Reducing HIV risk-associated sexual behavior among african american adolescents: Testing the generality of intervention effects

This randomized controlled trial tested the effects of a theory-based culture-sensitive HIV risk-reduction intervention among 496 inner-city African American adolescents (mean age = 13 years) and examined the generality of its effects as a function of the facilitator's race and gender and the gender composition of the intervention group. Adolescents who received the HIV risk-reduction intervention expressed more favorable behavioral beliefs about condoms, greater self-efficacy, and stronger condom-use intentions postintervention than did those who received a control intervention on other health issues. Six-month follow-up data collected on 93% of the adolescents revealed that those who received the HIV risk-reduction intervention reported less HIV risk-associated sexual behavior, including unprotected coitus, than did their counterparts in the control condition. Self-reported sexual behavior and changes in self-reported behavior were unrelated to scores on a standard measure of social desirability response bias. There was strong evidence for the generality of intervention effects. Moderator analyses testing eight specific interaction hypotheses and correlational analyses indicated that the effects of the HIV risk-reduction intervention did not vary as a function of the facilitator's race or gender, participant's gender, or the gender composition of the intervention group. This research was supported in part by grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01-HD24921), the National Institute of Mental Health (R01-MH45668), and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions to this research of Margaret Bleier, Daria Boccher-Lattimore, Nancy L. Moore, Tatiana Perrino, Paul Pintella, and Fran Rosenfeld and the helpful suggestions of Isabel Fernandez, Caryn Lerman, and Ann O'Leary regarding an earlier version of this article.     

Exposure to an urban environment alters the local bias of a remote culture

There is substantial evidence that populations in the Western world exhibit a local bias compared to East Asian populations that is widely ascribed to a difference between individualistic and collectivist societies. However, we report that traditional Himba - a remote interdependent society - exhibit a strong local bias compared to both Japanese and British participants in the Ebbinghaus illusion and in a similarity-matching task with hierarchical figures. Critically, we measured the effect of exposure to an urban environment on local bias in the Himba. Even a brief exposure to an urban environment caused a shift in processing style: the local bias was reduced in traditional Himba who had visited a local town and even more reduced in urbanised Himba who had moved to that town on a permanent basis. We therefore propose that exposure to an urban environment contributes to the global bias found in Western and Japanese populations.     

russian organized crime: the continuation of an american tradition

This research examines the emergence of Russian émigré crime in the United States to determine whether such crime is representative of organized crime in the classic understanding of that term. The prior development of organized crime theory based upon the criminal progression of Italian-American organized crime families guides the analysis of criminal activity by the Russian émigrés in order to maintain some sense of boundary maintenance between events and issues pertinent to the phenomenon of organized crime. With a model for Russian émigrécrime in the United States established, the research examines the underlying characteristics of the emergent Russian criminality with a goal of determining which theoretical model, if any, this social system of criminality fits best. Case studies of recent motor fuel tax frauds perpetrated in the metropolitan New York City and Los Angeles areas serve as examples from which Russian émigré crime is examined, studied, and compared. An assessment is made as to whether the criminality of the émigré Russians can be correctly identified as being representative of organized crime in the traditional understanding of this phenomenon. The analysis demonstrates that the criminality of the Russian e´migre´ crime groups is characteristic of organized crime as this condition has developed and come to be identified and defined by American society.     

Implicit ambivalence from attitude change: an exploration of the PAST model

Traditional models of attitude change have assumed that when people appear to have changed their attitudes in response to new information, their old attitudes disappear and no longer have any impact. The present research suggests that when attitudes change, the old attitude can remain in memory and influence subsequent behavior. Four experiments are reported in which initial attitudes were created and then changed (or not) with new information. In each study, the authors demonstrate that when people undergo attitude change, their old and new attitudes can interact to produce evaluative responses consistent with a state of implicit ambivalence. In Study 1, individuals whose attitudes changed were more neutral on a measure of automatic evaluation. In Study 2, attitude change led people to show less confidence on an implicit but not an explicit measure. In Studies 3 and 4, people whose attitudes changed engaged in greater processing of attitude-relevant information than did individuals whose attitudes were not changed.     

Haptic identification of common objects: effects of constraining the manual exploration process

In this article, we address the effects on haptic recognition of common objects when manual exploration is constrained by using two kinds of rigid links--sheaths (Experiment 1A) and probes (Experiments 1B and 2). The collective effects of five different constraints are considered, including three from previous research (i.e., reducing the number of end effectors, wearing a compliant finger cover, and splinting the fingers; Klatzky, Loomis, Lederman, Wake, & Fujita, 1993) and from two current constraints (i.e., wearing a rigid finger sheath and using a rigid probe). The resulting impairments are interpreted in terms of the loss of somatosensory information from cutaneous and/or kinesthetic inputs. In addition, we relate the results to the design of haptic interfaces for teleoperation and virtual environments, which share some of the same reduction of sensory cues that we have produced experimentally.     

Breaking up with Jesus: a phenomenological exploration of the experience of deconversion from an Evangelical Christian faith to Atheism

This study examines the experience of deconversion from an Evangelical Christian faith to Atheism in the UK. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six participants and the data were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The resulting superordinate themes emerged: Process of Deconversion; Post Deconversion Issues; What Helped and Did Not Help. The findings are supportive of similar research conducted on deconversion but are from the UK, rather than from a largely American, perspective. The underlying reason for deconversion is found to be cognitive dissonance and, as such, deconversion is a rational and intellectual process. Helping professionals need to convey a non-judgemental attitude, being understanding, sympathetic, supportive and kind.     

City rats: insight from rat spatial behavior into human cognition in urban environments

The structure and shape of the urban environment influence our ability to find our way about in the city. Understanding how the physical properties of the environment affect spatial behavior and cognition is therefore a necessity. However, there are inherent difficulties in empirically studying complex and large-scale urban environments. These include the need to isolate the impact of specific urban features and to acquire data on the physical activity of individuals. In the present study, we attempted to overcome the above obstacles and examine the relation between urban environments and spatial cognition by testing the spatial behavior of rats. This idea originated from the resemblance in the operative brain functions and in the mechanisms and strategies employed by humans and other animals when acquiring spatial information and establishing an internal representation, as revealed in past studies. Accordingly, we tested rats in arenas that simulated a grid urban layout (e.g. Manhattan streets) and an irregular urban layout (e.g. Jerusalem streets). We found that in the grid layout, rat movement was more structured and extended over a greater area compared with their restricted movement in the irregular layout. These movement patterns recall those of humans in respective urban environments, illustrating that the structure and shape of the environment affect spatial behavior similarly in humans and rats. Overall, testing rats in environments that simulate facets of urban environments can provide new insights into human spatial cognition in urban environments.     

Demoralization and living alone: outcome from an urban community study.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate differences in demoralization between those who live in single-person households and those who live in households with others in a random sample of 8,634 urban adults. Responses to the 26-item Psychiatric Epidemiologic Research Interview did not substantiate that adults who live alone are more likely to be demoralized than those who live with others, until age and gender are considered. Men who live alone scored higher on demoralization than men who live with others, yet women who live with others scored higher on demoralization than those who live alone. An interaction for living arrangement and age group on demoralization was also observed.     

Ethical issues in cochlear implant surgery: an exploration into disease, disability, and the best interests of the child

This paper examines ethical issues related to medical practices with children and adults who are members of a linguistic and cultural minority known as the DEAF-WORLD. Members of that culture characteristically have hearing parents and are treated by hearing professionals whose values, particularly concerning language, speech, and hearing, are typically quite different from their own. That disparity has long fueled a debate on several ethical issues, most recently the merits of cochlear implant surgery for DEAF children. We explore whether that surgery would be ethical if implants could deliver close to normal hearing for most implanted children, thereby diminishing the ranks of the DEAF-WORLD. The ethical implications of eugenic practices with the DEAF are explored, as are ethical quandaries in parental surrogacy for DEAF children, and their parallels in transracial adoption.     

Searching for the self: an identity control theory approach to triggers of occupational exploration

Identity control theory researchers have found evidence for two processes of identity development (identity defense and identity change) and have theorized a third process (identity exploration). College students (N = 123) self-rated as high or low in occupational identity certainty and importance received self-discrepant feedback to induce identity disturbance, and dependent measures of identity defense, identity change, and identity exploration were obtained. As predicted, high certainty about identity standards led to identity defense, while low certainty led to identity change. Although an interaction between certainty and importance was hypothesized to predict identity exploration, results showed that the two operated independently. Low certainty predicted exploration of additional occupational areas, whereas high importance predicted exploration of self, environment, and additional occupational areas.     

藏传佛教密宗蔓荼罗艺术探秘

蔓荼罗艺术是盛行于雪域西藏高原藏传佛教文化中的密集艺术,它不仅以佛教教理身、语、意之所依的重要象征内涵,对藏传佛教艺术中的建筑、雕塑、绘画、工艺等参生了巨大引响.同时,也渗透于藏民族的精神信仰生活和物质生活衣、食、住、行的方方面面.本文就藏传佛教密宗蔓萘罗艺术的发展源流,种类形武、表现内容、形制构成、宗教象征意义、使用功能及审美内涵等作了较全面的探讨和论述.     

Attitudes toward human service organizations: perspectives from an urban black community.

Previous research has suggested that black Americans tend to view mental health services and community mental health centers more negatively than do white Americans. This article discusses a recent study that sought to determine whether black persons possess positive or negative attitudes, what factors influence attitude formation, and the implications of these findings. Based on a sample of black residents in a city in the Northeast, the study found that fewer than 20% of black persons possess negative attitudes toward community mental health centers, that 34% possess positive attitudes, that women and married persons tend to possess more positive attitudes than do men and unmarried persons, that those with high levels of racial consciousness tend to possess more positive attitudes than those who do not, and that those with a high tolerance of substance use tend to possess more negative attitudes than do less tolerant persons. The author suggests that human service agencies should educate social and health workers to become more aware of the cultural diversity and attitudes of the black community so that they may more effectively serve black clients.     

Object relations and multiple personality: an exploration of the literature

Multiple personality is a dissociative hysterical condition in which there are two or more autonomous personalities. Historically multiple personality has been viewed as an oedipal conflict. Case studies, however, indicate the importance of preoedipal dynamic issues as well. Both ego splitting and oedipal repression seem to be the basic defense mechanisms. The depressive position, in which there is integration of good and bad objects, has not been reached. Objects are split on the basis of sex in that the mother is seen as all bad, while the father is seen as all good. Multiple personality can be considered to occupy a position between oedipal and preoedipal development.