Psychology
What Parents Prefer In Parent Management Training: An Ethnically Diverse Perspective
The purpose of this poster session is to describe the use of a partnership-based approach to investigate the preferred components of Parent Management Training (PMT) programs among families from low-income and ethnic minority cultures. Preferences will be evaluated using a quantitative Q-sort method with primary caregivers from low-income areas of the Northeastern United States. Caregiver preferences of PMT components among low-income and ethnic minority families will be presented and discussed. School Psychologists involved in parent education interventions will learn more about culturally relevant priorities in PMT and gain information that could increase the effectiveness of their practice with high-risk, vulnerable families.
The Effect of Working Memory Load on Task Choice in Voluntary Task Switching
The voluntary task switching (VTS) paradigm allows subjects to choose the specific task to be performed on each trial. Subjects are instructed to perform each task equally often and in a random order; however, they tend to show a repetition bias, performing fewer switches than would be expected in a random sequence. Lack of executive resources
was assessed as a contributor to this repetition bias. A memory load manipulation was used to limit the executive resources available during VTS. Simple memory storage tasks, which required only the maintenance of memory letters, had no impact on VTS performance. However, a working memory load, which required the active manipulation
of memory letters during VTS, differentially reduced the proportion of switches such that greater repetition bias was found under greater working memory loads. The availability of executive resources at the time of task performance appears to influence task choice.
Becoming Supervisors: Tips for the Transition
Researchers have noted that trainees navigate potentially conflicting roles such as student, therapist, supervisee, and colleague (Holloway, 1984; Ladany & Friedlander, 1995). The transition from trainee to new supervisor presents unique challenges that are the focus of this presentation. We utilize current research on supervisory best practices, as well as our own early supervision experiences to provide the new supervisor with a framework to better understand their new role. We address major concerns such as setting the tone for supervision (e.g., addressing cultural issues, reviewing role expectations, managing role conflict and role ambiguity, providing summative and formative evaluations, and using what you know from counseling in supervision). Additionally, we discuss incidents that beginning supervisors might encounter in their first supervision experiences (e.g., supervising people with more experience, addressing supervisee anxiety, and how to handle resistance, parallel process and supervisee non-disclosures). Finally, we present ways to boost novice supervisor self-efficacy (i.e., using peer supervision and managing own anxiety).
A Path Analysis of the Relationships between Social Problem Solving and White Racial Identity
Diversity on U.S. college campuses is increasing, with the enrollment of students of color growing by over 48% in the last decade (McTighe, Garcia, Hudgins, Nettles, Sedlack, & Smith,, 1999). Consequently, White college students are increasingly interacting with individuals from different racial groups. In addition, identity development becomes particularly relevant during this period (Erikson, 1968). As such, White college students psychological orientation towards racial group membership (i.e., White racial identity) may become salient as students begin to explore their reactions to societal dynamics of racial oppression (Carter, 1997; Helms, 1996). › Continue reading
Stepping Off the Pendulum: Why Only a Thoroughly Action Based Approach Can Fully Transcend the Nativist Empiricist Epicycles and Ground Mind in the Natural World
Recent psychological proposals have attempted to reconcile the history of errors inherent to nativist and empiricist positions. These proposals share in their rejection of the nativist-empiricist debate as misguided or altogether incoherentsubsequent solutions typically take the form of some eclectic union or outright dismissal. The central thesis of this paper is that, in dissolving or ignoring the distinction between nativism and empiricism, researchers have failed to accomplish the shared goal of transcending the limitations inherent to their respective positions. Nativism and empiricism are two distinct attempts to account for the source of our knowledge. While different in this respect, they share in their commitment to foundationalism and both have a strong tendency towards anti-constructivism. Foundationalism is contrary to both a developmental perspective and to naturalism: any foundation that cannot itself be accounted for (in principle), must be wrong. An action-based approach constitutes a positive alternative to the problems inherent in foundationalism and it was this important difference that separated Piaget from both nativists and empiricists. Of contemporary relevance, a series of infant studies have revealed alternative perceptual explanations for a number of classic nativist experiments. We suggest that the failure of past researchers to provide these perceptual controls was derivative from their nativism and its anti-constructivist corollary.