S model from a cognitive paradigm, as a ‘truth’-oriented cognitive style in autism may develop interdependently with the individual's experience of internal and external realities. Psychoanalysis has developed further ideas of relevance to the E–S model surrounding play and symbolization, the latter being an often-overlooked aspect of Wing and Gould's (1979) triad of autistic features. Seen from a psychodynamic perspective, the E–S model might provide a means to increase therapists' awareness of milder autistic traits amongst service users and analysands. Equally, it could offer a tool to structure empirical research into psychodynamic therapy with autism spectrum conditions.