This study was conducted to compare changes in self-concept and dogmatism among high school subjects at three levels of manifest anxiety following group vocational counseling.

The purposes of this investigation were (1) to determine if a systematic training program in communication skills could be used to improve written response levels of dental hygiene students, and (2) to determine if a systematic training program in communication skills could yield improved dental hygiene student-patient rapport. The experiment involved two groups of dental hygiene students that had previously been randomly selected and consisted of twelve junior and twelve senior students in each group. The entire population of dental hygiene students at Texas Woman's University participated in the study. Analysis of the data provided statistically significant findings on seven of the eight hypotheses. Those subjects in the systematic training program were able to demonstrate increased ability to write responses and, in addition, had higher patient rapport scores. The results were also statistically significant two weeks following the training period. It was, therefore, concluded that the systematic training program in communication skills was an effective teaching device for improving dental hygiene responses. The systematic training program also seemed to be an effective strategy for improving dental hygiene student-patient rapport formation.

This study investigated depth of hypnosis self-reported by subjects on the Field Inventory of Hypnotic Depth (FIHD) after experiencing one of two formal hypnotic inductions. The 68 subjects (41 females and 27 males) ranged in age from 17 to 47 (mean 25.3) and were placed into a high susceptibility group or a low susceptibility group based on their scores on the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility (HGSHS:A). Both the low susceptibility group and the high susceptibility group were further divided randomly so that half of each group received an indirect induction treatment and the other half received a direct induction treatment.

The problem with which this investigation is concerned is that of the evaluation of the effectiveness of the EPIC model as a guide to group counseling. The purposes of this study are to determine (1) whether group counseling using the EPIC model would result in positive gain in counsele's locus of control, (2) whether there would be a differential effect of group counseling using the EPIC model as compared with a traditional group counseling model or a control group. This report concludes that the EPIC model as a guide to group counseling is an effective means of increasing reliance on inner support, emotional stability and objectivity. The EPIC model also produces changes in assessed congruence of the various factors in the actual vs. ideal aspect of inter-intrapersonal functioning. The EPIC model facilitated the growth of internal locus of control.

This study compared beginning and advanced counselor education students on self-reported sex-role orientation and preference for selected counseling responses. It was assumed that sex-role socialization leads to restrictive attitudes that make it difficult for students to acquire and use selected interpersonal counseling skills. It was anticipated that counselor education training programs would provide a means for students to overcome the limitations imposed by sex-role socialization practices. Subjects in this study were 87 counselor education graduate students, 34 advanced students enrolled in the final two courses required for the master's degree and 53 beginning students enrolled in the first course in the master's degree sequence. Based on scores obtained from the Bern Sex-Role Inventory, subjects were divided into three groups: (1) feminine, (2) androgynous, (3) masculine. The Response Alternatives Questionnaire was used to determine subjects' preference for counseling responses.

This research study was designed to investigate the relationships of imagery, self-concept, anxiety, stress, subjective stress and seriousness of illness and to determine the potential of certain cognitive mediating variables, especially imagery and an interaction between self-concept and imagery, to significantly increase the efficiency of stress as a predictor of seriousness of illness. The purposes of this study were: (1) to determine the efficiency of stress as a predictor of disease, (2) to determine if cognitive mediating variables will significantly increase the predictive efficiency between stress and disease, (3) to investigate selected correlations among the variables, (4) to provide a research base for current treatment procedures using imagery treating various illnesses.

This research study was developed to investigate a group of Outstanding college personalities in Iran. The purposes of the study were: (a) to identify a "frequently nominated" group and an "infrequently nominated" group of University of Isfahan students based on the social criterion of "outstanding personality development"; (b) to determine whether or not "friendship nominations" unduly influenced the selection of "frequently nominated" students; (c) to determine whether or not "frequently nominated" and "infrequently nominated" students could be reliably differentiated on stressful life events, developmental histories, mental health adjustment, expressed needs, and descriptive data; and (d) to present a summary of the most striking and consistent findings on personality development of the "frequently nominated" students. This study concludes that 1. A "frequently nominated" group and an "infrequently nominated" group of normal Iranian student personalities, based on the social criterion of "outstanding personality development," can be identified and statistically differentiated. 2. "Outstanding" Iranian student personalities have greater affiliative capacities than other normal Iranian student personalities. 3. "Outstanding" Iranian student personalities possess ego strength, as evidenced by their desire to make decisions from inner self evaluations and to break parental standards, to a greater extent than other normal Iranian student personalities. 4. "Outstanding" …

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.

The problem of this study was the ingestion of certain foods and their observed effects on behavior. The purpose of the study was to investigate the possible relationships between specific foods and (1) weight loss and gain; (2) hunger urges; (3) depression scores; (4) hand-eye coordination; (5) short-term auditory memory; and (6) heart rate. The subject in this study had previously been diagnosed as having sensitivities to certain foods. To determine the effects of certain foods on the subject a repeated measure design was employed. Specifically, an A-B-B-A-B-A design was used where A phases represented a 6-day period in which the subject ate foods to which she was sensitive. During earlier testing, the subject was found to be sensitive to corn, citrus fruit, pork, lamb, carrots, nuts, watermelon, and pineapple. These foods were found to induce irregular psycho-behavioral and physiological characteristics upon repeated and systematic testing procedures. Her nonreactive foods include fish, chicken, most green and yellow vegetables, bananas, cantaloupe, pears, apples, strawberries, and blueberries.

This investigation seeks to determine the correlations among the three factors of self-esteem, marital communication and marital adjustment to determine if these factors are evidenced similarly in the marital system, and to determine if their relationships are consistent among a wide range of marriages. In addition, several demographic variables are isolated in order to determine their influence on the three factors under investigation. Based on the findings of the study, it was concluded that marital adjustment is dependent on married individuals' level of self-esteem and the ability to communicate effectively. It was also concluded that when there is a high level of either self-esteem, marital communiation, or marital adjustment, the other factors will also be at a high level. In addition, the consistency of the relationships among marital adjustment, marital communication, and self-esteem apparently transcend demographic factors.

The problem of this study was to assess the concerns and locus of control of black women enrolled in an urban community college district and to answer the following question. What is the relationship between each of those concerns and locus of control and each of the following demographic data: current hourly enrollment, number of college credits earned, age, marital status, number of dependent children, age of youngest child, estimated total annual income, and time of day of classes (whether the majority of their classes are during the day, at night, on Saturdays, any combination of the three or mostly telecourses)?

This investigation involved three procedural areas. The first was the development of a "Grief Work Treatment Program" designed for smokers who wanted to quit or reduce smoking. The second was the use of the program in experimental research in order to distinguish a relationship between structured grief work and cigarette-smoking reduction. The third area of investigation concerned evaluation of the program in terms of the subjects' goals for their smoking behavior. Results of the study indicated that the Grief Work Treatment Program was effective. A statistical comparison of treatment and control subjects using Analysis of Covariance, with number of cigarettes smoked daily at the beginning of the program as the covariate, produced a significant F at the 0.05 level on measures taken immediately after the treatment and four weeks later. Thus, in terms of the subjects’ respective goals, the grief work program was effective in assisting subjects to quit or reduce smoking. In addition, correlational tests concerning the treatment group indicated significant relationships existed between the variable, decrease in number of cigarettes smoked daily, and the variables: length of time a subject smoked prior to treatment; importance of cigarettes to the subject; and number of cigarettes smoked daily at the …

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 …

This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between the subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) and the Illinois Test of Psycholinuistic Abilities (ITPA) and to investigate whether High Verbal-Low Performance (HV-LP) scorers on the WISC score significantly higher on certain ITPA subtests than High Performance-Low Verbal (HP-LV) scorers, and whether HP-LV scorers on the WISC score significantly higher on certain other subtests of the ITPA. Two main hypotheses were investigated in an effort to accomplish these purposes.

This study compared the effects of three treatment approaches to training married couples in communication skills on the dependent variables of marital communication, marital adjustment, and the personality characteristics of extraversion/introversion and stability/instability. The initial focus of the study was to determine whether any of the treatment programs--a highly structured (T3), a partially structured (T1 ) or a non-structured (T 2) program -- were superior to any other or to the control group in affecting change in the participants level of communication or in their marital or personal adjustment. The structured programs were derived from the human relations training programs of Carkhuff as well as Rappaport and Harrell's Behavior Exchange Model of conjoint marriage counseling, and adapted for use in a short-term group training procedure. The unstructured training utilized the client-centered approach to couple counseling as developed by Rogers. The number of activities and amount of time spent on each exercise was more rigidly set in the highly structured training than in the partially structured approach. The twenty-four training programs were conducted by two doctoral students in counseling over a seven-week period. A pretest/ post-test, control group experimental design was employed in the research; the data were analyzed using the …

This study investigates and evaluates the effects of an eighteen-hour weekend encounter group and three twelve-week groups--a weekly counseling group, a Bible discussion group, and a church attendance group, upon selected personality and behavioral variables, group morale and social integration. Subjects were forty-eight volunteers from a 250-member Protestant, evangelical church in a suburb of a Texas city of five-hundred thousand people. Six men and six women were randomly assigned to each of the four groups. Data analyzed were the pre-, post-, and post-post-experiment scores of the Personal Orientation Inventory, the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire, and the sociometric variables based on Bonney's "Criteria for a Better Group on Sociometric Scales". The .05 level of significance was required for rejection of the null hypotheses. The statistical analyses were accomplished by applying a one-way analysis of co-variance design to the raw scores from the Personal Orientation Inventory, the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire, and two of the three sociometric variables--mutual choices and opposite sex choices. The sociometric variable, choices between upper and lower quarters, was computed with the z formula. The sociometric data, mutuals and opposite sex choices on the encounter group, were further analyzed using the single-factor analysis of variance with repeated measures. …

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.

This investigation of failure in the first two grades and the effectiveness of group counseling upon the failing children seeks first to determine whether students who have failed hold a different self-concept or attitude toward school from those of students who have not. The second aim is to determine the effect of group counseling on self-concept and attitude toward school of failing students. The third purpose is to analyze the implications of these findings for elementary school counselors and teachers. The investigation's two phases include a survey study and an experimental study. The ninety-six subjects for the survey phase were selected by identifying forty-eight first and second grade students who failed their grade level in the 1972-1973 school year, and by randomly selecting a control group of forty-eight second and third grade students who had not failed a grade. For the experimental phase of the study, the forty-eight failing students were divided into an experimental group and a control group. Twenty-four were randomly placed in the counseling groups, with the remaining twenty-four as a control group.

The problem with which this investigation is concerned is that of the evaluation of the effectiveness of the EPI-C model as a guide to group counseling. The purposes of the study are (1) to determine whether group counseling employing the EPI-C model results in positive gain in self-actualization, and (Z) whether group counseling using the EPI-C model is more effective than a topical discussion group or no treatment at all in producing greater positive change in subject self-actualization. This report concludes that the EPI-C model as a guide to group counseling is effective as a means of increasing reliance on inner support, increasing ascendance levels, emotional stability, and objectivity. The model also produced changes in assessed congruence of the emotional, physical and intellectual self. It demonstrated that the EPI-C model facilitated the growth of individuals on certain dimensions of self -actualization.

This study was designed to determine the effects of play therapy on the adjustment of children identified as socially and psychologically maladjusted. The effects of play therapy on six variables were investigated. Those variables were: social adjustment, personal adjustment, self-concept, school-related self-concept, behavioral maturity as rated by the teacher, and inferred self-concept as rated by the parent. The general nature of the research hypotheses was that play therapy would effect positive change in the children on the six variables. The results of the study led to the conclusion that during a fifteen-week period play therapy effects statistically significant change in social adjustment, but not in personal adjustment, self-concept, or behavior as perceived by others. Implications of the study based on observations of the experimenter were that all changes made during the therapy process were not reflected by the tests which were available. It was recommended that further research on the effects of play therapy place special emphasis on the selection or development of instruments to measure changes made during therapy.

The problem of the study was to identify stress arising in psychological counseling by identifying variations in the vocal pitch (fundamental frequency level) of clients' voices. Hypotheses were established to (1) determine the number of categories describing acoustically similar clients' responses within the counseling session and compare these categories with ratings of client stress, (2) determine the relationship between ratings of client stress and different fundamental frequency characteristics, and (3) compare fundamental frequency characteristics of in-session and repeated client verbalizations. Recommendations included (1) considering an improved acoustical analysis method capable of providing immediate feedback which could be used to study both moment-to-moment and longitudinal stress changes, (2) correlating vocal pitch variations with other physiological manifestations indicative of stress, (3) applying acoustical analysis to aid in counselor training, and (4) using acoustical analysis to study different specific types of populations.