The relationship between socially oriented client characteristics and facilitative therapist variables on client perceptions of the therapeutic relationship (CPTR) was investigated. Subjects were75 undergraduate students who answered a pretherapy questionnaire to measure the socially oriented client variables trusting, warmth, dominance (16PF), sex role orientation (Bem Sex Role Inventory), wanted and expressed inclusion, control, and affection (FIRO-B). Subjects were blocked on trusting and expressed affection and randomly assigned to a warm or neutral therapist condition where they saw a counselor for one fifty minute session. CPTR was measured using the Barrett-Lennard Relationship Inventory, Counselor Rating Form, Therapist Rating Scales and Global Warmth Rating. Results indicated that subjects perceived a difference in the warm and neutral therapist conditions. And there was a significant interaction between the client variables of trusting and therapist condition. In addition, a significant interaction between the client variables of trusting and expressed affection was found. Additional correlational analysis indicated that certain other client variables are also related to CPTR.

Research shows that Asian Americans have lower rates of substance abuse treatment utilization than Caucasians. However, investigators have recently begun to separate Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders (NH/PI) from Asian Americans. Thus, it remains unclear whether disparities in barriers to treatment utilization differ across NH/Pis and Asian Americans. Data (N = 43,093) from the 2001-2002 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC), a large, nationally representative survey was used in this study. A chi-square analysis examined whether disparities in barriers and utilization differed between NH/Pis (n = 300) and Asian Americans (n = 1,334). We found that NH/Pis who thought they should seek treatment for their drinking were statistically and significantly less likely than Asian Americans to do so. We found no statistically significant differences for drug use. We also found that NH/Pis were more likely to meet criteria for a substance use disorder than Asian Americans. Results suggest the possibility that alcohol use has become increasingly embedded and normalized in NH/PI culture as opposed to Asian American culture while drug use has not. Thus, alcohol's normalization may result in NH/Pis more frequently failing to seek needed alcohol treatment. This indicates that public health policy should consider alcohol and drug use separately when designing and implementing culturally-specific preventions and interventions and focus on the de-normalization of alcohol use. Large-scale surveys of NH/Pis are needed to better identify barriers to treatment and utilization patterns. In sum, results highlight the need to increasingly consider cross-cultural variation in research while simultaneously developing culturally sensitive prevention and intervention programs.

It was hypothesized that religious orientation would influence the attitudes that individuals formulated about AIDS and its victims. Specifically, intrinsically oriented subjects were predicted to have more positive attitudes toward AIDS and people with AIDS, and extrinsically oriented subjects were predicted to have more negative attitudes toward AIDS and people with AIDS. Sixty three college students enrolled in social psychology were administered Allport and Ross' Religious Orientation Scale to measure intrinsic and extrinsic religious orientation. Three existing measures were used to assess attitudes toward AIDS. Additional instruments were also given to assess the subjects' knowledge about AIDS and attitudes toward homosexuality in order to eliminate the risk of confounds from these variables. Results showed no relationship between religiosity and attitudes toward AIDS, knowledge about AIDS, or attitudes toward homosexuality. Several plausible alternative explanations for the null results were considered and recommendations for future research were discussed.

This study investigates the relationship between life events, self-monitoring, and aging. This relationship is explored in the following five areas: religious practices, social networks, intergenerational relationships, retirement, and leisure. It was hypothesized that, compared to low self-monitors, high self-monitors would (a) spend less time in private devotional activities as they age, (b) feel a heavier impact from the reduction in the quantity of social networks, (c) have more distant intergenerational ties, (d) adjust to forced retirement more quickly, and ( e) be less satisfied with leisure time as they age. The 120 volunteer participants ranged in age from 51 through 93. The Self-Monitoring Scale (Snyder, 1974) and the Impact of Events Inventory were administered in structured individual interviews. Findings support the hypothesis that high self-monitors will experience more impact from the reduction in the quantity of social networks as they age. However, the results fail to support the other four hypotheses. Possible alternative explanations for these findings are explored. An appeal is made for future research on the topic of self-monitoring and aging.

The efficacy of the Parent Project, a current group psychoeducational program for parents of at-risk adolescents, was explored in this investigation. In particular, determining whether a parent-focused psychoeducation approach would beneficially alter family interaction style as well as adolescent behavior was investigated. A within-subjects design was implemented to evaluate before and after treatment levels of function. The Parent Project psychoeducational program provided 34 participating parents with classroom instruction and processing time to help meet the participating parents with their 13- to 18- year-old children. The current sample of participating parents was referred to the Parent Project by the Child Guidance Center, Inc. and United Way of Jacksonville, FL. The main goal of the Parent Project training program was to teach parents the skills necessary to reduce harmful adolescent behavior. The aim of the program is to inform parents about ways to enhance their relationships with their adolescent via prevention and intervention techniques, with the secondary goal of reducing the adolescents’ difficult, defiant, and destructive behaviors. In the current investigation, parents reported enhanced family dynamics following their participation in the parenting psychoeducational program. In addition, a decline in adolescent externalizing behavior was found. These findings demonstrate that treatment programs targeting parents can effect change in families and in adolescents with behavioral problems.

The study's purpose was to determine the influence of risk-taking and impulsiveness on criminal behavior, the factors' relationship to each other and their relationship, to age. It was hoped that the data would help explain the phenomenon of criminal burnout. Subjects were three groups of males aged 18 to 44, classed by their criminal history. Group One was 83 prisoners; group two, 53 subjects who had never been arrested; group three, 28 who had been arrested or incarcerated in the past, but who were not incarcerated at this time (the "erstwhile" group). Measures utilized were the Self-control (Sc) scale from the California Psychological Inventory, Risk-taking (Rtg) and Infrequency (Inf) scales from the Jackson Personality Inventory, a modified Choice Dilemmas Questionnaire, the Impulsiveness (Imp) and Venturesomeness (Ven) scales from the Eysenck, Pearson, Easting, and Allsopp (1985) 1-7, and two behavioral measures: volunteering and cigarette smoking. Intercorrelations were computed over-all and by group; analyses of variance were performed on the three groups' scares on each measure. Impulsiveness and risk-taking were found to be related but separate concepts. Self-control (Sc), Imp, Ven, Inf and the two behavioral measures, volunteering and smoking, differentiated the three groups, with prisoners scaring significantly higher on Imp, Inf and risky behaviors than nonprisoners, and significantly lower on Sc. Causal inferences about the influence of impulsiveness on criminal behavior are supported by the erstwhile group's scores, which fall between the prisoners' and never-arresteds' scores. Causal inferences are further supported by the significant positive relationship of impulsiveness to the individual's total number of arrests, and the significant negative relationship between self-control and total number of arrests, also on the significant correlation between Imp and amount of time elapsed since last arrest. Venturesomeness differentiated the three groups in an unexpected manner. The erstwhile group was the significantly higher scorer, suggesting a transformation of impulsiveness into less antisocial responses are 1) occurring, and 2) adaptive. Risk-taking had nearly a zero relationship to age. Impulsiveness is related to age in only one case: the group who had never been arrested significantly decrease in impulsiveness with age. This is not the case with prisoners or erstwhiles whose impulsiveness was found to decrease not with age but with other salient factors such as number of arrests and amount of time since last arrest/release. These findings suggest not only the critical involvement of impulsiveness in criminality, but also point to the developmental nature of this crucial quality. The value of these findings is their potential use in crime prevention and criminal rehabilitation.

This qualitative study analyzed the experience of parenting within Filipino Overseas families as perceived by adult children. The impact of overseas workers is invaluable to the Philippine economy. The current study explored the dimensions of having a parent, mother or father, who is an overseas worker, acknowledging that there are clear challenges of parenting children with the barriers of geographical distance. International long distance telephone interviews were conducted with adult children of Filipino overseas workers. Results from consensual qualitative research analysis (C. E. Hill et al., 2005; C. E. Hill, B. J. Thompson, & E. N. Williams, 1997) indicated two significant themes: parental work overseas was for the family benefit and the communal nature of childrearing.

Based on the self-generated attitude change model, a process constraint treatment analogue was investigated. Differential treatment effects were explored for people that are verbalizers and visualizers. It was predicted that people who participated in the process constraint condition would benefit more if they were verbalizers than visualizers. It was also predicted that there would be no difference in effects for people in the control condition. To test these predictions, people with a fear of speaking in public were asked to speak in front of a small group. The effects of the treatment conditions were assessed using self-report, behavioral, and physiological measures of fear. Results supported the predictions on the behavioral and physiological measures, but only in part on the self-report measures. Implications of these results are discussed as well as directions for future research.

Several studies have explored the application of self-generated attitude change model to the reduction of phobic affect. Three treatment analogues of constrained thought, previously demonstrated to attenuate polarized affect, were compared to determine the relative efficacy of process constraint, reality constraint, and combined constraint. The effects of treatment were assessed with-measures of behavioral approach, physiological arousal, subjective fear report, self-appraised performance, and subject predictions of ability to cope in extra laboratory situations. It was predicted that the combined condition would provide the most powerful treatment analogue but this was not demonstrated. Subjects in all conditions improved across all measures, except physiological arousal, but not differentially. Several possible explanations, alternative theories, and remaining research issues are discussed.

Attitudes of male and female subjects toward a prospective social group member who did/did not have a history of mental illness were investigated. The cognitive, behavioral and affective components of subjects' attitudes were measured. Results from the cognitive measure indicated that: 1) Subjects in the experimental condition perceived the confederate less positively on personal characteristics indicative of moral character. 2) Male subjects perceived the confederate as more dependable when she had a history of mental illness, while female subjects perceived her as less dependable when she disclosed history of mental illness. On the behavioral and affective component measures, there were no significant differences between the groups.