The purposes of this study were (1) to determine the immediate effects, if any, on marital adjustment of a marital enrichment program entitled Marital Skills Training. Program (MSTP); (2) to determine the residual effects, if any, on marital adjustment after MSTP had been terminated; and (3) to determine the differences, if any, in the effect on marital adjustment of an on-going group and extended session group using MSTP. Measures of marital communication and marital adjustment served as the dependent variables while the MSTP training served as the independent variable. Instruments used for data collection were the Marital Adjustment Test (Short Form), the Primary Communication Inventory, and the Semantic Differential. The study concluded that teaching marital communication skills in a conjoint couples' group in an on-going setting is an effective way to increase marital adjustment. However, the passage of time appears to be a necessary factor in integrating MSTP into behaviors which affect marital adjustment since the significant increase did not appear until five weeks following training and was found to exist only in the On-going training group.

This study investigates the effect of Witkin's cognitive-style variable on training success in two different orientations to counseling. Field-dependent individuals exhibit more social orientation, social compliance, and emotional warmth than field-independent individuals. Conversely, field-independent individuals exhibit more internal directedness, achievement orientation, emotional distance, and analytical task orientation than field-dependent individuals. Traits associated with field dependence appeared more complementary to an interpersonal-skills counseling approach, while traits associated with field independence appeared more complementary to behavior-modification techniques. Thus it was hypothesized that field-dependent individuals would be significantly more successful and satisfied with interpersonal skills training than would field-independent individuals, and that field-independent individuals would be more successful and satisfied with behavior modification training.

The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of a death education laboratory approach on the participants. Measures of death anxiety, general anxiety, and self-concept were thought to be of particular importance and thus were used as dependent variables. The study was designed to obtain measures of the variables through appropriate testing administered immediately following participation in a death lab and one month after participation in the 16-hour death lab. This design was selected because the possibility exists that anxiety levels may increase during a workshop on death and dying. None of the eight hypotheses in this study were statistically validated. Thus the assumption that the death lab as used in this study would have a positive impact on the participants was rejected. However, non-statistical observations and inferences from analysis of covariance and t-test data suggested that the use of a waiting list control group may have biased the results of the study. A second observation made in this study was that high death anxious treatment group members tended to have reduced anxiety scores on post-testing and low death anxious treatment group members tended to have increased death anxiety scores on post-testing. It is not known if this …