The Role of Family Support in Interparental Conflict and Adolescent Academic Achievement

Family support was examined as a mediator of the relation between interparental conflict and adolescent academic achievement. Results indicated that two dimensions of family support, family cohesion and parent–school involvement, mediated the relation between interparental conflict and academic achievement. The results further suggested that family support was more likely to function as a mediator for girls than for boys. Lastly, in the presence of a mediating effect, a direct path remained between interparental conflict and grade point average.     

The Interactive Effects of Role Conflict and Role Ambiguity on Job Satisfaction and Attitudes Toward Organizational Change: A Moderated Multiple Regression Approach

This study investigates the joint effects of both role conflict and role ambiguity on job satisfaction and three dimensions of attitudes toward organizational change, namely affective, cognitive, and behavioral tendency in a multicultural work setting. The study used a sample of 397 employees from several manufacturing and service organizations in the United Arab Emirates. Results of the moderated regression analysis revealed that role conflict and role ambiguity have no interactive effects on job satisfaction and the three dimensions of attitudes toward organizational change. Results of the moderated regression analysis revealed that role conflict and role ambiguity independently and negatively affect job satisfaction, cognitive attitudes, and behavioral tendency attitudes toward organizational change. Results further pointed out that role ambiguity affected attitude toward organizational change independently and negatively. Implications, limitations, and lines of future research were discussed.     

Interpersonal Negotiation Strategies in a Sample of Older Women

Suppressed anger resulting from poorly resolved interpersonal conflicts can increase morbidity. The current generation of older women may be particularly susceptible to morbidity caused by anger inhibition due to socialization to be submissive in interpersonal conflicts. For purposes of disease prevention, we asked 35 older women to describe an interpersonal conflict experienced recently, and how they responded to it. Data coding was based on Selman's model of interpersonal negotiation strategies, which has been used to assess the conflicts of children, adolescents, and young adults, but not older adults. We found that many participants used strategies in which they expressed their point of view in order to persuade the other person. Of those who were expressive, however, many ended up submitting to the other person's demands nonetheless. Thus, overall, most participants used submissive strategies. Conflicts with strangers and acquaintances were frequently reported, and reports included comments about feeling vulnerable. Stereotypic beliefs about age and health also emerged in reports, and seemed related to submissive responses. Our findings suggest that older women would benefit from training in constructive strategies for resolving interpersonal conflicts. Training efforts should reflect the ways in which stereotypic beliefs about age, health, and vulnerability may interfere with constructive strategy choice, and should emphasize the health benefits of constructively dealing with conflict.     

Facilitating 'Perspectival Reciprocity' in Medication: Some Reflections on a Failed Case

Mediation services arise in contexts where the notions of community cohesion, relationship integrity and social order are valued over their opposites (disorder, dissent, conflict etc). Yet it is not at all clear whether and how the mediation of conflict works to re-establish harmony or consensus. Indeed it is not at all clear that mediation is always effective or just. It has even been suggested that some conflicts (e.g. work-place, commercial and sexual assault) are either not resolved or not resolved justly by mediation. On the other hand, advocates maintain that mediation can bring resolution and repair to ongoing relationships, promote community harmony, and empower people to be self-determining in the construction and maintenance of their resolutions. Whether mediation is adjudged positively or not, all mediation is instantiated in, indeed performed through, talk. In this paper I examine mediations from an Australian mediation program, and use Conversation Analysis to expose the practical methods by which mediators achieve consensus between disputants. I then examine a case in which mediation has failed to produce the sought-after consensus, and explore one way of understanding the failure of mediation in that case.     

Interviewing a Therapist in the Presence of a Couple: A Description of the Therapeutic Process

A therapy research team interviewed a therapist in the presence of a couple. Following each of six consecutive sessions with a couple, an interviewer posed questions to the therapist and couple. While one question was standard to each interview, other questions were generated by team members who tracked the entire process via live observation. These questions were directed first at the therapist, then at the couple, and then focused on therapeutic process and outcome. Findings of this process for the therapy system included decreasing the hierarchy within the client/therapist relationship; increasing the client ownership and energy in the therapy process; discovering the presence of parallel processes between the systems; and informing the direction of future therapy sessions. Practical, clinical implications are discussed for a variety of therapy settings.     

当事人眼里的工作同盟：质的分析

为了解中国当事人如何看待咨询中的工作同盟, 对工作同盟做初步的本土概念化, 采用协商一致的质的研究方法对来自1所大学心理咨询中心的20名当事人的访谈结果进行了分析。结果发现, 与工作同盟相关的域有6个, 分别是情感联结、任务、投入、合作模式、发展变化、影响因素。前三个域可以看作是工作同盟的构成要素, 而后三个域则是对其外部特征的描述。对每个域的含义及其与现有理论和研究的关系进行了讨论。     

A Plea for Internormative Ethics

Plurality of life forms and value systems is a given (almost) everywhere on earth. Imposing on them a value system or individual values and virtues from an exterior position is rather counterproductive. Value systems are normative for individual communities but not the same. They are to relate to each other and to interact, negotiating with each other common goals and the validity and limits of values involved in their relationships and shared action. Anything else leads to tensions and violence. Internormative ethics reflect on such interaction of value systems.     

Lover and learner: Exploring relational schema change following relationship dissolution

Romantic relationships are known to be very influential, but less is known about how these relationships, and particularly the breakup of these relationships, may affect individuals’ relational schemas, or their expectations for relationships. Undergraduate students reported on how their views of themselves, romantic partners, and relationships changed after breaking up with a past partner. Results suggest that relational schemas change following relationship dissolution and that there are both positive and negative aspects to this change. There was also some evidence that aspects of the past relationship predicted change and the valence of change, and that change and the valence of change were related to aspects of current relationship quality. These results are an important first step in understanding how past romantic relationships influence people’s expectations about relationships and, by extension, their health and wellbeing.     

Experiences of Altruism in the Therapeutic Relationship: Perspectives of Counselors‐in‐Training and Their Clients

The purpose of this phenomenological investigation was to explore experiences of altruism in the therapeutic relationship to better understand how counselors‐in‐training (CITs) and their clients mutually perceived the construct in sessions. Findings from interviews with clients (n = 14) included emotional–relational characteristics and cognitive–behavioral aspects of altruism by their counselors. Findings from interviews with CITs (n = 10) included explorations of the role of altruism in counseling, overall experiences of altruism in counseling sessions, and experiences of altruism with specific clients. Implications for practice and research are discussed.