The product of the consensus Rorschach in families of male schizophrenics.

A consensus Rorschach was given to the families of 36 male schizophrenics, 13 psychiatrically hospitalized nonschizophrenic controls, and 38 normal controls with the goal of discriminating the families of schizophrenics from the other two groups of families. After the family agreed on a response, each member was asked to write the response on a separate sheet of paper. This study focused on these written responses, the product of the interaction, rather than on the process of reaching agreement. A system was developed to score the responses based on the degree of shared meaning achieved by the family. Adequate interscorer reliability was obtained. The scores significantly differentiated the three groups. More families of schizophrenics had low scores indicating lack of shared meaning than families of hospitalized and normal controls. In the normal control group, more upper-class families had high scores than lower-class families, wheras in the schizophrenic group there was a trend in the opposite direction.     

A sampling approach to biases in conditional probability judgments: beyond base rate neglect and statistical format

Conditional probability judgments of rare events are often inflated. Early accounts assumed a general deficit in using statistical base rates. More recent approaches predict improvement when problems are presented in frequency format or refer to natural categories. The present theory focuses on sampling processes. Experiment 1 showed that a seeming advantage of frequency over probability formats is due to a confounded factor, the need to mentally transform stimulus samples. An information search paradigm was used in Experiment 2. When sampling by the predictor, the probability to be estimated, p(criterion/predictor), was conserved in the samples and judgments were quite accurate. However, when sampling by the criterion, the low base-rate event was strongly overrepresented, accounting for the entire bias. Judgments were quite sensitive to the sampled data, but failed to take sampling constraints into account, as shown in Experiments 3 and 4.     

Utilizing Benchmarking to Study the Effectiveness of Parent–Child Interaction Therapy Implemented in a Community Setting

Benchmarking is a program evaluation approach that can be used to study whether the outcomes of parents/children who participate in an evidence-based program in the community approximate the outcomes found in randomized trials. This paper presents a case illustration using benchmarking methodology to examine a community implementation of Parent–Child Interaction Therapy (CI-PCIT) utilized as a child maltreatment prevention effort. Data were collected from 83 parent–child dyads. Change scores were compared to treatment and control effect sizes aggregated from the PCIT literature. Pre-post results indicated significant positive changes in child behavior for CI-PCIT completers. Benchmarking analyses revealed that parents who completed CI-PCIT reported significantly greater positive child outcomes than the aggregate control group benchmark, and significantly less than observed in the treatment benchmark. A summary of decision points and implications for utilizing this methodology in the child maltreatment field are postulated.     

Grief experiences and expectance of suicide

Suicide is generally viewed as an unexpected cause of death. However, some suicides might be expected to a certain extent, which needs to be further studied. The relationships between expecting suicide, feeling understanding for the suicide, and later grief experiences were explored. In total, 142 bereaved participants completed the Grief Experience Questionnaire and additional measurements on expectance and understanding. Results supported the prediction of a link between expecting suicide and understanding the suicide. Higher expectance and understanding were related to less searching for explanation and preoccupation with the suicide. There was no direct association with other grief experiences. We conclude that more attention should be brought to the relation between expecting the suicide of a loved one and later grief responses in research and in clinical practice.     

Implementation of Cognitive Therapy for PTSD in routine clinical care: Effectiveness and moderators of outcome in a consecutive sample

ObjectiveTrauma-focused psychological treatments are recommended as first-line treatments for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), but clinicians may be concerned that the good outcomes observed in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) may not generalize to the wide range of traumas and presentations seen in clinical practice. This study investigated whether Cognitive Therapy for PTSD (CT-PTSD) can be effectively implemented into a UK National Health Service Outpatient Clinic serving a defined ethnically mixed urban catchment area.MethodA consecutive sample of 330 patients with PTSD (age 17–83) following a wide range of traumas were treated by 34 therapists, who received training and supervision in CT-PTSD. Pre and post treatment data (PTSD symptoms, anxiety, depression) were collected for all patients, including dropouts. Hierarchical linear modeling investigated candidate moderators of outcome and therapist effects.ResultsCT-PTSD was well tolerated and led to very large improvement in PTSD symptoms, depression and anxiety. The majority of patients showed reliable improvement/clinically significant change: intent-to-treat: 78.8%/57.3%; completer: 84.5%/65.1%. Dropouts and unreliable attenders had worse outcome. Statistically reliable symptom exacerbation with treatment was observed in only 1.2% of patients. Treatment gains were maintained during follow-up (M = 280 days, n = 220). Few of the selection criteria used in some RCTs, demographic, diagnostic and trauma characteristics moderated treatment outcome, and only social problems and needing treatment for multiple traumas showed unique moderation effects. There were no random effects of therapist on symptom improvement, but therapists who were inexperienced in CT-PTSD had more dropouts than those with greater experience.ConclusionsThe results support the effectiveness of CT-PTSD and suggest that trauma-focused cognitive behavior therapy can be successfully implemented in routine clinical services treating patients with a wide range of traumas.     

Effects of gender in social control of smoking cessation.

This study of 93 men and 117 women smokers during an ongoing quit attempt examined the roles of gender and social network influences on quitting. For men, social influences appeared to positively affect their ability to reduce their smoking but were less effective for women. Specifically, increased reports of a spouse or partner's influence, and family and friends' influence, were associated with greater reductions in men's smoking 2 days and 4 months post quit date, respectively. In contrast, for women, greater reports of spouse or partner influence and of family and friends' influence were associated with smaller reductions in smoking. Sex differences in social control strategies and perceived autonomy supportiveness of those strategies are discussed as possible explanations for these results.     

Motivational Antecedents and Consequences of the Mother–Adolescent Communication

Communication between parents and their children represents an important factor of family socialization. Nevertheless, little is known about why parents communicate in different ways and how these qualitative differences in parent–child communication may affect the child. Building on self-determination theory, the present study focuses on motivational antecedents of need-supportive communication as a function of parental child-related beliefs (i.e., long-term goals that parents have set for their children’s future, and parental child-related behavior expectations in terms of parental dissatisfaction or satisfaction with child behavior). Moreover, the effect of perceived need-supportive communication on children’s prosocial behavior and (externalizing and internalizing) behavioral difficulties will be addressed. Three waves of data from 1125 mothers and adolescents aged between 10 and 17 years were analyzed using growth-curve modeling. We found linearly increasing trajectories in extrinsic parental goals for children and dissatisfaction with child behavior, and decreasing trajectories of need-supportive communication. Individual differences do not vary significantly over time. In addition, holding extrinsic parental goals for children positively predicts parents’ dissatisfaction with their child’s behavior and negatively predicts need-supportive communication. Parents’ dissatisfaction with their child’s behavior also contributes to decreasing need-supportive communication. As expected, need-supportive communication predicts prosocial behavior and externalizing behavioral difficulties. When need-supportive communication decreases over time, both externalizing and internalizing behavioral difficulties increase. Furthermore, the effect of mothers beliefs on adolescents socioemotional development was mediated through perceived mother’s communication quality. These results suggest that parental child-related beliefs are important motivational antecedents of parent–child communication that may prevent behavioral difficulties.     

Seeing Is Believing: Using Video Feedback in Cognitive Therapy for Social Anxiety Disorder

Distorted negative self-images and impressions appear to play a key role in maintaining Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD). In previous research, McManus et al. (2009) found that video feedback can help people undergoing cognitive therapy for SAD (CT-SAD) to develop a more realistic impression of how they appear to others, and this was associated with significant improvement in their social anxiety. In this paper we first present new data from 47 patients that confirms the value of video feedback. Ninety-eighty percent of the patients indicated that they came across more favorably than they had predicted after viewing a video of their social interactions. Significant reductions in social anxiety were observed during the following week and these reductions were larger than those observed after control periods. Comparison with our earlier data (McManus et al., 2009) suggests we may have improved the effectiveness of video feedback by refining and developing our procedures over time. The second part of the paper outlines our current strategies for maximizing the impact of video feedback. The strategies have evolved in order to help patients with SAD overcome a range of processing biases that could otherwise make it difficult for them to spot discrepancies between their negative self-imagery and the way they appear on video.     

To justify or excuse?: A meta-analytic review of the effects of explanations

The authors used R. Folger and R. Cropanzano's (1998, 2001) fairness theory to derive predictions about the effects of explanation provision and explanation adequacy on justice judgments and cooperation, retaliation, and withdrawal responses. The authors also used the theory to identify potential moderators of those effects, including the type of explanation (justification vs. excuse), outcome favorability, and study context. The authors' predictions were tested by using meta-analyses of 54 independent samples. The results showed strong effects of explanations on both the justice and response variables. Moreover, explanations were more beneficial when they took the form of excuses rather than justifications, when they were given after unfavorable outcomes, and when they were given in contexts with instrumental, relational, and moral implications.