The Role of Social Skills in Predicting Treatment-Recovery in Children with a Social Anxiety Disorder

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - The current study investigated the role of social skills and its interaction with social anxiety as predictors of treatment outcome in children...     

The development, evolution, and status of Holland's theory of vocational personalities: Reflections and future directions for counseling psychology

This article celebrates the 50th anniversary of the introduction of John L. Holland's (1959) theory of vocational personalities and work environments by describing the theory's development and evolution, its instrumentation, and its current status. Hallmarks of Holland's theory are its empirical testability and its user-friendliness. By constructing measures for operationalizing the theory's constructs, Holland and his colleagues helped ensure that the theory could be implemented in practice on a widespread basis. Empirical data offer considerable support for the existence of Holland's RIASEC types and their ordering among persons and environments. Although Holland's congruence hypotheses have received empirical support, congruence appears to have modest predictive power. Mixed support exists for Holland's hypotheses involving the secondary constructs of differentiation, consistency, and vocational identity. Evidence of the continued impact of Holland's theory on the field of counseling psychology, particularly in the area of interest assessment, can be seen from its frequent implementation in practice and its use by scholars. Ideas for future research and practice using Holland's theory are suggested.     

Margaret Cavendish's Epistemology

This paper provides a systematic reconstruction of Cavendish's general epistemology and a characterization of the fundamental role of that theory in her natural philosophy. After reviewing the outlines of her natural philosophy, I describe her treatment of ‘exterior knowledge’, i.e. of perception in general and of sense perception in particular. I then describe her treatment of ‘interior knowledge’, i.e. of self-knowledge and ‘conception’. I conclude by drawing out some implications of this reconstruction for our developing understanding of Cavendish's natural philosophy.     

In search of the true group animal: the effects of affiliation orientation and social comparison orientation upon group satisfaction

A study among 653 undergraduate students examined the effects upon group satisfaction of social comparison orientation (Gibbons & Buunk, 1999) and affiliation orientation, i.e. the preference for doing things together and in groups versus a preference for doing things alone. Affiliation orientation correlated positively with extraversion and agreeableness, and social comparison orientation correlated negatively with emotional stability and openness to experience. A multi‐level analysis showed that individual level variance in group satisfaction was explained by an interaction effect of affiliation orientation and social comparison orientation: a high level of affiliation orientation was associated with high group satisfaction of individual group members, but only among those low in social comparison orientation. Among those high in social comparison orientation, a high level of affiliation orientation was even associated, though not very strongly, with low group satisfaction. These effects were upheld when simultaneously controlling for all ‘Big Five’ personality dimensions. It was concluded that the typical ‘group animal’ is someone who has a strong preference for affiliation, combined with a low tendency to compare him‐ or herself with others. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Using Multiple Contexts and Retrieval Cues in Exposure-Based Therapy to Prevent Relapse in Anxiety Disorders

The benefits of exposure-based interventions for anxiety disorders are substantial but not stable for everyone, given that these interventions are often followed by relapse of symptoms. A body of research provides a background on how to add certain strategies in exposure-based therapy to prevent relapse in anxiety disorders. This review summarizes some of these strategies and provides clear-cut clinical implications. Studies that provide support for two types of strategies to prevent relapse have been reviewed—the use of multiple contexts and the use of retrieval cues. The use of multiple contexts reduces context and stimulus specificity of extinction learning during exposure, while the use of retrieval cues enhances memory (re)consolidation and retrieval after exposure. The described strategies to enhance the accessibility and therefore the retrievability of exposure-based learning to prevent relapse in anxiety disorders can be summarized as advice to conduct exposure under variable conditions. This way, the generalizability of what is learned during exposure to the patients’ daily life after treatment improves. Therefore, adding these strategies in the course of exposure-based treatment of anxiety disorders seems beneficial. However, future replications and translational studies are needed to verify ecological validity.     

Self,Sin, and the Sacred: Some Elements of a Select Psychology for the Care of Souls

Many pastors feel that their work in the secular sphere can best be described as an exploration of the meaning of life: as spiritual care. However, the idea that it is possible and easy to find such a thing as “the meaning of life,” as well as the concurrent idea that this meaning will help to make life more agreeable, should not be taken for granted but, rather, should be considered to be open for further exploration. To get a better understanding of the difference between spiritual care and the care of souls, I will discuss three central themes in any pastoral practice: sin, sense, and sorrow, together with three related constructs: soul, self, and the sacred. My exposition will result in a plea for revaluing two traditional but ever relevant modes of religious leadership: the modes of shepherd and teacher, of tutor and theologian, which are performed either in the context of the church or the secular institutional environment.     

Social Comparison-Based Thoughts in Groups: Their Associations With Interpersonal Trust and Learning Outcomes

This study relates thoughts derived from 4 types of social comparison to trust and individual learning. Our study ( N  = 362 students) showed that upward identification (i.e., believing one is just as good as a better performing teammate) was positively related to trust and individual learning. Upward contrast (i.e., believing one is worse than a better performing group member) was negatively related to learning, as were downward-identifying thoughts (i.e., believing one will perform as badly as a poorly performing teammate). Downward contrast (i.e., thinking one can do much better than the poor performer) was negatively related to trust. We concluded that social comparison-based thoughts are important to consider when designing teamwork because of their constructive and destructive consequences.     

Self-Serving Evaluations of Conflict Behavior and Escalation of the Dispute1

There is good evidence that people generally tend to evaluate behaviors, contributions, and outcomes in terms favorable to the self. The present series of studies expands this finding by showing that professional negotiators (Study 1), governmental decision makers (Study 2), and organizational consultants (Study 3) make self-serving evaluations of conflict behavior: They view their own conflict behaviors as more constructive and as less destructive than those of their opponents. In addition, results revealed that self-serving evaluation of conflict behavior is associated with increased frustration, with reduced problem solving, and with enhanced likelihood of future conflict. It is argued that these findings expand the conflict literature in that they provide better insight into the motivational-cognitive antecedents and consequences of conflict escalation.     

Homesickness in social context: An ecological momentary assessment study among 1st-year university students

Homesickness is common among university students and associated with mental health problems. Most previous studies assessed homesickness as a summary of the past weeks. However, there may be significant fluctuations across situations. At the current residence, homesickness may especially be triggered during (phone) interactions with attachment figures. Dutch and international 1st-year students (n = 92) completed the Utrecht Homesickness Scale and subsequently used a smartphone application to record social interactions for 14 days (ecological momentary assessment [EMA]). For each interaction they reported the social context (e.g. location, contact type) and their affective state, including homesickness. Homesickness in the past weeks and momentary homesickness were both higher in international students than in Dutch students. Feeling homesick was highest at participants' current residency, when interacting with parents, or when using video-chat. When participants felt more homesick, they reported less pleasant and more unpleasant affect. In conclusion, EMA provided insight in cross-situational variations in homesickness.     

In Which Situations Do Adolescents Seek Parental Support and What Do They Need?

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Throughout development, the conditions that elicit children’s support seeking behaviour change hand in hand with maturation and changing developmental...