Lawrence J. Weitz’s research while affiliated with Teachers College and other places

The case profile of a young male community outpatient that had elicited racial expectancies from black clinicians was shown to a demographically similar sample of white clinicians. Manipulation of his racial attribution failed to influence impressions of psychobehavioral adjustment or therapeutic recommendations. In addition, the overall ratings given by the white assessors were more lenient than those given by the black assessors. The notion that white clinicians' evaluations of black patients are poorly insulated from the racial prejudices of the larger society continues to run counter to mounting experimental evidence. Its persistence in the absence of such confirmation is discussed in terms of the low credibility of analogue methodology in relation to personal conviction.

This paper develops the assumptions that underlie a transactional approach to psychotherapy by utilizing Bentley's ideas about the environed organism. It emphasizes that not only is interpersonal interaction significant therapeutically but the situational aspect of persons and behavior (living, working, neighborhood, and community circumstances) contribute to the process of client change and growth.

The impact of a consciousness-raising module offered in 50-minute class periods over 20 consecutive school days to junior and senior high school women was evaluated. Experimental and control groups were constituted randomly from a pool of volunteers. Subjects completed the attitudes toward women scale, the personal orientation inventory, and the Tennessee self-concept scale before and after the consciousness-raising experience. Results indicated that women who participated became more liberal in their beliefs about women's rights and roles and also showed increases along several dimensions of self-actualization. However, such gains did not radiate to self-concept.

This study examined the validity of the proposition that a latent function of liberalized abortion is racial genocide. Using an abortion counseling analogue, forty-two white abortion counselors rendered clinical reactions, including the relative desirability of abortion, to a bogus female patient described as ambivalent about her pregnancy and designated as black or white within a case report. A stronger preference for abortion when the patient was black-identified was not found either among the sample as a whole or among socially traditional and untraditional subgroups.

Two behavioral measures of openness (a miniature situations test and a structured self-disclosure interview), two self-report measures of openness (the Dogmatism Scale and the Experience Inventory), and the Ego-strength Scale were administered to 50 Ss on two different occasions spaced several weeks apart. One of the behavioral measures, the miniature situations test, correlated positively with the other measures of openness on the pretest. With regard to change scores across the two sessions, the behavioral measures correlated positively with each other and negatively with the self-report measures of openness and with the Ego-strength Scale. These results were interpreted as supporting the theoretical supposition that behavioral measures are most suitable for the measurement of short-term change in openness.

This study was done to determine the impact of patient racial attribution on black practitioners' clinical judgments. Fifty-five professionals indicated their clinical reactions to a bogus case description of a sexually maladjusted male patient identified as black or white and also completed a traditional social beliefs scale. Relatively untraditional clinicians evaluated the black-designated patient more favorably than the white-designated patient. The less traditional practitioners also evaluated the black-designated patient more favorably than did the traditional clinicians. Effects of patient race were found for both clinical impressions and treatment decisions and were not attenuated in the more highly experienced subsample. Implications and limitations of the findings are discussed.

This article describes an approach to faculty selection in a competency-based human development counseling program, the development of which enabled candidates to demonstrate their actual level of mastery for a wide range of skills associated with professional effectiveness. Candidates invited to participate in this evaluation procedure were advised in advance of the following five areas in which they would be evaluated: counseling and psychotherapy, teaching, supervision, research methodology, and program development. Candidates prepared 30- to 60-minute presentations characteristic of their best efforts for each area of evaluation. Both faculty and students completed professional effectiveness scale ratings for each of the activities engaged in by job candidates. This article reports the successes and setbacks of this model and presents critical recommendations of persons who participated as job candidates and of those who participated in the candidate evaluation sessions.

Administered 2 self-report measures of openness (the Rokeach Dogmatism Scale and Fitzgerald's Experience Inventory) and 2 behavioral measures of openness (a miniature situations test and a structured, self-disclosure interview) to 50 undergraduates prior to and immediately following 1 of 4 treatment procedures. Contrary to prediction, none of the measures indicated an increase in openness for Ss who had undergone openness-promoting treatments; however, when the data were broken down according to the examiners who administered the behavioral tests, systematic differences were noted. One group of 3 examiners obtained significant increases in openness from experimental, but not control Ss, on the behavioral but not the self-report instruments. Another examiner obtained increased openness in experimental Ss on only the self-report measures. A post-hoc analysis of examiner behavior revealed that examiners had behaved differently with respect to length of pauses, number of supportive verbalizations, and the initial level of self-disclosure that they elicited. Differences in examiner behavior are interpreted as facilitating or detracting from the valid assessment of change in level of openness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Studied the preferences for topics and formats for a series of continuing education workshops of graduate psychology students and faculty and mental health agency staff over a 2-yr period. Questionnaires were distributed to 100 male and female students and faculty from 5 local universities and colleges and staff from 10 local agencies on 2 occasions approximately 15 mo apart. Ss were requested to rank-order workshop topics and rate workshop format dimensions on 5-point bipolar scales. Results indicate that overall preferences in format changed toward less emphasis on disclosure of feelings, and greater emphasis on didactic/lecture formats, theoretical presentations, and clinical material rather than core curriculum. Preferences for local vs out-of-town workshop faculty were unchanged. Topics increasing in popularity included family therapy, community psychology, and hypnotherapy. Behavior modification, psychologists as agents of social change, group therapy, and Gestalt therapy decreased slightly in popularity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Used a laboratory analog study to investigate the effects of supervisor skillfulness and supervisor-supervisee attitude similarity on the attraction of the supervisee to the supervisor, using 29 graduate students in counseling. The similarity of the supervisee to the supervisor was varied by means of an attitude scale purportedly filled out by the supervisor. After the supervisees compared the bogus protocol with their own, each supervisee viewed a videotape of 1 of 2 simulated supervisory sessions showing the supervisor working at either a high or low level of skill with 2 supervisees. Results show a main effect of supervisor skillfulness on attraction, but did not show attraction to vary as a function of supervisor-supervisee attitude similarity. It is concluded that skillfulness was a primary determinant of attraction, but in contrast to previous findings, similarity did not exert a significant attraction effect; supervisor skillfulness appeared to eliminate the similarity-attraction effect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)