Human Relations Skills Research Articles

Training mental health workers to better meet patient needs.

A hospital-based training program for paraprofessional mental health workers focuses on maximizing their human-relations skills and providing continuous care to the patients from admission through discharge and readjustment to the community. In coordinated clinical, academic, and community experiences the trainee learns to act as a patient advocate, long-term therapist, and treatment integrator. The training curriculum includes the theory and application of group process and systems change as well as work in nonconventional community service agencies.

Comparative Effectiveness of Human Relations Training for Elementary Student Teachers

A 20-hour training program in human relations skills was provided for two groups of student teachers using the model initially developed by Carkhuff (3). One group received training concurrent with the student teaching experience while the other received human relations training immediately prior to student teaching experience. A control group of student teachers received no training. Results indicated that the training was highly success ful, however, the group trained before the student teaching experience decreased in human relationship skills fol lowing the experience. The concurrently trained group, while exhibiting no deterioration, did not achieve as high an initial level of functioning as the former group. The attitudes of both experimental groups toward the train ing experience were extremely favorable. Implications of the findings for the timing of human relations training groups in the teacher education process were considered. THE EDUCATIONAL and psychological lit erature has frequently referred to the impor tance of interpersonal variables in the teaching process (5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18). Unfortunately, the knowledge of the effects of interpersonal variables in the teaching process has not been effectively translated into the actual selection and training of teachers. Similarly, ex tentive research into the efficacy of psychother apy has established the relationship between counselor empathy, respect, genuineness, imme diacy, and confrontation; and indices of client self-exploration and change (2, 3, 4, 19, 20). Un like teacher training, however, these findings have been translated into effective counselor

The relationship between human relations skills and an index of psychological adjustment.

The relationship between human relations skills and an index of psychological adjustment.

Effect of selected techniques for training resident assistants in human relations skills.

Effect of selected techniques for training resident assistants in human relations skills.

Training of Support Personnel in Three Human Relations Skills: A Systematic One‐Year Follow‐Up

This article reports a systematic, one‐year follow‐up of trainees taught three human relations skills. Results support the conclusion that response‐contingent behavior decreases when supervisor reinforcement is not present. The results and their implications for training support personnel and counselors via the microcounseling paradigm are discussed.

Leadership Style, Confidence in Management, and Job Satisfaction

A sample of persons drawn from all functions and from all levels of two companies in the United Kingdom were invited to express a preference for one of four leadership styles-the tells, the sells, the consults, and the joins. Each respondent was then asked to state which style most closely described his own immediate manager. (Alternatively, he could reply that his own manager did not correspond at all closely to any of the styles.) These answers were then related to replies to other questions concerned with describing managerial behaviour and with measuring job satisfaction, satisfaction with the employing organisation, and confidence in management. The results indicate that the four descriptions of leadership styles are meaningful to people. The consultative style was the one most consistently preferred. Most people were able to see their own managers as fitting one of the four descriptions. Those who felt that their own managers did not correspond at all closely to any one of the four styles showed least confidence in management and relatively low job satisfaction. Their descriptions of managerial behaviour show that they regard their bosses as weak, indecisive, inconsistent, incompetent, and lacking in human relations skills.

Hough, John B. "A Study of the Use of Human Development Institute Programs for Improving the Human Relations Skills of Pre-Service Teachers." Columbus, Ohio: The Ohio State University, 1964. (Unpublished.) Copy available upon request to author

Hough, John B. "A Study of the Use of Human Development Institute Programs for Improving the Human Relations Skills of Pre-Service Teachers." Columbus, Ohio: The Ohio State University, 1964. (Unpublished.) Copy available upon request to author

SOME SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF HANDICAPPING

HELPING A PERSON with a handicap to maximize his assets and minimize the negative consequences of the handicap has long been the goal of rehabilitation. If we examine the practice of rehabilitation, however, we find that the early emphasis on physical restoration and the maximization of physical function is still dominant. More recently increasing emphasis has been given to minimizing economic dependency through vocational training and placement and, in the case of children, special educational training. Least systematic attention has been paid to the effect of handicapping on a person's social development and the learning of human relations skills. The purpose of this paper is to discuss some of the research and developing concepts bearing upon some of the social psychological consequences of handicapping. Two major questions exist. The first of these is whether handicapping has a blunting or sensitizing effect on a person. The second—in a sense the converse of the first—is whether the handicapped person develops certain specialized skills in managing his social relationships with the nonhandicapped. By blunting effects of a handicap I mean the impoverishment of the individual's resources for dealing with other people and observing them; by sensitizing I mean the opposite. It has been argued—perhaps particularly on the basis of literary works—that a handicap tends to make a person especially sensitive. Some people believe, for example, that Byron's club foot on Elizabeth Barrett Browning's invalidism may have been partly responsible for their sensitivity as poets. Others have suggested that those who are forced to stand on the sidelines and watch life go by become sensitive as observers because so many of their satisfactions have to be derived vicariously rather than through direct involvement and participation.

Human Relations Skills in Social Research

Human Relations Skills in Social Research