Proceeding from the belief that much human misery is self-inflicted as a result of negative self-statements (Ellis & Harper, 1962), it was felt that emphasis on positive self-thought would represent a significant therapeutic intervention. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of positive self-statements on self-concept. Since negative self-defeating statements are quite well ingrained, especially within Christian people (Reglin, 1976), it was decided to identify this as the target population. Furthermore, it was felt that cognitive restructuring would require considerable amounts of direction before it would be effective. To accomplish this goal, Frank (1961) and Breger and McGaugh (1967) suggest the need for therapists to consider such methods as hypnosis, suggestion, and relaxation. Therefore, within this study, these methods of restructuring were utilized in an effort to enhance self-concept.The sample consisted of 48 female Christian students enrolled Fall Quarter, 1983 at Ball State University. Twenty three and twenty five subjects were assigned to the experimental and control conditions, respectively. The experimental group was exposed to hypnotically induced positive self-statements. The subjects in the control group did not receive treatment. At the end of the treatment period, all subjects were administered the Tennessee Self-Concept Scale. The Total Positive Score (P) was used as an index of self-concept.The initial hypnotic induction consisted of a procedure suggested by Wolberg (1964) and Barber (1975). The procedure involved (a) deep breathing, (b) progressive muscle relaxation, and (c) visualization of a relaxing scene. After a pause, deepening by means of mental imagery took place in which subjects imagined themselves descending a 10 step escalator. During subsequent sessions, an abbreviated induction procedure was used.The positive self-statements used in this study are those formulated by Barber (1979, 1981), Hartland (1965, 1971), Stanton (1975, 1977), and others (Coleman, 1971; Gorman, 1974;, Maltz, 1960; and Oakley, 1965). The content of these positive self-statements suggested that subjects would feel generally more relaxed and self-confident, more self-reliant and independent,physically stronger and healthier, calmer, more serene and unconcerned by situations. which used to bother them. It was hypothesized that hypnotically induced positive self-statements would have a significant facilitating effect on self-concept in Christian, female college students. The hypothesis was tested using a two-group design and the corresponding parametric "t" test. Analysis of the data clearly indicates the absence of any significant treatment effect.

Zugl.: Kiel, Universiẗat, Diss., 2008.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1940. / Vita. Published also as Teachers College, Columbia University, Contributions to education, no. 788. Bibliography: p. 98-108.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Texas at El Paso, 2009. / Title from title screen. Vita. CD-ROM. Includes bibliographical references. Also available online.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1940. / Vita. Published also as Teachers College, Columbia University, Contributions to education, no. 788. Bibliography: p. 98-108.

Thesis (M.A.)--Carleton University, 1993. / Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Inaug.-diss.--Münster. / First pub. in 1913 in Leipzig by W. Klinkhardt. Lebenslauf. "Literatur": p. viii.

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2006. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vii, 69 p. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 32-36).

No description available.

Current web search engines, such as Google, Yahoo!, and Bing, rank the set of documents S retrieved in response to a user query Q and display each document with a title and a snippet, which serves as an abstract of the corresponding document in S. Snippets, however, are not as useful as they are designed for, i.e., to assist search engine users to quickly identify results of interest, if they exist, without browsing through the documents in S, since they (i) often include very similar information and (ii) do not capture the main content of the corresponding documents. Moreover, when the intended information need specified in a search query is ambiguous, it is difficult, if not impossible, for a search engine to identify precisely the set of documents that satisfy the user's intended request. Furthermore, a document title retrieved by web search engines is not always a good indicator of the content of the corresponding document, since it is not always informative. All these design problems can be solved by our proposed query-based, web informative summarization engine, denoted Q-WISE. Q-WISE clusters documents in S, which allows users to view segregated document collections created according to the specific topic covered in each collection, and generates a concise/comprehensive summary for each collection/cluster of documents. Q-WISE is also equipped with a query suggestion module that provides a guide to its users in formulating a keyword query, which facilitates the web search and improves the precision and recall of the search results. Experimental results show that Q-WISE is highly effective and efficient in generating a high quality summary for each cluster of documents on a specific topic, retrieved in response to a Q-WISE user's query. The empirical study also shows that Q-WISE's clustering algorithm is highly accurate, labels generated for the clusters are useful and often reflect the topic of the corresponding clustered documents, and the performance of the query suggestion module of Q-WISE is comparable to commercial web search engines.