The social constructionist movement in modern psychology.

Discusses the social constructionist movement in modern psychology, noting that social constructionism views discourse about the world not as a reflection or map of the world but as an artifact of communal interchange. Both as an orientation to knowledge and to the character of psychological constructs, constructionism presents a significant challenge to conventional understanding. Although the roots of constructionist thought may be traced to long-standing debates between empiricist and rationalist schools of thought, constructionism moves beyond the dualism of these traditions and places knowledge within the process of social interchange. Although the role of psychological explanation is problematic, a fully developed constructionism could furnish a means for understanding the process of science and invites the development of alternative criteria for the evaluation of psychological inquiry. (100 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Work in people's lives: A location for counseling psychologists.

The career development–vocational psychology literature has been marked by 2 persistent problems: a slow response to new developments in basic areas of psychology, such as developmental psychology, and a lack of representation of populations other than White and middle-class groups as research participants or as foci of theoretical explanation. After a brief discussion of 2 factors that may have contributed to these problems, a rationale for a new location for this field is developed. The new location focuses on the study of work in people's lives from the perspective of social constructionism and from the perspective of counseling psychologists as applied psychologists. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Examination of counseling variables within a social learning framework.

Using the framework of J. B. Rotter's social learning theory, it was predicted that the specific and generalized expectancies of 315 college student counseling clients would clarify their counseling goals and would be related to length of time spent in counseling as well as to rated positiveness of the counseling experience. Data from a specially constructed specific expectancy questionnaire and from a measure of the generalized expectancy of locus of control of reinforcement (Adult Nowicki-Strickland Internal–External Control Scale) confirm these predictions. Clients had stable expectancies regarding the counseling process; internals as compared to externals presented different counseling problems, stayed in counseling a shorter time, but were rated as more improved. In addition, those clients who dropped out of counseling after the intake were internal in their locus-of-control orientation. Various practical applications of the results are discussed as well as directions for future research within the framework of social learning theory. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Essentialism, social constructionism, and the history of homosexuality

Social constructionism is the view that homosexuality is not an atemporal and acultural phenomenon. Rather, homosexuality exists only within certain cultures and within certain time periods, most obviously Europe and North America after the nineteenth century. Essentialism is the view that homosexuality is an essential feature of human beings and that it could be found, in principle at least, in any culture and in any time. In this paper, I argue that the historical evidence available to us does not show that social constructionism is the correct view, and that essentialism is fully compatible with such evidence. Furthermore, I argue that the historical evidence does not even render social constructionism more probable than essentialism, i.e., both views are equally probable in the face of this evidence.     

Review of An invitation to social construction.

Reviews the book, An invitation to social construction by Kenneth Gergen (1999). Followers of Kenneth Gergen's work in social constructionism are likely to be disappointed by this most recent offering. Overall, little genuinely new ground is covered or defended. Many of the chapters simply reiterate arguments and insights already available elsewhere in the corpus of Gergen's work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Societal-psychological constructionism: Societies, selves, traditions, and fusions.

Frequently cited problems of dualism, as it pertains to the relation of psychological mind to sociocultural world, arise from assumptions of fixed societal and psychological ontologies. If, instead, societal and psychological ontologies are understood to be both emergent and mutable, as a consequence of their dynamic relation, many of the metaphysical and epistemological difficulties encountered by classic psychological-sociocultural dualism are avoided. To this end, an ontological and epistemological position, called societal-psychological constructionism, is presented. The merits of this position relative to postmodern textualist and social constructionist alternatives to classic psychological-sociocultural dualism are discussed. The major advantages of societal-psychological constructionism stem from its metaphysical claim that the psychological derives largely from the sociocultural, but is not reducible to the sociocultural, and in the epistemological implications of this claim. These advantages are particularly significant when contrasted with postmodern textualist and social constructionist accounts that mistakenly conflate the origins of psychological phenomena with psychological experience. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Outcome evaluation findings of a Hawaiian culture-based adolescent substance abuse treatment program.

As part of efforts to identify effective culturally appropriate treatment for Hawaiian and Asian and Pacific Islander adolescents with substance abuse and co-occurring disorders, this evaluation research sought to assess the efficacy of the I Mua Mau Ohana program. This long-term residential program combined culturally based experiential learning/therapy, education, spirituality, counseling, and family involvement. Participants were interviewed at intake and followed up at 3, 6, and 12 months using the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) Tool and the Global Appraisal of Individual Needs (GAIN) instruments. Results showed long-term improvement in substance use and related problems, decreased criminal justice involvement, and improved mental health and social functioning, while showing positive trends in education and employment. However, unexpected findings were revealed in family functioning. Although promising, further research is needed to substantiate the program's effectiveness and possibility of being considered an "evidence-based program." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development and validation of the Counselor Activity Self-Efficacy Scales.

The Counselor Activity Self-Efficacy Scales were developed to assess self-efficacy for performing helping skills, managing the counseling process, and handling challenging counseling situations. Factor analyses of data from 345 students in undergraduate and graduate counseling courses yielded 6 factors. Factor-derived scale scores produced adequate internal consistency and short-term test-retest reliability estimates. The scale scores were strongly related to scores on an existing measure of counseling self-efficacy, weakly related to social desirability, sensitive to change over the course of a 1-semester practicum, and able to differentiate among students with differing levels of counseling experience. The scale scores were also related to interests, occupational goals, outcome expectations, and affective experience related to the counselor role. Implications for future research and training applications are considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A reappraisal of Wundt's influence on social psychology.

Discusses the social psychology of Wundt and its link to current developments in the constructionist movement in modern psychology. The historical lines of descent from Wundt's experimental psychology to American behaviorist social psychology are traced, and the relationship between Wundt's (1911) Volkerpsychologie to the social scientists who kept alive Wundt's social psychological orientation and who figure as antecedents of postmodern constructionism is delineated. With historical hindsight, the behaviorist program for social psychology may now be seen as an aberrant detour around the fundamental questions of social psychology. The questions asked by Wundt appear to be perennial questions. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cultural difference and the therapeutic alliance: An evidence-based analysis.

The research on positive psychotherapy outcome consistently indicates that the quality of the alliance is important across different models of psychotherapy (D. E. Orlinsky, M. H. Ronnestad, & U. Willutzki, 2004; B. E. Wampold, 2000). Social psychological research has documented how "unintentional bias" can produce barriers to university admissions, employment, and advancement of well-qualified members of ethnic minority groups (J. F. Dovidio, S. L. Gaertner, K. Kawakami, & G. Hodson, 2002). Neuroscience is further confirming social psychological responses associated with race (J. L. Eberhard, 2005). Unintentional bias identified in social psychological research may be part of the psychotherapist/client interaction, interfere with the therapeutic alliance, and partly account for the high dropout rates and underutilization of psychotherapeutic services by people of color. The purpose of this article is to provide an evidence-based analysis of how psychologists in practice may unintentionally interfere with development of quality alliances with culturally different clients or patients and thus contribute to the barriers to effective multicultural counseling and psychotherapy. Principles from the American Psychological Association's (2003) multicultural guidelines and a review of relevant research are applied in suggesting strategies to reduce bias and to develop culturally appropriate skills in psychological practices. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mexican-American acculturation, counselor ethnicity and cultural sensitivity, and perceived counselor competence.

189 Mexican-American community college students identified as low, medium, or high in acculturation were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 possible stimulus conditions generated by crossing 2 counselor introductions (Mexican American or Anglo American) with 2 tape-recorded counseling simulations (culturally responsive or culturally unresponsive). A significant cultural sensitivity effect was found for perceptions of cultural competence. Highest ratings of cultural competence were obtained when the counselor was portrayed as culturally responsive and lowest ratings when the counselor was portrayed as culturally unresponsive, regardless of counselor ethnicity or participant acculturation. All other main and interaction effects for perceived counselor credibility and cultural competence were nonsignificant. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The social class-related experiences of men: Integrating theory and practice.

When a man loses the ability to be the "breadwinner," what types of conflicts does he experience? More important, how can counselors understand the full depth of his concerns if social class is not explored? However, the extant literature on social class and counseling applications is meager. Hence, the author explains the social class worldview model and modern classism theory as frameworks to understand subjective social class experiences. Although the models are theoretical, the author provides case vignettes to illustrate how clinicians can gather and interpret social class information and integrate it into client profiles and treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A new paradigm for nursing: the potential of realism

Realism has been the dominant approach in the philosophy of science for the last 20 years. Realist philosophy has also been widely employed across a range of social sciences. Unfortunately, these powerful intellectual currents have not reached the shores of nursing which appears trapped in a time-warped debate about 'qualitative' (constructivist) and 'quantitative' (positivist) approaches. This paper argues that both positivism and constructionism are seriously flawed as philosophies of social and natural science. This is in marked contrast with realism which is a philosophy of both the natural and social sciences. I therefore propose that realism should be adopted as a radically different new paradigm for a unified biopsychosocial nursing.     

Individualism-collectivism, social-network orientation, and acculturation as predictors of attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help among Chinese Americans.

Several culturally based variables were used to predict the patterns of help-seeking attitudes among a sample of 219 Chinese-American students in a large midwestern university. Cultural values operationalized by the H. C. Triandis et al (see record 1988-13667-001) Individualism-Collectivism Scale, social support attitudes operationalized by A. Vaux's (see record 1987-09232-001) Network Orientation Scale, and the continuous variable of acculturation operationalized by the Suinn-Lew Asian Self-ldentity Acculturation Scale (R. M. Suinn et al; see record 1987-30187-001) were selected as predictors of attitudes as measured by E. H. Fischer and J. L. Turner's (1970) Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help Scale. Each of the 4 independent variables were found to be significant predictors of attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help. The counseling and research implications of the results are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Scientific ideology and women: Implications for marital research and therapy.

Examines the relationship between scientific ideology and marital research and therapy, arguing that traditional science restricts research findings and therapists' activities in ways that make meaningful change for women difficult. It is asserted that there is a need in marital therapy to expand beyond the personal and interpersonal to the cultural, historical, and political. Researchers need to recognize more explicitly their own role in generating the data they seek. Recommended changes are said to be consistent with approaches to social science advocated in phenomenology, social constructionism, and contextualism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-report multicultural counseling competence scales: Their relation to social desirability attitudes and multicultural case conceptualization ability.

This study examined the relationship between 4 self-report multicultural counseling competence measures and a general index of social desirability. The authors also investigated the association between these 4 multicultural scales and multicultural case conceptualization ability. Results revealed significant positive relationships between 3 of the 4 multicultural counseling competence inventories and a measure of social desirability attitudes. Additionally, after controlling for social desirability, none of the self-report multicultural counseling competence scales were significantly related to multicultural case conceptualization ability. Limitations of self-report multicultural counseling competence measures are discussed, and implications of the findings for counseling training, practice, and research are delineated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Guidelines for providers of psychological services to ethnic, linguistic, and culturally diverse populations.

Presents guidelines formulated by the American Psychological Association to provide psychological service providers with the requisite skills for multicultural assessment and intervention and to assist them in understanding the role that culture and ethnicity/race play in the sociopsychological and economic development of culturally diverse populations. The guidelines are intended to enlighten all areas of service delivery, not simply clinical or counseling endeavors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Eliminating cultural oppression in counseling: Toward a general theory.

Proposes a general working theory of how race- and culture-specific factors interact to produce people with differing world views. Empirical and clinical data are reviewed that indicate 2 psychological concepts—locus of control and locus of reponsibility—may explain how world views are formed and their consequent dynamics. Four world views are identified representing combinations of internal and external locus of control and internal and external locus of responsibility. It is proposed that the internal locus of control and responsibility world view is most characteristic of Western counseling approaches and assumptions. Cultural oppression occurs when this world view is blindly imposed upon the culturally different client. Implications of each world view are discussed with respect to counseling in the US. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social psychology and counseling psychology: The history, products, and promise of an interface.

For 3 decades, counseling psychologists have drawn ideas from social psychology about the social process of counseling, integrated the ideas into counseling theories, and assessed them in research. This article traces the history of this interface, examines its products, and projects its future. Three propositions have guided and have been supported by much of the research: (1) Successful counseling relationships generate psychological convergence between counselor and client through a systematic developmental process; (2) ideas counselors introduce that are discrepant from clients' understandings stimulate change; and (3) clients' responsiveness to counselors is a function of their dependence on the counselors. These social influence dynamics underlie the processes and outcomes of counseling relationships regardless of the clinical theory that guides the counselors' work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)