CHILDREN'S PERCEPTIONS OF CHANGES IN SIZE OF TELEVISED IMAGES

Using a Piagétan perspective, this study investigated the ways in which elementary school children perceive changes in the size of a televised image (in this case, a candy bar). The findings suggest that younger children perceive changes in image size from a medium shot to a close-up as changes in the object itself. Children's responses to changes in the televised image parallel their responses to traditional conservation tasks, but conservation of televised images occurs at a later age. In addition, children appear to use different cognitive skills to interpret how a zoom or a cut transforms the size of a televised image. When a zoom is used, children more readily perceive the object as “growing larger.”     

Liberation Theology: An Introduction to Its History and Themes

In the first part of this overview of Latin American liberation theology I trace the development of, and opposition to, the movement between 1968 and 1984. In the second part I examine six of liberation theology's leading characteristics: solidarity with the poor, conscientization (consciousness raising), the emphasis on orthopraxy, the recognition of structural violence, liberation and the Bible, and base communities. The article concludes with a brief overview of this special issue of Counseling and Values.     

Action Assembly Theory and Communication Apprehension A Psycho-physiological Study

Research reported here replicates Greene and Sparks (1983a, 1983b) and their re-conceptualization of communication apprehension (CA). Noting the limited empirical evidence in support of a trait/structure link with physiological output, this study applies action assembly theory to the problem. Differential heart rate curves are predicted for high and low trait CA based on Greene's (1984) action assembly theory. The study confirms a hypothesized cubic heart rate function for low trait CA subjects and a quadratic heart rate function for high trait CA subjects. Results are interpreted as empirical support for an action assembly approach to communication anxiety.     

Brief Therapy: Two's Company

The triad is a key element in family therapy. It is clinically useful to conceptualize it as a unit with a structure of its own. This paper suggests that a typical triadic system consists of a pair of allies and an isolate, or "odd-man-out," all of whom are "stuck" in a rigid pattern that has become dysfunctional. The therapist can break the pattern by developing interventions specifically designed to create new alliances and thus broaden the family's behavioral repertoire.     

Brief Therapy: Focused Solution Development

This article describes the form of brief therapy developed at the Brief Family Therapy Center. We have chosen a title similar to Weakland, Fisch, Watzlawick, and Bodin's classic paper, "Brief Therapy: Focused Problem Resolution" (20) to emphasize our view that there is a conceptual relationship and a developmental connection between the points of view expressed in the two papers.     

ORGANIZATIONAL SOCIALIZATION AS A LEARNING PROCESS: THE ROLE OF INFORMATION ACQUISITION

This study investigated newcomers'information acquisition about organizational contextual domains from different sources, the relationship between information acquisition and knowledge of domains, relationships between information acquisition from sources, knowledge of domains and socialization outcomes, and shifts in these processes over time. Questionnaires assessing information acquisition strategies, knowledge and socialization outcomes were completed by 151 new organizational members across a variety of organizations, after an average of 17 weeks on the job and again several months later. Results of the study indicated that newcomers differentially relied on sources to gather information, that different sources were of varying importance for gaining knowledge, and that supervisors, coworkers, task and role mastery were related to the assimilation process of new employees. Research and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

The Death of Resistance

For any conceptual distinction to be useful ( 5 ) within the field of family therapy, it needs to lead to some clear answers to the question: What does this distinction mean for clinical practice? The distinction between (a) the family-as-a-system, and (b) family-therapy-as-a-system leads to a clinical perspective, or stance, that includes a focus on changing. Once this focus is clear, the therapist can help to create the expectation of changing and consequently promote changing. That is, techniques can be developed using positive feedback loops. ¹ 1 It is important to remember throughout this essay that “positive” and “negative feedback loops,”“deviation-amplifying,”“deviation-counteracting processes,” etc., are just heuristic devices or metaphors. Human systems do not have such things. Human systems are described by an observer “as if.”
Moreover, this distinction leads to a therapeutic stance in which not changing is a surprise.     

Coping with Disillusionment,Abstract Images,and Uncertainty in Career Decision Making

The author examines sources of disillusionment and uncertainty in college students' career thinking.