Discussion

Stresses precipitating the request for psychotherapeutic help, including the psychological conflicts involved in such stress, were assessed by judges listening to taped psychotherapy interviews with 43 outpatients. This paper reports upon the methods devised to record these judgments. Good agreement by two independent judges on the measures employed suggested that psychotherapy interviews selectively focused on limited goals can be valid sources of information about current stressors, conflicts, and modes of behavior, and increase understanding about the resolution of crises.     

New Mutations of the Protestant Ethic among Latin American Pentecostals

This article argues that there is a partial consonance between the ‘inner-worldly asceticism’ of the fast-growing Protestant movement in Latin America and the economic imperatives of the global capitalism into which Latin America has been progessively incorporated since the 1960s.This consonance stops short of being an unequivocal ‘elective affinity’ since there are also points of tension between the new Protestant ethic and the spirit of contemporary capitalism. It is argued that such consonance as exists arises out of a complex symbiosis rather than a simple one-way causal relationship. The article outlines the range of views among Latin American Pentecostal Protestants about the implications of their faith for economic behaviour, and relates these views to current economic conditions. It suggests that certain Protestant habits and values minimally assist economic survival and can even lead to modest success. Particular attention is paid to recent developments in the Pentecostal movement in Latin America which diverge from the classic Protestant ethic of the West, notably the emergence of an indigenous prosperity gospel and a selective acceptance of consumerism.     

Domain‐specific impulsivity in school‐age children

Impulsivity is a salient individual difference in children with well‐established predictive validity for life outcomes. The current investigation proposes that impulsive behaviors vary systematically by domain. In a series of studies with ethnically and socioeconomically diverse samples of middle school students, we find that schoolwork‐related and interpersonal‐related impulsivity, as observed by teachers, parents, and the students themselves, are distinct, moderately correlated behavioral tendencies. Each demonstrates differentiated relationships with dimensions of childhood temperament, Big Five personality factors, and outcomes, such as report card grades. Implications for theoretical conceptions of impulsivity as well as for practical applications (e.g. domain‐specific interventions) are discussed.     

Inhibitory processes in young and older adults in a picture-word task

Abstract

The present study examines changes in healthy young and healthy older adults in the ability to inhibit partially activated information in a picture/word interference paradigm. On each trial, subjects received a cue (i.e., the word PICTURE or WORD) indicating which of two stimuli the subject should attend to in an upcoming picture/word display. the display always contained a superimposed picture and word (e.g., a picture of a DEER with the word TEA printed on it). Following display offset, and depending upon the initial precue, either a test picture (e.g., KETTLE) or a test word (e.g., MOOSE) was presented. the subject's task was to determine as quickly and as accurately as possible whether the test stimulus was related to the cued dimension of the earlier picture/word display. the speed to reject an unrelated test item (e.g., picture of a KETTLE when the precue was PICTURE) that was related to the ignored dimension of the picture/word display (e.g., the word TEA in the picture/word display) was used as an index of the efficiency of the inhibitory system. the results indicated that older adults had more difficulty than younger adults inhibiting a to-be-ignored word when it was related to a picture test item, but did not have more difficulty inhibiting a to-be-ignored picture when it was related to a word test item. the results indicate that an age-related deficit in the control of interfering information is dependent upon the fluency of the processing routes.     

Temperament and Gender: Correlates of Toddler Social Competence

The relation between temperament, gender, and social competence was examined in a sample of 202 children ranging from 12 to 36 months of age. Gender and specific characteristics of temperament corresponded more with toddler social competence than did a more general style of temperament. Females were rated by mothers and group caregivers as more socially competent than males on all four measures used in the study and significantly more so on three of these measures. Characteristics of temperament most closely associated with toddler social competence were approach/withdrawal, adaptability to change, and general quality of mood.     

Reframing Medicine’s Publics: The Local as a Public of Vaccine Refusal

Although medical and public health practitioners aim for high rates of vaccination, parent vaccination concerns confound doctors and complicate doctor-patient interactions. Medical and public health researchers have studied and attempted to counter antivaccination sentiments, but recommended approaches to dispel vaccination concerns have failed to produce long-lasting effects. We use observations made during a small study in a rural area in a southeastern state to demonstrate how a shift away from analyzing vaccination skepticism as a national issue with a global remedy reveals the nuances in vaccination sentiments based on locality. Instead of seeing antivaccinationists as a distinct public based on statistical commonalities, we argue that examining vaccination beliefs and practices at the local level offers a fuller picture of the contextualized nature of vaccination decisions within the psychosocial spaces of families. A view of vaccination that emphasizes the local public, rather than a globally conceived antivaccination public, enables medical humanists and rhetoricians to offer important considerations for improving communications about vaccinations in clinical settings.     

Behavioral group treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder in adolescence: a pilot study

This pilot study is a preliminary evaluation of the effectiveness of a cognitive-behavioral outpatient group treatment (CBT) protocol for adolescents with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Seven adolescents were treated in a 10-session group CBT program with weekly 2-hour sessions. The treatment protocol was an adaptation of approaches with established effectiveness and emphasized three main components: externalizing the OCD by cultivating mindful detachment; exposure and response prevention (ERP); and refocusing on alternative, constructive behaviors following exposure. An occupational therapy component played a significant role in designing creative exposure and refocusing challenges. Self-report measures at pre, post, and 12-month follow-up suggested clinical improvements for 5 of the 7 patients, thus partially supporting a group treatment format for adolescents with mild to moderate OCD.     

THE EFFECTS OF VISUAL,VERBAL, AND MOTOR ELABORATIONS ON PRESCHOOL CHILDREN'S RECALL AND COMPREHENSION OF PROSE

This study examined the differential effect of dynamic (visual and motor) and static (visual and verbal) elaborations on preschool children's Immediate and delayed memory (recall of explicit content) and comprehension (recall of Implicit content) of prose. Eighty children, ages 3 1/2 to 5 1/2 years were randomly assigned to five treatment groups: 1) Read (R) condition ‐ unelaborated single reading of story; 2) Read‐Read (RR) condition ‐ two consecutive readings (static verbal elaboration); 3) Visual (S) condition ‐ story + observation of stationary representational props (static visual elaboration); 4) Experimenter‐Manipulate (E‐M) condition ‐ story + observation of experimenter manipulating props (dynamic visual elaboration); and 5) Subject‐Manipulate (S‐M) condition ‐ story + self manipulation of props (dynamic visual‐motor elaboration). As predicted, Ss In E‐M and S‐M conditions generally exhibited greater Immediate and delayed recall of both explicit and Implicit content than did Ss In the R condition. Unexpectedly, few differences were obtained between the dynamic and static conditions, or between the static RR and S conditions, although these results were obscured by age differences and question set Interactions. However, a relatively consistent trend was revealed In the data ‐ while dynamic visual‐motor elaborations enhanced both explicit and Implicit memory, static verbal elaborations generally enhanced only explicit recall. The superior recall of children In the E‐M and S‐M conditions was Interpreted as supporting the proposition that dynamic visual and motor elaborations of prose Induce Interactive Imagery In children as young as 3 1/2 to 5 1/2 years of age, and thereby enhance both their rote memory and constructive Inferential processing of information.