Showing papers by "Everett L. Worthington published in 1982"
TL;DR: The authors found that conservative Christians, who comprise up to one-third of the total population in the United States, are often reluctant to seek counseling from non-religious counselors and, consequently, counselors tak...
Abstract: Conservative Christians, who comprise up to one-third of the total population in the United States, are often reluctant to seek counseling from nonreligious counselors. Consequently, counselors tak...
33 citations
TL;DR: This experiment established some limits for applying analogue results to childbirth and showed that women who attended Lamaze classes received less medication during labor than women who attend Red Cross classes; however, it was not clear whether this difference was due to the Lamazes classes per se, or to other uncontrolled variables.
18 citations
TL;DR: The experiment demonstrated that the efficacy of cognitive pain-control strategies cannot be accounted for by length of instructions alone and people tolerated the pain longer when using effective than ineffective strategies.
Abstract: This experiment assessed a recent contention that cognitive pain-control strategies are effective because length of training produces demands irrespective of content of training. Participants held the dominant hand in ice water for 5 sec. They then estimated how long they expected to tolerate ice water using one of four cognitive pain-control strategies. People who used multiple cognitive strategies previously found to be effective experienced mean tolerance equal to that of subjects who used multiple cognitive strategies previously found to be ineffective. Participants then used the instructions while their hands were immersed in ice water. People tolerated the pain longer when using effective rather than ineffective strategies. The experiment demonstrated that the efficacy of cognitive pain-control strategies cannot be accounted for by length of instructions alone.
3 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a systematic desensitization (SD) technique was used to reduce test anxiety in general psychology students, with the goal of reducing the general anxiety level of students by teaching them that their anxiety is controllable.
Abstract: In addition to being an effective anxiety reducing technique in psychotherapy, systematic desensitization (SD) has become a popular adjunct to many psychology classes. Teachers often use SD in courses on general psychology, personal adjustment, stress management, helping relationship training, abnormal psychology, and even personality. SD demonstrations and sometimes more extensive use of SD are popular with students who enjoy the deep muscle relaxation and the imaginal exercises. Often teachers allow students to choose the \"fear\" that will be desensitized. In academic settings, the most commonly chosen \"fear\" is test anxiety. (Heterosocial anxiety ranks a close second.) When teachers desensitize students to test anxiety, the teachers often believe that SD will produce certain beneficent results with students. First, it is often assumed that the SD, regardless of how briefly demonstrated, will lower the general anxiety level of some students by teaching them that their anxiety is controllable. Second, it is often assumed that students will experience reduced test anxiety. Third, teachers believe test performance will be affected positively. Further, teachers might expect to receive higher evaluations as a result of using this popular technique. To test these expectations, we offered student volunteers enrolled in general psychology the opportunity to experience actual group SD for test anxiety over seven weekly half-hour sessions outside the class. We used actual SD, rather than one demonstration, as the treatment because we suspected that one demonstration of SD did not allow an adequate test of the power of SD with the nonclinical population of students. In order to control for the extra attention received by the students, we established a second treatment that involved showing seven weekly half-hour popular films (outside of class) concerning psychological topics that were concurrently covered in the classroom lecture. A third group of students served as an untreated control. Students were assessed preand post-treatment for trait anxiety, state anxiety (immediately prior to an exam), and exam performance. Teacher ratings were also obtained from each group.
1 citations