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Tests the relationship between the success of psychotherapeutic efforts and the client's expectation-reality discrepancy, i.e., as the number of disconfirmed expectations increases the possibility for successful psychotherapy (positive therapy outcomes and low drop out rates) decreases. (Author/RK)

Explores more directly the alleged defensive interpretation of the L scale by relating it to another measure of defensiveness, viz, the denial scale (Dn) and to two other measures that presumably do not reflect defensiveness, viz, the MMPI Schizophrenia (Sc) and Hypochondriasis (Hs) scales. (Author/RK)

The present study was designed to determine whether complementary projection is effective to reduce anxiety. (Author)

The confirmation or disconfirmation of initial client expectation with regard to the psychotherapy process was related to drop out from psychotherapy for clients of a university psychological clinic. Previous hypotheses and research findings emphasized the existence of a linear relationship between expectancy confirmation or disconfirmation and drop out from psychotherapy. Contrary to those findings, the present study revealed significant curvilinear relationships between the two variables in question. Cultural and intellectual differences between the lower-class patient population, which exhibited linear relationships between expectancy confirmation or disconfirmation and drop out, and the present college population, which exhibited curvilinear relationships between the variables under investigation, were discussed as factors that contributed to the divergent findings of the present study.

The present study was designed to determine whether complementary projection is effective to reduce anxiety. To test this, Ss in two experimental groups were threatened with electric shocks. Ss in one threat group then were encouraged to project malevolence onto E. Ss' subjective reports, pulse rates, and skin resistances indicated that the threat of shock significantly increased the anxiety levels of threat as compared to control Ss. Neither the subjective reports nor physiological measures revealed a differential decrease in anxiety in threat Ss as a function of whether Ss projected a justifiable cause for anxiety, i.e., malevolence, onto E. These results raise serious questions as to whether complementary projection serves an anxiety-reducing or defensive function.

Considering the view that personal space may serve to protect individuals from unpleasant feelings, preference for personal space was related in this study to psychological maladjustment, aggressiveness, and body experience (N = 100). The results indicated that individuals who tend to be maladjusted and individuals who tend to be aggressive preferred more personal space in face-to-face encounters in which the S was approached by a stranger. With regard to measures of body boundary experience, high Barrier scores were found to be related to preference for more personal space in face-to-face encounters in which the S approached a stranger. With regard to people's perception of the spatial dimensions of their bodies, the more individuals tended to underestimate the size of their bodies, the more personal space they tended to prefer. Results were regarded as generally congruent with the protection theory of the use of personal space.

Threatened Ss in five stress groups with electric shock, while Ss in a sixth group were not threatened. In one of the stress groups Ss were encouraged to project causality for their feelings that resulted from the threat of shock to the E instead of to the shock, while Ss in the remaining stress groups were not encouraged to project causality for the threat-produced affects to the E. Physiological and self-report measures indicated that Ss who projected their anxiety and nervousness to the E were just as distressed by the veridical source of arousal as were Ss who did not project. Implications of these results for the hypothesized stress-reducing effectiveness of complementary projection were discussed.