Disturbance cues function as a background risk cue but not as an associative learning cue in tadpoles

Animal Cognition - Chemical information has an important role in the sensory ecology of aquatic species. For aquatic prey, chemical cues are a vital source of information related to predator...     

Screening for and Preventing Perinatal Depression

New York City (NYC) public hospitals recently mandated that all pregnant women be screened for depression, but no funds were allocated for screening or care coordination/treatment, and research suggests that unfunded mandates are not likely to be successful. To address this, we implemented an on-site depression prevention intervention (NYC ROSE) for positive depression screens among pregnant, mostly Black and Hispanic, lower-income women in one public hospital. In this paper, we used Aarons’ implementation model to describe the successes and challenges of screening and intervention. Patient tracking sheets and electronic medical records were abstracted. Key informant interviews and an informal focus group were conducted, and staff observations were reviewed; common implementation themes were identified and fit into Aarons’ model. We found that a lack of funding and staff training, which led to minimal psychoeducation for patients, were outer context factors that may have made depression screening difficult, screening results unreliable, and NYC ROSE enrollment challenging. Although leadership agreed to implement NYC ROSE, early involvement of all levels of staff and patients would have better informed important inner context factors, like workflow and logistical/practical challenges. There was also a mismatch between the treatment model and the population being served; patients often lived too far away to receive additional services on site, and economic issues were often a higher priority than mental health services. Screening and interventions for perinatal depression are essential for optimal family health, and a detailed, thoughtful and funded approach can help ensure effectiveness of such efforts.     

An Agonistic Model of Dialogue

In this article, Schellhammer's statements that learning is only possible in tension and that difference and diversity are prerequisites for tension are discussed in light of a certain event that occurred at a Summer School on Pluralism, Development, and Social Change. The article aims to explore Bildung, and especially learning in tension, through a concrete case study in which cultural diversity is a key issue. Reflecting on the case, psychological, philosophical, and sociopolitical perspectives are presented, each of which casts a different light on what happened. In the final reflection, we turn to the question of what dialogical self theory (DST) can offer when it comes to learning in tension, and how DST can be enriched and challenged by other approaches. We argue that DST facilitates the development of intercultural competence through dialogue with the unknown other in the self. Philosophical notions of cosmopolitanism and Socratic self-examination can shed further light on resistance to and conditions for transformative dialogues. They also place these in a historical and global perspective. We introduce an agonistic model of dialogue, in which the structural power inequalities and privileges people bring into dialogical spaces are explicitly addressed, thereby sowing the seeds of postdialogue transformative action in a personal and professional sense—for example, in transformative justice initiatives.     

Evaluation of a Train-The-Trainers Model for Family Peer Advocates in Children’s Mental Health

Standardized training and credentialing is increasingly important to states and healthcare systems. Workforce shortages in children's mental health can be addressed through training and credentialing of professional peer parents (called family peer advocates or FPAs), who deliver a range of services to caregivers. A theory-based training program for FPAs targeting skills and knowledge about childhood mental health services (Parent Empowerment Program, or PEP) was developed through a partnership among a statewide family-run organization, state policy leaders, and academic researchers. Prior studies by this team using highly-experienced family peer advocates (who were also co-developers of the training program) as trainers found improvements in knowledge about mental health services and self-efficacy. In 2010, to meet demands and scale the model, a training of trainers (TOT) model was developed to build a cohort of locally-trained FPAs to deliver PEP training. A pre/post design was used to evaluate the impact of TOT model on knowledge and self-efficacy among 318 FPAs across the state. Participants showed significant pre-post (6 month) changes in knowledge about mental health services and self-efficacy. There were no significant associations between any FPA demographic characteristics and their knowledge or self-efficacy scores. A theory-based training model for professional peer parents working in the children's mental health system can be taught to local FPAs, and it improves knowledge about the mental health system and self-efficacy. Studies that evaluate the effectiveness of different training modalities are critical to ensure that high-quality trainings are maintained.     

The Effects of Acute Alcohol Intoxication and Self-Focused Rumination on Triggered Displaced Aggression

An experiment simultaneously examined the effects of acute alcohol intoxication and self-focused rumination on triggered displaced aggression. An ethnically diverse sample of 97 young adult participants (41 men, 56 women) were recruited from a university community and surrounding area. Participants were provoked by an experimenter, randomly assigned to a 2 (alcohol, sober)?×?2 (rumination, distraction)?×?2 (trigger, no trigger) between-participants design, and then given an opportunity to aggress against an undeserving other who was either completely innocent or slightly annoying. Self-focused rumination increased displaced aggression only when participants were triggered by the slightly annoying participant. Alcohol independently augmented aggression.     

The Efficacy of a Group Triple P (Positive Parenting Program) for Chinese Parents with a Child Diagnosed with ADHD in Hong Kong: A Pilot Randomised Controlled Study

The present pilot study evaluated the efficacy of the Level 4 Group Positive Parenting Program (Triple P) with Hong Kong Chinese parents who had a child with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), using a randomised controlled trial design. It was a mixed research method involving quantitative measurement and semi‐structured focus group. Participants were randomly assigned to Triple P (n = 8) or control group (n = 9) and completed measures on child disruptive behaviours, sense of parenting efficacy and satisfaction, family stress and service needs. Outcomes were assessed at pre‐, post‐, and 3‐month follow‐up. A focus group was also conducted with the participants in the intervention group upon the programme completion. Compared with the control group, the intervention group reported a significant reduction in intensity of child behaviour problems and a significant increase in parenting efficacy at post‐intervention. The gain in reducing intensity of child disruptive behaviours maintained to 3 months after the completion of programme. Qualitative data suggested the three key elements to help both parents and children get positive changes: understanding and empathy, emotional control, and persistence in applying positive parenting strategies. The results partially provided preliminary evidence supporting the efficacy of Triple P in reducing child behaviour problems for ADHD in Chinese society.     

King and Miles' Equity Sensitivity Instrument: a cross-cultural validation

To investigate the relation between equity sensitivity and negotiators' cooperative behaviors King and Miles' Equity Sensitivity Instrument was translated into Spanish and administered to 50 Mexican industrial exporters. Cronbach alpha was .86. Correlations between equity sensitivity scores and negotiators' perceptions of their own cooperative behaviors ranged from .36 to .71.     

Semantic additivity and semantic inhibition: dissociable processes in the cerebral hemispheres?

We report the results of two visual half-field semantic priming experiments using a high proportion of related trials to examine hemisphere asymmetries for semantic processes beyond those attributable to automatic meaning activation. Contrary to previous investigations, we obtained inhibition for unrelated trials in both visual fields. However, priming was additive (being greater for words related via category membership and association than for either single dimension) only when words were presented to the RVF/left hemisphere. A third experiment, using centrally presented stimuli, implied that semantic additivity should be attributed to post-access meaning comparisons and inhibition to the generation of semantic expectancies. These results suggest (1) that inhibition and additivity are potentially dissociable "controlled" semantic processes and (2) that the left hemisphere predominates for meaning integration across successively presented words. The availability of finely tuned meaning integration processes in the left hemisphere may contribute to its superiority in language processing, despite right hemisphere competence for some semantic operations.