This study examined the effects of personality style, anxiety, and depression on the reasons for smoking reported by active smokers. Type A individuals with high trait anxiety viewed smoking as a way to stimulate themselves, whereas Type B individuals claimed that they smoked in order to relax. No such relationship was found for smokers who were not anxious. Smokers who had a high degree of depressive symptomatology were more likely to smoke for stimulation than were smokers with a low degree of depressive symptomatology. These results support Warburton's theory (1988) that smoking is an active coping strategy maintained through nicotine's psychological benefits.'This article is based in part on a Master's thesis completed by the first author. 'Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Emmanuel Akillas,
The use of the term paradox in the domain of psychotherapy is fundamentally different from its use in philosophy. Paradoxical interventions are not statements that can be both true and false but rather are agents of therapeutic change. However, this reified usage of the term has made it difficult to clarify the process by which paradoxical treatments become efficacious. These treatments can be viewed as epistemological paradoxes because they challenge traditional assumptions about the nature of psychological problems. Based on this analysis, it is argued that the effects of paradoxical treatments are mediated by a self-evaluation process that leads to a change in the meaning clients attribute to their symptoms.
The present study was an initial effort to evaluate the use of the Behavior Evaluation Scale, a measure of the tendency to perceive behavior as pathological, in studies on social anxiety. 61 undergraduate students provided ratings on attributional dimensions and completed the scale as well as the Fear of Negative Evaluation questionnaire. There was a moderate correlation of .48 between the Behavior Evaluation Scale scores and fear of evaluation. In addition, participants who perceived the behavior as pathological scored higher on fear of evaluation only if they made internal or general attributions. Results suggest that the perception of behavior as measured by the Behavior Evaluation Scale and the fear of evaluation are distinct constructs. Suggestions for further examination of the scale's validity are discussed.
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