Though defensive pessimists are less satisfied with their performance and rate themselves as being in greater need for improvement, they attend to and prepare for anxiety-provoking events strategically, with the result that their actual performance is not worse than people who have a more optimistic strategy (Spencer & Norem, 1996). The present study examined benefits of expressive writing on the performance of a fine motor skills task. The expressive writing tasks were tailored for the different cognitive strategies of defensive pessimists (coping writing) and strategic optimists (mastery writing). Participants in the study, 97 undergraduate students, were assigned to one of the following conditions: coping writing, mastery writing, or control writing. After writing, they took a test of fine motor skills (darts performance). The prediction was confirmed that the defensive pessimists in the coping writing condition who wrote about coping with anxiety-provoking events would show an improvement in their performance on the darts task, compared to the darts performance of the defensive pessimists in the mastery writing and control writing conditions. On the other hand, no effect of writing condition was observed in the darts performance of the strategic optimists. The moderating role of cognitive strategies on benefits of expressive writing, and the importance of tailored writing, were discussed.

  The present study examined the relation in adolescents between their interpersonal skills, that is, their social skills in specific situations, and their communication skills, that is, their cognitive, emotional, and behavioral social skills in general situations. A short version of the Social Skills Self-Rating Scale was developed in order to measure adolescents' social skills. Based on a multi-population factor analysis and item response theory, it was found that the new scale could measure adolescents' social skills using the same factor structure as the scale that had been developed for adults. The short version of the scale reduced the number of items from 35 to 20. Participants in the present study were high school students (167 boys, 175 girls; average age 15.49 years) and university students (226 men, 171 women; average age 18.79 years). A hierarchical multiple regression analysis indicated that both behavioral skills and cognitive and emotional skills were important for interpersonal skills; the degree of relevance was found to differ depending on the kind of interpersonal skill in question. These results suggest that in order to increase the social skills of adolescents, training that included cognitive and emotional skills that corresponded to the target interpersonal skills might be effective.

  The present study investigated whether the content of children's drawings changed after they were provided with other people's interpretation of their drawings, and examined factors that may be correlated with such changes. Preschool children (N=65; 3 to 5 years old) engaged in 2 tasks: a false-belief task and a drawing task. The latter had a miscommunication condition and an acceptance condition. In the first drawing in the miscommunication condition, the children were asked by experimenter A to draw a figure (e.g., a red circle) as an object (e.g., a red apple). Experimenter B then incorrectly named the drawing (e.g., "it's a red light"). For the second drawing in this condition, the children were again asked by experimenter A to draw a red apple. In the acceptance condition, the first and third steps were the same as in the miscommunication condition, but instead of naming the drawing incorrectly, experimenter B accepted the children's description of what it was. The children who had been told that they had drawn (for example) a red light (miscommunication condition) adjusted their pictures more than the children who had been told that they had drawn (for example) a red apple (acceptance condition). The discussion suggests that understanding of other-mind may have been correlated with changes in the content of the children's drawings.

  Special support educational coordinators (N=4) were given training in consultation skills, including problem solving skills and interpersonal skills. Third-party evaluations were done using the Consultation Effectiveness Scale (CES). The training was a combination of 2 short-term intensive interventions and maintenance with practice. The first intervention included lectures, monitoring, and feedback using recorded videos; during this training, consultation skills increased. However, in the first maintenance period, the participants' consultation skills decreased to a level lower than before the intervention. Therefore, a second intervention was done based on feedback on each individual's performance and a consultation interview sheet. In the second maintenance period, the participants' consultation skills were slightly lower, but higher than before the second intervention. In addition, the scores of the third-party evaluations of consultation effectiveness generally increased after the second intervention. These results suggest that step-by-step training between short-term intensive interventions and field practice may be an effective way to increase consultation skills. Moreover, auxiliary tools, such as the use of a consultation interview sheet, may be necessary for maintaining consultation skills.

  The present study examined effects on the process of audience tuning of having participants watch themselves make presentations and receive feedback on their presentations. Japanese middle school students (N=256; 151 boys, 105 girls) were asked to give a presentation ("show and tell") about their favorite book. All the presentations were videotaped. The participants were assigned to experimental conditions that varied in how the students got feedback: (a) video condition: the students watched a video of their own presentation and got feedback from that; (b) paired condition: after the presentations, the students were paired and gave each other feedback on their presentations; and (c) mixed condition: the students were paired, watched videos of their presentations, and gave feedback to each other. After participating in one of those conditions, the students revised their presentations. The dependent variable was how they revised their presentation outlines after having received feedback. The students in the mixed condition revised their presentation outlines more than the students in the other 2 conditions did. In addition, the students in the mixed condition evaluated their interest and difficulty in making the presentation more highly, and so more actively adjusted their presentation outlines after seeing the video and receiving feedback. These results suggest that audience tuning of the students' presentations was promoted by the students watching a video of their own presentation and also accepting feedback from another student.

  The present study measured shifts in school-life motivation and subjective feelings of acceptance in students in the first year of junior high school (seventh graders), based on the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Education Program for Children and Adolescents. The program was administered by the students' homeroom teachers in 4 sessions during May and June. In the program, students were taught (a) to categorize daily experiences into situations, emotions, thoughts, and behavior, (b) that emotions are influenced by thoughts, and (c) how to accept and cope with anger. Before and after participation in the program, the students completed the Questionnaire-Utilities (Q-U), a self-administered questionnaire about adaptation to school life. Students' test scores were compared with scores of students from another school in the same region that did not implement the program. The results suggested that the school-life motivation scores of students who had completed the program increased, whereas the scores of students who did not participate in the program decreased. The results for the measures of sources of motivation, and the scores on changes in teacher and classmate relationships were consistent with the total-score results. Evaluation of students' satisfaction showed that the scores on subjective feelings of acceptance of students who had completed the program remained constant, whereas the acceptance scores of students who did not participate in the program decreased. The discussion concluded that completion of this cognitive behavioral therapy program showed potential for maintaining or strengthening school-life motivation in seventh graders.

  The present study examined whether behavior-specific praise (BSP) by teachers can promote students' academic engagement and decrease students' problem behavior. The participants in the study were the 8 teachers and 122 students in the eighth grade general education classes in one middle school in Japan. The control group was comprised of the teachers and students in the seventh and ninth grades at the same school. The teachers' use of behavior-specific praise and the students' academic engagement were recorded during 50-minute class periods. The number of occurrences of the students' problem behaviors was calculated from the documents used by the teachers to record the students' problem behaviors. After a baseline period, an intervention was implemented that was intended to increase teachers' use of behavior-specific praise, including a self-monitoring procedure and peer-teacher feedback. After the intervention, the teachers' use of behavior-specific praise and the students' academic engagement increased, and the teachers' records of the experimental students' problem behaviors showed a decrease compared to the records kept by the teachers of the students in the control classes. When follow-up observations were made 1, 2, and 3 months after the intervention had been terminated, it was found that these effects were maintained. On the basis of the results of the present examination of effects of this intervention on eighth grade teachers' behavior-specific praise at this middle school, future research should investigate how school-wide positive behavior interventions can be implemented in schools throughout Japan.

  Even after having received treatments known to be effective, some released offenders reoffend. One possibility is that they did not have sufficient self-control and self-awareness to enable them to respond well to the treatment. The present review of the published literature on mindfulness meditation aims to identify approaches that have been shown to be effective ways for improving self-control and self-awareness. The articles reviewed were considered in the context of a model containing 3 dimensions that may promote self-control and self awareness: attention control, acceptance, and breathing. The review focused on mind wandering, activation of a central executive network in the brain, and optimization of the brain's default mode network. On the basis of the review, it was concluded that mindfulness meditation may be a way to improve offenders' self-control and self-awareness, and may also enhance effects of more conventional treatments.