The use of latent class models for assessing prerequisite relations and transference among traits

This paper presents a strategy for pairwise assessment which may be used to evaluate the nature of both prerequisite and transference relations existing among a set of traits. This strategy is appropriate for use both within a confirmatory context, in which an attempt is made to establish the validity of some specified set of relations among traits, as well as within an exploratory context, in which a search is made for unconjectured prerequisite and transference relations existing between pairs of traits. Both uses of this strategy are based on a variety of latent class models which are representative of various possible relational states existing between pairs of traits. Thus, the nature of trait relations may be investigated through the use of statistical assessments of both absolute and relative fit attained by these models. An application is presented to exemplify how this strategy may be used within the exploratory context.The author is obliged to Clifford Clogg, C. Mitchell, Dayton, and William Schafer for helpful comments made regarding a previous draft of this paper as well as to Mary Papageorgiou who provided access to the data which was considered in this study.     

New assessment systems for residential treatment,management, research,and evaluation: A symposium

An introduction and overview are presented to new observational assessment systems for ongoing assessment and monitoring of both staff and resident (client or patient) functioning in residential treatment programs for emotionally disturbed and mentally retarded adults.Preparation of articles and the research and development on which the articles are based was supported, in part, by Public Health Service Grants MH-15553 and MH-25464 from the National Institute of Mental Health, and by grants from the Joyce Foundation and the Illinois Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities.A symposium presented at the 87th Annual Meetings of the American Psychological Association, New York City, September 1979.     

Systems use to objectify program evaluation,clinical, and management decisions

The utility of the observational assessment systems at different levels — from local clinical to systemwide management — is outlined. An overview is provided of TSBC information applied to individualized problem identification and programming/monitoring, discharge and competency determinations, and both absolute and comparative program evaluation. The utility of SRIC information for prgoramming/monitoring and for staff training and evaluation is outlined in addition to the applied uses of the information of the assessment systems in combination. Once implemented, the continuous data from the systems allow for empirically based self-corrective improvements in the quality of mental health services while automatically providing a basis for legal documentation and accurate cost/effectiveness comparisons of mental health programs.Preparation of this article and the research and development on which the article is based were supported, in part, by Public Health Service Grants MH-15553 and MH-25464 from the National Institute of Mental Health, and by grants from The Joyce Foundation and the Illinois Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities.Presented at the 87th Annual Meetings of the American Psychological Association, New York City, September 1979, as part of a symposium on New assessment systems for residential treatment, management, research, and evaluation.     

Who drops-out? Do measures of risk to self and to others predict unplanned endings in primary care counselling?

Aims: Unplanned endings, where clients unilaterally end therapy, are of concern for psychological therapy services generally as they raise questions about the appropriateness of the treatment and it's delivery for some clients. Limited available data indicates that those who drop-out often have more severe symptoms at entry, and have poorer clinical outcomes. This raises further questions about risk to self and others for those clients who leave therapy prematurely and how these clients might be identified and kept engaged. Method: This paper uses a large dataset of CORE data collected routinely in a primary care counselling service between 2000 and 2003. Logistic regression was utilised to consider different measures of risk and other client characteristics recorded at assessment to predict drop-out from the service. Results: These indicate that younger age, greater psychological distress at assessment, an addiction problem and greater risk to others, are associated with an unplanned ending. However, no reliable logistic regression model could be produced. This may be partly due to data quality issues or important characteristics not being available in the data. Implications for practice: The paper concludes that counsellors should actively seek to minimise unplanned endings, as amongst them may be represented the more distressed and risky clients referred to primary care counselling.     

What is agentic about the Spatial Agency Bias? How pragmatic relevance contributes to the spatial representations of actions

The mental imagination of (social) actions has been shown to follow a left‐to‐right trajectory, with the thematic agent associated with the left position (Spatial Agency Bias, Suitner & Maass in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 53, 2016, p. 245–301). For example, individuals asked to choose a picture that visualizes the sentence “Tom kicks George” tend to choose an image where the agent, Tom, is positioned on the left‐hand side rather than on the right‐hand side. However, as an alternative to the thematic role of the agent, such findings may reflect a mental representation following pragmatic relevance. Specifically, a pragmatic perspective holds that word order and syntactic functions are strategic devices to communicate that the element is important for the sentence. Thus, positioning in the described picture‐matching task may actually reflect the agent's pragmatic relevance instead of agency per se. As a test, we vary whether sentences are written in the active versus the passive voice. Results from five studies indicate that the passive voice results in the tendency to place the agent on the right‐hand side rather than on the left‐hand side of a picture. Instead, the acted‐upon person is positioned on the left‐hand side of a picture. A sixth experiment reveals that for the passive voice, the agent is still seen as more agentic than the receiver, but is considered less relevant. The findings are congruent with the proposed pragmatic relevance account. Implications for the Spatial Agency Bias as well as for building mental representations in general are discussed.     

基本需要在导师排斥感知与研究生心理健康的关系中的作用

为探讨导师排斥感知对研究生心理健康的影响及作用机制,本研究采用导师排斥感知问卷、基本需要问卷、生活满意度量表、简版流调中心抑郁量表及攻击问卷,对北京市六所本科院校的864名在校硕士和博士研究生进行问卷调查。结果发现：（1）导师排斥感知正向预测研究生的抑郁和攻击性,负向预测其生活满意度;（2）基本需要在导师排斥感知与研究生的生活满意度、抑郁之间起着完全中介作用,在导师排斥感知与攻击性之间起部分中介作用。结果表明,研究生导师排斥感知越强,基本需要的满足水平越低,进而导致研究生的抑郁水平越高、攻击性越强、生活满意度越低。即研究生感知的导师排斥感越强,其心理健康水平越低。     

Human Self-Domestication and the Evolution of Pragmatics

As proposed for the emergence of modern languages, we argue that modern uses of languages (pragmatics) also evolved gradually in our species under the effects of human self-domestication, with three key aspects involved in a complex feedback loop: (a) a reduction in reactive aggression, (b) the sophistication of language structure (with emerging grammars initially facilitating the transition from physical aggression to verbal aggression); and (c) the potentiation of pragmatic principles governing conversation, including, but not limited to, turn-taking and inferential abilities. Our core hypothesis is that the reduction in reactive aggression, one of the key factors in self-domestication processes, enabled us to fully exploit our cognitive and interactional potential as applied to linguistic exchanges, and ultimately to evolve a specific form of communication governed by persuasive reciprocity—a trait of human conversation characterized by both competition and cooperation. In turn, both early crude forms of language, well suited for verbal aggression/insult, and later more sophisticated forms of language, well suited for persuasive reciprocity, significantly contributed to the resolution and reduction of (physical) aggression, thus having a return effect on the self-domestication processes. Supporting evidence for our proposal, as well as grounds for further testing, comes mainly from the consideration of cognitive disorders, which typically simultaneously present abnormal features of self-domestication (including aggressive behavior) and problems with pragmatics and social functioning. While various approaches to language evolution typically reduce it to a single factor, our approach considers language evolution as a multifactorial process, with each player acting upon the other, engaging in an intense mutually reinforcing feedback loop. Moreover, we see language evolution as a gradual process, continuous with the pre-linguistic cognitive abilities, which were engaged in a positive feedback loop with linguistic innovations, and where gene-culture co-evolution and cultural niche construction were the main driving forces.     

中国人社会善念的心理结构

为探究中国人社会善念的心理结构, 研究采用人格词汇法, 在开放调查收集的词汇中选取代表社会善念的心理词语, 确立了社会善念词库。通过两次探索性因素分析和验证性因素分析, 得到包含18个人格特质词的社会善念词汇评定量表和包含17项描述的社会善念自陈量表。研究表明, 中国人的社会善念是一种具有二阶四因素结构的人际特质, 二阶是指宜人特质和外倾特质, 四因素分别是善良尊重、谦和恭逊、包容理解和积极开放。     

Performance of Mental Health Counselors in Integrated Primary and Behavioral Health Care

Integrated primary and behavioral health care (IPBH) is becoming a preferred mode of service delivery in the United States. Integrated care includes the participation of medical and mental health professionals, such as mental health counselors. The clinical outcomes of these professionals need to be studied to determine their effectiveness in such settings. We examined the performance of 10 mental health counselors on the clinical outcome of 1,747 clients treated in an IPBH center. Analyses using growth curve modeling and pre‐post test design revealed that mental health counselors were effective overall, but they differed in client dropout rates and efficiency in reducing clients' initial symptoms. We used the analyses to rank order counselors based on their effectiveness. Counselors who were the most effective varied in their efficiency but demonstrated the lowest client dropout rates. Implications for future research and counseling practice were discussed.