What is “Intervention”?

I begin by noting that several theologians and others object to special divine action (divine intervention and action beyond conservation and creation) on the grounds that it is incompatible with science. These theologians are thinking of classical Newtonian science; I argue that in fact classical science is in no way incompatible with special divine action, including miracle. What is incompatible with special divine action is the Laplacean picture, which involves the causal closure of the universe. I then note that contemporary, quantum mechanical science doesn't even initially appear to be incompatible with special divine action. Nevertheless, many who are well aware of the quantum mechanical revolution (including some members of the Special Divine Action Project) still find a problem with special divine action, hoping to find an understanding of it that doesn't involve divine intervention. I argue that their objections to intervention are not sound. Furthermore, it isn't even possible to say what intervention is, given the quantum mechanical framework. I conclude by offering an account of special divine action that isn't open to their objections to intervention.     

A “Healthy-Contingencies” Behavioral Intervention

Interventions based on functional analyses may result in better treatment outcomes than those using arbitrary reinforcers. However, functional analyses may be impractical in some situations, or an immediate intervention may be necessary while a functional analysis is being conducted. In these situations, delivering the social reinforcers most commonly identified by functional analyses (attention, access to tangibles, and escape from demands) following appropriate behavior and withholding these events following problem behavior may improve behavior. We assessed the extent to which this type of intervention would improve child behavior with three participants. All participants engaged in moderate to high rates of problem behavior and very little appropriate requesting during baseline, and high rates of appropriate requests and reduced rates of problem behavior during treatment.     

Debriefing the Family: Is Research an Intervention?

The primary focus of this article is to examine the general assumption that families are left largely unchanged by their participation in research, and to question whether family research can have unintended positive or negative effects on participants. The present article reports feedback from families participating in the Nonshared Environment and Adolescent Development project, a longitudinal study of family process and adolescent development. Families differed in their perceptions about whether the research experience was positive, detrimental, or inconsequential. This feedback underscores the researcher's ethical responsibility to detect and remove deleterious effects of participation. Suggestions are made for providing adequate debriefing to subjects and for using debriefing as a research tool to study the interaction between researcher and families.     

A Brief Motivational Intervention for Treatment‐Refusing OCD Patients

Cognitive behavioral therapy involving exposure and response prevention (ERP) is the psychosocial treatment of choice for obsessive‐compulsive disorder (OCD). Despite this, ERP is not widely used by mental health practitioners, and so dissemination of ERP and other empirically supported treatment (ESTs) has become a priority. Even so, utilization of ESTs such as ERP remains below 50% even among therapists who self‐identify as having a cognitive behavioral orientation. Barriers to the acceptance of ERP include practical obstacles such as lack of training and the cost of treatment, but also patient variables such as treatment refusal. It has been estimated that approximately 25% of OCD patients refuse ERP. This paper describes a brief, 4‐session readiness intervention (RI) designed to decrease ERP refusal among patients with OCD. In this study, 12 patients with OCD who had refused ERP were randomized to RI or wait‐list (WL). 86% of participants in the RI condition and 20% of participants in WL condition agreed to begin ERP following the 4‐week period. ERP following RI, but not WL, was associated with a decrease in OCD symptoms comparable to that observed in OCD patients who did not refuse ERP. However, ERP following RI was associated with a high drop‐out rate (50%), a figure that exceeds that typically seen in OCD treatment studies. Techniques to reduce drop‐out as well as directions for future research are discussed.     

Effects of a Workplace Intervention on Parent–Child Relationships

This study tested whether effects of a workplace intervention, aimed at promoting employees’ schedule control and supervisor support for personal and family life, had implications for parent–adolescent relationships; we also tested whether parent–child relationships differed as a function of how many intervention program sessions participants attended. Data came from a group randomized trial of a workplace intervention, delivered in the information technology division of a Fortune 500 company. Analyses focused on 125 parent–adolescent dyads that completed baseline and 12-month follow-up home interviews. Results revealed no main effects of the intervention, but children of employees who attended 75 % or more program sessions reported more time with their parent and more parent education involvement compared to adolescents whose parents attended <75 % of sessions, and they tended to report more time with parent and more parental solicitation of information about their experiences compared to adolescents whose parents were randomly assigned to the usual practice condition.     

School-Based Intervention for Social Skills in Children from Divorced Families

Divorce is an increasingly prevalent occurrence in society that has the potential to result in many adverse short- and long-term consequences for children and their parents. Social skills, such as those with peers, are one of the problems that may emerge for children of divorce. Despite this growing problem, there is a paucity of research available to effectively address the social skills needed to build and maintain positive peer interactions and subsequent relationships in students whose parents are no longer married. It was hypothesized that a social skills training program would be effective in remediating social skill deficits related to building relationships with peers in students from divorced families. The purpose of this study was to employ COPE, a school-based social skills program, to examine the effect on social skills in elementary students whose parents are divorced. Results of the social skills intervention indicated that the treatment was effective for most participants, but generalization of the COPE program had mixed results.     

Where Has Our Theory Gone? Learning Theory and Intentional Intervention

Reflecting on the principle that every effective counseling intervention works to the extent that it incorporates sound learning principles, this article emphasizes intentional selection of intervention strategies with reference to 4 learning models: association, reinforcement, cognition‐perceptual, and cognition‐rational/linguistic. Three contexts—developmental, social, and spiritual—are described that require modification of intervention strategy, and a case example is given.     

Does Setting Goals Enhance Parenting Intervention Effects? A Field Experiment

People who pursue approach goals (i.e., desired outcomes to be reached) tend to be more likely to achieve their goals than people who pursue avoidance goals (i.e., undesired outcomes to be prevented). We tested this premise in a brief preventive parenting intervention targeting parental praise to reduce disruptive child behavior. We also tested whether goal setting effects depend on behavior change phase (initiation versus maintenance) and parents’ regulatory focus (high versus low promotion and prevention focus). Parents (N = 224; child age 4 ? 8) were randomized to one of four conditions: an approach goal-enhanced or an avoidance goal-enhanced intervention condition, a no-goal intervention condition, or a waitlist control condition. Outcomes were parent-reported and audio-recorded positive parenting and disruptive child behavior. Results show that goal setting had very limited effects. Setting avoidance goals, not approach goals, improved self-reported positive parenting. However, goal setting did not enhance effects of parenting intervention on observed (i.e., audio-recorded) positive parenting and disruptive child behavior. Furthermore, goal setting effects depended neither on the phase of change, nor on parents’ regulatory focus. This field experiment suggests that setting approach goals does not enhance the brief parenting intervention to improve parent-child interactions.     

Are Causal Structure and Intervention Judgments Inextricably Linked? A Developmental Study

The application of the formal framework of causal Bayesian Networks to children’s causal learning provides the motivation to examine the link between judgments about the causal structure of a system, and the ability to make inferences about interventions on components of the system. Three experiments examined whether children are able to make correct inferences about interventions on different causal structures. The first two experiments examined whether children’s causal structure and intervention judgments were consistent with one another. In Experiment 1, children aged between 4 and 8 years made causal structure judgments on a three‐component causal system followed by counterfactual intervention judgments. In Experiment 2, children’s causal structure judgments were followed by intervention judgments phrased as future hypotheticals. In Experiment 3, we explicitly told children what the correct causal structure was and asked them to make intervention judgments. The results of the three experiments suggest that the representations that support causal structure judgments do not easily support simple judgments about interventions in children. We discuss our findings in light of strong interventionist claims that the two types of judgments should be closely linked.     

Medical Students’ Decisions About Authorship in Disputable Situations: Intervention Study

In medicine, professional behavior and ethics are often rule-based. We assessed whether instruction on formal criteria of authorship affected the decision of students about authorship dilemmas and whether they perceive authorship as a conventional or moral concept. A prospective non-randomized intervention study involved 203s year medical students who did (n = 107) or did not (n = 96) received a lecture on International Committee of Medical Journal editors (ICMJE) authorship criteria. Both groups had to read 3 vignettes and answer 4 questions related to the distinction between conventional and moral domains. Written justification of student’ choices whether the authorship in a vignette was right or wrong was rated by 4 independent raters as based on justice or a rule. Formal instruction had no effect on students’ decisions on authorship in the vignettes (44, 34 and 39% ICMJE-consistent answers for 3 vignettes, respectively, by students receiving instruction vs. 38, 42 and 30% for those without instruction; P > 0.161 for all vignettes). For all dilemmas, more students decided contrary to ICMJE criteria and considered their decisions to be a matter of obligation and not a choice and to be general across situations and sciences. They were willing to change their decision if a rule was different only for peer situations but not for mentor–mentee situations. The number of students who used rule-based justification of their ICMJE criteria-consistent decisions was significantly higher in the instructed than in the uninstructed group. Instruction about formal authorship criteria had no effect on student’s decisions about authorship dilemmas and their decisions were related to the moral rather than a conventional domain. Teaching about authorship and other professionalism and integrity issues may benefit from interventions that bring intuitive processes into awareness instead of those fostering rule-based reasoning.     

Beziehungsorientierte Prävention und Intervention in der frühen Kindheit

Zusammenfassung Präventions- und Interventionsansätze in der frühen Kindheit messen der Beziehung zwischen Eltern und Kind entscheidende Bedeutung bei. Forschungsbefunde, insbesondere aus der Bindungstheorie, belegen einen Zusammenhang zwischen früher Bindungsunsicherheit oder Störungen in der Eltern-Kind-Interaktion und späteren Verhaltensproblemen beim Kind. Dabei gilt frühe (hoch-) unsichere Bindung dann als Risikofaktor, wenn sie in Kumulation und in Wechselwirkung mit anderen psychosozialen Risiken auftritt. Diese Befunde, ebenso wie jüngere Forschungsergebnisse über die Bedeutung sensibler Perioden in der Gehirnentwicklung, sprechen für die Notwendigkeit beziehungsorientierter und früher Intervention, besonders in Familien mit psychosozialen Risiken. Dabei wird frühe und präventive Intervention in Anlehnung an Stern als ein klinisches Feld mit qualitativ neuen Anforderungen diskutiert. Diese lassen sich aus den Besonderheiten der Entwicklungspsycho(patho)logie der frühen Kindheit ableiten. Es werden beispielhaft Interventionsansätze vorgestellt, die den Prinzipien von theoretischer Konzeptualisierung und Wirksamkeitsüberprüfung entsprechen, wie sie in Leitlinien für präventive Intervention gefordert werden. Aspekte der nachhaltigen Einbindung präventiver Interventionsansätze in bestehende Hilfesysteme werden abschließend diskutiert.     

Development of a Behavioral Activation–Based Intervention for Cigarette-Smoking Young Adults

Quitting smoking during young adulthood can substantially reduce tobacco-related morbidity and mortality later in life. Depressive symptomatology is prevalent among smokers and increases risk for poor smoking cessation outcomes. However, few integrated behavioral interventions simultaneously target smoking and depressive symptoms and rarely have young smokers been included in the development of these interventions. In this paper we describe an 8-session behavioral activation–based treatment for smoking (BATS; MacPherson et al., 2010) adapted for youth. We conducted a series of focus groups with young adult smokers with depressive symptoms in order to modify treatment manuals to be developmentally appropriate. Subsequently, we completed a small pilot group (n = 5) of the intervention to provide preliminary data on feasibility, acceptability, and outcomes. We provide a case series of the participants in order to provide clinical illustrations of how the modified BATS treatment was implemented among young adults. Most pilot study participants exhibited smoking abstinence and smoking reductions at the end of treatment, as well as improvement in depressive symptoms and maintenance of levels of activation and environmental reward. Participants provided positive qualitative constructive feedback regarding the intervention.     

Parent Involvement in Early Intervention for Disadvantaged Children: Does It Matter?

This study investigated the association between parent involvement in early intervention and children's later school competence. Parents (N = 704) of children participating in the Chicago Longitudinal Study were interviewed retrospectively about their school involvement in preschool and kindergarten. Parents reported on the activities in which they participated and their frequency of program participation. Results indicated that even after controlling for family background, the number of activities in which parents participated in preschool and kindergarten was significantly associated with higher reading achievement, with lower rates of grade retention at age 14 (eighth grade), and with fewer years in special education. The frequency of parent involvement was only marginally associated with reading achievement but was associated with lower rates of grade retention and fewer years in special education. A confirmatory analysis indicated that teacher ratings of parent involvement in first and second grade were significantly associated with higher reading achievement in eighth grade, lower grade retention rates, and lower rates of special education placement through eighth grade. Findings support the benefits of parent involvement in early childhood programs.     

Promoting Teachers’ Generalization of Intervention Use Through Goal Setting and Performance Feedback

Consultation is beneficial for increasing teachers’ intervention use for target students. However, little is known about teachers’ generalized intervention use. This study is a systematic replication of Riley-Tillman and Eckert (J Educ Psychol Consult 12:217–241, 2001) and Martens et al. (Sch Psychol Q 12:33–41, 1997) and examines effects of generalization training with goal setting and a feedback note on teachers’ specific labeled praise (SLP) toward target and non-target students. Participants were three teachers who referred students exhibiting disruptive behaviors. Initially, all teachers displayed low levels of SLP toward target and non-target students. Intervention training with the incorporation of goal setting and a daily feedback note increased teachers’ SLP toward target students. SLP toward non-target students also increased, but to a lesser extent. When feedback was withdrawn and generalization to other students was suggested, SLP decreased. Following generalization training with goal setting and a feedback note, all teachers increased SLP toward non-target students. SLP toward target students, however, was low for all teachers. Changes in target students’ disruptive behaviors are also reported. Results suggest that generalization training may be necessary to increase teachers’ SLP toward non-target students, but that additional support for treatment integrity maintenance may also be required. Results are discussed in terms of limitations and directions for future research.     

A Fundamental Failure of Frankfurt’s Agentic Counterfactual Intervention: No Agency

Philosophia - Frankfurt’s “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility” (1969) made an important intervention into the literature on moral responsibility via a classical...     

Can Math-Gender Stereotypes Be Reduced? A Theory-Based Intervention Program with Adolescent Girls

Math-gender stereotypes have been prevalent with adolescent girls and negatively affect their developmental outcome. The discrepancy between these negative stereotypes and early adolescent girls’ pronounced mathematical performance provides a good opportunity for intervention on negative math-gender stereotypes. This study designed a three-month intervention program based on Identity Threat Model to reduce math-gender stereotypes for middle school girls. Nine intervention sessions were held in classrooms and targeted at changing adolescent girls’ collective representations, situational cues and personal characteristics. Three-wave measures were collected before the intervention (pre-test), immediately after the intervention (post-test), and three months after the end of the intervention (follow-up test). Intervention effect indicators included math-gender stereotypes, self-esteem, math scores and language-gender stereotypes. The results immediately after the intervention showed that math-gender stereotypes were significantly reduced, math scores were improved, and self-esteem and language-gender stereotypes were not significantly affected among girls in the intervention group compared with control group. Follow-up test showed no significant differences between the intervention group and the control group except that math-gender stereotypes in intervention group were still lower than control group, indicating that the intervention activities were effective to reduce adolescent girls’ math-gender stereotypes. The intervention program provided theoretical and educational implications for effective intervention on adolescent girls’ math-gender stereotypes in school or classroom settings.     

The Iatrogenic Effects of Group Intervention for Antisocial Youth: Premature Extrapolations?

Group intervention for antisocial youth has received harsh criticism in recent years. This paper reviews relevant research focused on the influence of contact with delinquent peers on the development of antisocial activity. Also reviewed are studies reporting outcomes of group intervention for antisocial youth. Although a few studies have found iatrogenic effects for group intervention with antisocial youth, the majority have not. Well-developed models of group intervention have produced substantial reductions in youth antisocial activity. We describe one such program, a family-style residential program based on behavioral learning principles, and review outcomes of this program. We conclude that treatment of antisocial youth in groups is feasible and can be effective in reducing delinquent behavior.