Integrating Behavior into Health Research and Health Care: One Psychologist's Journey

The author narrates a history of the development of her interest in integrating behavior into heath research and health care. Using diabetes as an exemplar, she describes some of the challenges of integrating behavior into health research and health care: (1) becoming a member of interdisciplinary research and health care teams; (2) acquiring funding for behavioral research with medical populations; (3) communicating scientific findings; and (4) acquiring reimbursement for psychological services rendered. Specific examples of how the author and other psychologists can address these challenges are provided.     

The Parents Matter! Program: Building a Successful Investigator-Community Partnership

We examine the issues involved in creating and maintaining a successful collaboration between university-based researchers and community members when designing and implementing the Parents Matter! Program (PMP). The roles of focus groups, community advisory boards, and community liaisons are highlighted. PMP provides an illustration of the ongoing process of collaboration between investigators and community members and the benefits and challenges of such a partnership.     

Timepieces: Components of Survey Question Response Latencies

Political scientists have increasingly found that the time respondents require to answer survey questions is a useful measure of the strength of political attitudes. However, questions remain about the collection, use, and interpretation of response time data— particularly latencies collected during telephone interviews, far removed from the controlled environment of a laboratory setting. This paper uses a theoretical model of question response to decompose survey response time data into three hypothesized elements—components of response time attributable to baseline individual differences, systematic question effects, and the accessibility of the attitudes being targeted. These findings have implications for the study of political attitudes and other mental constructs, as well as practical implications for public opinion survey researchers using response time data.     

Learning to perceive object unity: a connectionist account

To explore questions of how human infants begin to perceive partly occluded objects, we devised two connectionist models of perceptual development. The models were endowed with an existing ability to detect several kinds of visual information that have been found important in infants’ and adults’ perception of object unity (motion, co‐motion, common motion, relatability, parallelism, texture and T‐junctions). They were then presented with stimuli consisting of either one or two objects and an occluding screen. The models’ task was to determine whether the object or objects were joined when such a percept was ambiguous, after specified amounts of training with events in which a subset of possible visual information was provided. The model that was trained in an enriched environment achieved superior levels of performance and was able to generalize veridical percepts to a wide range of novel stimuli. Implications for perceptual development in humans, current theories of development and origins of knowledge are discussed.     

Heroin Use Among Southern Arrestees: Regional Findings From the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring Program

The identification of jurisdictional drug use patterns is critical to counselors who address substance abuse proactively. In the current study, heroin use data were analyzed from adult arrestees who were surveyed between 1990 and 1997 through the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring program.     

Predictors of Family Functioning Within Alcoholic Families

This study assessed the effects of various predictor variables on dimensions of functioning within alcoholic families. Participants were 173 college student volunteers from alcoholic families who completed a measure of family functioning, demographic questions, and questions related to experiences in their families of origin. Child abuse, spousal violence, parental divorce, length of time living with an alcoholic parent, parental marital status, and parental availability and predictability significantly affected family functioning, whereas frequency of parental drinking did not. Results suggest that quality of parental interactions with children is more important for functioning in alcoholic families than frequency of parental drinking.     

The Psychometric Properties of the Orthogonal Cultural Identification Scale in Asian Americans

Reliability (internal consistency and test‐retest) and validity (construct and factorial) of the Orthogonal Cultural Identification Scale (OCIS; E. R. Oetting & F. Beauvais, 1990–1991) were evaluated in a sample of Asian American university students. Ethnic identification, measured using the OCIS, and acculturation, measured using the Suinn‐Lew Asian Self‐Identity Acculturation Scale (R. M. Suinn, K. Rickard‐Fugueroa, S. Lew, & P. Vigil, 1987), are hypothesized to measure related but separate constructs. Análisis de fiabilidad (consistencia interna y estabilidad temporal), y de validez (conceptual y factorial) de la Escala Ortagonal de Identificación Cultural (OCIS; E. R. Oetting & F. Beauvais, 1990–1991) fueron evaluados en un grupo de estudiantes universitarios Asiáticos Americanos. La identificación étnica fue medida usando la OCIS, y la aculturación fue medida usando la Escala de Identidad de Ser y Aculturación Asiática de Suinn‐Lew (R. M. Suinn, K. Rickard‐Figueroa, S. Lew, & P. Vigil, 1987). Se presenta la hipótesis que la identificación étnica y la aculturación miden conceptos separados que estan relacionados.     

Client attachment and coping resources

Relationships among perceptions of early parental bonding experiences, current adult attachment to significant others, and coping resources were examined in a sample of 100 adult clients seeking services through a university counselling clinic. Results of a canonical analysis indicated that secure adult attachment, higher parental care, and lower parental overprotection were significantly associated with higher coping resources. The significance of these findings for understanding the role of attachment in emotional self-regulation is discussed.     

Using Mental Imagery to Enhance the Effectiveness of Implementation Intentions

Past research shows that forming implementation intentions increases the probability of carrying out goals. The present research proposes that mental imagery can strengthen the effects of implementation intentions on goal achievement. Participants were assigned a mundane goal and were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: implementation intentions only or implementation intentions plus mental imagery. Results support the hypothesis that using mental imagery when forming implementation intentions leads to higher rates of goal achievement.