Mentoring as a Mediator or Moderator of the Association between Racial Discrimination and Coping Efficacy in Urban,Low‐Income Latina/o Youth

The aim of this study was to examine the associations among mentoring relationship quality (i.e., relational and instrumental quality), racial discrimination and coping efficacy with racial discrimination. Three social support models were tested, including the stress buffering, support mobilization, and support deterioration models. Participants were 257 urban, low‐income Latina/o high school students, who completed surveys in both 9th and 10th grades. While controlling for gender and coping efficacy with discrimination in 9th grade, results supported the social support deterioration model. Specifically, there was a significant indirect effect of racial discrimination in 9th grade on coping efficacy in 10th grade through instrumental mentoring quality. As racial discrimination increased, mentoring quality decreased and then coping efficacy decreased. We also found that more racial discrimination in 9th grade was significantly associated with lower coping efficacy in 10th grade, and higher instrumental mentoring quality in 9th grade was significantly associated with higher coping efficacy in 10th grade, while controlling for gender and coping efficacy in 9th grade. Implications and recommendations for future research are discussed.     

Value Priorities and Organ Donation in Young Adults

This research identifies major personal values among American university students that predict organ-donation registration with the Department of Motor Vehicles. Participants responded to a factual test of their knowledge about organ donation, indicated whether or not they had registered as posthumous donors, and filled out a personality inventory measuring their personal values (Schwartz, 1992, 1994). The data indicated a high level of factual knowledge about organ donation; and the greater the level of knowledge, the more likely participants were registered to donate their organs. Also, participants higher in benevolence, universalism, achievement, and stimulation were more likely to have registered to donate their organs. The results are discussed in terms of the need to develop more effective health-communication campaigns by using specific health-education messages tailored to students majoring in different disciplines or to people in various occupations as a means of increasing their willingness to donate.     

Confirmation of the three-factor model of problematic internet use on off-line adolescent and adult samples

As the Internet became widely used, problems associated with its excessive use became increasingly apparent. Although for the assessment of these problems several models and related questionnaires have been elaborated, there has been little effort made to confirm them. The aim of the present study was to test the three-factor model of the previously created Problematic Internet Use Questionnaire (PIUQ) by data collection methods formerly not applied (off-line group and face-to-face settings), on the one hand, and by testing on different age groups (adolescent and adult representative samples), on the other hand. Data were collected from 438 high-school students (44.5 percent boys; mean age: 16.0 years; standard deviation=0.7 years) and also from 963 adults (49.9 percent males; mean age: 33.6 years; standard deviation=11.8 years). We applied confirmatory factor analysis to confirm the measurement model of problematic Internet use. The results of the analyses carried out inevitably support the original three-factor model over the possible one-factor solution. Using latent profile analysis, we identified 11 percent of adults and 18 percent of adolescent users characterized by problematic use. Based on exploratory factor analysis, we also suggest a short form of the PIUQ consisting of nine items. Both the original 18-item version of PIUQ and its short 9-item form have satisfactory reliability and validity characteristics, and thus, they are suitable for the assessment of problematic Internet use in future studies.     

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) for Primary School Teachers

Stress within the teaching profession has a negative impact on the health and well-being of individual teachers and on retention and recruitment for the profession as a whole. There is increasing literature to suggest that Mindfulness is a useful intervention to address a variety of psychological problems, and that Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is a particularly helpful intervention for stress. We investigated the effects of teaching a MBSR course to primary school teachers to reduce stress. The MBSR course was taught to a group of primary school teachers and evaluated to establish its effects on levels of anxiety, depression, and stress, as well as movement towards a stated goal and changes in awareness. The results showed improvement for most participants for anxiety, depression, and stress, some of which were statistically significant. There were also significant improvements on two of the four dimensions of a mindfulness skills inventory. These results suggest that this approach could be a potentially cost-effective method to combat teacher stress and burnout.     

Family Intervention Effects on Co-occurring Early Childhood Behavioral and Emotional Problems: A Latent Transition Analysis Approach

This study used latent transition analysis (LTA) to examine changes in early emotional and behavioral problems in children age 2 to 4 years resulting from participation in a family-centered intervention. A sample of 731 economically disadvantaged families was recruited from among participants in a national food supplement and nutrition program. Families with toddlers between age 2 and 3 were randomized either to the Family Check-Up (FCU) or to a nonintervention control group. The FCU’s linked interventions were tailored to each family’s needs. Assessments occurred at age 2, 3, and 4. The FCU followed age 2 and age 3 assessments. Latent class analyses were conducted on mother reports of behavior and emotional problems from age 2 to 4 to study transitions among the following four groups: (a) externalizing only, (b) internalizing only, (c) comorbid internalizing and externalizing, and (d) normative. LTA results revealed that participation in the FCU increased the likelihood of transitioning from either the comorbid or the internalizing class into the normative class by age 4. These results suggest family interventions in early childhood can potentially disrupt the early emergence of both emotional and behavioral problems.     

Modeling the Information Preferences of Parents of Children with Mental Health Problems: A Discrete Choice Conjoint Experiment

Although materials informing parents about children’s mental health (CMH) problems can improve outcomes, we know relatively little about the design factors that might influence their utilization of available resources. We used a discrete choice conjoint experiment to model the information preferences of parents seeking mental health services for 6 to 18 year olds. Parents completed 30 choice tasks presenting experimentally varied combinations of 20 four-level CMH information content, transfer process, and outcome attributes. Latent class analysis revealed three segments with different preferences. Parents in the Action segment (43%) chose materials providing step-by-step solutions to behavioral or emotional problems. They preferred weekly meetings with other parents and coaching calls from a therapist. The Information segment (41%) chose materials helping them understand rather than solve their child’s problems. These parents were more sensitive to logistical factors such as receiving information in groups, the location where information was available, the modality in which the information was presented, and the time required to obtain and use the information. The Overwhelmed segment (16%) reported more oppositional and conduct problems, felt their children’s difficulties exerted a greater adverse impact on family functioning, and reported higher personal depression scores than those in the Action or Information segments. Nonetheless, they did not choose information about, or solutions to, the problems their children presented. Simulations predicted that maximizing utilization and realizing the potential benefits of CMH information would require knowledge transfer strategies consistent with each segment’s preferences.

Across the thin blue line: police officers and racial bias in the decision to shoot

Police officers were compared with community members in terms of the speed and accuracy with which they made simulated decisions to shoot (or not shoot) Black and White targets. Both samples exhibited robust racial bias in response speed. Officers outperformed community members on a number of measures, including overall speed and accuracy. Moreover, although community respondents set the decision criterion lower for Black targets than for White targets (indicating bias), police officers did not. The authors suggest that training may not affect the speed with which stereotype-incongruent targets are processed but that it does affect the ultimate decision (particularly the placement of the decision criterion). Findings from a study in which a college sample received training support this conclusion.     

Functional deterioration in individuals with schizophrenia spectrum personality symptoms.

Although previous studies have noted functional deterioration in patients with severe schizotypal symptoms who meet criteria for schizotypal personality disorder, we are not aware of any study which examines level of functioning in nonpatients who experience mild schizophrenia spectrum personality (SSP) symptoms. With this issue in mind, occupational functioning was examined in non-patient subjects with mild SSP symptoms. Patients were recruited from the community by newspaper advertisements or from the first-degree relatives of patients with schizophrenia. Individuals with no DSM-IIIR Axis I diagnosis and with SSP symptoms (n = 60) and without symptoms (n = 75) participated in the study. The two groups had similar mean age and years of education. Occupational function was evaluated using the Level of Function Scale. The SSP patients with mild symptoms had significantly lower occupational scores (5.62 + 2.50) than the non-SSP patients (7.76 + 0.69; p < 0.001). A total of 39% of SSP patients, compared with 3% of non-SSP patients showed poor occupational functioning (chi 2 = 31, df = 1, p < 0.001). There was a significant deterioration in the socioeconomic status in SSP patients compared with their parents' status. Patients with mild SSP symptoms who were otherwise healthy showed severe difficulties with occupational function. Further research is needed to identify subtle deficits underlying functional deterioration and to develop targets for treatment strategies.     

The effect of the physical characteristics of cues and targets on facilitation and inhibition

The present experiment was conducted in order to examine the role of cue&#x2014;target discriminability on early occurring attentional cuing effects and late occurring inhibition of return (IOR). The experiment used a single target stimulus in conjunction with three different cue stimuli. The cues were the same as the target, different in color, shape, and luminance to the target, or did not spatially overlap with the target. At shorter stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs; 100 and 200 msec), attentional cuing effects were only found with the nonoverlapping cues. However, at longer SOAs (400 and 800 msec), approximately equal IOR effects were found with all three types of cues. The results indicated that the physical characteristics of the cues and targets affected the pattern of reaction times at the shorter SOAs but not at the longer SOAs. The conclusion is that the biphasic pattern of early facilitation and late inhibition following a peripheral cue should not be considered the definitive signature of the peripheral cuing paradigm.