William T. Hoyt

Religious involvement and mortality: a meta-analytic review.

A meta-analysis of data from 42 independent samples examining the association of a measure of religious involvement and all-cause mortality is reported. Religious involvement was significantly associated with lower mortality (odds ratio = 1.29; 95% confidence interval: 1.20-1.39), indicating that people high in religious involvement were more likely to be alive at follow-up than people lower in religious involvement. Although the strength of the religious involvement-mortality association varied as a function of several moderator variables, the association of religious involvement and mortality was robust and on the order of magnitude that has come to be expected for psychosocial factors. Conclusions did not appear to be due to publication bias.

Transgression-Related Motivational Dispositions: Personality Substrates of Forgiveness and their Links to the Big Five

Generalizability analyses were used to evaluate the contribution of individual differences to people’s transgression-related interpersonal motivations (TRIMs). Individual differences accounted for 22% to 44% of the variance in participants’ TRIMs (i.e., avoidance, benevolence, and revenge). Although revenge motivation is apparently more cross-situationally consistent than either avoidance or benevolence, estimating people’s dispositions on the basis of their responses to single transgressions will lead to perilously undependable estimates for all three TRIMs. Agreeableness consistently predicted revenge, whereas both Neuroticism and Agreeableness predicted avoidance and benevolence. The association of Neuroticism, but not Agreeableness, with people’s TRIMs appeared to be mediated by appraisals of transgression severity. Differences in people’s responses to historical versus fictional transgressions suggest that transgression-related motivational dispositions should probably be estimated with responses to historical rather than fictional transgressions.

Efficacy of psychotherapeutic interventions to promote forgiveness: a meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE This meta-analysis addressed the efficacy of psychotherapeutic interventions to help people forgive others and to examine moderators of treatment effects. METHOD Eligible studies reported quantitative data on forgiveness of a specific hurt following treatment by a professional with an intervention designed explicitly to promote forgiveness. Random effects meta-analyses were conducted using k = 53 posttreatment effect sizes (N = 2,323) and k = 41 follow-up effect sizes (N = 1,716) from a total of 54 published and unpublished research reports. RESULTS Participants receiving explicit forgiveness treatments reported significantly greater forgiveness than participants not receiving treatment (Δ+ = 0.56 [0.43, 0.68]) and participants, receiving alternative treatments (Δ+ = 0.45 [0.21, 0.69]). Also, forgiveness treatments resulted in greater changes in depression, anxiety, and hope than no-treatment conditions. Moderators of treatment efficacy included treatment dosage, offense severity, treatment model, and treatment modality. Multimoderator analyses indicated that treatment dosage (i.e., longer interventions) and modality (individual > group) uniquely predicted change in forgiveness compared with no-treatment controls. Compared with alternative treatment conditions, both modality (individual > group) and offense severity were marginally predictive (ps < .10) of treatment effects. CONCLUSIONS It appears that using theoretically grounded forgiveness interventions is a sound choice for helping clients to deal with past offenses and helping them achieve resolution in the form of forgiveness. Differences between treatment approaches disappeared when controlling for other significant moderators; the advantage for individual interventions was most clearly demonstrated for Enright-model interventions, as there have been no studies of individual interventions using the Worthington model.

Construct Validation in Counseling Psychology Research

Counseling psychology researchers devote little attention to theory-based measurement validation, as evidenced by cursory mention of validity issues in the method and discussion sections of published research reports. Especially, many researchers appear unaware of the limitations of correlations between pairs of self-report measures as evidence of construct validity. The authors provide an overview of the process of construct validation via user-friendly terminology and examples, with special attention to aspects often neglected in counseling psychology research, including specific recommendations for design and interpretation of multimethod validity investigations.

What has become of grief counseling? An evaluation of the empirical foundations of the new pessimism.

A pessimistic view of grief counseling has emerged over the last 7 years, exemplified by R. A. Neimeyers (2000) oft-cited claim that “such interventions are typically ineffective, and perhaps even deleterious, at least for persons experiencing a normal bereavement” (p. 541). This negative character

Principles and practices : An empirical examination of qualitative research in the Journal of Counseling Psychology

This article examines the 50 qualitative studies published in the Journal of Counseling Psychology (JCP) over a 15-year period in light of methodological principles advocated by qualitative theorists. The match between practices and principles is not high. In the modal investigation, coders (most of whom did not interact with or observe participants) worked from transcripts of a 60-min interview conducted in a setting convenient for the researcher. Researchers endorsed the need to bracket their own subjective experiences and used auditors to enhance reproducibility of findings. Trend analyses suggest that qualitative research in JCP has tended to drift further from qualitative principles over time. The authors consider the implications of these findings for the potential of qualitative methods to inform science and practice in counseling psychology.

Between a Gay and a Straight Place: Bisexual Individuals’ Experiences with Monosexism

Bisexual people experience monosexism, the privileging of sexual attraction to one sex or gender, from heterosexual, gay, and lesbian communities. The current study of 745 bisexual-identified participants explored their experiences of monosexism with heterosexual family members, heterosexual friends, gay family members, and gay friends. Results indicated that bisexual individuals reported significantly more discrimination from the heterosexual community in comparison to the gay or lesbian community, although the effect size was small. Acceptance of bisexuality from family and acceptance of bisexuality from friends were negative predictors of antibisexual discrimination. Clinical and research implications are discussed.

Analysis and Interpretation of Findings Using Multiple Regression Techniques

Multiple regression and correlation (MRC) methods form a flexible family of statistical techniques that can address a wide variety of different types of research questions of interest to rehabilitation professionals. In this article, we review basic concepts and terms, with an emphasis on interpretation of findings relevant to research questions of interest to rehabilitation researchers. To assist readers in using MRC effectively, we review common analytical models (e.g., mediator and moderator tests) and recent thinking on topics such as interpretation of effect sizes and power analysis.

Dependability of Measurement in Counseling Psychology An Introduction to Generalizability Theory

Classical approaches to the assessment of reliability neglect to take into account multiple sources of error and to consider diverse measurement contexts. Generalizability theory (GT) offers a flexible framework for assessing dependability of measurement. With GT, investigators can estimate the total proportion of variance in ratings that is due to error rather than focusing on one source of error at a time. Simultaneous consideration of multiple sources of error allows investigators to assess the overall impact of measurement error in terms of attenuation of study findings and reduction of statistical power. Estimation of variance components allows for flexible application of findings to a variety of possible future research designs. Illustrative analyses demonstrate the special advantages of GT for planning studies in which observer ratings will be used.

Antecedents and Effects of Perceived Therapist Credibility: A Meta-Analysis.

Published studies examining antecedents or effects (or both) of perceived therapist credibility were subjected to a meta-analytic review to test S. R. Strongs (1968) 2-phase model of interpersonal influence in counseling. Results conformed to the predictions of the model, with therapist credibility cues moderately related to credibility, and credibility strongly related to therapist influence. Cue type was a significant moderator of the relation between cues and credibility. Cue types were also differentially related to influence, but this relation was mediated by cue strength, or the relation of cues to credibility. Tests of differential reactivity among influence measures yielded equivocal results, as did tests of participant involvement as a moderator of the relation between cues and influence. It is suggested that a simple mediational model cannot fully account for the relations among cues, credibility, and influence.