The Genogram as a Tool in Career Counseling

A genogram is a three-generational graphic representation of a client's family of origin. The author depicts a sample genogram and outlines a three-part approach for use of a genogram in career counseling. Several possible uses are suggested.     

Trends in Article Citations in Three Counseling Journals, 1952–1988

Reference lists from three major counseling journals spanning the years 1952 through 1988 were analyzed for reference citations. Citations gradually became more numerous and came from increasingly diverse sources. About one-half of all citations referred to journal articles. Analysis of the differences among the three journals' citations suggests that each journal fills a special niche while contributing to the communality of the field.     

Alcohol and Male Acceptance of Sexual Aggression: The Role of Perceptual Ambiguity1

The present study assessed the effects of drinking and behavioral ambiguity on perceptions of sexual aggression. Male participants, randomly assigned to 1 of 4 alcohol conditions (low, moderate, placebo, or control) viewed a videotaped interaction involving a couple meeting before a blind date. In the receptive condition, the female was friendly and excited. In the nonreceptive condition, she showed rigid posture and lacked enthusiasm. Participants then judged the acceptability of sexual aggression against the female and the attribution of the female's responsibility. Findings indicated a significant interaction such that in the receptive condition, higher alcohol doses elicited both greater acceptance of sexual aggression and greater attribution of female responsibility. There was no impact of alcohol dosage in the nonreceptive condition.     

Marshall and Parsons on 'Intrinsic'

Dan Marshall and Josh Parsons note, correctly, that the property of being either a cube or accompanied by a cube is incorrectly classified as intrinsic under the definition we have given unless it turns out to be disjunctive. Whether it is disjunctive, under the definition we gave, turns on certain judgements of the relative naturalness of properties. They doubt the judgements of relative naturalness that would classify their property as disjunctive. We disagree. They also suggest that the whole idea of judging relative naturalness is a dubious business. We reply that, like them or not, such judgements cannot easily be avoided.     

A Cross-National Study of Nuclear Attitudes,Normative Support,and Activist Behavior: Additive and Interactive Effects1

We tested the cross-national similarity of additive and interactive variants of the Contingent Consistency Hypothesis in regard to antinuclear activist behavior. We predicted that attitudinally consistent behavior is influenced (a) more by specific than general attitudes, (b) by facilitation between normative support and personal attitudes in an interactive manner, and (c) by a fundamental or basic social-psychological process that can be demonstrated in people from different countries and cultures. These three hypotheses were tested for general (pacifist) attitudes, specific (antinuclear) attitudes, normative support, and antinuclear political activism in samples of college students from the U. S., England, and Sweden. In each sample, specific attitudes were strong, unique predictors of activist behavior (more so than general attitudes), while normative support had no additive influence on this behavior beyond that explained by attitudes for U. S. and British students. Interaction effects were found for both pacifist and nuclear attitudes in conjunction with normative support among the U. S. students, but only for pacifist attitudes in the British sample and only with antinuclear attitudes in the Swedish sample. In contrast with other studies where interaction effects were hypothesized for behaviors that were deviant or typically initiated by others, the present interactions were obtained for lawful behaviors that are often begun and/ or performed alone. With some notable variations, these results were confirmed in each sample, partially validating the cross-national generality of the interactive attitude-behavior model for activist behavior.     

Making People Feel Guilty in Conversations

Communication plays an important role in eliciting and shaping people's emotions. Yet surprisingly little empirical or conceptual work has explored how social interaction encourages or discourages various emotions. This article summarizes a series of four studies which examined how people, in conversations, go about generating one emotion—that of guilt—in others. In the first study, a typology of 12 guilt moves was inductively devised. The most common ways of making another feel guilty were: reminding the other of his or her obligation to a relationship, listing sacrifices one has made for the other, reminding the other of his or her role responsibilities, comparing the other to someone else, and questioning the other. The primary reason for using guilt in conversations was persuasion. In the second study, the typology's generalizability was confirmed. Findings also revealed that the likelihood of using guilt in conversations increases with greater relationship intimacy and that people believe others are more likely to use guilt than themselves. The 12 techniques for guilt elicitation were examined in the third study for their independence and dimensionality via multidimensional scaling. The results suggest three underlying dimensions (self-nonself, acquiescence-restrictiveness, and commission-omission) and six potential clusters. The final study conceptualized guilt elicitation and sensitivity as individual differences. A brief, multifactor scale of individuals’ tendency to use guilt, to use it with ease, and to be susceptible to guilt moves was developed. The three dimensions correlated significantly with a number of communication-focused personality variables.     

RACIAL DIFFERENCES IN EMPLOYEE RETENTION: ARE DIVERSITY CLIMATE PERCEPTIONS THE KEY?

Given considerable racial differences in voluntary turnover ( Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2006 , Table 28), the present study examined the influence of diversity climate perceptions on turnover intentions among managerial employees in a national retail organization. The authors hypothesized that pro-diversity work climate perceptions would correlate most negatively with turnover intentions among Blacks, followed in order of strength by Hispanics and Whites (Hypothesis 1), and that organizational commitment would mediate these interactive effects of race and diversity climate perceptions on turnover intentions (Hypothesis 2). Results from a sample of 5,370 managers partially supported both hypotheses, as findings were strongest among Blacks. Contrary to the hypotheses, however, White men and women exhibited slightly stronger effects than Hispanic personnel.     

Pass It On: Errors in Direct Quotes in a Sample of Scholarly Journal Articles

Concern has been expressed in the literature over inaccuracies both in reference listings and direct quotes. This study examined one volume year of each of four journals in the social sciences to compare 1,278 quotes against the original sources. Of this total, 89 could not be found and 519 (43.7% of the remaining quotes) had one or more inaccuracies, ranging from trivial punctuation differences to errors that significantly changed the content meaning. Implications as well as suggestions for editors and writers for reducing errors are discussed.