A Peer Assertiveness-Training Program

The demand for assertiveness-training groups and the effective use of paraprofessionals in skills training were influential factors in the authors' decision to develop a peer assertiveness-training program. This program extends the availability of assertiveness training to students through the use of paraprofessionals as group leaders. This article describes a format for developing a peer assertiveness-training program and is based on the authors' experience conducting this program during the 1977–78 academic year at Pennsylvania State University.     

The role of empathy and social anxiety in Latinx adolescents' indirect peer aggression during the transition to high school

The primary purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between decreased empathy (i.e., cognitive and affective) and indirect and cyber peer aggression among Latinx adolescents during their transition to high school. Further, we examined the degree to which social anxiety moderated this relationship. Participants were 469 Latinx ninth graders, ages 13–17 years (M = 14.52, SD = 0.58; 58% girls). Adolescents completed the Revised Peer Experiences Questionnaire, Cyber Peer Experiences Questionnaire, Basic Empathy Scale, and Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents at two different time points, 3 months apart. Hierarchical linear regression analyses revealed concurrent and prospective relationships between lower cognitive empathy and the perpetration of both indirect and cyber aggression. In addition, social anxiety moderated the concurrent associations between both types of empathy and both types of aggression perpetration. Results suggest that interventions that facilitate cognitive empathy and decrease social anxiety may help to reduce adolescents' indirect and cyber aggression toward peers throughout the high school transition.     

Psychoanalytic patients in the U.S., CANADA,and Australia: I. DSM-III-R disorders,indications, previous treatment,medications, and length of treatment

To determine the demographics, DSM-III-R disorders diagnosed, indications used in recommending psychoanalysis, previous treatment histories, use of medication, and length of treatment in patients in psychoanalysis in the U.S., Canada, and Australia, a mail survey of practice was sent to every other active member of the American Psychoanalytic Association and every member of the Australian Psychoanalytical Society. This supplemented an earlier survey sent to all Ontario psychoanalysts. The response rates were 40.1 % (n = 342) for the U.S., 67.2% (n = 117) for Canada, and 73.9% (n = 51) for Australia. Respondents supplied data on 1,718 patients. The employment rate for patients increases as analysis progresses (p < .0001). The mean number of concurrent categories of disorders (Axis I, Axis II, and Disorders First Evident in Childhood) per patient at the start of treatment is 5.01 (SD = 3.66; median = 4; mode = 3). There are no statistically significant differences across countries. Mood, anxiety, sexual dysfunction, and personality disorders are most common. American Psychiatric Association / American Psychoanalytic Association peer review criteria for indicating psychoanalysis are followed for 86.5% of patients. Over 80% of patients in all three countries had undergone previous treatments prior to analysis. In the U.S., 18.2% of analysands are on concurrent psychoactive medication; in Australia, 9.6%. The mean length of analyses conducted in the U.S. is 5.7 years, in Australia 6.6, and in Canada 4.8. Psychoanalytic patients in all three countries have similar rates of DSM-III-R psychopathology, and many indications of chronicity.     

Context and the interpretation of likelihood information: the role of intergroup comparisons on perceived vulnerability

Four experiments investigated how people's perceptions about a group's (e.g., women's) vulnerability to a disease are influenced by information about the prevalence of the disease in a comparable group (e.g., men). Participants read symptom and prevalence infomation about fictitious diseases before answering questions regarding target group vulnerability. Participants used the prevalence rate for a nontarget group as an immediate comparison standard for intuitively interpreting the degree of vulnerability of a target group, resulting in robust contrast effects. Experiments 3 and 4 illustrated that these contrast effects can cause a person's intuitive perceptions about a group's vulnerability to selected diseases to conflict with his or her knowledge of the prevalence rates for the diseases. The results support a distinction between 2 components of psychological uncertainty-beliefs in objective probability and more intuitive perceptions of certainty.     

Cognitive deficits in major depression

Major depression is a mood disorder that is often accompanied by the impairment of cognitive functions. Although suggestive, the large range of existing neuropsychological, neuropsychiatric, and, lately, neuroimaging investigations have not yet given a consistent picture of the psychological and biological disturbances involved in this psychiatric disorder. The present study of the cognitive functions in depression was part of an extensive investigation, including neuropsychological testing, psychiatric examination, and neuroimaging. A representative sample of 40 severely depressed hospitalized patients and a group of 49 closely matched control subjects were tested with an extensive neuropsychological test battery. Results, corrected for various confounding factors, confirmed the current notion that depressed patients suffer from wide-spread cognitive impairments. The group analysis did not allow any hypothesis on a possible pattern to the dysfunctions, but heterogeneity in the test performances calls for further analysis of the data in patient subgroups in relation to neuroimaging results.     

On the speed of intuition: Intuitive judgments of semantic coherence under different response deadlines

Intuition is the ability to judge stimulus properties on the basis of information that is activated in memory but not consciously retrieved. We investigated one central feature of intuitive judgments--namely, their speed. Participants judged whether or not three clue words were coherent in the sense that they were weakly associated with a common fourth concept. To restrict the time available for conscious deliberation of possible solution words, participants had to synchronize their judgments with a response signal appearing at different lags after the clue words. In two experiments, participants discriminated coherent and incoherent triads reliably better than chance, even when they did not consciously retrieve the solution word and the lag between clue words and response signal was as short as 1.5 sec. Results indicate that intuitive judgments can indeed be made very fast and without extended conscious deliberation. Possible mechanisms underlying intuitive judgments are discussed.     

Evaluating the efficiency and community safety goals of the Broward County Mental Health Court

Mental health courts have developed as one response to persons with mental illness who are involved with the criminal justice system. This study investigated the efficiency and safety goals of one such court in Broward County, FL. Mental health court (MHC) clients spent significantly fewer days in jail for the index arrest associated with study enrollment than a comparison group. MHC clients had similar survival time to re-arrest up to one year after study enrollment. MHC clients did not significantly differ from the comparison group in self-reported aggressive acts over an 8 month follow-up period, while they did self-report significantly fewer acts of violence than the comparison group at the 8 month follow-up. These findings suggest that some of the benefits associated with the MHC reported in prior studies were not achieved at the expense of efficiency and safety.     

Training-based interventions in motor rehabilitation after stroke: theoretical and clinical considerations

Basic neuroscience research on brain plasticity, motor learning and recovery has stimulated new concepts in neurological rehabilitation. Combined with the development of set methodological standards in clinical outcome research, these findings have led to a double-paradigm shift in motor rehabilitation: (a) the move towards evidence-based procedures for the assessment of clinical outcome & the employment of disablement models to anchor outcome parameters, and (b) the introduction of practice-based concepts that are derived from testable models that specify treatment mechanisms. In this context, constraint-induced movement therapy (CIT) has played a catalytic role in taking motor rehabilitation forward into the scientific arena. As a theoretically founded and hypothesis-driven intervention, CIT research focuses on two main issues. The first issue is the assessment of long-term clinical benefits in an increasing range of patient groups, and the second issue is the investigation of neuronal and behavioural treatment mechanisms and their interactive contribution to treatment success. These studies are mainly conducted in the research environment and will eventually lead to increased treatment benefits for patients in standard health care. However, gradual but presumably more immediate benefits for patients may be achieved by introducing and testing derivates of the CIT concept that are more compatible with current clinical practice. Here, we summarize the theoretical and empirical issues related to the translation of research-based CIT work into the clinical context of standard health care.