Implementing and Sustaining SHARE: An Exposure‐Based Psychotherapy Group for Incarcerated Women Survivors of Sexual Violence

Although incarcerated women are a highly victimized population, therapy for sexual violence victimization (SVV) sequela is not routinely offered in prison. SHARE is a group therapy for SVV survivors that was successfully implemented and sustained in a women’s correction center. Here, we aimed to identify implementation factors and strategies that led to SHARE’s success and describe incarcerated women’s perspectives on the program. We conducted a retrospective process evaluation using interviews structured according to EPIS, a well‐established implementation science framework. Participants (N = 22) were incarcerated women, members of the SHARE treatment team, and members of the correction center’s leadership, therapeutic team, and volunteer program. Factors that facilitated SHARE implementation varied by EPIS phase and organization. Positive inter‐organizational and interpersonal relationships were key across phases, as were the synergies between both the strengths and needs of each organization involved in implementation. Incarcerated women reported a strong need for SHARE and did not report any concerns about receiving trauma therapy in a carceral setting. Therapy for SVV sequelae, including exposure‐based therapy, is possible to implement and sustain in carceral settings. Community–academic partnerships may be a particularly feasible way to expand access to SVV therapy for incarcerated women.     

Accumulation of Risk and Promotive Factors Among Young Children in US Military Families

In the families of the new cohort of war veterans now entering the civilian population in the United States are over two million young children (Cozza, Haskins & Lerner, 2013; Institute of Medicine, 2013). Several noteworthy studies have shown that children exposed to separation from a parent due to combat‐related deployment are at elevated risk for a variety of negative consequences (Lester & Flake, 2013). Cozza et al. (2013) argue that existing studies of military children focus too much on the stresses or deficits they experience, failing to give sufficient attention to their strengths, the strengths of their families, or the supports around them. In the current study we focus on risk and promotive factors in the lives of children aged 0–10 in military families. We examine the likelihood of negative outcomes as functions of additive, cumulative, and interactive relationships between risk and promotive factors and children's outcomes. Risk factors, particularly parental depression, community poverty, and cumulative risk, were more strongly associated with children's outcomes than promotive factors. There was, however, a significant risk‐protective relationship between accumulations of risk and promotive factors, consistent with promotive conditions operating in a protective fashion under conditions of elevated risk.     

Salesperson brand attachment: a job demands-resources theory perspective

Sales researchers have largely ignored the idea that salespeople form attachments to the brands that they sell, and that these attachments hold important consequences for sales outcomes. Drawing on job demands-resources theory, the authors suggest that salesperson brand attachment (SBA) serves as a unique psychological resource for salespeople. Using data from 154 salespeople from the beverage industry, they provide evidence that SBA increases selling effort toward the brand, and ultimately job satisfaction. In addition, they show that salesperson's brand attachment acts as a buffer against perceived job demands, including job codification and hierarchy of authority. In general, results support the job demands-resources framework and confirm that SBA is a resource that may be leveraged to offset job demands, under certain situations.     

Balancing Genetics (Science) and Counseling (Art) in Prenatal Chromosomal Microarray Testing

Genetic counselors frequently are called upon to assist patients in understanding the implications of prenatal testing information for their pregnancies and their family’s lives. The introduction of highly sensitive testing such as chromosomal microarray has generated additional kinds of uncertainty into the prenatal period. Counselors may feel uncomfortable or inadequately prepared to engage in discussions with prospective parents who are faced with making critical, and timely, decisions about a pregnancy based on uncertain information. As highly sensitive prenatal testing becomes routine in prenatal care, counselors may be in search of approaches to prenatal counseling, as well as specific skills to approach, engage with, and help families find resolution in such challenging circumstances. To assist genetic counselors, we describe practice skills and provide language for approaching conversations with prospective parents. When clinicians regularly provide care to patients and families making life-altering decisions under conditions of significant uncertainty, discomfort is common and compassion fatigue is likely. We make recommendations directly to the genetic counselor working in reproductive and perinatal settings to enhance training and self-care and to decrease discomfort in balancing the scientific- and art- demands of genetic counseling.     

Construing action abstractly and experiencing autonomy: Implications for physical activity and diet

Mentally representing action in terms of abstract goals rather than concrete procedures has been found to facilitate self-regulation, including meeting health goals. The present research examined whether autonomous motivation mediates the association between abstract thinking and health behavior engagement. We hypothesized that abstract (vs. concrete) thinking relates to viewing oneself as behaving autonomously, which, in turn, is positively associated with engaging in health behaviors. Two studies tested whether abstract thinking is associated with greater health behavior engagement and whether autonomous motivation statistically mediates this association. In Study 1, abstract thinking was associated positively with physical activity and fruit and vegetable intake. In Study 2, supporting pre-registered hypotheses, there was a significant indirect effect of abstract thinking on vigorous physical activity and fruit and vegetable intake through autonomous motivation. Whereas past research has emphasized that abstract thinking orients attention towards the value of broader goals, this research establishes that autonomous motivation helps explain associations between abstract thinking and health behavior engagement.     

Within-Family Effects of Smoking during Pregnancy on ADHD: the Importance of Phenotype

We sought to test within- and between- family associations of smoking during pregnancy (SDP) and attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms using a structured interview based on the conventional Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition (DSM-IV) symptoms and the Strengths and Weaknesses of ADHD-Symptoms and Normal-Behavior (SWAN) scale, which is a population based measure that grew out of the notion that an ADHD diagnosis exists on the extreme end of a continuum of normative behaviors and includes both above- and below- average performance on attention and activity. We used a sibling-comparison approach in a sample of 173 families including siblings aged 7–16 years (52% male) drawn from the state of Missouri, USA, wherein mothers smoked during one pregnancy but not the other. There was a within-family effect of smoking during pregnancy on SWAN hyperactivity/impulsivity and SWAN total ADHD behaviors. The associations between SDP and DSM-IV-based ADHD symptom dimensions as well as SWAN inattention were explained by familial confounds. These findings suggest that SDP exerts a potentially causal effect on increased ADHD hyperactive/impulsive behaviors and that this SDP effect is best captured when hyperactivity/impulsivity is assessed more normatively across the population, rather than specifically assessing problematic behaviors via DSM symptoms. Thus, any potentially causal effect of SDP on ADHD symptom dimensions may be restricted to hyperactive/impulsive behaviors rather than inattention, and normative, non-DSM-IV based behavioral measures may provide a more sensitive test of mechanisms of SDP-ADHD symptom associations, particularly in non-clinical samples.     

The Effects of Stakes and Threat on Foreign Policy Decision-Making

Decision research demonstrates that individuals adapt decision processing strategies according to the characteristics of the decision task. Unfortunately, the literature has neglected task factors specific to foreign policy decisions. This paper presents experimental analyses of the effects of the decisional stakes (i.e., salience of the values at issue) and threat (risk of loss on those issues) on decision-makers' information acquisition patterns and choice rules with respect to one of four hypothetical foreign policy scenarios. Contrary to the notion that normative (rational) decision-making is more likely in less dramatic settings, the results indicate that elevated threat encourages rational decision processing, whereas heuristic processing was more prevalent in less threatening situations. Interestingly, the added presence of high stakes magnified both threat effects. These results, although preliminary, suggest that stakes-threat effects are not direct reflections of stress and/or complexity effects, but should be considered independently in foreign policy analyses.     

Behavioral and self-concept differences in tattooed and nontattooed college students

235 college students rated themselves on a series of bipolar adjectives and answered questions about their involvement in a variety of "risky" behaviors, including tattooing and body piercing. 29 tattooed students rated themselves as more adventurous, creative, artistic, individualistic, and risky than those without tattoos. The 98 tattooed males considered themselves more attractive. Behaviorally, those with tattoos reported smoking more cigarettes. Tattooed men also reported more sexual partners, were more likely to report they had been arrested, and were more likely to have body piercings. The 21 tattooed women were more likely to report use of drugs other than alcohol, shoplifting, and body piercings in places other than their ears.