On recruiting graduate students.

"In the fall of 1955, the Committee on Undergraduate Education conducted a questionnaire survey of American colleges regarding their undergraduate psychology programs." About ? of the country's 4 year liberal arts colleges cooperated. 73% of responding institutions offer a major in psychology. About 75% of the colleges offering majors have 1 term courses in introductory psychology, the other 25% have 2 terms 10 colleges require less than 20 semester hours work for the major in psychology, 12 require 35 semester hours or more. Data are also presented in answer to the following questions: (a) How many students enter graduate school each year? (b) What proportion of seniors and senior majors continue into graduate study? (c) Are small colleges better at producing graduate students? (d) Did the survey identify any single variable associated with rate of producing graduate students? (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Professional role modeling by faculty: The neglected child in doctoral training.

Are faculty members in doctoral training programs in professional psychology expected to model practice? According to the American Psychological Association (APA) Criteria for Accreditation, the answer is yes. According to what actually happens within most doctoral programs, the answer is no. Some of the problems that relate to this discrepancy and some suggested solutions to those problems are discussed in this article. Faculties of professional psychology can make a substantial improvement in how they serve as role models for their doctoral students. First, they can consistently practice what they teach. Second, they can practice exclusively through their own psychological service centers. Third, they can organize their professional work through faculty practice plans. Fourth, they can fully integrate their research, practice, teaching, training, and supervision while increasing the financial support for students. Last, they can routinely model the best of contemporary practice. The broad adoption of these five suggestions would represent a marked departure from what has been modal practice in doctoral programs, but it would greatly strengthen the quality of graduate education and training, improve students' satisfaction with their doctoral training, and advance professional psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Position and the nature of personhood: An approach to the understanding of persons.

Reviews the book, Position and the Nature of Personhood: An Approach to the Understanding of Persons by Larry Cochran (1985). This book is full of abstractions, full of arguments made by examples from literature, full of verbal distinctions. It is literary and philosophical in approach. It is hostile to analysis, that is, to resolution into simpler elements by analysing; the author prefers to consider objects as undivided wholes. It is hostile to behaviourism. It is unsympathetic to quantification. Accordingly, if you are sympathetic to a so-called humanistic approach, if you value intuition over rational analysis, you will approve of the author's views. Who might find this book of value? Not Canadian psychologists; most of them are likely to be impatient with Cochran's long-winded presentations of verbal distinctions. Not graduate students of psychology; their professors will not be in sympathy with the anti-analytic views of the author. Not philosophers, for the book seems hardly to be sufficiently well argued to be of interest to a professional philosopher (though philosophers no doubt can speak for themselves on this). Not the general reader. Although I enjoyed reading the literary examples, I found myself dreadfully bored by the philosophical discussions. Reading this book has not helped me to understand people better or to prepare myself better for conducting research. The author might argue, however, that such a result is only to be expected for a person holding my position. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Difficult yet rewarding": The experiences of African American graduate students in education at an Ivy League institution.

This paper focuses on the experiences of African American students enrolled in a graduate program at an Ivy League institution, specifically those pursuing master's and doctoral degrees in the field of education. With a goal of helping to improve the persistence, retention, and success rates of African American graduate students, this study seeks to understand the following questions: What has been the nature of the graduate school experience for African American students in the field of education at an Ivy League institution? What types of support do African American students have for succeeding in graduate school at an Ivy League institution? And finally, how are African American graduate students socialized for future faculty and professional roles at an Ivy League institution? Specifically, the authors use socialization theory to analyze the experiences of African American graduate students and draw their results from a qualitative survey. Overall, themes regarding the significance of mentoring and advising, peer support, academic isolation, financial stress, and spirituality were most prevalent in the survey results. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Graduate Students' Perspectives of Academic Positions in School Psychology.

An increasing number of vacancies in school psychology academic positions and the reduced number of applicants seeking to enter academia have created projected shortages in academe. The purpose of the current study was to determine perspectives of academia held by current school psychology graduate students, who are in line to become the next generation of trainers. Based on information yielded from focus groups conducted with graduate students at two major doctoral school psychology training programs, a 42-item survey was designed to assess students' beliefs regarding benefits and drawbacks of an academic position, possible incentives that would encourage one to apply for an academic position, and past and current likelihood of applying for an academic position. Doctoral students from 98 school psychology graduate programs were invited to participate in the study; a total of 236 students returned completed surveys. Results indicated a significant trend toward increased consideration of an academic career as students progress through graduate school. The highest-ranked benefits of an academic career involved roles and activities inherent to the position, as opposed to potential benefits such as salary or prestige. Regarding perceived drawbacks to academia, job stress was ranked as the most significant deterrent, while the area of least concern involved current preparation to assume an academic position. Finally, respondents agreed on several incentives that would be helpful in overcoming hesitancy in applying for an academic position, including reducing politics in the tenure process, increasing salary, and increased availability of academic positions that emphasize applied work. Implications for current trainers are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Graduate student professional development.

Professional development (PD) has become an integral element of professional practice and training within psychology and related fields, yet the construct has not been conceptually well defined. Psychology graduate students (N?=?593) were surveyed to assess PD across 3 primary areas: "What is PD for you? Is this fostered by your program? and In which areas would you like more?" Students endorsed numerous items as being part of PD, with only 3 elements of PD fostered by graduate programs (statistics and research, theories or behavior, ethics). Multivariate analyses of variance revealed some differences between clinical/counseling and research/academic students on the factors across 2 of the primary areas. A conceptual definition of PD is offered, with recommendations for graduate students and educators to identify PD needs and evaluate whether those needs are being met. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Knowledge of and interest in geropsychology among psychology trainees.

Given the increasing number of older people in the U.S. population, how well prepared are graduate students to deliver services to older adults? Do graduate students want to see older adults in clinical practice? Ninety-four psychology externs and interns were surveyed about their knowledge of and attitudes toward older people. Although trainees evidenced gaps in knowledge, they indicated interest in expanding that knowledge. They also reported favorable attitudes toward the aged and interest in practice with them. This article summarizes geropsychology resources for graduate program directors, students, and practitioners who want to expand practice to include older adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dependency and self-criticism: Vulnerability factors for depressive affective states.

A variety of theories have explained inappropriate negative affective states in terms of the activation of cognitive-affective structures by stressful events. To have predictive value, such theories need to specify the conditions under which activation will occur. The principle of specificity states that the degree of congruence between an event and a structure determines the probability of the structure's being activated. Counterposed to this principle is the principle of nonspecificity, based on the notion of the assimilation of diverse events by highly accessible structures. To test the relative importance of specificity and nonspecificity, dependent (n?=?16), self-critical (n?=?14), and control (n?=?15) female college students were selected using the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire. They listened to audiotaped portrayals of rejection by a boyfriend and of failure to be accepted into graduate school. The dependent variables were measures of anaclitic (dependent) and introjective (self-critical) state depression. Dependent subjects' anaclitic depressions were specific to rejection (specificity), but self-critical subjects reported introjective depression in response to both failure and rejection (nonspecificity). Surprisingly, dependent subjects also reported high levels of introjective depression. Application of the theoretical framework to clinical depression and to other negative affective states is suggested. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Achievement motivation and level of aspiration: adolescent Ethiopian immigrants in the Israeli education system

This paper focuses on two questions: Are Ethiopian high school children who immigrated to Israel achievement motivated? To what extent does the presence or absence of certain components of the achievement construct in the indigenous value system of Ethiopian students affect progress at school? The study is based on pilot research conducted in Israel in 1987 for which the central research questions were: Are elements of motivation to be found in the indigenous value system of Ethiopian students? If so, what is their effect on progress at school? The research is based on a questionnaire administered to 88 Ethiopian students and 85 veteran Israeli students. The main findings of this research are: There are some elements in the socialization of Ethiopian students that can be looked upon as components of achievement motivation. These include a high level of aspiration, the ability to postpone gratification, and obedience. These elements help the Ethiopian children succeed at school. On the other hand, some elements in the socialization of Ethiopian children hinder their progress: conformity restraints on individual creativity and external locus of control.     

Training Ethical Psychologists: An Acculturation Model.

This article presents an approach to graduate (and professional) training that views becoming an ethical psychologist as an acculturation process. J. W. Berry's (1980, 2003) model of acculturation strategies is used as a framework for understanding ethical acculturation, a developmental process during which students can use several types of adaptation strategies. Students enter training with their own moral value traditions and concepts but are confronted with new ethical principles and rules, some of which may be inconsistent with their ethics of origin. The article explores several applications of the framework to ethics courses, practicum supervision, and other areas of training. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Automaticity: A Theoretical and Conceptual Analysis.

Several theoretical views of automaticity are discussed. Most of these suggest that automaticity should be diagnosed by looking at the presence of features such as unintentional, uncontrolled/uncontrollable, goal independent, autonomous, purely stimulus driven, unconscious, efficient, and fast. Contemporary views further suggest that these features should be investigated separately. The authors examine whether features of automaticity can be disentangled on a conceptual level, because only then is the separate investigation of them worth the effort. They conclude that the conceptual analysis of features is to a large extent feasible. Not all researchers agree with this position, however. The authors show that assumptions of overlap among features are determined by the other researchers' views of automaticity and by the models they endorse for information processing in general. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Accuracy of person perception: Do people know what kinds of impressions they convey?

Do people know what kinds of impressions they convey to other people during particular social interactions? In a study designed to answer this question, subjects interacted individually with three partners on each of four different tasks. After each interaction, participants reported their impressions of the other person's likability and competence. They also postdicted the impressions they believed they conveyed to the other person along the same dimensions. Accuracy was computed as recommended by Cronbach (1955) and by Kenny's (1981) Social Relations Model. Subjects could tell to a significant degree how the impressions they conveyed to their partners changed over time (time accuracy) and how they changed over time in different ways with different partners (differential accuracy). They could also tell how their competence was differentially perceived by different partners (dyadic accuracy). However, they were not very accurate at discerning which partners perceived them as most competent or most likable across all interactions (person accuracy). Subjects believed that they conveyed similar impressions of themselves to all of their partners, although actually partners evidenced little agreement with each other in their impressions of a given subject. The implications of these findings for symbolic-interactionist theories of the development of the self and impression-management perspectives on social behavior are described. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Motivational and judgmental determinants of social perception.

This experiment was designed to demonstrate that motivationally neutral judgmental processes operate in social perception to affect the characteristics attributed to a particular stimulus person. 72 female college students were induced to have either high or low liking for the other girl assembled with them. The S then exchanged 2 messages with her partner on the issue of college fraternities. Previously constructed notes were substituted so that each S received 2 messages that were approximately either 1, 2, or 4 scale units from her initial position (on an 11-point scale) on this issue. 2 major findings were obtained when Ss were asked to estimate the partner's attitude position: (a) Regardless of the objective discrepancy between their own and their partner's views, most of the Ss in the high-liking condition minimized the difference between themselves and the attractive other person. (b) As expected, a judgmental contrast effect occurred in the low-liking condition when the objective discrepancy between S's and the partner's beliefs was relatively great. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Doctoral Comprehensives: Measurement or Mastery?

Response to an article by Terry Eisenberg ("Are Doctoral Comprehensive Examinations Necessary?", American Psychologist, 1965, 20, pp. 168-169; see record 2005-10605-002) that suggested comprehensive examinations both could and should be eliminated from the doctoral program. The present author, a 1963 PhD graduate from the Department of Psychology at Northwestern University, takes issue with Eisenberg's position--not results--on several grounds. The first is that, while peer ratings were found to be significantly accurate, the obligation of passing crucial judgment upon peers with whom one has worked and studied for 2 or 3 years is a responsibility which belongs in the hands of faculty members, not students. In the second place, if students are capable of rating their peers adequately, it seems to follow that the student's professors, who have evaluated his undergraduate record, his previous graduate examinations, class papers, and oral participation, in and outside of class, are even better qualified to make a rating of the student's capabilities. The third consideration, which this writer considers most pertinent, is the question of the purpose of doctoral examinations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Graduate education in school psychology: Teaching is more than a performing art.

Discusses how learning the practice of teaching is important in its own right, and stresses that those who teach students in school psychology need to know the complexity of teaching. Traditional views of teaching are presented and teaching strategies (e.g., teaching that involves behavior analysis) are examined that could lead to improvement in graduate education. Areas in which help is needed from researchers are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attending to color with proper fixation

In contemporary theorizing, there is a controversy about the role of spatial location in the selection of visual information; some theories postulate that position plays a unique role, whereas other theories hold that position is just one selection dimension that is not different from other dimensions, such as color and shape. In this context, a paradigm introduced by Tsal and Lavie (1988) promised to be of fundamental importance. With that paradigm, Tsal and Lavie found that, after reporting a first letter of a prespecified color, subjects preferred to switch their reporting to letters from array positions adjacent to that letter over continuing to report letters of the same color as that of the first letter. This switch from color to position provided firm evidence in favor of the "position-special" views as opposed to the "all-attributes-are-equal" views. In the present study, six experiments, employing Tsal and Lavie's paradigm and variations of that paradigm, are reported. Experiments 1,2,4, and 5 show that evidence for a switch from selection on the basis of color to selection on the basis of position is not obtained when subjects are forced to fixate the fixation point and possibly also not under normal contrast conditions without fixation controls. Experiment 3 shows that switching from color to position is difficult. Experiments 2, 5, and 6 show that evidence for a switch is obtained only under low-contrast conditions when subjects are not forced to fixate the fixation point. It is concluded that the Tsal and Lavie paradigm is an asymmetric paradigm. The results reported by Tsal and Lavie constituted a major threat for the "all-attributes-are-equal" theories and provided firm support for the "position-special" theories. The results reported in the present study are compatible with the all-attributes-are-equal theories, but, at the same time, do not constitute a major threat for the contemporary position-special theories.     

Primary care health psychology training: A collaborative model with family practice.

Are you planning a new postdoctoral training program in health psychology? Are your students seeking postdoctoral training in health psychology? Are you looking for a good formal postdoctoral fellowship in health psychology to continue your training? This article describes in detail the philosophy, educational objectives, and learning activities that make up a 13-year-old fellowship approved by the American Psychological Association in clinical health psychology, a model for clinical training in this specialty. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Spirituality and practice. Stories, barriers and opportunities. Interview by Laurence A. Savett

What are "spiritual matters?" Are "spiritual matters" the same as "religious matters?" What is spiritual inquiry? Are such questions appropriate for those of us in the caring professions, other than clergy, to consider? If we accept that role, how far should we go? When should we call for help? Whom should we call? We convened a gathering of a hospital chaplain, a social worker, a hospice nurse and a physician to discuss many of the dimensions of spirituality and then to apply their personal and professional paradigms of care to a discussion of an actual case. This article is a record of that conversation. It is actually several articles in one, for it deals with their own views of the meaning of spirituality, the degree to which their spirituality has impact on their practice, what they see as the merit of spiritual matters in the caring professions, barriers to collaboration among their professions and to addressing these issues with patients, and boundaries beyond which one should not go. One way to read this conversation is to include yourself; that is, to reflect on the points the participants make and the ways in which you might integrate their insights into your personal practice. We hope that you find this task worthwhile and that it provokes further thought and discussion. The discussion began with participant introductions.     

Review of Anxiety.

Reviews the book, Anxiety by S. Rachman (see record 1998-07057-000). Several strong summaries of research and clinical work in anxiety have been produced. Stanley Rachman's Anxiety takes a surprisingly strong place among this literature. Rachman's summary of theory, research, and practice related to anxiety is a prize. He has managed a succinct presentation of the major problems and issues, recounted what is known, and challenged the reader with the unsolved riddles. The book includes chapters on the nature of anxiety, influences on anxiety, and theoretical views of anxiety, highlighting the importance of conditioning and neoconditioning theory, before turning to separate chapters on each of panic, agoraphobia, obsessions and compulsions, social anxiety, and generalized anxiety disorder. One of the strengths of Rachman's contribution is the overview chapters, concerned with the concept of anxiety and competing theoretical views of its nature. Even though the book is saddled with frequent, distracting typos, even some that distort the meaning, it is an excellent book that can stand as a resource in many undergraduate and graduate courses, and also can take a place on the shelves of practising clinicians and specialists in other areas. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)