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Biomedical subjects

A Furnham

Publications and source records attributed to A Furnham.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources
PubMed1990

Lay theories of psychotherapy. I: Attitudes toward, and beliefs about, psychotherapy and therapists.

Two hundred people completed two questionnaires that concerned their beliefs about what psychotherapy clients experience and their attitudes toward psychotherapy. Both questionnaires were shown to have an interpretable factor structure, and these beliefs and attitudal factors were shown to be clearly related. There were no sex, a few age, but a number of educational and "psychological experience" correlates of the belief and attitudinal factors. A canonical correlation produced one factor that seemed readily interpretable, with psychological experience the most powerful correlate of both beliefs and attitudes. The results were discussed in terms of the work on lay beliefs and expectations about therapy and counseling.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1990

Causal attributions for unemployment in Barbados.

The importance of various explanations for unemployment in their country was rated by 468 predominantly young people from the Caribbean island of Barbados. The twenty explanations provided, which were taken from other studies, showed a clear structure. The six factors that emerged from them were lack of effort on the part of the unemployed, lack of ability, failure of trade unions, effects of government policy, regional and world-wide changes, and poor industrial management. Endorsement of these explanations was related to sex, age, and education, but was not related very clearly to employment status.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1990

Autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity, personality characteristics and disruptive behaviour in girls.

Disruptive behaviour in school, as defined by teachers, was examined in 44 unselected girls, aged 12-13 years, attending two private schools. Except for the psychoticism (P) scale of the Junior Eysenck Personality Inventory (JEPI), such conduct did not appear to be related to the personality characteristics as measured by the JEPI. Autonomic nervous system activity, indexed here by heart rate measures, successfully discriminated between the three behaviourally defined groups. The findings, with data derived from girls, largely confirm earlier exploratory studies with adolescent boys, and have implications for further research and current approaches to management.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1990

Lay theories of homosexuality: aetiology, behaviours and 'cures'.

This study set out to investigate the determinants, structure and relationship between lay people's beliefs about the aetiology (causes) of homosexuality, the attitudes to the behaviours of practising homosexuals and efficacy of 'cures' for homosexuality. Over two hundred and fifty subjects completed a three-part questionnaire, in which they specified their sexual orientation, personal contact patterns with homosexuals amongst other personal details. A factor analysis was performed on each of the three parts of the questionnaire and an interpretable factor structure emerged which suggested that lay people have an integrated 'theory' or schema concerning homosexuality. Lay theories concerning the aetiology, behaviours of, and 'cures' for homosexuality were moderately related to demographic variables such as sex, age and education, but strongly related to sexual orientation and contact with homosexuals. These results are discussed in terms of the literature on lay theories in general, and attitudes to homosexuals in particular.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1990

The protestant work ethic and type A behaviour: a pilot study.

40 adult subjects completed three measures of the Protestant Work Ethic and a multidimensional measure of the Type A behaviour pattern. The only consistent pattern of correlations was between the "hard-driving" subscale of the Type A measure and all three total PWE scores for Protestant Work Ethic. Results are discussed in terms of the constituent parts of both concepts.

Achievement↗
PubMed1990

Barbadian adolescents' views of the "ideal" family.

An instrument examining the perceptions of "ideal" family functioning was administered to 536 adolescents aged 12 to 18 yr. in Barbados. Analysis indicated fairly extensive differences between the views of male and female students, somewhat fewer differences in age and type of school attended, and very few differences associated with household composition and religious affiliation.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1989

West Indian adolescents' perceptions of family functioning.

A total of 424 Barbadians aged 13-15 years completed the Family Functioning in Adolescence Questionnaire, developed in Australia by Roelofse and Middleton (1985). Findings revealed most adolescents, like their Australian peers, reported fairly favourable perceptions of their families. However, neither total nor sub-scale scores served to discriminate between sub-groups based on sex, age or household structure to any great extent. A re-grouping of items based on results of Varimax analysis also failed to yield many significant group differences, although some directions for future research were indicated. Adolescents not living with their fathers seemed to have a somewhat lower sense of personal security, but in other respects did not report their family life any less favourably than did those living with both natural parents.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1989

Overcoming 'psychosomatic' illness: lay attributions of cure for five possible psychosomatic illnesses.

This semi-replicative study was concerned with lay people's beliefs about the importance of 24 different contributors towards overcoming five relatively common illnesses: hypertension, peptic ulcers, asthma, dermatitis and migraine. These illnesses have frequently been regarded as psychosomatic although there is considerable debate as to whether this is so. One hundred subjects completed a 5-page questionnaire indicating how effective 24 factors were to overcoming the five specified illnesses. Factor analysis revealed almost identical clusters for each problem. These were labelled inner control, social consequences, fate, understanding and receiving help. Items clustering on the first and latter two factors were thought of as generally important and those on fate and, to a lesser extent, understanding, less important, although the perceived relevance of the second and third factors differed significantly between problems. Regressional analysis showed that various individual difference factors, age and sex in particular, were related to perceived relevance of the different contributors. The results were discussed in terms of subjects' beliefs concerning the value of self reliance as opposed to professional help, and the importance of understanding lay beliefs about the efficacy of different cures. Comparisons are made with four other studies using basically the same methodology.

Attitude to Health↗
PubMed1989

Eating-problem patients' conceptions of normality.

Three groups of people--anorexic patients, helping professionals, and a control group--filled out the Eating Attitude Test (Garner & Garfinkel, 1979) three times. The control subjects were asked to fill it out honestly for themselves; as they imagined an ordinary person might complete it; and, finally, as they would expect a patient with an eating disorder to fill it out. The anorexic patients were asked to complete it honestly for themselves; as they imagined an ordinary person might fill it out; and, finally, as they would expect to fill it out when fully recovered. The professionals filled out the questionnaires as they imagined the typical patient with eating disorders might; as they imagined the ordinary person might complete it; and as a recovered patient might complete it. The results provided support for some but not all hypotheses, the most central of which was that there would be a difference between how the patients rated the ordinary person and how control subjects (supposedly ordinary people) rated themselves.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

The Type A behaviour pattern and self-evaluation.

This paper is concerned with how Type A and B subjects perceive themselves. Subjects first completed a unidimensional A type measure, then rated themselves and their ideal selves on various personality traits. As expected, Type A was associated with negative self-ratings and high actual-ideal self-discrepancy scores. However, it is argued that self-evaluation in negative terms by Type As is not necessarily synonymous with low self-esteem. Negative self-ratings may be an important factor in the aetiology and maintenance of the Type A behaviour pattern.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Values and vocational choice: a study of value differences in medical, nursing and psychology students.

Groups of nursing, medical and psychology first year students completed the Rokeach Value Survey, which measures both terminal and instrumental values. A third of the terminal and half the instrumental values yielded significant differences. Generally it seemed that the nursing students were more similar to the medical students than to the psychology students in their rank-ordered values for terminal values and to a lesser extent for the instrumental values. Speculations as to the effects of predispositional versus socialization variables on value system structure and change are made for these groups. The problem of confounding variables is also addressed.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Choosing alternative medicine: a comparison of the beliefs of patients visiting a general practitioner and a homoeopath.

This study was concerned with the different health and illness beliefs of patients choosing traditional vs alternative medicine. Two groups of patients, one visiting a GP and the other a homoeopath, were not significantly different in terms of sex, age, education, marital status, religion and income. They were asked to complete a questionnaire measuring such things as their perceived susceptibility to disease and illness; their beliefs concerning their own control over their health; measures of their own mental health; preventive measures in staying healthy; and the perceived efficacy of traditional vs alternative treatment. The major differences between the two groups were the fact that the homoeopathic group were much more critical and sceptical about the efficacy of traditional medicine; they believe that their general health could be improved; and that they tended to have higher psychiatric morbidity. By and large, the two groups did not differ on their beliefs about illness susceptibility or preventive measures. The results suggested that people who choose alternative medicine may do so from disenchantment with, and bad experiences of, traditional medical practitioners, rather than believing that traditional medicine is itself ineffective. Limitations of this particular study are also considered.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Social comparison and depression.

It has been suggested that a central factor in depression is the experience of feeling different from others. This study set out to examine the relationship between pre-attributional consensus judgments, perceived trait discrepancy from others, and depression. As predicted, low consensus judgments concerning hypothetical events and negative self-evaluations relative to others were associated with depression. These results are discussed in terms of related work on attribution theory and social comparison processes.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

The attribution of cure.

Subjects rated the importance of 24 different contributors towards overcoming four relatively common problems: alcoholism, depression, sexual problems and shyness. Factor analysis revealed seven almost identical clusters for each problem, which were labelled inner control, receiving help, understanding, social consequences, physical basis, avoidance and fate. Items loading on the first three factors were thought to be generally important, and those on the last three relatively unimportant. However, the degree of importance attributed to each factor varied considerably between problems.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1988

Lay theories of schizophrenia.

Subjects completed two brief questionnaires, one concerning the description of, and attitudes towards schizophrenia and schizophrenics and the second on the possible cause of schizophrenia. Both questionnaires yielded a clearly interpretable factor structure and the relationship between the cause and 'symptoms' was examined. The results are discussed in terms of the range, determinants and structure of lay beliefs in mental illness, particularly schizophrenia.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

The determinants and structure of adolescents' beliefs about the economy.

Although it is of both practical and theoretical importance very little work has been done on adolescents' knowledge of, and beliefs about, the economy. Two studies are reported in this paper--the first concerns the determinants of economic values in a population of 16-17 year old British schoolchildren, and the second concerns economic preferences and knowledge in a larger group of slightly older adolescents. By-and-large the pattern of results is not dissimilar from other studies done on older children. The results are discussed in terms of the literature on economic socialization.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1987

Dependency, self-criticism and depressive attributional style.

It has been proposed that dependency and self-criticism are independent forms of depressive experience. This study was designed to investigate whether one or both experiences are associated with a depressive attributional style. Internal and global attributions for hypothetical negative outcomes were found to be associated with both dependency and self-criticism, but neither of these aspects of depression were related to attributions for positive outcomes.

Adult↗