Reintegrating Janus: Eclectics and dialectics in counselling and psychotherapy

The history of science reveals a number of significant shifts in the conception of the universe. Recently, 20th century physics with its new discoveries has broken away from the traditional view of the universe to seeing it as interrelated, holistic, and emergent. This version of reality is complementary with the concept of dialectics. Dialectics is defined accordingly and its flexibility is suited to guide the present eclectic stance in counselling psychology and psychotherapy. Counselling psychology and psychotherapy are discussed within Kuhn's (1970) framework of normal science, crisis, and revolution. The normal science phase demonstrates variations of the subject/object dichotomy, and active/passive therapeutic orientations. Eclecticism reflects the crisis stage. Eclecticism is a multiple perspective that does not usually guide metatheory. The revolution and resolution phase for therapeutic psychology is manifested in a new paradigm based on dialectics. Dialectics makes eclecticism legitimate and comments towards that end are presented.     

The role of signaled periods of nonreinforcement in responding on a random schedule in autoshaping

Little responding develops to a conditioned stimulus (CS) that is placed in a random relation to an unconditioned stimulus (US). However, if the USs not preceded by that CS are themselves signaled by another stimulus, then the CS does come to elicit responding. This result has been attributed (e.g., by Durlach, 1983) to the signal’s blocking of conditioning to background cues that otherwise would prevent conditioning of the CS. However, Goddard and Jenkins (1987) have suggested the alternative that signaling the USs promotes responding due to the adventitious creation of periods of signaled nonreinforcement. Two experiments were conducted to assess this alternative, involving an autoshaping preparation in pigeons. In Experiment 1, little responding to a keylight CS presented in a random relation to a food US occurred, despite the explicit presentation of a discrete noise signaling periods of no food in the intertrial interval (ITI). Experiment 2 was designed to replicate the procedure of Goddard and Jenkins, in which an auditory stimulus extended throughout the ITI of a random schedule, terminating only prior to extra USs and during the CS. Contrary to their findings, little responding developed to the target CS. However, responding did develop when the sound-free period occurred only prior to the extra USs. These results offer little support for the hypothesis that signaled periods of nonreinforcement promote responding on random schedules. However, they are consistent with the view that signaling of ITI USs acts by preventing conditioning of potentially competitive background cues.     

The effects of age of viewer and gender of the narrator on children's visual attention and recall of story ideas

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of the age of viewers and the gender of the narrator in a film, and to examine the interaction between these two variables. Subjects in second and fifth grades were randomly assigned to two treatment groups. One group watched a film narrated by a female and the other watched the same film narrated by a male. As subjects watched the film, the experimenters measured their visual attention to the program. Recall of story ideas was also measured, using a multiple-choice test. The results indicated that the gender of the narrator influenced the recall of second-graders, but did not influence the recall of fifth-graders. Results suggest that older children pay greater visual attention to a program than younger children. Implications for developing audio-visual materials for children are discussed.     

Grandparent learning and cultural differences

People are living longer so expectations of grandparents should be redefined. Learning for them should focus on fulfilling family and community roles to retain a sense of purpose. Grandparent education requires a willingness to learn from the observations of younger family members. The intergenerational perceptions of American grandparents were examined to identify conditions for success in a technological environment. The 2,535 non-consanguineous participants were three generations of African-Americans (n = 777), Caucasian-Americans (n = 1,086), and Mexican-Americans (n = 672). Perceptions of the grandparents (n = 1,117), parents (n = 624), and grandchildren (n = 794) were compared within and between the cultures. Each generation completed a separate version of the Grandparent Strengths and Needs Inventory. The six subscales of this instrument assess grandparent Satisfaction, Success, Teaching, Difficulty, Frustration, and Information Needs. All generations and cultures identified favorable aspects of grandparent behavior as well as contexts for further learning. Significant differences were found in observations of grandparent attitudes and behavior across cultures and between generations within cultures. The most significant demographic variable was amount of time a grandparent spent with a grandchild. Lesson themes that represent the uniqueness of cultures and the observations of three generations are recommended as a framework for a differentiated curriculum in grandparent education.     

How to use preconceptions? The contact strategy dismantled

The effects of the contact strategy (a computer-assisted instructional strategy aimed at conceptual change in text processing) were investigated by dismantling the strategy. An experiment with 86 Ss (5th/6th-graders) was conducted in which the number of instructional steps was cumulatively varied from 0 steps (no activation) over 1 step (search for old idea) and 3 steps (1. search for old idea; 2. compare and contrast with new information; 3. formulate new idea) to all 5 contact steps (1. search for old idea; 2. compare and contrast with new information; 3. formulate new idea; 4. apply new idea; 5. evaluate new idea). A design with 2 between-subjects factors (instructional strategy and students familiarity with the central concepts from the 7 instructional texts used) and 2 within-subjects factors (type of learning performance test item and time of testing) was used. Dependent variables concerned quality of final conceptions and learning performance. Results indicated that the complete contact strategy was the most effective variant. It seemed to be the case, however, that students mainly focused their attention on the central concepts from the texts. In our view, instructional strategies to foster conceptual change should both support knowledge restructuring processes and offer a solution for this problem of selective attention.     

A real world comparison of the effectiveness of satellite training and classroom training

Businesses and educational institutions use satellite technology to transmit information for a number of purposes, including training. This study assessed the effectiveness of a satellite training program for achieving various learning requirements ranging from recognition and recall of information to the performance of a specific job procedure. This study also compared satellite training with traditional classroom training for two courses in which the same material was taught using both media. Results showed that learning occurred using the satellite medium and that there were slight but statistically significant differences between satellite and classroom instruction for learning job-related skills.Kristen M. Williams is a senior member of AIR's research staff specializing in training research and evaluation. The research reported here was conducted under Contract Number 104230-88-D-1811, Task Order Number 10430-92-D-1296 with the United States Postal Service. Opinions and conclusions presented do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Postal Service.     

Protection from extinction

The effect of the presence of a conditioned inhibitor on extinction of excitatory conditioning was studied in one magazine approach and three autoshaping experiments using rats and pigeons. In each case, the presence of an inhibitor reduced responding to an exciter during extinction but allowed substantial recovery of responding to that exciter when subsequently tested separately. Control stimuli with a history of being irrelevant to reinforcement or being nonreinforced had less of a protective effect. This constitutes a clear demonstration of protection from extinction, a phenomenon of substantial theoretical and applied importance.     

The effects of physical structure and semantic organization on the recall of prose

The effects of a prose passage's physical structure and semantic organization upon free recall performance was investigated. Passages, describing characteristics of fictitious countries, contained either five or nine paragraphs on attributes of the countries. Results showed that Mandler's in J. L. Cowan (Ed.), Studies in thought and language. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1970] organizational limits could apply to prose as well as word lists and could be used to explain previous discrepant results in semantic organization research. Results showed differences in the distribution of materials interacting with type of semantic organization to produce differences in recall. Different learning strategies imposed by the passage's semantic organization were also found.