Relationship of supervisor and trainee gender to in-session verbal behavior and ratings of trainee skills.

This study of 44 supervision dyads investigated the effects of supervisor and trainee gender on the verbal interactions of participants and on their perceptions of trainee skill levels. Supervisor and trainee utterances were coded as being relationship or task focused. Male supervisors paired with male trainees engaged in more task-oriented discourse than did other dyad configurations. In other analyses, gender did not affect which party exerted more effect on the structure of the interactions. Finally, no significant differences were found in how male and female trainees rated their own skill levels. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of client affective self-disclosure and counselor experience on counselor verbal behavior and perceptions.

60 untrained, trained, and professional counselors (average age 20 yrs, 26 yrs, and 38 yrs, respectively) responded to an audio presentation of client affective self-disclosures consisting of either high or low intimacy content. Quality and type of response were measured. Ss then completed a reaction form to assess their clinical impressions of the client. No intimacy effects were found. In contrast, consistent differences for experience occurred. Results indicate that untrained Ss made lower quality responses than either trained or professional Ss with no differences between professionals and counselors-in-training. In terms of response type, untrained Ss relied on direct guidance and silence; trained Ss preferred reflection, and professionals utilized silence, open question, and reflection. When silence as an initial response was removed from consideration, the preferred mode of responding for untrained and trained Ss was strengthened. In contrast, professionals utilized 2 responses (reflection and open question) equally. Finally, the counselor reaction data indicated that untrained Ss had less liking for the client as a person and viewed the client as less motivated to change than trained or professional Ss. (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Training group members to set session agendas: Effects on in-session behavior and member outcome.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 40(3) of Journal of Counseling Psychology (see record 2008-10480-001). In Table 4 (p. 186) the values for the means and standard deviations in the second, third, and fourth rows of the "Agenda setting" column were transposed with those in the "No contact" column. The corrected table is presented in this erratum.] Addressed I. D. Yalom's (1983) hypothesis that group members who set session agendas would participate more effectively in group sessions and have enhanced outcomes. The independent variable, agenda, was manipulated by assigning the 24 members of established personal growth groups to 1 of 3 conditions: (1) training in agenda setting, (2) stabilizing interviews, and (3) no-contact control. Group members filled out pre- and posttest measures of enactments of intimate behaviors and attitudes toward these enactments. They also filled out self- and other ratings of in-group enactments of intimate behaviors, and group leaders rated group members' intimate behavior at the end of each group session. Group members who set here-and-now session agendas enacted more in-group intimate behaviors and had better outcomes. Implications of these results and suggestions for group counseling are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of supervisor and supervisee degree level and gender on the supervisory relationship.

86 graduate counseling students and 92 supervisors rated their relationships 3 times during a semester. At the semester's end, supervisees decribed the perceived frequency of performance of supervisor behaviors. Supervisors and supervisees differed in their perceptions of the relationship and how it developed. Supervisees, in contrast to supervisors, saw improvement in their relationships over time. Male supervisees and supervisors both rated their relationships as better than females. Gender matching affected supervisees' perceptions of their relationships but not supervisors' perceptions. Semester-end ratings showed that supervisees discriminated between the quality of the relationship, which was affected by gender matching, supervisor gender, and supervisor behavior, and supervisor competence, which was affected only by supervisor behavior. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of job experience on supervisor attributions for a subordinate's poor performance.

64 undergraduates worked for 2 hrs in 6-person groups on a proofreading task. Half the Ss were supervisors and half were proofreaders; roles were alternated after 1 hr. Performance was controlled so that all supervisors believed they were evaluating a poor performing subordinate. Results show that experienced supervisors (Ss who served as supervisors first and then as proofreaders) tended to blame the environment more for the poor performance and recommended more changes in that environment than did nonexperienced supervisors. A field study with 30 military officers indicated that external attributions were positively correlated with the amount of experience the supervisor had working on the same task. Results are discussed within the framework of an attributional model of performance evaluation. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of personal experience on self-protective behavior.

This article seeks to further our understanding of self-protective behavior by examining the effects of a particularly powerful stimulus to action: personal experience. It reviews the effects of automobile accidents on seat belt use, criminal victimization other than rape on individual crime prevention efforts, natural hazards experience on both natural hazards preparedness and compliance with evacuation warnings, and myocardial infarction on smoking. Theories suggesting mechanisms that could link personal experience to behavior are described, and data concerning the effects of experience on some key variables in these theories are discussed. Tentative propositions are offered to resolve the many apparent discrepancies in this literature. These propositions concern the effects of experience on risk perceptions, the influence of experience on risk salience, the specificity of responses to victimization, and the duration of experience effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of student verbal behavior on classroom teacher behavior.

Investigated the functional relationship between individual student rates of volunteering in the classroom and (a) the differential rates of teacher questions directed to the individual students and (b) the percentage of student volunterring approved by the teacher in 12 high school classrooms ( N = 90) during the 1st and 3rd mo of the term. Teachers did not differentially approve different rates of volunteering; however, those students who volunteered more were more likely to receive a directed question. During the 3rd mo, the rate of directed questions correlated with student volunteering for those who did volunteers. Results imply that students control whether they receive a directed question and, as the term progresses, how frequently the teacher addresses them. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of conceptual level and structure on initial interview behavior.

Assessed the impact of the conceptual level matching model within a counseling situation. A 2–3 randomized block design was used to compare the effects of matching counselee conceptual level (CL) to counselor-offered degree of structure in a 40-min initial interview analogue. Two treatment levels of counselor structure (low and high) were crossed with 2 blocks of undergraduates (24 low-CLs and 24 high-CLs) and 2 interviewers. It was predicted that matched persons (low CL, high structure; high CL, low structure) would respond better than mismatched persons (low CL, low structure; high CL, high structure). The high-CL matching predictions recieved a significant degree of support in expressions of self-awareness and satisfaction. The low-CL matching predictions received a significant degree of support in the areas of satisfaction and ratings of counselor helpfulness. Use of different behavioral outcomes and a flexible counseling style are stressed. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of social approval on the verbal behavior of emotionally disturbed and normal children.

96 nondefective Ss in Grades 4-9 who were referred to a child psychiatric clinic were compared with a group of 120 public school Ss of similar intellectual and educational level in terms of their response to a Taffel-type verbal conditioning procedure. 1/2 of the Ss in each group were experimental, to whom E said "good" following their use of a 1st-person pronoun, and 1/2 were controls, to whom E made no verbal response. Normal experimental Ss showed a statistically significant increase in their usage of the reinforced words, while clinic experimental Ss, as a group, failed to show a significant increase in such usage. Verbal approval was shown to have a differential effect depending upon the S's emotional status. In neither group did grade level have an effect upon rate of conditioning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effect of negative verbal cues upon verbal behavior.

Research which investigated the capacity to modify behavior, starting from the framework of Skinner's operant conditioning paradigm and utilizing verbal behavior, was found to have primarily explored the effect of positive secondary reinforcement. The present investigation explored the effect of a negative verbal cue presented under different schedules of reinforcement upon verbal behavior. Ss (male VA psychiatric patients) responded to projective techniques. The E varied the frequency of negative verbal reinforcement defined as "unh unh." The hypothesis that such a negative reinforcement would depress verbal behavior was substantiated, with a periodic schedule of reinforcement being more effective. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Role of early supervisory experience in supervisor performance.

Explores the role of early supervisory experience and cognitive ability in 1st-line supervisor performance. Similar to the F. L. Schmidt et al (see record 1986-31441-001) study of nonsupervisors, this research tested structural models hypothesizing relationships among supervisory experience, cognitive ability, supervisory knowledge and proficiency, and performance ratings, using a sample of 570 2nd-tour soldiers. The Schmidt et al model with an additional ability?→?experience path provided the best fit. The significant ability?→?experience path was interpreted as indicating that demonstrated ability contributes to soldiers being given the opportunity to obtain supervisory experience. Experience had a greater impact on supervisor proficiency than on supervisor knowledge. Ability had a greater impact on supervisor knowledge than on proficiency. Discussion focuses on the personal characteristics that might be involved in being assigned supervisory responsibilities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Repression-sensitization and the verbal elaboration of experience.

Presented affective (pleasant and unpleasant) and neutral visual stimuli to 24 undergraduates. Verbal elaboration was measured by the number of words S checked on a 50-item list to describe his experience while viewing each slide. Correlations between Ss' scores on the Repression-Sensitization scale and degree of verbal elaboration indicate that sensitizers elaborate their experience more freely than repressors when confronted with stimuli that are threatening or difficult to describe in affective terms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Determining the effects of three counselor verbal responses on client verbal behavior.

Determined the effects of 4 counselor stimulus conditions on 3 measures of client verbal behavior, using 20 female college sophomore clients. The counselor stimulus conditions were reflection of feeling, probe, confrontation, and unspecified responses. The 3 dependent variables were client affect words, self-referent pronouns, and present verb tense. 20 subjects were assigned randomly to 1 of 4 trained Es (2 male and 2 female counselors) for a 42-min session. The 1st 2 min were a preliminary orientation period. The remaining 40 min were divided into 4 10-min counselor stimulus conditions. The sequence of stimulus conditions was randomized for each session. A 2 * 2 factorial analysis with repeated measures on the 2nd factor indicated no significant differences for each dependent variable. The implications for indiscriminate use of these 4 counselor stimulus conditions are discussed with respect to counselor training and research. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Lashley on serial order and Skinner on verbal behavior.

Comments that in his summary of K. S. Lashley's (1951) paper on the problem of serial order in behavior, D. Bruce (see record 1994-24098-001) has written as if all behavioristic explanations of language necessarily appealed to associative chains and as if Skinner's (1957) account of verbal behavior is incompatible with Lashley's analysis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Modification of behavior through verbal conditioning: Effects in group therapy.

An hypothesis that seems to be gaining acceptance on the basis of experimental (as opposed to heretofore face) validity, is that the interpersonal relationship in therapy is not only able to modify the patient's behavior, but in a predictable and desirable direction. This hypothesis was cross-validated by using a group of patients in a Veterans Administration hospital, all in group therapy. The experimental condition, the independent variable, involved exposing S to a TAT-like situation outside of therapy. E responded differentially to the emotionally-toned words used by S: (a) by nodding and saying "mm-hm," (b) by communicating to S via a machine that emitted a clicking sound and added on a counter, and (c) a "no reinforcement" group. Change in the patient's behavior, the dependent variable, was assessed by ratings on a scale to measure interpersonal relationships in group therapy. Significant improvement in the measure of interpersonal behavior in the group therapy was noted in Condition A only. From Psyc Abstracts 36:01:3IG28U. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Observer effects on teacher verbal classroom behavior.

Investigated whether the presence of an observer has an effect on the verbal behaviors of teachers. 10 female elementary school teachers were each observed for approximately 9 hrs under the following 4 conditions: (a) the information or (b) lack of information a teacher had concerning when an observation would occur; (c) the presence or (d) absence of an observer in the classroom. The dependent variables were the teachers' verbal behaviors as measured by N. A. Flanders's (1965) interaction analysis and their perception of their ideal teacher's behaviors. Results indicate that informing a teacher prior to an observation has minimal effect on classroom verbal behavior. Teacher verbal classroom behavior was found to be more like the perceived ideal when an observer was present in the classroom. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Anxiety and the conditioning of verbal behavior.

Ninety hospitalized psychiatric patients were administered the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale. The S's were then required to make up sentences in response to a stimulus card on which were printed a verb and one of six pronouns. E reinforced any sentence starting with I or WE by saying "good" or flashing a light. Scores on the Taylor scale showed a relationship to the amount of conditioning produced by "good." Light, as applied in this study, does not function as a reinforcer in a verbal situation. Implications for further research are described. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)