Carl Auerbach

Deconstructing the Essential Father.

Neoconservative social scientists have claimed that fathers are essential to positive child development and that responsible fathering is nzost likely to occur within the context of lzeterosexual nzarriage. This perspective is generating a range of go\,ernmental initiatives designed to provide social support preferences to fathers over mothers and to heterosexual married couples over alternative family forms. The authors propose that the neoconservative position is an incorrect or oversimplified interpretation of empirical research. Using a wide range of cross-species, cross-cultural, and social science research, the authors argue that neither rnothers nor fathers are essential to child developnlent and that responsible fathering can occur within a v a r i e ~ of family structures. The authors conclude with alternative recorltmendations for encouraging responsible fathering that do rzot discriminate against mothers and diverse family forms.

Contemporary fathers reconstructing masculinity: Clinical implications of gender role strain

How can research data about gender role strain improve clinical work with men? The authors present qualitative data from 3 groups of fathers in the Yeshiva University Fatherhood Project: Haitian American, Promise Keeper, and gay fathers. The data illustrate the specific types of gender role strain associated with contemporary fathering and show how men are spontaneously reconstructing fathering and masculinity in general. The authors use clinical examples to show how psychologists can make use of this research knowledge in the diagnosis and treatment of men.

Gay Fathers Expanding the Possibilities for Us All

Abstract This article describes a qualitative research study of 21 men who became fathers as openly gay men. The fathers were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire in a focus group format. The data were analyzed using grounded theory methodology. The narrative data depict the mens paths toward fatherhood. The themes elicited from their narratives suggested how gay men are changing traditional cultural norms for fathers, families, and masculinity. The authors propose that by degendering parenting, reconceptualizing family, and reworking masculine gender roles, gay fathers are expanding role norms in novel ways that may serve as alternative models for all families.

A common auditory-visual space” Evidence for its reality

This experiment compares two hypotheses concerning the relation between auditory anti, visual direction. The first, the “common space” hypothesis, is that both auditory and visual direction are represented on a single underlying direction dimension, so that comparisons between auditory and visual direction may be made directly. The second, the “disjunct space” hypothesis, is that there are two distinct internal dimensions, one for auditory direction and one for visual direction, and that comparison between auditory and visual direction involves a translation between these two dimensions. Both these hypotheses are explicated, using a signal detection theory framework, and evidence is provided for the common space hypothesis.

Using qualitative research to strengthen clinical practice.

What does qualitative research have to offer individual practitioners? The authors in this special section argue that qualitative research is particularly suited to enhancing clinical practice because it generates a rich description of both local contexts and individual subjective experiences. This rich description can then be used to improve clinical practice and also to generate knowledge about both the process and the outcome of psychological services. In this first article, we provide an overview of the qualitative research paradigm and the many different kinds of qualitative methodologies that exist, discuss how it can be adapted to clinical practice, and provide an example of a qualitative study that practitioners can accomplish. The two articles that follow describe specific examples of qualitative work in more depth. The Qualitative Paradigm

From Devastation to Integration: Adjusting to and Growing From Medical Trauma

Recent trauma research has begun to investigate the possibility of posttraumatic growth. However, most studies have investigated posttraumatic growth using quantitative methods and thus have neglected people’s subjective experience and have left unexamined post-traumatic growth in persons with visible impairment. To fill some of these gaps, the authors examined the process of recovery and posttraumatic growth using a qualitative method. They interviewed 10 participants with visible impairment from chronic illness or serious injury using a semistructured interview. Using a grounded theory data analysis procedure, the authors developed a stage model of trauma and recovery from the interviews. The stages that emerged are thematically entitled Apprehension, Diagnosis and Devastation, Choosing to Go On, Building a Way to Live, and Integration of the Trauma and Expansion of the Self. The authors discuss limitations of the study and clinical implications for psychological counseling with this population.

Do Promise Keepers Dream of Feminist Sheep

This article describes a qualitative researchstudy of Promise Keeper fathers. Twenty-two middleclass, primarily White suburban fathers were interviewedin focus groups abouttheir fathering experiences. The grounded theory analysis found that the menwere experiencing gender role strain as they tried toconform to traditional masculine role norms. The PromiseKeeper movement provided them with an ideology and social supportsystem that facilitated theirbecoming more involved fathers, while simultaneouslyreassuring them that they were the leaders of theirfamilies. Using these supports, the men were able to construct a more personally gratifyingfatherhood identity. These results suggest a possibleinterpretation of why the Promise Keeper movement hasappealed to more men than has the pro-feminist mens movement.

Practice effects in the absolute judgment of frequency

Two methods of training Ss to make absolute judgments of pitch are compared. Regular feedback, which requires the S to name the note with which he is presented, and A feedback, which requires the S to judge whether the note with which he is presented is an A, both produce similar increases in performance. Apparently, labeling of the stimuli to be judged is not necessary for improvement of absolute judgments. Detailed analysis of the data suggest two learning mechanisms: Ss’ judgments improve as a result of exposure to the range of the notes to be judged, and Ss appear to develop a sense of the range of the notes, and of the endpoints and midpoint of the range, so that they can place notes more accurately within the range. A-feedback training may, in addition, promote learning of notes in the immediate region of A.

Level of object representation and psychic structure deficit in obese persons.

The structural deficit and external regulation hypotheses of addiction state that addicts do not have adequate psychic structure with which to regulate painful affects internally. They instead use their drug of choice as an external regulator to self-medicate painful affects. This study tests whether the hypotheses can be applied to obese persons, for whom food may be the drug of choice. The level of object representation of 22 moderately obese and 24 normal weight subjects was compared using the Blatt Family Interaction Questionnaire. The mean level of object representation of both parents was lower for the obese subjects than for the normal-weight subjects. This finding supports the structural deficit and external regulation hypotheses of food addiction.

Effect of prior body experience on adaptation to visual displacement

The effect of proprioceptive adaptation to visual displacement is to produce a violation of the normal constraints on the relative position of body parts. In order to investigate the effect of this violation of constraints on the adaptation, the relative position of body parts for a group of dancers and a group of nondancers was determined after 5 and 15 min of adaptation. Empirical and theoretical support were provided for the propositions that (1) there is a tendency to resist the violation of constraints, and (2) the nature of the adaptation process is such as to minimize the amount of violation of constraints.