Quality of counselors' intake evaluations as a function of client presenting concern.

The effects of type of client concern (vocational or personal-social) and its relationship to intake quality were investigated. University students (n?=?90) presented vocational or personal concerns to intake counselors (n?=?12) at 3 university counseling centers. Intakes of vocational cases were less lengthy, less useful-adequate, and less comprehensive than were intakes of personal cases. There was no difference in clients' ratings of the counseling relationship or of the quality of intakes. Counselors wrote moderately longer intakes of personal-social cases, which contained more information on personality dynamics, presenting problem, and history than did vocational intakes, which contained more on clients' interests and values. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pretherapy information: An investigation of client responses.

36 female undergraduates who had expressed profeminist attitudes as operationally defined by the Attitudes Toward Women Scale were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 groups. Each group received differing amounts of pretherapy information about the therapist's values and therapy orientation. Results indicate that Ss did not perceive themselves as similar to the "explicit feminist" therapist, did not believe that she would be as helpful as either the "traditional" or "feminist label" therapists, and were not as willing to see the explicit feminist therapist. Implications for therapist disclosure of explicit value orientations are considered. (12 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Work attitudes as predictors of unionization activity.

Examined the predictive relationships between attitudes toward work and level of union activity. To develop and test a predictive model of unionization, the attitudes and subsequent union activities of both a developmental sample and a cross-validation sample were examined. The sample consisted of 87,740 salaried clerical, sales, and technical employees from 250 units of a large organization. In 125 of these units some unionization activity had taken place shortly after the attitude survey had been administered, whereas in 125 of these units no unionization activity had taken place. The work attitude measures were obtained from scales described by F. J. Smith (1972). Results show that attitudes are useful predictors of future unionization activity. The most significant predictors of the severity of unionization activity were items dealing with the supervision received. When combined with the findings of J. G. Getman et al (1976), the present data show that employees who are dissatisfied are more likely to participate in union activities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Work attitudes as predictors of attendance on a specific day.

Examined the relationship between the work attitudes and work attendance of 3,010 managerial employees on a specific day in a natural field setting. Job satisfaction data were obtained from the Index of Organizational Reactions (IOR). Since occasional absenteeism at the managerial level is not subject to financial penalty and is relatively free of social and work-group pressures, it represents behavior that is generally under the control of the individual employee. Moreover, because the particular day investigated in the present study followed a crippling snowstorm, attendance on that day involved considerable effort. Results show significant relationships between work-related attitudes and attendance on the specific day studied and generally support J. B. Herman's (1973) point of view that work attitudes do predict work-related behavior when such behavior is under the control of the S. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of clinical experience and client emotion on therapists' responses.

In an Emotion by Therapist Experience design, actresses portraying angry vs sad clients interacted with "therapists" (graduate clinical psychology students) varying in prior therapy experience (high, medium, or low). Results indicate that therapists judged angry clients less favorably than sad clients. More experienced therapists showed greater tolerance of anger. Therapists intervened less with angry clients than with depressed clients, and angry clients received less supportiveness, less directiveness, and fewer requests for information. (4 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Primary femininity, bisexuality, and the female ego ideal: a re-examination of female developmental theory

While the concept of primary femininity advances our understanding of the girl's developmental experience, a number of contradictions and problematic assumptions are at the present time contained within this concept. I propose that we use the phrase "primary sense of femaleness" to refer to the girl's earliest sense of self deriving from the mental representation of her body. In addition, I argue that the concepts of a primary sense of femaleness and of a bisexual matrix are not mutually exclusive; an early sense of self located in a female body can co-exist with the fantasy of potential unlimited by gender. Finally, I examine the role of the mother as ego ideal for the girl.     

Radio psychology and psychotherapy: Comparison of client attitudes and expectations.

We compared the expectations and attitudes of two groups of subjects who sought psychological help. One group (n?=?47) comprised callers to a radio counseling program broadcast in Israel that offers psychological help to parents and children; the second group (n?=?34) consisted of individuals who had received counseling in a child guidance clinic located in an urban center in Israel. We primarily compared the subjects' attitudes toward receiving psychological help. The results indicate that the attitudes of those who received help in the clinic were more positive than those who called the radio program. In addition, we investigated the satisfaction levels of callers to the radio counseling program and of those who received help in clinics. Last, we examined the callers' expectations of the radio counseling program and found them to be in keeping with the goals of primary prevention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Preemployment predictors of union attitudes: Replication and extension.

Replicates and extends the J. Barling et al (see record 1992-07316-001) model of family socialization of union attitudes on the basis of data from 87 students and their parents. Students' union attitudes were predicted by students' Marxist work beliefs and their perceptions of parental union attitudes. Students' perceptions of parental union attitudes and participation were predicted from parents' self-reported attitudes and participation. Students' Marxist work beliefs were not related to parents' work beliefs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Student attitudes regarding the temporary closing of a major university.

Describes a set of attitudes linked to the temporary closing of a major university. Data came from 434 students who completed questionnaires sent to their homes prior to the reopening of the university. Results indicate that the average student was concerned, yet moderate in his views. A minority of students, however, (from 19-44%) gave answers to key questions which seemed to represent a "change at any price" syndrome: drastic educational change, overturn of the administration, and violence. A final portion of the questionnaire elicited attitudes presumed to be held by significant others. Students believed that parents, relatives, and friends agreed with them about most issues other than the justification of the student actions. Specific changes in student attitudes during the 10-day closing are enumerated and thought to result from the interaction between students and significant others. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Female bisexuality from adolescence to adulthood: Results from a 10-year longitudinal study.

Debates persist over whether bisexuality is a temporary stage of denial or transition, a stable "3rd type" of sexual orientation, or a heightened capacity for sexual fluidity. The present study uses 5 waves of longitudinal data collected from 79 lesbian, bisexual, and "unlabeled" women to evaluate these models. Both the "3rd orientation" and "fluidity" models had support, but the "transitional stage" model did not. Over 10 years, 2/3 of women changed the identity labels they had claimed at the beginning of the study, and 1/3 changed labels 2 or more times. Yet, contrary to the "transitional stage" model, more women adopted bisexual/unlabeled identities than relinquished these identities; few bisexual/unlabeled women ended up identifying as lesbian or heterosexual. Overall, the most commonly adopted identity was "unlabeled." Bisexual/unlabeled women had stable overall distributions of same-sex/other-sex attractions but greater absolute fluctuations in attractions from assessment to assessment than lesbians. All women reported declines in their ratio of same-sex to other-sex behavior over time. These findings demonstrate that the distinction between lesbianism and bisexuality is a matter of degree rather than kind. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Therapist homophobia, client sexual orientation, and source of client HIV infection as predictors of therapist reactions to clients with HIV.

Four hundred twenty-five psychologists received vignettes depicting a male client who was either gay or heterosexual and whose source of HIV infection was sexual contact, a blood transfusion, intravenous drug use, or unspecified. Respondents' homophobia and reactions to the client in the vignette were measured. Canonical correlation analyses revealed that therapist attributions of client responsibility for problem cause were predicted by the source of HIV infection and therapist homophobia. In addition, therapists responded with less empathy, attributed less responsibility to the client for solving his problems, assessed the client's functioning to be worse, and were less willing to work with the client when the client's source of HIV infection was other than drugs, when the client was gay, and when therapists were more homophobic. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

General and specific support expectations and stress as predictors of perceived supportiveness: An experimental study.

54 undergraduates and their mothers participated in an experiment to evaluate hypotheses derived from a theory of perceived social support (G. R. Pierce et al, 1990). Regression analyses indicated that the variables in the model accounted for 14.83% and 40.93%, respectively, of the variance in students' perceptions of their mothers' behavior assessed during 2 standardized laboratory situations. Unique effects were found for students' expectations for support from and conflict with their mothers in both pre- and posttask situations, although the effect of conflict was contrary to prediction in the pretask situation. Stress had an impact only in the posttask situation. Students' general expectations for support had no unique impact in either situation. Implications for the role of general and specific expectations for support and conflict, and situational factors, in theories of perceived social support are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An inkblot for attitudes: Affect misattribution as implicit measurement.

Misattributions people make about their own affective reactions can be used to measure attitudes implicitly. Combining the logic of projective tests with advances in priming research, the affect misattribution procedure (AMP) was sensitive to normatively favorable and unfavorable evaluations (Experiments 1-4), and the misattribution effect was strong at both fast and slow presentation rates (Experiments 3 and 4). Providing further evidence of validity, the AMP was strongly related to individual differences in self-reported political attitudes and voting intentions (Experiment 5). In the socially sensitive domain of racial attitudes, the AMP showed in-group bias for Black and White participants. AMP performance correlated with explicit racial attitudes, a relationship that was moderated by motivations to control prejudice (Experiment 6). Across studies, the task was unaffected by direct warnings to avoid bias. Advantages of the AMP include large effect sizes, high reliability, ease of use, and resistance to correction attempts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Job attitudes as predictors of termination and absenteeism: Consistency over time and across organizational units.

Conducted 2 replications of a study by L. K. Waters and D. Roach (see record 1971-21952-001) concerning job satisfaction measures as predictors of withdrawal behavior. Examination of the absentee or termination records of 197 female clerical workers who had completed a job attitude questionnaire 1 yr before indicates only 3 variables (2 concerned with the work itself and an overall job satisfaction rating) were consistent predictors of both permanent and temporary withdrawal from the work situation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sex biases in counseling: Counselor retention of the concerns of a female and male client.

A major issue confronting investigators in the area of counseling research has been the existence or nonexistence of sexism. To eliminate problems of possible reactivity and insensitivity of previous research, this counseling analog study with 53 male (M) and 29 female (F) internship-level PhD candidates in clinical psychology employed tasks of incidental memory and a task requiring counselors to formulate questions for the client to assess counselor behavior toward an F and an M client. Four major findings were obtained. First, contrary to charges of sexism, Ss were equally attentive to the vocational concerns of an F and an M client. However, M Ss asked significantly more questions related to social concerns of an F client than of an M client who had identical concerns. Furthermore, both M and F Ss tended to recall fewer concerns of the F client. F Ss remembered more client information than M Ss. Implications for training mental health professionals are discussed. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The counsellor trainee as client: Client process as a predictor of counselling skill acquisition.

This study was based on C. R. Rogers's (1951) proposition that openness to and expressiveness of inner experiencing relates to the individual's ability to be sensitive to and acceptant of others. 34 participants in a human relations training program were first interviewed by experienced therapists. The Ss' capacities to process themselves as clients were assessed by use of an experiencing scale developed by E. T. Gendlin and E. M. Tomlinson (1961), and a process measure of this scale was used as a predictor of counseling skill acquisition during the program. It was found that there was no relationship between the predictor and skill acquisition during the initial phase of the training program. However, between the middle and final phase of the program, the High Mode Experiencing Ss sustained their facilitative communication despite a shift of training focus to action-oriented skills, whereas the facilitative communication of the Low Mode Experiencing Ss deteriorated during this period. It is concluded that the capacity to process themselves as clients may have little bearing on whether or not trainees can achieve low levels of facilitative functioning when these skills are explicitly addressed. However, this variable may have considerable bearing on the extent to which trainees can maintain the empathic attitude while extending their total range of functioning. (French abstract) (27 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Changing male attitudes toward women's career development: An exploratory study.

Explored whether the attitudes of men toward the career development of women could be affected by the observation of 1 of 2 videotapes (D. Dege et al, 1980) that dealt with issues in career development and socialization for men or women. 90 undergraduate males were randomly assigned to 1 of the 2 treatment groups or to a control group. Outcome measures were the Attitudes Toward Women Scale (AWS) and a personalized attitudes scale (PAS) developed for this study. There were no significant treatment effects on the AWS. The group that viewed the videotape on men was significantly more liberal on the PAS items than were the other groups. A correlation between the scores on the AWS and the PAS was statistically significant. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Therapist complementarity as a function of experience and client stimuli.

Assessed degree of therapist (TP) complementarity (CMP), an interpersonal communication strategy, in 67 TPs' responses to client statements (CSTs) that varied on 3 dimensions (directness, power, and type of affect as it varied over TP experience level). TPs at all experience levels responded similarly to different types of CSTs. CMP was lowest in response to hostile-dominant CSTs and highest in response to hostile-submissive CSTs. Differences in CMP were found across levels of experience toward direct and indirect CSTs. Professional TPs were significantly more likely to respond to indirect client statements with lower CMP than were student TPs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Degrees of client comfort as a function of dyadic interaction distance.

27 male undergraduates were interviewed by 9 male counseling students using an intake interview. Each student counselor saw 3 Ss, one in each of 3 counselor-client distance conditions: 18, 30, and 48 in. An analysis of variance revealed significant differences between conditions in the degree of comfort reported by Ss on evaluative scales of a posttest semantic differential. As a further indicator of Ss' degree of comfort, the semantic differential scales were compared to observers' ratings on a behavior checklist and found to have a positive correlation. Ss' degree of comfort scores ranged from highest for 30 in to lowest for 18 in, with intermediate scores at 48 in. Results suggest that degree of client comfort is optimized at specific interaction distances during an intake interview. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)