Confronting Our Own Hypocrisy: Being a Model for Our Students and Clients

Counselor educators, supervisors, and practitioners sometimes act in ways that contradict the most significant beliefs and values that they espouse. Despite communicating to students and trainees the importance of being caring, respectful, warm, flexible, honest, and personally competent, we are sometimes found to be operating quite differently. Issues related to the counselor educator, supervisor, and practitioner's narcissism, self-indulgence, abuses of power, illusions of omnipotence, prejudices, and unresolved issues are discussed. A case is strongly presented that we would all be a lot more effective if we worked to confront our hypocrisies and practice more what we preach.     

Some Interpersonal Effects of Imposing Guilt Versus Eliciting Altruism

Two groups of participants observed a videotaped interpersonal conflict involving two friends. The two groups were distinguished by their observing the videotaped protagonist making a request by imposing guilt or eliciting altruism. Immediately after observing the conflict, ratings were obtained from the two groups on their evaluation of the protagonist and their probable response to the protagonist's request. The major results indicated that when altruism was elicited instead of guilt imposed, participants indicated that the protagonist was more likable and respected and that they would be more likely to comply with the protagonist's request and less likely to become overtly or covertly angry at the protagonist.     

MODELING JOB PERFORMANCE IN A POPULATION OF JOBS

The Army Selection and Classification Project has produced a comprehensive examination of job performance in 19 entry-level Army jobs (Military Occupational Specialties) sampled from the existing population of entry-level positions. Multiple methods of job analysis and criterion measurement were utilized in a subsample of nine jobs to generate over 200 performance indicators, which were then used to assess performance in a combined sample of 9,430 job incumbents. An iterative procedure involving a series of content analyses and principal components analyses was used to develop a basic array of up to 32 criterion scores for each job. This basic set of scores formed the starting point of an attempt to model the latent structure of performance in this population of jobs. After alternative models were proposed for the latent structure, the models were submitted to a goodness-of-fit test via LIS-REL VI. After accounting for two components of method variance, a five-factor solution was judged as the best fit. The implications of the results and the modeling procedure for future personnel research are discussed.     

Using a Narrative Metaphor: Implications for Theory and Clinical Practice

The evolution of family therapy from a cybernetic metaphor to a narrative metaphor has led us to think differently about therapy, about clients, and about ourselves as therapists. In this article we pursue how this different way of thinking has informed a theoretical understanding of a narrative therapy approach and consequently has opened space for different ways of working clinically. We begin by tracing the evolution to narrative; we consider the implications of social constructionism and its political effects; and we complete the discussion by focusing on narrative theory. We then show how the clinical work follows logically and is coherent with the theoretical considerations. We describe, and illustrate with clinical examples, an innovative approach to working with couples and families with adolescents. In this work we pay attention to the larger cultural stories, including gender constructions, and to personal stories that persons have created to make meaning out of their experience as they interact with one another in a reciprocal meaning-making process. Interventions focus on externalizing the problem narrative that is influencing the client(s), mapping the effects of the problem pattern and/or the totalizing view persons might have of others, and creating space for client(s) to notice preferred actions and intentions. Finally, we close the loop by asking questions of ourselves and others about the effects of working from a narrative metaphor.     

PREFERENCE FOR MOTIVATOR AND HYGIENE FACTORS IN A HYPOTHETICAL INTERVIEW SITUATION: FURTHER FINDINGS AND SOME IMPLICATIONS FOR THE EMPLOYMENT INTERVIEW

Managers, supervisory personnel, clerical workers, and high school students were administered questionnaires which asked them to indicate whether or not they would discuss various work-related factors if they were applicants in an employment interview situation. A systematic tendency was found for respondents to prefer to discuss "motivators" as opposed to "hygiene factors" as characteristics they would seek in a new job, or as reasons for dissatisfaction with a previous one. Responding to a modified version of the questionnaire, twenty professional employment interviewers indicated that it is in fact wise to emphasize motivators and deemphasize hygiene factors if the applicant's intent is to maximize the likelihood of being offered a job.     

UNLOCKING THE KEY TO BIODATA SCORING: A COMPARISON OF EMPIRICAL,RATIONAL, AND HYBRID APPROACHES AT DIFFERENT SAMPLE SIZES

The criterion‐related validities of empirical, rational, and hybrid keying procedures for a biodata inventory were compared at different sample sizes. Rational keying yielded the lowest validities. Hybrid keying performed best at the smallest sample sizes studied, followed by empirical keying at moderate sizes, and stepwise regression weighting of items at the largest sample sizes.