Parallels between competence- versus morality-related traits and individualistic versus collectivistic values

The distinction between individualistic (IV) and collectivistic (CV) instrumental values was compared to the distinction between competence-related and moral personality traits. Study 1 (N=89 students) showed that IV referred mostly to competence and were self-profitable, whereas CV referred mostly to morality and were other-profitable in their nature. Therefore, IV were predicted to reach a relatively higher position in the value hierarchy formulated for the self, whereas CV were predicted to rank higher in the value hierarchy formulated for other people. Both hypotheses were confirmed in study 2 (N=118 high school students) in which subjects ordered 18 instrumental values of the Rokeach Value Survey according to their importance either for themselves, or for other people. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Paradoxical Communication as Interpersonal Influence

This paper is concerned with the strategic uses of paradoxical communication in therapy. Eight more or less distinct uses of paradoxical communication are described, and the proposition is put forward that the paradoxical interventions associated with the Milan group differ from those described by Haley and the Palo Alto group only in that they appear to be designed to influence simultaneously the behavior of several family members. The currently popular idea that such interventions should, or even can, be based on a systemic hypothesis, if “hypothesis” is understood in its usual sense as a statement amenable to empirical testing, is explicitly questioned.