Evaluation of a Coeducational Interactive Rape Prevention Program

This article illustrates one way in which counselors can contribute to victim services on campus besides providing direct remedial services. Specifically, the authors describe a project in which they designed, implemented, and evaluated a rape prevention program. The program was coeducational and interactive and was presented to members of sororities and fraternities. Those who participated in the program endorsed fewer rape-supportive attitudes than did the control group immediately following the program, although the two groups no longer differed at the one month follow-up. Recommendations are provided for counselors interested in developing and evaluating similar programs.     

On doing research: the dream and the reality

The principal concern of this essay is to offer practical and personal guidance to professional therapists who wish to engage in research in family therapy. It is not a paper about research design or experimental/observational/survey methods; rather the focus is upon the experience of engaging in research. It attempts to destroy a few common myths about researchers, research, and the motives of researchers and those whom they research. Research is seen as a continuing and evolving process (rather than a product) which can intrude in many aspects of the individual's life; it can affect motives, working relationships, organizational composure, personal family life, and personal self-esteem. Research is thus like most other forms of employment. Research, as an activity, must be seen in terms of systems dynamics, resistance to change, and hopefully, in terms also, of self-actualization and the refreshment of professional parts that other addictions cannot reach.
Recommendations are made for the structuring of research activity, in the light of the research model presented.     

If you want to be one of us,then become like us: The evaluation of naturalization applicants by host nationals

Immigrant naturalization is a rite of passage, making assimilationist attitudes particularly pronounced among host nationals. Three experimental studies investigate whether heritage culture maintenance violates expectations that citizenship should be deserved by proving strong attachment to the host nation (i.e., neoliberal communitarianism). Study 1 (N = 293) demonstrates that naturalization applicants’ high degree of heritage culture maintenance impairs application evaluations. Perceived attachment to the host nation and citizenship deservingness mediated this effect. Study 2 (N = 220) replicates results across two national contexts and reveals that heritage culture maintenance impairs evaluations only among naturalization applicants from devalued countries. Study 3 (N = 117) manipulates attachment to the host nation and shows that perceived citizenship deservingness mediates the negative effects of naturalization applicants' low attachment to the host nation on application evaluations. Overall, assimilationist attitudes among host nationals are best explained by the combination of neoliberal and communitarian criteria of evaluation.     

Where am I looking? The accuracy of video-mediated gaze awareness

Participants worked in pairs, with one person gazing at a flat horizontal stimulus between them. The other participant estimated where the gazer was looking. Experiment 1 used linear scales as gaze targets. The mean root mean square error of estimation equates to 3.8 degrees of head-and-eye pan and 2.6 degrees of tilt. This small error of estimation was essentially the same in a video-mediated condition and in one in which a procedure that did not allow the estimator to see the head-and-eye movement to the target position was used. Experiment 2 obtained comparable gaze estimation performance in face-to-face and video-mediated conditions, using a combined pan-and-tilt grid. It is concluded that people are very good at estimating what someone else is looking at and that such estimations should be practical during video-mediated conversation.     

"... As you would have them do unto you": Does imagining yourself in the other's place stimulate moral action?

Philosophers, psychologists, and religious teachers have suggested that imagining yourself in another's place will stimulate moral action. The authors tested this idea in two different situations. In Experiment 1, participants had the opportunity to assign themselves and another research participant to tasks, with one task clearly more desirable than the other. Imagining oneself in the other's place did little to increase the morality (fairness) of the decision. A different form of perspective taking, imagining the other's feelings, increased direct assignment of the other to the desirable task, apparently due to increased empathy. In Experiment 2, participants confronted a different decision: either accept an initial task assignment that would give them highly positive consequences and the other participant nothing or change the assignment so they and the other would each receive moderately positive consequences. In this situation, imagining oneself in the other's place did significantly increase moral action.     

Inflated and contradictory category naming deficits in Alzheimer's disease?

Although some studies have documented category-specific deficits in patients with Alzheimer's disease, others have not. One possible reason is that where control groups have been used in previous studies, they have performed at ceiling; and this may spuriously affect the incidence and type of deficit reported (especially with common statistical techniques such as z-scores). We examined this issue in 18 Alzheimer's patients and 26 elderly controls, who named two picture sets: a simple set that typically produces ceiling effects (Set 1) and one that produces a normal distribution in controls (Set 2). Sets 1 and 2 produced inconsistent and even contradictory deficits in the same patients. The results also show that ceiling effects may inflate the number of living thing deficits and hence, distort the reported ratio of living to nonliving cases.     

The Role of Parents’ School Climate Perceptions on Attainment Expectations for Black Middle Schoolers

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Parents’ beliefs about their children’s schools are important influences on their parenting and on their children’s outcomes. Because of...