What do people want to know about psychotherapy?

Assessed information people want about psychotherapy, and the effect of prior exposure to a written consent form on preferences for information. 108 adults, half of whom had received a written informed consent form, answered an open-ended question about their preferences for information. Ss most frequently asked for information about the therapist, especially personal characteristics. Least frequently cited were items concerning appointments, alternatives, and confidentiality. Ss exposed to the written consent form were more likely to ask about confidentiality and financial arrangements and, if they had not had previous therapy experience, were less likely to ask about personal characteristics of the therapist. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-disclosure in a simulated psychiatric interview.

Describes 2 experiments in which a total of 192 undergraduates received 49 items of personal information previously scaled in terms of their intimacy and presented according to the method of constant stimuli. For each item, Ss indicated whether they believed they would have withheld or revealed that information under actual psychiatric interview conditions. Exp. I manipulated the professional role of the interviewer, confidentiality of obtained information, and sex of the interviewee in a 4 * 3 * 2 design. Results indicate that (a) Ss avowedly revealed more personal information to mental health professionals than they would in a control employment interview situation, with no differences between the mental health professionals; (b) informing Ss that the interview was not confidential produced significant information loss from female but not male Ss; and (c) Ss who received no information regarding confidentiality behaved like Ss who were told the information was confidential. In Exp. II, Ss were asked to assume the motivational-attitudinal state of persons either coerced or voluntarily seeking a psychiatric interview because they had violated interpersonal norms. Significant information loss occurred in coerced Ss while confidentiality had no effect on self-disclosure. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Informing clients about the limits to confidentiality, risks, and their rights: Is self-disclosure inhibited?

Investigated the effects of providing varying amounts of detail regarding the limits to confidentiality in a psychotherapy analog. 24 mildly depressed undergraduates (as determined on the Beck Depression Inventory) were offered an interview to explore their depression and were told it would be much like single-session therapy. Before the interview, Ss were randomly assigned to read and sign 1 of 3 consent forms. Little evidence emerged of significant inhibition of disclosure when detailed information was provided; straightforward encouragement for disclosure eliminated the small inhibitory effect. A 2nd study, with 40 Ss, demonstrated the concurrent validity and sensitivity to change of the major dependent variable. The results of the 2 studies are encouraging not only to psychologists concerned about the moral rights of their clients but also to psychologists who have avoided informing clients about the limits to confidentiality, risks of therapy, and clients' rights because they feared it would necessarily discourage disclosure. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personal involvement and strategies for making contingency judgments: A stake in the dating game makes a difference.

Examined the relation between the degree of involvement in a task and the complexity of strategy that Ss apply to the task. 48 female university volunteers were randomly assigned to either a dating (high-involvement) condition or 1 of 2 (low-involvement) control conditions. In addition, Ss in each condition were assigned to a person information or an abstract information condition. Ss in the person information condition received information about a particular male's dating preferences; those in the high-involvement condition were told that they would date this person. All Ss then performed a covariation judgment task (involving the male's dating preferences) for which the likelihood of their using simple or complex strategies was calculated. High-involvement Ss used more complex strategies and tended to be more accurate. These data are discussed in terms of the functionality of human information processing, heuristic analyses of inference strategies, and the importance of considering level of personal involvement in analyses of task performance. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Extraversion, social cognition, and the salience of aversiveness in social encounters.

Conducted 2 studies to determine whether introverts and extraverts systematically differ in their expectations, recall, and evaluation of social encounter. In Study 1, 102 male undergraduate students (classified as either introvert or extravert based on the Extraversion scale of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire) evaluated games on rating scales. All Ss rated the competitive game as more arousing and potentially punishing than the cooperative game, but introverts anticipated that the competitive game would be less friendly and likable than did the extraverts. In Study 2, 61 undergraduates believed they would participate in either a cooperative or a competitive game. Ss were shown slides of all other Ss (teammates and opponents), as well as bogus biographical information. Ss were then asked to recall information and evaluate each S on rating scales. Introverts recalled more information about opponents than about their own teammates and rated all Ss less positively during the competitive encounter. For extraverts, this pattern was reversed. Results are discussed in terms of individual differences in the salience of aversiveness in social encounters. (35 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Client preferences and anticipations in career counseling: A preliminary investigation.

Client expectations have been studied infrequently in career counseling. This study provides preliminary data about precounseling expectations, which were conceptualized as preferences and anticipations. 92 university students (22 men and 70 women) who sought career counseling completed an open-ended questionnaire. Results suggested the following conclusions: (1) Clients have fairly clear ideas about what they want (preferences) from career counseling and about what the experience should be like; (2) clients are somewhat less certain about what the career counseling experience will actually be like (anticipations) and less optimistic about it; (3) a number of mismatches exist between clients' preferences and anticipations; (4) clients do not have well-developed expectations about their dislikes in career counseling; and (5) few differences are evident between clients who have had previous counseling and those who have not. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The underestimation of the role of physical attractiveness in dating preferences: Ignorance or taboo?

Investigated Ss' tendency to underreport the impact of physical attractiveness on their dating preferences. 80 female undergraduates were shown profiles containing photographs and information about the personalities of potential male dating partners and were asked to state the dating desirability of each target person. Subsequently, Ss were asked to introspect about the factors that affected their dating preferences. Findings suggest that Ss were capable of accurate introspection. Ss tended to intentionally underreport the impact of physical attractiveness on their preferences. More specifically, when Ss thought that they were connected to a lie-detector-like apparatus, they produced more accurate overall introspective reports, admitted a more extreme influence by the physical attractiveness of the targets, and endorsed more extreme dating desirability ratings for physically unattractive men. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Native American college students' preference for counselor race and sex and the likelihood of their use of a counseling center.

39 female and 23 male Native American college students completed questionnaires assessing their preference for counselor race and sex and the likelihood of their using a counseling center. Both females and males demonstrated a strong preference for Native American counselors, regardless of problem situation. Males preferred male counselors, but females expressed a preference for female counselors only if they had a personal problem. Likelihood of using the counseling center increased as counselor preference increased. Likelihood of using the counseling center increased if Ss could be seen by a counselor of the same race regardless of problem situation. Only in the personal-problem situation did likelihood ratings increase if Ss could be seen by a counselor of the preferred sex. Ss were less likely to indicate they would go to the counseling center with a personal problem if they would be seen by either their 3rd- or 4th-choice counselors. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of personal liking, perceived ability, and value of prize on choice of partners for a competition.

"Ss who were told… that they had high ability at… [a] task were strongly inclined to choose partners who also had high skill, even though such choices meant abandoning their original personal preferences and working with their originally less preferred classmates." Monetary remuneration was seen to affect choice by these Ss. "Ss who were told they themselves had low skill scores continued to choose partners according to their original liking preferences, even though the monetary payoff increased." From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4GE98W. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Judgmental subjectivity/objectivity and locus of choice in social comparison.

Two experiences were conducted to test the effects of judgmental subjectivity/objectivity on preferences of Ss to consult with like or unlike comparison partners. In Experiment 1, 101 Ss playing the role of admissions officers, were provided information about a college applicant and told either that the information was sufficient to allow for an objective decision on the candidate or that it was incomplete and, thus, that a subjective judgment was required. Objective-judgment Ss preferred dissimilar comparison partners. Subjective-judgment Ss preferred to compare with like others. Experiment 2, which involved a very different set of judgments (subjects played the role of jurors in a murder trial), replicated this finding and suggested that vested interest might influence Ss' motivation for comparison and comparison preferences. Implications of these results for a more precise understanding of social comparison were discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ethical dilemmas in psychological practice: Results of a national survey.

Surveyed 294 randomly selected psychologists who were members of Division 29 (Psychotherapy) of the American Psychological Association (APA) on the choices they would make in the face of specific ethical dilemmas. Ss were presented 10 vignettes, each representing a potential problem of professional ethics. They were asked to indicate their preferred resolution to the dilemma and their primary reason for choosing this alternative. Ss were also asked to rate the frequency with which they encountered each of 17 ethical/legal issues in their clinical practices and to rate each issue's severity. Ss also described dilemmas that they themselves had experienced in practice. Results show that the degree of consensus on the appropriate response to the 10 dilemmas varied considerably. Highest consensus was achieved on such issues as duty to warn potential victims of violence and avoidance of difficult bartering relationships. Lowest consensus was achieved on such issues as advertising practices and the boundaries of competence. Assessments of their own and their colleagues' competence and propriety were among the most troubling issues to Ss. It is suggested that work to further develop graduate course work in ethics should be pursued, with attention to real-world ethical problems involving confidentiality, competence, and colleagues' behavior. (12 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Motivated skepticism: Use of differential decision criteria for preferred and nonpreferred conclusions.

Three experiments show that information consistent with a preferred conclusion is examined less critically than information inconsistent with a preferred conclusion, and consequently, less information is required to reach the former than the latter. In Study 1, Ss judged which of 2 students was most intelligent, believing they would work closely with the one they chose. Ss required less information to decide that a dislikable student was less intelligent than that he was more intelligent. In Studies 2 and 3, Ss given an unfavorable medical test result took longer to decide their test result was complete, were more likely to retest the validity of their result, cited more life irregularities that might have affected test accuracy, and rated test accuracy as lower than did Ss receiving more favorable diagnoses. Results suggest that a core component of self-serving bias is the differential quantity of cognitive processing given to preference-consistent and preference-inconsistent information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Trait attributions: Relative validity, covariation with behavior, and prospect of future interaction.

Data obtained from 39 undergraduates suggest that the prospect of future interaction and the type of information available about an actor exerted considerable influence on the trait attributions offered by Ss. Attributions were more extremely dispositional, more valid, and more strongly related to subsequent behavioral tendencies when future interaction was anticipated than when it was not. Ss offered more extreme trait attributions when they were provided with behavioral information about the actors that warranted a dispositional inference than when they were not provided with such information. However, even when Ss were not provided with information that warranted a dispositional attribution, they still offered more extreme trait inferences when future interaction was anticipated than when it was not. Findings are interpreted in terms of three explanations for why the naive psychologist offers attributions. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of success and failure on depressive cognitions

A cognitive social-learning approach to depression emphasizes biases or distortions in depressed persons' evaluation of information about self, future, and environment. 33 depressed and 34 nondepressed female undergraduates participated in a task that ostensibly assessed therapeutic potential; they received success, failure, or no feedback about their performance on this realistic social interaction task. It was anticipated that depressed women, especially as a function of feedback would respond in characteristic ways that could be construed as depression-enhancing on both self-rating and expectation-of-performance measures. The predictions were largely confirmed. A task developed to assess depressed-distorted responses to stories also revealed significant differences in types of response choices between depressed and nondepressed Ss. Results reinforce attempts to assess not what depressed people are or have , but what they do . (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Role anticipations and preferences over the course of counseling.

We collected client role anticipations and preferences prior to each session from 33 clients seen at a large university counseling center. After each session, the counselors rate how each client behaved with respect to these role dimensions. We examined these data in three ways. First, we examined the initial role anticipations and preferences to determine the extent to which they were similar. We found that anticipations and preferences were significantly different but that they covaried greatly. Second, we examined several competing explanatory models of the disconfirmed role expectation–negative consequence hypothesis. The only one supported was the bidirectional discrepancy model proposed by Duckro, Beal, and George (1979), and the support for this was relatively weak. Finally, we examined the changes in client role preferences, anticipations, and behavior over the course of treatment as a function of outcome and treatment length. We found clear changes in role anticipations, preferences, and behavior for all dyads over time, and some of these changes were related to outcome. We discuss these results with respect to the process of relationship building. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Client preferences and anticipations about counselor self-disclosure.

120 female undergraduates were preselected according to high or low preference for counselor disclosure. Ss were then given 1 of 2 forms of instructions about the likelihood of counselors using self-disclosure (high or low anticipation). Finally, Ss viewed a brief videotape of a counseling session in which counselor disclosure was either present or absent. As predicted, Ss gave higher ratings on the Counselor Rating Form to self-disclosing counselors than to nondisclosing ones. Ss whose high preferences and anticipations were confirmed gave higher ratings to disclosing counselors. For Ss who had low preference and anticipation, disconfirmation led to higher ratings of disclosing counselors. Implications for distinguishing between preference and anticipation in research on expectancy are discussed. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Knowledge and beliefs about confidentiality in psychotherapy.

Surveyed 200 high school students, 308 undergraduate psychology students, 34 former clients from a community mental health center, and 40 former clients from a university counseling center regarding their knowledge of and attitudes toward confidentiality in therapy. Overall results show that the vast majority of Ss viewed confidentiality as an all-encompassing, superordinate mandate for the psychology profession and that most Ss wanted to be told of the limitations to confidentiality but would have limited therapeutic communications when told. It is concluded that the general population, including those who have been in therapy, does not have an accurate perception of current ethical limitations regarding confidentiality in psychotherapy. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)