Education and testing strategy for large-scale cystic fibrosis carrier screening

Population-based screening for cystic fibrosis carrier mutations presents a number of challenges for genetic counselors, owing primarily to the inability of current DNA testing technology to identify all possible mutations and the difficulty involved in conveying the concept of residual risk to those patients who test negative. To address these issues, we are conducting a pilot study, as part of a consortium established by the National Center for Human Genome Research, to explore the efficacy, acceptance, and psychosocial impact of various approaches to carrier screening in an ethnically diverse Southern California population. This article reports the patient instructional and screening strategies we developed in the initial phase of the project in order to optimize our chances of answering these questions and delivering this service on a large scale.     

Qualities Underlying the Definitions of Gender

Dimensions underlying the definition of items as feminine and masculine were examined in a set of three studies. Items chosen by children as belonging to males or females were used as the initial stimuli. These included traditionally stereotyped items such as a hammer and an iron, as well as more metaphorically related items such as bears and flowers. The raters in all three studies were undergraduates (70% White, 30% minorities). In Study 1, the items were rated using a set of 40 common adjectives. Three factors resulted: two related to masculine items and one to feminine items. In Study 2, a subset of the adjectives were used to rate abstract paintings that had been designated feminine or masculine by another group of adults. In Study 3, a set of stimuli were developed using the adjectives from the previous two studies. The items were rated as feminine or masculine and matched the initial coding of the adjective. The new items were also rated on the same adjectives by another set of adults. Again, the masculine adjectives were assigned to masculine items and feminine to feminine items. There was excellent agreement across three different sets of stimuli on the underlying dimensions of gender definition, even using items that were not traditionally stereotyped.     

Toward a Model Informed Consent Process for BRCA1 Testing: A Qualitative Assessment of Women's Attitudes

As an initial part of a project to develop a model informed consent process for BRCA1 testing, we conducted a series of focus groups. At the groups, women initially expressed great interest in testing, but their interest diminished after learning more. If offered testing, women would most want to learn about test accuracy, practical details of testing, and management options if the result was positive. Perceived benefits of testing included gaining information leading to risk reduction, relief of uncertainty, more responsible parenting, and assisting in research. Perceived risks included the discomfort and cost of the testing process itself, and anxiety after a positive result. The risk of possible insurance discrimination was rarely mentioned spontaneously. Many women would want their providers to make recommendations, rather than be nondirective about testing. We observed that women vary greatly in their informational and counseling needs, and suggest that the informed consent process should be individualized, taking into account a woman's perception and her preferences for how testing decisions should be made.     

Memory distortion in group recall

Earlier we reported (Basden, Basden, Bryner, ...Thomas, 1997) that, in comparison with nominal groups (three people tested individually), three-person collaborative groups recalled fewer presented words but intruded more nonpresented words. In the present research, Experiment 1 showed that when presented words were associatively related to critical nonpresented words, collaboration inhibited recall of presented words but did not influence recall of critical nonpresented words. Experiment 2 showed that with categorized lists, recall of high taxonomic frequency critical nonpresented words was greater for collaborative groups than for nominal groups. Collaboration did not inhibit recall of presented words, presumably because guessing supplemented recall in collaborative groups. Greater false recall in collaborative than in nominal groups appears to result from activation of superordinate-to-item associations rather than item-to-item associations.     

Careers,contingencies, and locus of control among White college women

This study examined social-psychological antecedents of the sex type of occupational preferences and expectations of White college women. High sex-role contingency orientation (SRCO)—attitudes and explanations for occupational choices which reflect a primary and explicit concern with marriage and family—was associated with expectations and preferences for occupations in which females predominate and with the tendency to have more traditionally feminine expectations than preferences.SRCO was significantly related to locus of control (I-E) with women high or intermediate in SRCO being primarily internal or external; women with low SRCO being primarily intermediate in I-E.This study was supported by a Faculty Research Grant from the Graduate Research Council of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.     

Attitude processing strategies

Several models of memory-based attitude processing were examined in a laboratory experiment. After receiving stimulus information with implications for either one or both of two attitudes (toward a person and toward a behavior with respect to this person), subjects were asked to recall the information and to report their attitudes. Information was received under instructions to form only one of these two attitudes. Consistent with past research, information was subsequently better recalled when it had implications for the attitude being evaluated than when it did not. However, null effects of the instructional set on reported attitudes suggested that subjects relied on their memory-for-attitude (or additional implications) rather than on memory-for-facts. The present findings extend the generality of this conclusion to behavioral attitudes, large stimulus sets, and heterogeneous stimulus items. Low correlations between recalled stimuli and reported attitudes also supported a memory-for-attitude model. However, correlations between behavioral attitudes and recall of behavioral outcomes increased under certain conditions. Results are discussed in relation to recent findings in person perception research.