团体心理辅导对大学生人际交往影响的长期效果的研究

以团体心理辅导技术对34名大学生进行为期6周的团体心理辅导,并于9个月后对辅导的效果进行再评估.结果表明:团体心理辅导对大学生人际交往问题的干预有效;实验组的干预对大学生人际交往影响不仅有即时提高与改善效应,还有潜在的长期效应;因为交往各变量的复杂性,在团体辅导后各变量的具体变化趋势又略有不同.     

系统式团体心理辅导改善儿童同伴关系的研究

本研究将系统家庭治疗的思想及技术移植到学校情景中,对实验班人际距离较远的5名嫌弃儿在原班级中开展团体心理辅导活动.实验结果表明:嫌弃儿的人际距离明显改善.辅导中系统思想的引入、积极取向的气氛对同伴关系辅导有特殊的效果.     

同伴团体对儿童青少年学业成就和社会功能关系的影响

运用同伴评价、教师评估和学校记录等多种渠道收集关于同伴团体、社会功能、同伴接纳以及学业成就的资料,旨在考察同伴团体与儿童青少年学业成就和社会功能的关系。研究发现：绝大多数儿童青少年都有自己的同伴团体。这些同伴团体在学业成就上有很高的同质性。学业成就与社会适应无论在团体内的个体水平还是在团体水平上都密切相关。而且,团体的学业表现是个体学业成就和社会适应间的重要调节因素,表明团体学业规范对个体水平上学业成就与社会功能的关系有增强或是减弱的作用。这项研究再一次证明同伴团体在儿童个体发展中的重要意义。     

Medical student dreams about medical school: The unconscious developmental process of becoming a physician

This paper is a report on a collection of almost four hundred dreams of medical students and postgraduate trainees with the manifest content about medical training. It is a unique dream collection from a defined population that experiences a developmental sequence of observable, reality events. The reality events appear in the manifest content of the dreams along with their symbolic alterations. The dreams are used as a psychodynamic database. The data may illustrate which reality experiences seem psychologically formative, their emotional developmental sequences and their specific emotional content. This is a pilot project exploring whether dream material collected from a discrete task group might give information about a group's emotional adaptation. The dreams seem to show an unconscious developmental process in response to medical training and becoming a physician that unfolds in overlapping stages as trainees learn to master skills and tolerate care-giving responsibility for human life. A progressive, unconscious hero-healer fantasy seems to form. It becomes elaborated in masochistic and then sadistic fantasies. These fantasies are evoked by, and used as a defense against, inevitable but painful anxieties of emotional adaptation to medical education experiences.     

Group choice: competition, travel, and the ideal free distribution

If a group of foragers distributes among resource patches according to the ideal free distribution, the relative number of foragers in each patch should match the relative amount of resource obtained there, unless deviations arise from factors such as incomplete information or interforager interference. In analogy to individual choice, such effects may produce undermatching—group distribution falling short of resource distribution—or overmatching—group distribution overshooting resource distribution. In the present experiments, a flock of about 30 pigeons distributed between two patches with continuous inputs of green peas. Competition was varied by changing the size or extent of the patches. When the patches were areas or troughs, some undermatching occurred. When the patches were small bowls, strong undermatching occurred. When travel was required to switch patches, undermatching decreased slightly. A visual barrier that prevented pigeons from seeing one patch from the other had no effect. Overall rate of food delivery, varied over a wide range, had no effect. It appeared that the mechanism of flock distribution depended on comparisons between patches that were successive rather than simultaneous. Although most pigeons participated in the experiments, and different pigeons participated to different extents, individual pigeons tended to be consistent in the extent of participation from session to session, suggesting the possibility that participation might reflect competitive ability. Examination of the preferences and switching of individual pigeons revealed no consistency within or across individuals. It appeared that the flock's distribution was a truly emergent phenomenon, in the sense that results at the level of the flock in no way paralleled behavior at the level of the individual.     

Antecedents of intra/intergroup friendships and stress levels among ethnic and religious minority members

Two studies tested a model, whereby, identification with the minority group was predicted to impact on acculturation preferences, which in turn were proposed to impact involvement in intragroup friendships with other minority members, intergroup friendships with majority members and stress experienced by minority members. A direct path from minority identification to stress was also included in the model. The model was tested using structural equation modelling on survey data collected from Muslim women (N = 250) and from Somali minority members (N = 198) in Britain. Results supported predictions and revealed that identification was associated with more culture maintenance preference and less culture adoption preference. Culture maintenance preference was associated with involvement in intragroup friendships, and culture adoption preference was associated with involvement in intergroup friendships and increased stress. Practical applications of the findings are discussed.     

Dealing with Multiple Solutions in Structural Vector Autoregressive Models

Structural vector autoregressive models (VARs) hold great potential for psychological science, particularly for time series data analysis. They capture the magnitude, direction of influence, and temporal (lagged and contemporaneous) nature of relations among variables. Unified structural equation modeling (uSEM) is an optimal structural VAR instantiation, according to large-scale simulation studies, and it is implemented within an SEM framework. However, little is known about the uniqueness of uSEM results. Thus, the goal of this study was to investigate whether multiple solutions result from uSEM analysis and, if so, to demonstrate ways to select an optimal solution. This was accomplished with two simulated data sets, an empirical data set concerning children's dyadic play, and modifications to the group iterative multiple model estimation (GIMME) program, which implements uSEMs with group- and individual-level relations in a data-driven manner. Results revealed multiple solutions when there were large contemporaneous relations among variables. Results also verified several ways to select the correct solution when the complete solution set was generated, such as the use of cross-validation, maximum standardized residuals, and information criteria. This work has immediate and direct implications for the analysis of time series data and for the inferences drawn from those data concerning human behavior.     

The perceived value of team players: a longitudinal study of how group identification affects status in work groups

Theory and research on status attainment in work groups primarily focuses on members’ abilities and characteristics that make them appear competent as predictors of their status in the group. We complement the abilities perspective with a social identity perspective by arguing that another important determinant of a member’s status is based on the extent to which the member serves the group’s interests. Specifically, we assert that a member’s identification with the group affects performance on behalf of the group, which in turn affects other members’ assessment of the member’s status. We test this social identity perspective on status attainment by studying the influence of members’ group identification on their performance and status in the group, while controlling for the members’ abilities and status characteristics. In a three-wave longitudinal field study following 33 work groups during a six-month group project, we find that members’ identification enhances their performance on behalf of the group, which in turn increases their status within the group. As such, our study advances insights in the determinants of status attainment in work groups and points to the relevance of the social identity approach for research on the antecedents of status in work groups.     

Building therapeutic relationship in schizophrenic and alcohol-related disorder cases

Current literature on the dual diagnosis in cases of schizophrenia and alcohol dependence has reported how pharmacological treatment has positive effects on the reduction of both disorders. Nevertheless, patients have considerable difficulties in following the prescribed medication. This work aims to build an engagement stage and therapeutic relationship in seven patients with schizophrenic and alcohol-related disorder cases. This result was achieved through the use of the vignette technique and narrative psychodynamic approach during group counselling sessions. Positive and Negative Symptoms Scale (PANSS) and Munich Alcoholism Test (MALT) were applied before and after treatment. A follow-up session was organized. The PANSS and MALT scores indicated there was no reduction of the psychiatric symptoms after treatment. The follow-up session showed positive outcomes in terms of increasing the level of socialisation as well as awareness of their own condition; at the same, an adherence to pharmacological treatment and psychotherapy for all the subjects.