Staying friends with ex‐romantic partners: Predictors,reasons, and outcomes

In two studies, we identified predictors of staying friends with an ex‐partner, developed and validated a measure for reasons to stay friends with exes, and examined the outcomes of staying friends. We identified four reasons to stay friends with exes: Security, Practical, Civility, and Unresolved Romantic Desires. Sex, sexual orientation, attachment styles, personality traits, time since breakup, and reasons for breakup all predicted staying friends. Staying friends due to Unresolved Romantic Desires resulted in negative outcomes, whereas staying friends due to Security and Practical reasons resulted in more positive outcomes. Staying friends due to Practical or Civility reasons resulted in the friendship being less likely to last in the long term. Implications for future research and clinical work are discussed.     

Do Satisfied Employees Satisfy Customers? Support‐Services Staff Morale and Satisfaction Among Public School Administrators,Students, and Parents

Data were obtained from school staff ( N = 1,567) who provided support services to schools in a major metropolitan school district. These data were analyzed in relation to data obtained from 3 customer groups (school administrators, students, and parents) who provided ratings of their satisfaction with services. Several aspects of employee morale (e. g., quality of supervision, teamwork, and goal clarity, along with workgroup service climate) were significantly and positively related to administrator and parent satisfaction, but not to student satisfaction. Relations of employee morale and workgroup service climate to administrator satisfaction and parent satisfaction were moderated by customer contact with employees. Results are discussed in relation to expectations of customers and employees that affect the nature of the service-exchange interaction.     

Employing the God-Family Relationship in Therapy with Religious Families

In many religious families, God functions as a crucial family member, stabilizing interpersonal relationships and engaging in daily family transactions. In the psychological role of a transitional object, God can be usefully employed by the family therapist in therapeutic interventions, when the therapist keeps the focus upon the interpersonal relationship with God rather than the specific content of religious beliefs. This approach can access a vital resource in the family, particularly when conditions for therapy are otherwise difficult, such as an isolated, enmeshed dyad presenting alone for therapy. Four case examples illustrate how one may use this approach in family therapy.     

McEwen-Induced Modulation of Endocrine History: A Partial Review

In endless facets of physiology, there are points of homeostatic balance, such that too much or too litttle of something can both be deleterious (i.e., an "inverse U" pattern). This is particularly true when considering glucocorticoids (GCs), the adrenals steroid secreted during stress. In the first part of this paper, I review a number of realms in which a paucity and an excess of GCs are both damaging. Some findings are classical (for example, concerning GC effects upon body weight), while some are quite recent and have considerable implications for both physiology and pathophysiology (for example, inverse U's of GC actions in the realm of immunity and neuronal survival). The second part of the review considers the far thornier issue of how such inverse U's of GC actions are generated on a cellular and molecular level. One solution that has evolved, primarily in the hippocampus within the nervous system, involves the presence of two different types of receptors for GCs within the same cells; so long as the two receptors have very different affinities and mediate opposing effects on some cellular endpoint, an inverse U will emerge. The second solution, found in a number of peripheral tissues, involves GCs having opposing effects on the amount of some signal being generated (e.g., an immune cytokine) and the sensitivity of target tissues to that signal; under conditions that appear to be physiologically relevant, inverse U's emerge from this pattern as well. The final section of this review considers the enormous role played by Bruce McEwen in the emergence of this literature. I suggest that while much of this obviously has to do with the facts that have come from his group, another substantial contribution is from his steadying and supportive personality, the veritable embodiment of homeostatic balance.     

Developmental and sex-related differences in preschoolers' affective decision making

This study investigated developmental and sex-related differences in affective decision making, using a two-deck version of Children's Gambling Task administered to 3- and 4-year-old children. The main findings were that 4-year-old children displayed better decision-making performance than 3-year-olds. This effect was independent of developmental changes in inductive reasoning, language, and working memory. There were also sex differences in decision-making performance, which were apparent only in 3-year-old children and favored girls. Moreover, age predicted awareness of task and the correlation between the latter and decision-making performance was significant, but only in 4-year-old children. This study thus indicates that there is a remarkable developmental leap in affective decision making, whose effects are apparent around the age of 4, which according to our results, also marks the age when the correlation of declarative knowledge and decision-making performance becomes significant.     

A Survey of Career Development in State and Local Government

This article reports the results of a survey taken of the civil service systems of the 50 state and 50 largest city systems. The survey examined the career development services provided employees. This article reports characteristics of providers, the extent of services offered, the length of time offered, and the target of the services.     

EXAMINING A MODEL OF EVOLUTIONARY EDUCATIONAL SYSTEMIC CHANGE WITHIN EXISTING SOCIETAL SYSTEMS

Within today's emerging global society, educational systemic change is a dynamic, complex process that must seek to engage active participation of all stakeholders. This article examines alternative models of this process, providing different perspectives of the recursive and comprehensive nature of change when viewed from the vantage points of those stakeholders within the process. An envisioned school or educational system that addresses preparation of a citizenry dedicated to democratic principles and issues of social justice must consciously examine the relationships, that form and reform interconnecting and unifying diverse subsystems within the school's constructed meaning and purpose.     

Mind-Body Patterns of Symptom Generation

Effective ways for joining family therapy with other treatment modalities are becoming increasingly important as the efficacy of family therapy gains acceptance in the medical and mental health community. When one interfaces family therapy with medical and psychopharmacological treatments, which find the sources of symptoms within individuals, rather than interpersonal systems, careful attention must be paid to the mind and body relationships that guide interactions between family behavior and the somatic physiology of each family member. We present six mind-body patterns of symptom generation found to be particularly useful for designing multimodality treatments and for communicating the treatment rationale to medical and psychiatric clinicians or to family members. Case examples illustrate their clinical use.