HIV-Antibody Testing: Beliefs Affecting the Consistency Between Women's Behavioral Intentions and Behavior1

A sample of 763 nonpregnant, heterosexual, sexually active women residing in an HIV-endemic area participated in a study to assess psychological predictors of HIV-antibody testing. In this sample, 464 women said that they might or would be tested that day, although only 56 did so. We examine salient beliefs that influenced testing decisions. In contrast to other studies, which have focused on predictors of behavioral intentions at only one point in time, the current study accounts for the fact that different concerns become salient to women at different stages of the counseling and testing process. Prior to counseling, women were deterred from testing because they feared the anxiety of waiting for their test results. This suggests that efforts aimed at same-day testing may be beneficial for increasing rates of test taking. After counseling and immediately preceding testing, women tended to follow through on their intentions if they believed that testing would better enable them to plan a pregnancy, and if they believed that it would not be too late for treatment. The implications of these findings for the counseling and testing process are discussed.     

Experimental evaluation of a modular approach to mobilizing antitobacco influences of peers and parents

The experimental evaluation of two components of a community intervention to prevent adolescent tobacco use are described. Youth antitobacco activities (e.g., peer quizzes, sidewalk art, poster and T-shirt giveaways, etc.) and family communications activities (pamphlets to parents and student quizzes of parents) were evaluated in two time-series experiments, each of which was conducted in two experimental and one control community. Students in Grades 6 and 8 and their parents were assessed in a series of four phone surveys in the first experiment and six phone surveys in the second. Implementation of the youth antitobacco and family communications activities led to significantly greater exposure of young people to antitobacco information. They led to increases in parent and youth knowledge about tobacco use and more negative attitudes toward tobacco. In Experiment 2, youths in intervention communities had significantly lower rated intentions to smoke. The findings suggest the value of a modular approach to community interventions for influencing the social context relevant to the onset of adolescent tobacco use.     

Normative naturalism and the challenge of relativism: Laudan versus Worrall on the justification of methodological principles

In Science and Values, Larry Laudan argues that rational scientific change is not restricted to scientific theory, but may also affect the methodology and axiology of science. In subsequent debate, John Worrall has raised the question of whether invariant principles of methodology are necessary in order to avoid epistemological relativism. Worrall argues that Laudan's denial of such principles leads straight to relativism. By contrast, Laudan claims that, rather than methodological invariance, what is required to escape relativism is a rational justification of such principles. In this paper, it will be argued that the normative naturalist meta‐methodology, which Laudan has developed in work subsequent to Science and Values, contains the resources needed to mount a satisfactory response to Worrall's charge of relativism.     

Graduate trends for one marriage and family therapy program in an interdisciplinary setting

This research compared trends from 1981 to 1993 in several mental health professional training programs at the University of Houston Clear Lake, surveying graduates from three professional mental health master's programs—clinical psychology, school psychology, and family therapy—with the goal of identifying trends in the status of their professional credentialing and current employment. Four mental health groups have attained licensure since a 1981 survey, resulting in graduates now seeking professional licenses and perform psychotherapy more exclusively than other mental health activities. Interdisciplinary training has become increasingly important due to the introduction of managed care and other insurance regulating entities.     

Starting out: The early phases of four creative careers—darwin,van Gogh,Freud, and Shaw

This paper introduces the four that follow it. The others deal with the phase of the creative career we call starting out. Of the four individuals discussed in those papers, Darwin moved rather smoothly from an early phase of field work in natural history to a later phase of theoretical biology. His work in natural history became incorporated within the theoretical enterprise, the whole move being accomplished by about the age of 30. van Gogh had a protracted early phase as a mediocre art dealer and then as a failed Christian minister to the poor, rejected and scorned by his co-religionists. At about the age of 30 he made a clear commitment to a career in art and began a long period of training, seeking help from other artists but mainly directing his own development. As with Darwin there was a certain degree of overlap of earlier and later phases, in the sense that his art displayed religious overtones for some time. Freud had brilliant early careers—as a neurologist and as a medical practitioner. He did not move decisively toward psychoanalysis until his early forties. Shaw, too, had brilliant early careers—as a radical orator, as a journalist, and as a music critic. His career as a dramatist did not begin in earnest until his forties. Three of the four produced initial sketches that were significant in prefiguring their later careers: Darwin'sJournal of the voyage of theBeagle, Freud'sThe Project, and Shaw's letter,Dear Dorothea. Other topics are taken up as appropriate in one or other of the four cases: the network of enterprise, the ensemble of metaphors, the belief system, and the social web. Taken together with a discussion of the uniqueness of each creative person, they give a sense of the evolving systems approach to creative work.     

How foreign exchange dealers in the City of London cope with occupational stress

Two hundred and twenty-five foreign exchange dealers working in the City of London completed the Coping Inventory of the Occupational Stress Indicator as part of an investigation of the mental health, job satisfaction, alcohol intake, and occupational stress of this employment group. Results indicate that dealers make less use of the coping strategies examined than the normative population, and that dealers appear to be a very homogeneous group in their use of coping techniques. The coping strategies adopted by various subgroups of dealers were also examined. Problems with the reliability of the Coping Inventory are highlighted.     

Commentary: Moral growth in medical students

Knight has shown how the moral growth of medical students involves a spiritual journey. He may, however, present too sanguine a portrayal of the extent to which the medical education environment promotes this moral and spiritual growth. Medical school may indeed be more abusive than supportive. Admitting more women to medical school and teaching more humanities courses, while worthwhile, will not necessarily promote the goals that Knight appropriately advocates.     

Antihypertensive treatment,compliance, and quality of life: Review of a little-understood relation

If patients notoriously violate treatment regimens known to effectively control hypertension, then there must be some subjective costs associated with adherence to these regimens. Generally speaking, there must be some reduction in quality of life associated with antihypertensive medication. Unfortunately the concept of quality of life, due to its lack of specificity, is of little help in further investigating the nature of these subjective costs. We developed a simple neuropsychophysiological model based on fundamental psychological and physiological processes: corticoinhibitory effects of phasic blood pressure elevation reduce the aversive or painful qualities of many stressors. This negative reinforcement increases the rate of the reinforced physiological behavior, i.e., phasic analgesic blood pressure increases. Such negatively reinforced operant behavior is known to be extremely resistant to extinction. Counter actions such as taking antihypertensive medication not only lead to reduced quality of life due to their cancellation of the analgesic effect of conditioned blood pressure increase, but also lead to some form of reluctance to comply with treatment. The model not only provides an innovative etiological path to the emergence of neurogenic essential hypertension, but also yields a highly specific and lean concept of quality of life. Furthermore, it supplies the health care community with a concise explanation for the well-known low compliance of patients with their antihypertensive regimens. In addition to its parsimony, the model fits well with various experimental findings and has been operationalized and tested empirically. Specific therapeutic implications can be derived.     

Predicting interpersonal competence in young adulthood: The roles of family,self, and peer systems during adolescence

The present investigation examines the impact of family, self, and peer systems, evaluated during early adolescence, on the development of interpersonal competence in young adulthood. The participants were 110 Caucasian individuals, their mothers, and one of their teachers. At the first assessment, the participants ranged in age from 11.5 to 15.1 years old. Approximately six years later, the participants completed a second evaluation involving assessment of interpersonal competence. Increased interparental conflict and parental divorce predicted decreased self-esteem. Decreased self-esteem predicted poorer peer-adolescent relationships, which, in turn, forecasted poorer adult interpersonal competence. The results suggest that living in a distressed family leads to diminished self-esteem which can influence the quality of peer relationships and place an adolescent on a trejectory toward difficulties in interpersonal competence during adulthood.