Group interventions for patients with cancer and HIV disease: part IV. Clinical and policy recommendations

Group interventions have assumed a growing role in primary prevention and supportive care for cancer and HIV disease. Earlier sections of this Special Report examined empirical findings for these interventions and provided recommendations for future research. The current section offers brief recommendations for service providers, policymakers, and stakeholders. Group services now occupy an increasingly prominent place in primary prevention programs and medical settings. In previous sections of this Special Report (Sherman, Leszcz et al., 2004; Sherman, Mosier et al., 2004a, 2004b) we examined the efficacy of different group interventions at different phases of cancer or HIV disease, considered characteristics of the intervention and the participants that might influence outcomes, and discussed mechanisms of action. Methodological challenges and priorities for future research were highlighted. In this, the final section, we offer brief recommendations for service providers, policymakers, and other stakeholders. We consider some of the barriers that constrain use of empirically-based group interventions and note how these programs might be implemented more widely and effectively.     

Implications of test revisions for research

Test revisions are increasingly common in psychology and neuropsychology in particular. However, such revisions may alter in complex ways the kind of information obtained, and they may assess traits, abilities, and conditions in ways different from earlier versions. This article outlines some of the problems associated with the revision of tests facing clinicians and researchers. Three broad classes of revision are considered. Part 1 considers the aging of tests, part 2 concerns the aging of participants, and part 3 considers changes in test format. Although the article focuses largely on measures of intelligence and personality, the issues addressed in the article apply to other tests and assessment domains as well.     

How critical is “critical thinking”?

Before criticism is justified, an account of the applicable criteria should be given. This task concerns first of all the well-known logical principles of identity, contradiction and the excluded middle. They connect critical thinking to the conceptual element of rationality and to the normed nature of logical thinking, manifest in logically sound (norm-conformative) thinking and antinormative thinking—briefly also accounting for the dialectical tradition. An analysis of these principles requires an understanding of the uniqueness of, and coherence between, the logical and non-logical aspects in the light of contraries like logical-illogical, polite-impolite and frugal-wasteful. It also questions the idea of autonomy and examines the switch from principles to values. When a school of thought does not accept all the logical principles, the criteria for scientific thinking are challenged, for example in intuitionistic logic which rejects the universal validity of the principle of the excluded middle. It is then argued that the principle of sufficient reason and that of the excluded antinomy points at a more than logical foundation for critical thinking and ultimately calls for a non-reductionist ontology.     

Response Style Theory Revisited: Gender Differences and Stereotypes in Rumination and Distraction

Response Style Theory [S. Nolen-Hoeksema (1987) “Sex Differences in Unipolar Depression: Evidence and Theory,” Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 101, pp. 259–282] suggests that, when depressed, women ruminate on their sad feelings while men distract themselves from theirs. We sought to examine this gender difference in more detail. In Study 1, 155 students provided stereotype ratings or self-reports of responses to depression. The stereotype ratings conformed precisely to Response Style Theory yet exaggerated self-reported gender differences, especially for men. In Study 2, 40 roommate pairs completed a similar set of ratings. Again, other-ratings conformed exactly to Response Style Theory's predictions while self-ratings showed a more moderated pattern. In both studies, women reported ruminating more than did men, yet men and women were equally likely to report distraction. We conclude by examining several hypotheses for the discrepancies between stereotypes and self-reports for men as well as the increased rates of rumination among women.     

Lateralization in attainment and maintenance of neonatal head posture: further external validation

Consistencies in lateral head turning of 50 healthy, term neonates were examined to determine relations between attainment and maintenance of lateral head position. The majority showed lateral consistencies, typically rightward, in initial head turn from midline per trial, in direction of the majority of all head turns from midline per trial and in direction turned for the majority of time per trial. Head position prior to testing was related to the three indices. The results of work to date, including the current study, have proven very consistent in nature, yielding the most reliable measure of an element of lateralized behavior in the neonate.     

The acquisition of taste aversions in humans with eating and drinking disorders

A written questionnaire or interview concerned with acquisition of illness-induced (taste) aversions to foods and drinks was given to three groups of people with eating and drinking disorders. These groups consisted of 101 male and 1 female hospitalized alcoholics, 8 male and 8 female college-student heavy consumers of alcohol and 18 females with anorexia nervosa and/or bulimia. In most respects taste-aversion acquisition in these three groups was similar to taste-aversion acquisition in a general college-student population previously studied by Logue, Ophir and Strauss (1981), and to taste-aversion acquisition in other species. In all three groups the aversions were more likely to be reported as having been formed through forward rather than simultaneous or backward conditioning, and long-delay learning was frequent. The aversions usually formed to the tastes rather than to the appearance or other aspects of the foods and drinks. Extinction appeared more effective in decreasing the aversions than did forgetting. While the illness responsible for the aversions forming was usually attributed to the subsequently aversive food or drink, in at least one third of the cases subjects reported that something else might have caused their illness. Aversions were more likely to have formed to relatively less familiar and less preferred foods and drinks. However, the hospitalized alcoholics reported fewer aversions, less generalization of aversions, and stronger nausea as the cause of the aversions than did Logue et al.'s (1981) subjects. About 15% of these subjects reported taste aversions to alcoholic beverages. The college-student heavy consumers of alcohol reported no generalization of their taste aversions, but in other respects were similar to Logue et al.'s subjects. Thirty-one percent of these subjects reported taste aversions to alcoholic beverages. The anorexic and bulimic subjects were also similar to Logue et al.'s subjects with the exception that they, like the hospitalized alcoholics, reported stronger nausea as the cause of the aversions. These data may help to understand and treat people with eating and drinking disorders     

Effect of hemispherectomy in infantile hemiplegics

Four patients with infantile hemiplegia who had undergone hemispherectomy were examined. both left (LH) and right (RH) hemidecorticates obtained borderline defective scores on IQ tests. Patients with isolated right hemispheres were found not to be aphasic or apraxic. Visuospatial and constructional capacities were compromised in all patients. Individuals with an isolated right hemisphere smiled and gestured more than did those with an isolated right hemisphere. EEG and CT scan data showed that the remaining hemisphere was not normal in these patients. Therefore, inferences regarding the functional plasticity of the remaining hemisphere must be made with caution.     

Religiosity and Attitudes Toward Diversity: A Potential Workplace Conflict?1

The study investigates relationships between 2 measures of religiosity (immanence orientation and religious fundamentalism) and 2 measures of attitudes toward diversity (universal‐diverse orientation and attitudes toward gay men and lesbians). As expected, different conceptualizations of religiosity relate differently to diversity attitudes. Immanence orientation related positively and religious fundamentalism related negatively with both measures of diversity attitudes. However, when both measures were included in the hierarchical regression equation, immanence orientation no longer related significantly with attitudes toward lesbians and gay men; and religious fundamentalism no longer related significantly with universal‐diverse orientation. Finally, gender and immanence interacted to predict universal‐diverse orientation. Implications are discussed.