Motivational interviewing and the social context.

Comments on the article by Miller and Rose (see record 2009-13007-002). As Miller and Rose opened “the black box of treatment to examine linkages between processes of delivery and client outcomes” (p. 529) in motivational interviewing (MI), it is important that their model include factors from the social context that may explain conditions that enhance or diminish MI interventions. Aspects of the social context may serve as mediators or moderators of the relational (MI spirit) and technical (change talk) components in MI theory. In this comment, the author suggests the addition of social influence to their theoretical model. The author suggests that existing research on the role of significant others argues that the conceptual model should include a box for Social Influence as a hypothesized process variable that relates to “Client Preparatory Change Talk and Diminished Resistance” and “Commitment to Behavior Change” (see Figure 1, p. 530). In addition, a second new box, labeled Significant Other Training in MI, should be added in direct relationship to the new Social Influence variable. Further research is needed to explore these variables and their specific functions within the model. These additions to the theoretical model affirm the active components of MI and potentially extend the effects through positive social influence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-serving attributions in social context: Effects of self-esteem and social pressure.

Examined attributions (ATs) of Ss high (HSEs) and low (LSEs) in self-esteem in contests where (a) they were low or high in the motivation to make a positive impression on an audience, (b) the audience was perceived as supportive or critical, (c) Ss' accounts were public or private, and (d) Ss had succeeded or failed on a previous task. HSEs were most egotistical when evaluative pressures were greatest (i.e., they were motivated to make a good impression and had the opportunity to account publicly), whereas LSEs were least egotistical under these conditions. HSEs tended to internalize success by raising self-ratings, whereas LSEs tended to internalize failure by lowering self-ratings. A critical audience seemed to activate concerns about the defensibility of ATs, producing more caution and less explicit boastfulness. Factor analysis of Ss' responses suggested that they conceptualized the situation in terms of its implications for evaluating identity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Norplant: nursing's responsibility in procreative rights

Trained nurse practitioners can insert the contraceptive implant system Norplant. Courts may call on nurse practitioners to insert Norplant in poor women. Legislative and prosecutorial initiatives to coerce low-income women and female parolees to use contraceptives should not become law. Offering incentives to poor women is another form of involuntary fertility control. Eugenics and the sterilization campaign of the past form the basis for judicial and legislative initiatives to coerce women to accept Norplant. Providers have inserted Norplant in women from other countries without the women knowing the side effects. Often medical personnel do not remove Norplant when women request its removal. Nurses have historically played a public policy role in reproductive rights. They have promoted procreative rights through their roles as educators/counselors, advocators, empowerers, and practitioners. Nursing's power and expertise help protect against punitive government intrusion in reproductive rights and make sure that contraceptive breakthroughs (e.g., Norplant) strengthen procreative choices. They can guide the development of sound public policy. Norplant is not the answer to poverty, child abuse, or drug abuse. Nursing research can help policymakers become more responsive to the contraceptive and reproductive rights of everyone.     

Ideology trumps social science.

Comments on the L. B. Silverstein and C. F. Auerbach (see record 1999-05337-001) examination of the essentialist perspective on fathering, family structure, and child development. The author examines the evidence on which they rely. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Abuse and trauma in women: Broadening the social context.

Comments on the articles of M. P. Koss (see record 1990-17379-001) and A. B. McBride (see record 1990-17008-001) and their implications that social context may be a significant factor in the genesis of trauma syndromes in women. Systematic exploration of the wartime and peacetime exposure of women veterans provides an unexpected and valuable basis for studying women, violence, and trauma in general. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depression and the social developmental context of adolescence.

Examines the interrelations of personal and social factors in fostering longitudinal patterns of depressive symptoms, using 3 waves of data from high school students in the Boston area. Previously depressed and nondepressed youths differed markedly in their emotional responsiveness to family and friend relations. Chronically depressed youths were unresponsive to family problems, but were highly reactive to peer relations. Among previously asymptomatic youths, family relations exerted greater effects on depressed mood than relations with peers. Further analyses suggest a process through which chronic family turmoil shapes long-term mental health while also intensifying the distancing from family and investment in peer relationships that typically occurs in adolescence. Findings illustrate the importance of modeling transactions between personal and environmental factors in research on adolescent mental health and development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sociability: Personality, social context, and physical setting.

Sociability, measured as amount of participation in a peer-group conversation, was examined as a function of traits (Personality Research Form), social context, and physical setting. Same-sex quartets of 84 13–17 yr old students discussed a topic selected by an outsider and a topic of the group's own choice. Amount of participation was expected to vary with personality (affiliation, defendence, and dominance), social context (level of acquaintance and friendship in the group), physical setting (seating arrangement), and interactions among these. Ss' participation rate was significantly related to affiliation, level of friendship, a person?×?setting interaction (seating arrangement?×?defendence) and a person?×?person interaction (affiliation?×?defendence). These relationships are discussed as they relate to a model of sociability and as they bear on the person?×?situation issue. Results demonstrate that sociability is a function of dispositions brought to a setting by an individual, the social context of that setting, and the physical arrangement of the setting. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The social context of reasoning: Conversational inference and rational judgment.

Social rules governing communication require the listener to go beyond the information given in a message, contrary to the assumption that rational people should operate only on the information explicitly given in judgment tasks. An attributional model of conversational inference is presented that shows how hearers' message interpretations are guided by their perceptions of the speaker. The model is then applied to the analysis of experiments on reasoning processes in cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, social psychology, and decision research. It is shown that the model can predict how experimental manipulations of relevant source and message attributes affect respondents' judgments. Failure to recognize the role of conversational assumptions in governing inference processes can lead rational responses to be misclassified as errors and their source misattributed to cognitive shortcomings in the decision maker. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ideology and social work practice in substance abuse settings

The profession of social work has a unique role in preventing and treating alcohol and other drug problems. In human services settings shared beliefs or ideologies of care are expected to have substantial influence over the way in which problems are perceived and the types of service technologies used. Thus, it is important that social work professionals be cognizant of what beliefs they hold and how their beliefs about substance abuse treatment and prevention may affect practice. This article discusses current ideologies of care in the substance abuse arena, including the disease/abstinence, psychosocial, ecological, and harm-reduction approaches. In addition, this article examines managers' beliefs about substance abuse programs to determine if there are differences between those who have a social work background (that is, hold at least one social work degree) and those who do not. Suggestions for social work practice and future research also are provided.     

Self-stereotyping in the context of multiple social identities.

This research examines self-stereotyping in the context of multiple social identities and shows that self-stereotyping is a function of stereotyped expectancies held in particular relationships. Participants reported how others evaluated their math and verbal ability and how they viewed their own ability when their gender or ethnicity was salient. Asian American women (Experiment 1) and European Americans (Experiment 2) exhibited knowledge of stereotyped social expectancies and corresponding self-stereotyping associated with their more salient identity. African Americans (Experiment 3) exhibited some knowledge of stereotyped social expectancies but no corresponding self-stereotyping. Correlational evidence and a 4th experiment suggest that self-stereotyping is mediated by the degree to which close others are perceived to endorse stereotypes as applicable to the self. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Managed care and social work: constructing a context and a response

Managed care is described as a strategy developed by the health care industry as a means to control profitability in the dispersement of health care resources. Control of utilization, cost and information are the essential elements of this strategy. The potential impact of each strategy on social work practice is explored. A number of suggestions are made to insure that managed care balances the needs of its corporate sponsors with those of the consumer public and providers of health care.     

The changed social context of testing.

By contrasting the social context in which tests were developed and the present-day social context, the authors shed light on the controversy about bias in tests. They note that an emphasis on selection—for which tests were designed in the early half of this century—has been largely replaced by widespread concern with equal opportunity. Proponents of tests claim that tests are unbiased because they accurately reflect ability. Critics argue that standardized tests are inappropriate because minority groups have lacked equal opportunity, and therefore their abilities are not accurately assessed. It is argued that current social values demand that testing should now be less concerned with unbiased predictive validity and more concerned with facilitating equal opportunity. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The academic achievement test: Its historical context and social functions.

Analyzes latent social functions of the academic achievement test by examining, from the literature, the social and historical content within which achievement tests were developed and adopted. The achievement test had profound significance for the disciplines of psychology and education as they aspired to status as sciences. The achievement test was useful in providing a neutral form of evidence in resolving political and social conflict, and in rationalizing the allocation of educational resources. Methods of test construction, item analysis, and mass scoring led to biases in test content sufficiently serious to question whether achievement tests measure what schools teach. A professional consensus seems to limit unduly the perspectives from which socially important questions are studied. The question of how pervasive social forces influencing research can be recognized and overcome is raised. (76 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Electronic performance monitoring and social context: Impact on productivity and stress.

In a laboratory study, the presence of individual- or work-group-level electronic performance monitoring (EPM) was manipulated as participants worked on a data-entry task alone, as a member of a noninteracting aggregate, or as a member of a cohesive group. The pattern of results suggested the operation of a social facilitation effect, as highly skilled monitored participants keyed more entries than highly skilled nonmonitored participants. The opposite pattern was detected among low-skilled participants. No signs of social loafing were detected among group-monitored participants. Nonmonitored workers and members of cohesive groups felt the least stressed. The implications of these findings for organizations adopting EPM systems are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Repressive coping and verbal-autonomic response dissociation: The influence of social context.

Examined whether verbal–autonomic response dissociation in repressive copers is potentiated by conditions that enhance social evaluative concerns. Women classified as repressive, low-anxious, or high-anxious gave a self-disclosing speech in either a private condition (a single researcher observed) or a public condition (3 researchers ostensibly observed). Repressors exhibited heart rate elevations that were greater in magnitude than their self-reports of negative affect, but only in the public condition. High-anxious Ss in both conditions showed an opposite pattern of verbal–autonomic dissociation in which self-reported negative affect exceeded cardiac response. Low-anxious Ss in both conditions showed little responsivity in either channel. Results are interpreted within a self-regulatory framework in which differences in self-concept in the domain of emotionality predispose repressive and high-anxious individuals to engage in contrasting, emotion-focused coping styles. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interpersonal perception in a social context.

Interpersonal perception among well-acquainted individuals in a social context was studied. High acquaintance was expected to provide perceivers with a large sample of target behaviors across situations. In turn, memory for acquaintances should be organized by social group and personality characteristics, as predicted by the social context-personality index theory. Differentiation of the target's traits in memory should produce a target effect on perception that is stronger than the perceiver effect. Furthermore, evidence for accuracy, meta-accuracy, independence of self- and other-perception, and reciprocity of affect were anticipated. A social relations analysis of data from a multiple-interaction, reciprocal design was used to study these phenomena. At the individual level, analyses indicated that perceptions of targets were determined primarily by target characteristics and secondarily by perceiver construction of the judgment. Also, perceivers judged targets as targets judged themselves, and targets knew in general how perceivers viewed them. Self- and other-perceptions were largely independent. Surprisingly, we did not observe dyadic meta-accuracy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Human cognition in its social context.

Presents a model of how the human cognitive system operates in its natural social context. The model focuses on both input and output variables that have been ignored in the development of most other cognitive theories. On the input end, the model emphasizes the role of prior knowledge and the goal-directed nature of social information processing. On the output end, the model emphasizes various types of social judgments and affective reactions, as well as memory and behavioral decision making. The model is designed to provide a general conceptual framework for integrating much of contemporary social cognition research. As such, it is consistent with, and occasionally subsumes, more molecular theories of specific social phenomena. An indication of the model's applicability to cognitive heuristics, representation of self, and the role of affect in information processing is included. Predictions of the model (e.g., the effects of information on both recall and judgments when the information is processed for different purposes) and the empirical evidence bearing on them are discussed. (4 p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Constructing qualitative knowledge in psychology: Students and faculty negotiate the social context of inquiry.

On the basis of interviews with 13 graduate students and 21 faculty from diverse areas of Canadian departments of psychology, I report researchers' views on qualitative methods in terms of social historical, systemic influences on constructing psychological knowledge. These ideological and structural systems include the historical place of qualitative research in scientific psychology, education in alternative research methods, the socioeconomic reward system for faculty, and the potential for changes in the discipline that could facilitate the legitimation of qualitative methods. The major finding was the desire for methodological pluralism, even among mainstream faculty. In light of the researchers' textured commentaries, I discuss the fate of attempts by some psychologists to expand traditional investigative boundaries, the potential for a shift in the discipline to methodological pluralism, and the implications for the education of undergraduate and graduate students in psychological research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Is social competence independent of cultural context?

Proposes an alternative to E. Zigler and P. K. Trickett's (see record 1979-24689-001) conceptual definition of social competence (SOCO) and suggests a possible strategy for implementing this concept in a multicultural context. SOCO is proposed as a dynamic process that draws on an individual's cognitive, linguistic, and social capabilities. The resultant model of assessment considers all child behavior as potentially useful in constructing indices of SOCO, recognizes cultural and ethnic strengths, and permits examination of behavioral components comprising a child's repertoire at different developmental periods. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Prospective associations between friendship adjustment and social strategies: Friendship as a context for building social skills.

The proposal that friendships provide a context for the development of social skills is widely accepted. Yet little research exists to support this claim. In the present study, children and adolescents (N = 912) were presented with vignettes in which a friend encountered a social stressor and they could help the friend and vignettes in which they encountered a stressor and could seek help from the friend. Social strategies in response to these vignettes were assessed in the fall and spring of the school year. Different indicators of friendship adjustment had unique effects on youths' strategies in response to helping tasks. Whereas having more friends predicted decreases in avoidant or hostile strategies, having high-quality friendships predicted emotionally engaged strategies that involved talking about the problem. Moreover, whereas having more friends predicted increases in relatively disengaged strategies, like distraction and acting like the problem never happened, having high-quality friendships predicted decreases in these strategies. The present study also tested whether youths' strategies in the fall predicted changes in friendship adjustment by the spring. Only strategies which may be seen as major friendship transgressions (i.e., avoiding or blaming the friend when the friend encounters a problem) predicted changes in friendship over time. Collectively, these results provide important new information on the interplay between social competencies and friendship experiences and suggest that friendships may provide a critical venue for the development of important relationship skills. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)