The purpose of this qualitative, phenomenological study was to gain a deep understanding of the shared experiences of therapists who provide counseling in non-traditional, natural environment settings. Eight participants shared their experiences about counseling in nature. The primary research question for this study was: What are the shared experiences of counselors who provide nature-based counseling? A review of the literature of nature-based counseling provided benefits to spending time in nature, descriptions of various types of nature-based counseling, and ethical and legal issues that affect nature-based counselors. Semi-structured interviews comprised of open-ended questions were used to collect data by phone and through the use of video conferencing software. Audio taped interviews were transcribed and analyzed for key words, descriptive terms, and themes. Additional materials provided by counselors were analyzed for themes and overarching themes. A cross-case analysis yielded seven super-ordinate themes. The research question and sub-questions were addressed by the super-ordinate themes. The super-ordinate themes are: 1) Major Tenets, 2) Training and Ethical Concerns, 3) Benefits, 4) Motivations for Using Nature, 5) Beliefs About Human Connection With Nature, 6) Counselor’s Role, and 7) Spirituality. I employed validation procedures throughout my research to ensure accuracy during the data interpretation, which included clarification of my biases, member checking, peer debriefing and peer review, and the use of “thick, rich description.” Implications for counselors and counselor educators are presented, with recommendations for further research. Personal reflections of the researcher were provided.

Many critics have examined the shifting nature of female friendship in Jane Austen’s Emma from cultural and historical angles. However, a comprehensive scientific analysis of female-female alliance and competition in the novel remains incomplete. The Literary Darwinist approach considers the motivations of fictional characters from an evolutionary perspective, focusing primarily on human cognition and behaviors linked to reproductive success, social control, and survival. While overt physical displays of male competition are conspicuous in the actions of the human species and those of their closest primate relatives, female aggression is often brandished psychologically and indirectly, which makes for a much more precarious study. In this paper, cultural criticism and evolutionary psychology work together to unravel the most complicated and arcane layers of intrasexual competition between women in Emma. Ultimately, this dual interpretation of the novel steers readers towards a deeper understanding of Emma Woodhouse’s imperiled friendships, and by extension, their own.

The purpose of the study was to examine how a shift in elements of organizational culture impacted attitudes toward job satisfaction in a medium-sized, consumer-owned electric utility over a period of 13 years. The unit of analysis was a municipal utility distributing electrical energy to approximately 27,000 customers. Data collection included the Science Research Associate Employee Inventory, a review of the organization's documents, and a subjective Job Satisfaction Questionnaire. A one-tailed z-test was performed to test whether or not the proportion of employees answering favorable in one survey was greater than the proportion answering favorable in the other survey. It was also used to analyze certain cultural changes. The elements of job satisfaction assessed were: job demands, working conditions, pay, employee benefits, friendliness and cooperation of fellow employees, supervisor/employee interpersonal relations, confidence in management, technical competence of supervision, effectiveness of administration, adequacy of communication, security of job and work relations, status and recognition, identification with the company, and opportunity for growth and advancement. Elements assessed depicting culture were attendance, safety, United Way participation and turnover. Conclusions of the study emphasized that long-term cultural aspects including attendance, safety and United Way participation may be changed positively while maintaining or improving attitudes toward certain aspects of job satisfaction. Areas of attitude improvement were pay, benefits, and effectiveness of administration. It was also concluded that employees with higher education levels and more behavioral training may have higher expectations of their supervisors.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships among hardiness, health and burnout and to investigate the relationships of the subscales of hardiness to health and to the subscales of burnout among teachers in the Sullivan County School System. The Hardiness Test was used to measure hardiness and the Maslach Burnout Inventory Form Ed to measure burnout. Results of the Health Evaluation and Risk Test was reported on the Educators Demographic Data Survey. The study sample consisted of 501 teachers. A statistically significant relationship was revealed between hardiness and health; among the hardiness subscales, commitment accounted for the largest amount of variance in health. Multiple regression was used to analyze the relationships among the subscales of hardiness and the subscales of burnout. Of the hardiness subscales, commitment and control equally accounted for the greatest amount of variance in depersonalization and personal accomplishment. To determine the extent to which the subjects' demographic variables were related to any study variables, correlation coefficients were computed between demographic variables and each of the study variables. While age, years teaching experience, and level taught were significantly related to the study variables, the extremely low correlations indicate that only 1% of the variance in these three variables were explained by the study variables, preventing meaningful interpretation. Kobasa's health and hardiness theory is supported by the results of this study. These results also support previous research findings which suggest that hardiness buffers against burnout.

This study was conducted among middle school principals in Virginia to determine their perceptions of job-related stress factors. The entire population of middle school principals (grades 6, 7, 8) was selected to participate in the study. The Administrative Stress Index was used to assess factors that cause principals stress on the job and to measure their stress levels. A demographic data form was used to collect data on the variables of age, gender, administrative experience, assistant principal support, student enrollment, adults supervised, percentage of students receiving free or reduced lunch, location of school, type of school, experience as a middle school principal, and educational attainment to determine if any of these variables correlated with the principals' stress as measured by the Administrative Stress Index. The Administrative Stress Index contained five subscales of seven questions each, which were used to indicate the perceptions of stress factors among the middle school principals in the study. The responses to the questionnaires were analyzed and the following statistics were computed from the data: percentage distribution, content analysis, multiple linear regression, and descriptive statistics. The results of the study suggest that public middle school principals in Virginia are experiencing low to moderate levels of stress in their work and report that they are mainly stressed by administrative constraints such as increased workloads, excessive meetings, time constraints, and unrealistic policy demands. Analysis of multiple linear regression revealed that the culminating effect of the principals' demographic characteristics contributed no more than 27.7% to the prediction of the principals' level of job-related stress. Further research on stress could be conducted among elementary and high school principals and with principals of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. This study indicates a need for increased awareness of the causes of stress experienced by middle school principals experience so that superintendents, school boards, staff, and community can help reduce these stressors.

Language brokers are children of immigrants who use their skills as bilinguals to interpret or translate for their family and/or community members. Although language brokering may begin in childhood or preadolescence, language brokering may continue until adulthood. While there are a small number of studies that have touched upon change over time, this study’s primary focus is on language brokers’ experiences relating to change over time. This was accomplished through semi-structured in depth retrospective interviews among Latina/o young adults attending small liberal arts colleges. Three aspects of language brokering were examined, the practice of language brokering, feeling towards language brokering, and family dynamics. Three new aspects of language brokering emerged, brokering for parent’s business, brokering for the community, and brokering technology. Siblings played the role of the language broker at different points in time and to different extents. Parents’ English language developed, and they were able to navigate some tasks due to their language development and their experience completing typical forms. Feelings of joy and frustration, in deed, coexist. Feelings towards language brokering also changed from embarrassment and nervousness to confidence and satisfaction. The patterns and experiences found in this study highlight the complexity and dynamic nature of language brokering.

Because rejoining the workforce may prevent against ex-offender recidivism, securing gainful employment is one of the best indicators of successful societal reintegration for released prisoners. However, the stigma attached to a criminal history, combined with ex-prisoners’ lack of human capital, may threaten their ability to obtain a job. The present study examines hiring managers’ attitudes towards previously imprisoned offenders applying for positions in their workplace. Using a combination of brief, fictional applicant biographies and surveys, this mixed-groups factorial study explores how hiring managers (N= 28) consider gender, type of offense, and race when an ex-offender is assessed during the application process. Results indicated that, regardless of their offense, gender, and race, ex-prisoners were generally perceived to be less employable and less likely to have work-related characteristics such as honesty and the ability to communicate effectively.

This basic study was designed to explore the conceptualization of prejudice as a form of contextually controlled, derived, and arbitrarily applicable relational responding. Basic studies utilizing RFT methodologies have yielded examples of how stimulus functions of one set of stimuli, such as a stereotyped group, can transform the functions of another stimulus, such as an individual. Priming procedures, as contextual cues, have been used to affect prejudicial responding. Stimuli participating in relational frames have been shown to be sensitive to such priming procedures; however, the role of context in the priming of derived relational responses has not yet been established. In the present study, 11 participants were trained to respond to four 3-member equivalence classes, consisting of word-like stimuli, under the contextual control of two background colors. Participants then completed a single-word lexical decision task in which prime/target pairs, consisting of related and unrelated pairs, were presented with and without contextual cues. For participants who successfully completed the training phase, response latencies to identify related pairs were generally shorter than for pairs involving a neutral word. However, response latencies between related pairs and unrelated pairs, consisting only of previously trained stimuli, failed to meet statistically significant differentiation. Responses were also similar between contextually related and contextually unrelated word pairs. The results failed to indicate the presence of a contextually controlled semantic priming effect at a statistically significant level; however, these results do suggest the possible presence of an episodic priming effect.

The main objective of this study was to elucidate the possible mechanistic link between traumatic brain injury (TBI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) using an animal model. We examined behavioral and histological effects of TBI in pre-symptomatic AD-transgenic mice (C57B6/SJL/SwissWebster/B6D2F1). In previous studies, these mice displayed AD-like behavioral deficits by 15-17 months of age and AD-like neuropathology as early as six months of age. To clarify the effects of TBI on these mice, the present study began when they were about three months of age and the study ended when they were about five months of age. As a control, non-transgenic (NT) mice were also evaluated in this study. To assess behavioral changes following TBI, all mice were subjected to 14 days of pre-TBI training of a spatial memory task, the radial arm water maze (RAWM). After training, there were no performance differences between AD-transgenic mice and NT mice. Then, half of the AD-transgenic mice, as well as half of the NT mice, received an experimental TBI at the right parietal cortex using a pneumatic impactor. The other half of these mice received sham surgery. At two, four, and six weeks after surgery, all mice were tested in the same water maze task and the numbers of errors were recorded. AD-transgenic mice with TBI made significantly more errors than AD-transgenic mice without TBI and NT mice regardless of TBI. Furthermore, deficits were observed at both two and six weeks after TBI surgery. To assess histological changes following TBI, we used a monoclonal antibody against beta-amyloid to detect AD-like plaques and an antibody against NeuN to evaluate the total neuronal loss. There were no clear group differences in terms of the beta amyloid expression pattern, although one AD-transgenic mouse with TBI showed AD-like beta amyloid plaques throughout the entire cortex and hippocampus. These results suggest that TBI precipitated behavioral deficits in a spatial memory task in pre-symptomatic AD-transgenic mice, but not control mice. Further studies are warranted for histological effects of TBI.

Abstract This experiment evaluated the effects of noncontingent and contingent access on relative preference for items identified through a series of preference assessments. Four typically developing children participated in multiple stimulus without replacement preference assessments to establish a relative hierarchy of preferred activities. Following the MSWO, the participants were exposed to contingent access or noncontingent access conditions that were separated by preference assessments to assess stability of the preference hierarchy. Results were discussed in terms of preference, preference shifts, and the response deprivation hypothesis.