Counseling Clients with AIDS

The authors discuss issues and suggestions relative to counseling clients with AIDS. Several psychosocial issues are presented, and a psycho-educational model of treatment to meet the needs of AIDS clients is described.     

The Apotheosis of Home and the Maintenance of Spaces of Violence

The “Home” is ideologically understood as a place of safety and refuge. Such an account cloaks violence against women. The voices of battered women can disrupt that dominant construction of the space of the home, a construction typified by the work of Gaston Bachelard. The space that Bachelard presupposes and theorizes as given is in fact being‐produced, cleaned, and organized by people who themselves may not find in it any solace or respite.     

Self-Inference and the Foot-in-the-Door Technique Quantity of Behavior and Attitudinal Mediation

The purpose of this investigation was to test two aspects of the self-perception theory account of the foot-in-the-door (FITD) phenomenon. The first aspect tested was the claim that the greater the quantity of behavior associated with the initial request, the greater the likelihood of compliance with the later request. Quantity of behavior was operation-alized as (a) request size and (b) active versus passive execution, that is, whether the target person actually carried out the request or simply agreed to do so. The second aspect tested was the claim that changes in self-perception mediate the FITD effect. A field experiment was conducted to address these concerns. The results showed that a self-inference explanation is viable; however, a strict self-perception account fails because neither request size nor execution showed any correspondence to attitudinal measures or to compliance with the second request. Implications for a self-inference explanation are discussed.     

Experiential and Physiological Responses to Interpersonal Influence

In this study, we examined the linkages between two important features of influence messages, explicitness and dominance, and emotional response. Two positions were considered. From politeness theory, we deduced that judgments of the politeness of the message would mediate the effects of message form on emotional response. Consideration of cognitive appraisal theories suggested judgments of goal blockage and legitimacy would assume the role of mediators. Participants took part in two role-plays in which they adopted the role of the influence target and listened to an audiotape of a request to change their behavior. Self-report and physiological data were gathered as indicators of their emotional responses to the influence messages. The findings indicated some support for both politeness and appraisal theories, but also suggested that neither one constituted a thorough explanation of the effects of influence messages on emotions.     

Adult attachment styles and stressor severity as moderators of the coping sequence

This study examined the normative temporal sequence of the coping process and whether stressor severity or adult attachment styles moderated that sequence. Participants (N = 75) described a minor or a major stressor. They were given a stack of index cards, representing coping strategies from five different domains. They selected strategies they had employed and sorted them into the order used. Overall, support from partner was one of the first coping techniques used. Adult attachment styles moderated the coping sequence. For major stressors, dismissing attachment predicted later use of support seeking from partner and earlier use of distancing coping, while preoccupied attachment predicted earlier use of emotion‐focused coping.