Role-playing techniques: locus of control and the attraction to behavior simulation interventions.

This study investigated the relationship between internal-external locus of control and preferences to enact conflict situations designed as spontaneous, mimetic-replication or a combination of these two behavior simulation (role playing) conditions. Four groups of females, high-school students (N = 10 each), indicated their portrayal preferences on a Role Playing Situation Questionnaire. Two of these, an internal and an external group, participated in a task designed to create feelings of failure (lack of success) prior to taking the questionnaire. Spontaneous portrayals were preferred by internals, and portrayals that involved mimetic-replication were favored by externals. Unsuccessful internals preferred the combined spontaneous/mimetic-replication alternative more than did the other internals. The relationship between personality and role playing, as well as the implications for clinical uses of behavior simulation conditions, is discussed.

["Divided roles" as a therapeutic game in sociotherapeutic training (author's transl)]. / Das Rollenspiel in der soziotherapeutischen Ausbildung.

Basing on an intergative concept in which various aspects of learning and behavioral therapy, depth psychology and communication therapy overlap, the article surveys the possibilities and limitations (inherent risks) of playing "divided parts" in theatrical fashion as part of psychiatric training. A section on the basic technique describes how a play according to divided roles is built up in practice. From the viewpoint of a theory of playing divided roles, the functions, aims and a system of typology are discussed.