Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology

Hood, Ralph W.

doi: 10.1037/h0029027pmid: 5487579

Investigated the differential assessment of intent to kill oneself expressed in previous nonfatal suicidal acts by having 23 professional mental health personnel rate on a 7-point scale the intent to kill oneself expressed in case history episodes of persons whom they were informed either later died a natural death or later committed suicide. Even though the Ss were informed that none of the persons died as a result of their actions described in the case history episode, foreknowledge that the person later committed suicide resulted in a greater assessment of intent to kill oneself expressed in his previous nonfatal suicide attempt than foreknowledge that the person later died a natural death. Empirical evidence demonstrated the risk of retrospective distortion in the study of suicides after the fact, and suggested that the percentages of prior suicide attempts reported for nonhospitalized or formerly hospitalized persons known to have committed suicide may be at least partially due to the differential likelihood of retrospective distortion in studies employing these 2 populations. (22 ref.)

Korner, Ija N.

doi: 10.1037/h0029004pmid: 5487580

Defines hope as an essentially positive phenomenon necessary for healthy coping, its key purpose being the avoidance of despair, with the secondary function of permitting the individual psychologically to bypass ongoing unpleasant or stressful situations. Hoping is differentiated from wishing by hope's reality-oriented focus, and from expecting or anticipating by its intense affective component. The dangerous physical and psychological consequences of the loss of hope are described, distinctions between hopelessness and depression are explored, and some methods of activating and using hope as a coping device in persons under acute stress are presented.

Rucker, Robin C.

doi: 10.1037/h0029016pmid: N/A

15 prospective clinical psychology interns judged brochures from 77 internship agencies approved by the American Psychological Association (APA) in terms of positive or negative agency-descriptive references. 86% of the brochure statements were judged to be of positive character, 3% were of negative character, and 11% were of an ambiguous character. 65 interns evaluated their experience at 47 APA-approved agencies, in terms of percentage of APA-recommended internship experiences. 12 of 47 agencies gave interns 80% or more of APA-recommended experiences. It is concluded that (a) communication by agencies to prospective interns is almost exclusively and detrimentally laudatory, and (b) internship experience at many APA-approved agencies is far below APA standards.

Philip, Alistair E.; McCulloch, J. W.

doi: 10.1037/h0029028pmid: 5487582

15 male and 36 female patients who had been psychologically tested after having made a suicide attempt were retested in a postal follow-up to ascertain whether significant changes had occurred in their scores on the Neuroticism Scale Questionnaire (NSQ) and Symptom Sign Inventory. Men and women differed significantly in their response to postal retest. It is concluded that while women who responded to retest were representative of all women in the group, men who responded could not be so considered due to the disproportionate number of repeat-prone individuals in this group. These men showed no change in their test scores. Women, overall, did not change on any NSQ variables, although those who were retested quite soon after the original testing showed an increase in tendermindedness. They did show a significant reduction in psychiatric symptomatology, especially where the test-retest interval was longer.

Wohlford, Paul

doi: 10.1037/h0029001pmid: 5487583

Investigated 2 theories of parent-child smoking patterns: (a) that although there is a direct relationship between the cigarette smoking of parents and their teen-aged children, the observed influences are only transitory and do not endure to adulthood, and (b) the identification theory which predicts that a young adult's smoking behavior is directly related to his parents' smoking behavior. The smoking behavior and family stability of 251 undergraduates and their parents were studied. Results support the identification interpretation of the father-son smoking pattern, as father-son smoking behaviors were directly related in intact families. The variable of family intactness was a highly relevant moderator of the parent-son smoking pattern. The mother and daughter smoking patterns remained enigmatic.

Verinis, J. Scott

doi: 10.1037/h0029017pmid: 5494889

20 chronic psychotic patients were divided into a treatment (N = 13) and control (N = 7) group. The groups were matched for age, education, sex, length of hospitalization, and diagnosis. Treatment group Ss had 1 of 13 nonprofessional therapists assigned to them for 1 session a wk. 7 therapists were given an optimistic picture of their chances of helping the patient and the remaining 6 were given a pessimistic guarded outlook. After 5 mo., it was found that the treatment group showed significantly more improvement in their interactions with the aides, and in both the quantity and quality of their social behavior (less verbal hostility, better sense of humor, and less withdrawn). 5 treatment-group Ss were discharged from the hospital while none of the control group left. The initial outlook of the therapists made no difference.

Simpson, Robert L.

doi: 10.1037/h0029007pmid: N/A

Assessed the comparability of the WISC and WAIS for below-average-intelligence Ss by administering the subtests of the 2 instruments in randomized order to 120 16-yr-old students. Analysis of variance revealed higher WAIS than WISC Verbal (p < .001), Performance (p < .01), and Full scales (p < .001) IQs. The disparities were greater for black Americans than for Anglo-Americans (p < .05) and Mexican-Americans (p < .05). There were no significant sex differences. The WISC and WAIS are not comparable for below-average-intelligence students.

Howe, Edmund S.

doi: 10.1037/h0029014pmid: N/A

Investigated whether the psychotherapist maintains stability in judging the depth of interpretation (DI) and potential for anxiety arousal (AA) of interpretive statements, in the face of grammatical qualifications within such statements. 80 independent psychotherapists rated interpretive statements, varying in depth, for DI, AA, or tentativeness. 64 statements appeared in 4 forms, each form embodying 1 of 4 classes (e.g., adverbial) * 4 degrees of qualification. It is concluded that (a) the psychotherapist generally retains a reliable hold of his working conception of DI, and (b) AA assessments are reduced the greater the degree of qualification. Data in b imply an implicit working assumption held by psychotherapists that will not necessarily be valid in empirical practice.

Derogatis, Leonard R.; Lipman, Ronald S.; Covi, Lino; Rickels, Karl; Uhlenhuth, E. H.

doi: 10.1037/h0029030pmid: 5487584

Assesses a set of 4 clinical clusters, defined by 31 items of the Symptom Distress Checklist (SCL), in terms of their comparability to 4 dimensions isolated in a principal axis factor analysis of the same set of 31 items. The clusters were labeled anxiety, depression, anger-hostility, and obsessive-compulsive-phobic, and were evolved through a clustering procedure involving 20 clinical judges. The factors were determined through a factor analysis of psychiatrists' ratings of 837 anxious neurotic outpatients involved in 3 clinical drug trials. Comparison between the 2 sets of syndromes was effected by casting the clinical clusters in the form of a hypothesis matrix and performing a Procrustes transformation on the original principal components factors. Results of the analysis indicate an extremely high coincidence between the clinical clusters and the transformed factors, implying that the dimensions isolated here possess substantial reliability. This finding, and the high degree of similarity observed between the present dimensions and those identified in previous research, suggest that these factors may represent "core" dimensions of neurotic psychopathology. (35 ref.)

Sattler, Jerome M.; Hillix, William A.; Neher, Linda A.

doi: 10.1037/h0020194pmid: N/A

Two experiments evaluating the halo effect on graduate student Es' scoring of test responses from some Verbal scale subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children and Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale are reported. In each experiment, ambiguous responses on one or more subtests, Vocabulary but not the Comprehension subtest in the first experiment and the Vocabulary and Comprehension but not the Similarities subtest in the second experiment, were given significantly more credit when produced by examinees with superior or above-average intelligence than by examinees with average or below-average intelligence. Responses were presented on paper and via tape recordings. The results suggest that the IQ may not be as objectively determined as has been commonly assumed.