Executive coaching: A continuum of roles.

Some executives use coaching to learn specific skills, others to improve performance on the job or to prepare for advancement in business or professional life. Still others see coaching as a way to support broader purposes, such as an executive's agenda for major organizational change. To an outsider, these coaching situations may look similar. All are based on an ongoing, confidential, one-on-one relationship between coach and executive. Yet each coaching situation is different and some of these distinctions are important to recognize, if only to foster informed choice by everyone involved. This article defines and explores key distinguishing features among coaching situations encountered in daily practice. Taking account of these factors, the authors suggest 4 distinctly different coaching roles. Case examples explore how these roles apply to common coaching issues facing executives and their organizations today. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Blood alcohol level discrimination by alcoholics: The role of internal and external cues.

Two groups of 4 chronic alcoholics lived in Rutgers' Alcohol Behavior Research Laboratory for separate 2-wk periods. During that time, Ss were taught to attend either to internal or to external cues to blood alcohol level (BAL). Mean age of the internal group was 36.2 yrs, and that of the external was 35.7 yrs. Internal Ss completed the Body Sensation Checklist and the Mood Adjective Check List. During a single training session, Ss received feedback on actual BAL following each of their BAL estimates. During pretraining and posttraining sessions, assessments of BAL estimation accuracy were obtained in the absence of feedback. Prior to training, both groups were equally inaccurate in estimating BAL. During training, when accurate BAL feedback was provided, estimation accuracy increased significantly for both groups. Once feedback of actual BAL was removed during the posttraining test session, however, only externally trained Ss maintained the ability to estimate BAL accurately. It is concluded that unlike the nonalcoholic Ss studied by H. Huber, R. Karlin, and A. E. Nathan (1976), the alcoholic Ss of the present study did not learn to discriminate BAL on the basis of internal feelings and sensations nearly as adequately as they did when they referred to external cues. It is suggested that these findings may have important implications for the clinical application of BAL discrimination training. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-reinforcement and depression in interpersonal interaction: The role of performance level.

19 depressed and 12 nondepressed psychiatric inpatients and 16 nondepressed nonmedical hospital employees (18–60 yrs old) participated in dyadic interactions with age-matched, opposite-sex strangers; each S interacted with a different partner. Ss were rated on a number of measures of social skill, such as the Revealed Differences Questionnaire and the Behavioral Assessment of Speech Anxiety Scale. Following the session, Ss viewed a videotape of their interaction and were given the opportunity, at 30-sec intervals, to reward or punish their performance. Results partially support theories postulating a low, performance-independent level of self-reinforcement specific to depression. Although depressed Ss administered a lower number of self-reinforcements and obtained lower ratings on measures of social skill than did hospital employees, their performance on these variables was not significantly different from that of nondepressed patients. Using social skills scores as covariates did not erase the main effect for Diagnostic Group in an analysis of the number of self-reinforcements administered. The low rate of self-reinforcement administered by the 2 patient groups can not be fully explained in terms of their lower level of social skill. (37 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of external cues on the thinking behavior of obese and normal subjects.

Hypothesized that the thinking behavior of obese Ss is externally controlled to a greater extent than that of normals. 36 normal weight and 36 obese male undergraduates served as Ss. It was predicted that obese Ss would spend more time than normals thinking about an assigned topic of thought if there were topic-relevant external cues available, and less time than normals if there were no topic-relevant external cues available. With thinking measured directly by self-report and indirectly by distraction from pain, these predictions were confirmed. It is concluded that differences in eating behavior between obese and normal Ss can be explained by differences in thinking behavior. Therapeutic implications of the cognitive style of the obese are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-reinforcement and recall: Differential deficits in depressed and nondepressed psychiatric inpatients.

16 depressed and 12 nondepressed psychiatric inpatients and 19 nondepressed hospital employees (18–60 yrs old) were administered the Beck Depression Inventory, Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression, and a verbal recognition task. Ss' administration and recall of self-reinforcements and self-punishments were assessed. As predicted, depressed Ss administered fewer self-reinforcements and a greater number of self-punishments than hospital employees; however, they did not differ on either of these measures from nondepressed patients. In terms of recall, depressed patients recalled giving themselves fewer reinforcements and a greater number of punishments than was actually the case. Whereas a low rate of self-reinforcement may be characteristic of global psychopathology, deficits in the recall of self-reinforcement and self-punishment were specific to depression. Results are discussed with reference to both cognitive and self-reinforcement conceptualizations of depression. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A contradiction resolved: Children's processing of syntactic cues.

Using 6-9 yr old children, an attempt was made to replicate D. McNeill's (1970) investigation, which suggested that although semantic cues aided processing of sentences by 5-8 yr olds, syntactic cues did not. In agreement with other more recent studies, results show that children's ability to process syntactically well-formed sentences increased over the early school years. The difference between McNeill's data and later data sets probably stems from (a) unreliability owing to small samples (5 children) at each age level and (b) unreliability due to the high difficulty of sentences used for the criterion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of situational aggression cues: A quantitative review.

Meta-analytic procedures were used to assess the degree to which aggression-related cues present in the environment facilitate aggressive responding among negatively aroused subjects. The first study, which examined the so-called weapons effect, the effect of name-mediated cues, and other cue effects, showed clear evidence that aggression cues augment aggressive responses in negatively aroused subjects. This was true for the overall analysis and for name-mediated cues, but confirmation of the weapons effect was restricted to cases wherein subject sophistication and evaluation apprehension were low. A second study used partial correlation analysis to assess independently the effects of seven potential mediators of aggression cue effects. Of these, target-based facilitation and harm capacity of the aggressive response were found to mediate the magnitude of cue-facilitated aggression. A third study showed that these mediators augmented cue effects among neutral as well as negatively aroused subjects. These outcomes are interpreted as emphasizing the role of cognitive factors in the expression of both impulsive and nonimpulsive aggression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A continuum of listening and interventions.

The continuum of listening discussed in this article includes the analyst's or therapist's states of consciousness; his or her focus of attention, ranging from free floating to sharply focused; and the kinds of interventions that he or she can formulate at each point on the continuum. At one end, the analyst is relatively unaware of many of his or her own thought processes, and interventions surprise the analyst because they are formulated unconsciously. They may appear as a slip of the tongue or as a vivid image. In the middle range of the continuum, the analyst functions in more usual states of awareness, and interventions address well-developed themes of all types, especially transference themes. At the most conscious, sharply focused end of the continuum, the analyst's interventions clarify affects and address defenses and minute forms of resistance. There is also a strong emphasis on focusing on the conscious thoughts and feelings of the analysand or patient. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mutual achievement strivings: A continuum for mental health.

Mental health is defined in transactional terms, i.e., in terms of the intent of an individual towards equality or mutuality of achievement in relating to others. 4 levels of mutual achievement striving are described and a continuum composed of 8 varieties of intention-transactions is offered. Case histories of 64 patients admitted to a psychiatric hospital were examined to isolate events which could be evaluated in terms of the intention-transaction dimension. Each S was assigned a score on this continuum which reflected his degree of "mental health," and these scores were then compared to a measure of severity of mental illness (see 35: 6569), psychiatric diagnosis, type of treatment recommended, and outcome of treatment. Intention-transaction scores correlated positively with the variables. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-reinforcement by recorded telephone messages to maintain nonsmoking behavior.

61 recent ex-smokers who had stopped smoking as part of a televised "clinic" were assigned to either a tape-reinforcement or nonreinforcement condition and were followed up 1 mo later. The group that had been sent a special phone number that they could call to receive different prerecorded reward messages on a daily basis (tape reinforcement) had significantly fewer recidivists (10 of 29) upon follow-up than the group (nonreinforcement) that had not been sent the number (21 of 32). Results indicate that such a self-regulated reward system can be an extremely cost-effective tool in preventing short-term recidivism among neophyte ex-smokers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Internal and external cues relating to fluid intake in obese and alcoholic persons.

A study of fluid intake using a preferred nonalcoholic beverage was modeled on previous studies of food intake in the obese. Groups of hospitalized alcoholics, nonalcoholics, and nonalcoholic nonpatients (N = 60) were composed of half obese and half normal-weight Ss. The degree to which drinking behavior was affected by internal and external cues was related to diagnosis but not to obesity. Preloading (internal cue) inhibited drinking by nonalcoholics, but it did not affect the alcoholics' intake. Alcoholics drank significantly more of the blend of tea they ranked as most preferred (external cue) and less of a nonpreferred drink (water) than nonalcoholics. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A continuum of care: More is not always better.

This article describes an $80-million project designed to test whether a continuum of mental health and substance abuse services for children and adolescents is more cost-effective than services delivered in the more typical fragmented system. The study showed that an integrated continuum was successfully implemented that had better access, greater continuity of care, more client satisfaction, and treated children in less restrictive environments. However, the cost was higher, and clinical outcomes were no better than those at the comparison site. The article concludes that reform of mental health systems alone is unlikely to affect clinical outcomes. Cooperation is needed between mental health providers and researchers to better understand how to improve services delivered in the community. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conditional discriminations based on external and internal cues in rats with cytotoxic hippocampal lesions.

Septal-hippocampal system lesions, mostly using aspiration techniques, have been reported to impair performance of conditional tasks. Rats with axon-sparing cytotoxic, hippocampal lesions were therefore tested in a range of instrumental conditional paradigms. They did not differ from controls in their ability to choose the appropriate object in a conditional object discrimination cued by internal state (hunger or thirst) or on performance of conditional visuospatial object discriminations. Acquisition of a conditional visuospatial discrimination with black and white boxes as stimuli was also unimpaired. In contrast, lesioned rats were profoundly impaired on an open T-maze task when cued by either their internal state (reference memory task) or their previous response (working memory task). The results indicate that perception or use of spatial cues, rather than conditional responding per se, is impaired by cytotoxic hippocampal lesions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychological care for persons of diverse religions: A collaborative continuum.

The purpose of this paper is to describe to psychologists and other clinicians a continuum of mental health care for persons of diverse religions. The continuum delineates boundaries between clinical care provided by mental health professionals and religious care provided by clergy, as well as describes pathways of collaboration across these boundaries. A prevention science based model of Clergy Outreach and Professional Engagement (COPE) is offered to guide this collaboration. The model describes a continuum that moves from the care already present in religious communities, through professional clinical care provided in response to dysfunction and returns persons to their own spiritual communities. One challenge for clinicians is that in addition to a wide diversity of beliefs and practices across religions, there is great ethnic diversity within religions. These diversities are reflected in varied correlations with mental health outcomes. Therefore, we recommend that clinicians assess religious beliefs and their cultural variations when designing religious inclusive psychotherapy specific to the client. There are ethical concerns as to the place of religion in clinical care. The “Resolution on Religious, Religion-Based and/or Religion-Derived Prejudice” adopted by the American Psychological Association has stated that it is not the role of professional psychologists to be spiritual guides. Through spiritual assessment of clients and strategic collaboration with religious leaders via COPE, mental health professionals can focus their efforts on clinical care that respects and incorporates the religious views of clients and does not attempt to recreate the lived religions of the clients' communities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Testing the influence of external and internal cues on smoking motivation using a community sample.

Exposing smokers to either external cues (e.g., pictures of cigarettes) or internal cues (e.g., negative affect induction) can induce urge to smoke and other behavioral and physiological responses. However, little is known about whether the two types of cues interact when presented in close proximity, as is likely the case in the real word. Additionally, potential moderators of cue reactivity have rarely been examined. Finally, few cue-reactivity studies have used representative samples of smokers. In a randomized 2 × 2 crossed factorial between-subjects design, the current study tested the effects of a negative affect cue intended to produce anxiety (speech preparation task) and an external smoking cue on urge and behavioral reactivity in a community sample of adult smokers (N = 175), and whether trait impulsivity moderated the effects. Both types of cues produced main effects on urges to smoke, despite the speech task failing to increase anxiety significantly. The speech task increased smoking urge related to anticipation of negative affect relief, whereas the external smoking cues increased urges related to anticipation of pleasure; however, the cues did not interact. Impulsivity measures predicted urge and other smoking-related variables, but did not moderate cue-reactivity. Results suggest independent rather than synergistic effects of these contributors to smoking motivation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Inescapable shock and attention to internal versus external cues in a water discrimination escape task.

In these experiments we examined discrimination learning in a water escape task following exposure to escapable, yoked inescapable, or no electric shock. Inescapable shock did not have an effect on swim speeds in any of the experiments. Inescapable shock interfered with the acquisition of a position (left–right) discrimination when an irrelevant brightness cue (black and white stimuli) was present. However, inescapable shock did not affect the acquisition of the position discrimination when the irrelevant brightness cue was removed. Inescapably shocked Subjects showed facilitated learning relative to escapably shocked and nonshocked subjects when the brightness cue was included as a relevant cue. These data may resolve discrepancies between studies that did, and did not, find inescapable shock to interfere with the acquisition of discriminations. Moreover, they point to attentional processes as one locus of the cognitive changes produced by inescapable shock and suggest the exposure to inescapable shock biases attention away from "internal" response-related cues toward "external" cues. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mucinous lesions of the breast. A pathological continuum

Mucocele-like tumor and invasive mucinous carcinoma of the breast may represent the two ends of the pathological spectrum of mucinous lesions of the breast, respectively. Little data exists on mucinous lesions that may be considered intermediate between mucocele-like tumor and invasive mucinous carcinoma. We studied 23 consecutive cases of invasive mucinous carcinoma of the breast and observed the following associated intermediate mucinous lesions: mucin-filled ducts (MFD) with unremarkable epithelium in 15 cases (65%), MFD with typical ductal hyperplasia in 9 cases (39%), MFD with atypical ductal hyperplasia in 5 cases (22%), and MFD with intraductal carcinoma in 13 cases (57%; micropapillary or cribriform types). Eighteen cases (78%) contained MFD with one of these four lesions and five cases (22%) contained all four lesions. Twenty-three consecutive cases of infiltrating ductal carcinoma-not otherwise specified (IDC-NOS), 21 cases of intraductal carcinoma, and 50 consecutive cases of surgically-excised breast tissue with fibrocystic change (FC), were similarly reviewed. Only one case (4%) of IDC-NOS, 1 case of intraductal carcinoma, and two cases (4%) of FC, contained small foci of MFD with intraductal carcinoma, intraductal carcinoma, and unremarkable epithelium, respectively. Our findings suggest the presence of a spectrum of mucinous lesions of the breast which represents a pathological continuum.     

Memory retrieval deficits based upon altered contextual cues: A paradox.

It has long been recognized that memory retrieval depends on the similarity of the stimulus context at testing to the context present at encoding. This contextual-cues model appears to draw support from a variety of studies in animal and human research indicating that performance is disrupted by manipulations that reduce the correspondence in background stimuli between acquisition and testing. Although this approach has much in common with a stimulus generalization decrement interpretation of performance change, little attention has been paid to data from stimulus control research showing that generalization gradients typically flatten over time. A literature review indicates that loss of stimulus control with delayed testing occurs for background contexts as well as for conditioned or discriminative stimuli and supports the interpretation that stimulus attributes are forgotten. These findings pose a paradox: The functionally increased interchangeability of stimuli after a retention interval makes it unlikely that disruption of memory can be attributed to subtle shifts in context under the nominally identical conditions of a retention test. (82 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dissociative disorders of the self: A continuum extending into multiple personality.

This article examines the notion that multiple-personality disorder represents the end of a continuum of a defensive dissociation of the self. Three case illustrations are presented in support of this notion. In one case hidden ego states emerged and displayed some behavioral control in the course of hypnotherapy. In another, dissociated part selves were responsible for much of the presenting symptomatology, but did not qualify for a diagnosis of multiple personality. The author argues for the recognition of a continuum of dissociation of the self that extends into multiple-personality disorder. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Job enrichment versus social cues: A comparison and competitive test.

41 part-time student employees were randomly assigned in a 2–2 factorial design (2 types of social cues and 2 levels of job enrichment) to investigate the effects of the independent variables on perceptions of job enrichment, job ambiguity, job satisfaction, and productivity. All Ss worked in a simulated organizational setting involving a routine clerical task. Results show that both the cues given by co-workers as well as the physical properties of the task had an effect on employee perceptions of job enrichment and job ambiguity. In addition, Ss receiving positive social cues from co-workers were more satisfied and more productive than Ss receiving negative social cues from co-workers. Results are discussed in terms of their relevance for current theories of job motivation. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)