Sexual behavior in Spanish adolescents of divorced parents

Marital breakup has been associated with numerous behavioral problems in children, such as sexual risk behaviors. This research is the first to examine sexual behaviors of Spanish adolescents related to whether their parents were married or divorced. Participants were 342 boys and girls aged between 14 and 18 years. The sample provided confidential information about their sexual behavior and birth control methods. Significant differences were only found in percentages of adolescents who had engaged in mutual masturbation, intercourse, or oral sex, and who had practiced these sexual relations in the last six months, in both cases, they were higher when the parents had broken their marital relationship. Regarding adolescents of divorced parents, engaging in intercourse is more likely in older teenagers who live with a stepparent. Moreover, older adolescents who were younger when parents divorced and who live in a reconstituted family, have more sexual partners. These and other findings are discussed.     

Visual attention to emotion in depression: facilitation and withdrawal processes

Attentional biases for sadness are integral to cognitive theories of depression, but do not emerge under all conditions. Some researchers have argued that depression is associated with delayed withdrawal from, but not facilitated initial allocation of attention toward, sadness. We compared two types of withdrawal processes in clinically depressed and non-depressed individuals: (1) withdrawal requiring overt eye movements during visual search; and (2) covert disengagement of attention in a modified cueing paradigm. We also examined initial allocation of attention towards emotion on the visual search task, allowing comparison of withdrawal and facilitation processes. As predicted, we found no evidence of facilitated attention towards sadness in depressed individuals. However, we also found no evidence of depression-linked differences in withdrawal of attention from sadness on either task, offering no support for the theory that depression is associated with withdrawal rather than initial facilitation of attention.     

Autonomy and the Moral Symmetry Principle: Reply to Frowe and Tooley

Helen Frowe has recently objected to Michael Tooley’s famous Moral Symmetry Principle, which is meant to show that in themselves killing and letting die are morally equivalent. I argue that her objection is not compelling but a more compelling objection is available. Specifically, Tooley’s rebuttal of a proposed counter-example to his Moral Symmetry Principle has two problematic implications. First, it undercuts the very principle itself. If we reject the proposed counter-example, then any instance of the Moral Symmetry Principle will actually demonstrate the moral in-equivalence of killing and letting die. Second, it commits us to the view, which Tooley wishes to avoid, that we are just as obligated to refrain from doing wrong as we are to prevent others from doing the same. I conclude with a brief discussion of a more general concern regarding Tooley’s basic strategy. My focus here is quite narrow. My claims, if plausible, only show that the Moral Symmetry Principle is unsound and thus cannot serve as a basis for the view that killing and letting die are morally equivalent.     

Acceptability,Feasibility, and Effectiveness of Internet-Based Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in New York

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), consisting of exposure and response prevention (EX/RP), is both efficacious and preferred by patients with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), yet few receive this treatment in practice. This study describes the implementation of an Internet-based CBT program (ICBT) developed in Sweden in individuals seeking OCD treatment in New York. After translating and adapting the Swedish ICBT for OCD, we conducted an open trial with 40 adults with OCD. Using the RE-AIM implementation science framework, we assessed the acceptability, feasibility, and effectiveness of ICBT. The Yale–Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) was the primary outcome measure. Of 40 enrolled, 28 participants completed the 10-week ICBT. In the intent-to-treat sample (N = 40), Y-BOCS scores decreased significantly over time (F = 28.12, df = 2, 49, p < . 001). Depressive severity (F = 5.87, df = 2, 48, p < . 001), and quality of life (F = 12.34, df = 2, 48, p < . 001) also improved. Sensitivity analyses among treatment completers (N = 28) confirmed the intent-to-treat results, with a large effect size for Y-BOCS change (Cohen’s d = 1.38). ICBT took less time to implement than face-to face EX/RP and participants were very to mostly satisfied with ICBT. On a par with results in Sweden, the adapted ICBT program reduced OCD and depressive symptoms and improved quality of life among individuals with moderate to severe OCD. Given its acceptability and feasibility, ICBT deserves further study as a way to increase access to CBT for OCD in the United States.     

Panning for the gold in health research: Incorporating studies’ methodological quality in meta-analysis

Background: Systematic reviews now routinely assess methodological quality to gauge the validity of the included studies and of the synthesis as a whole. Although trends from higher quality studies should be clearer, it is uncertain how often meta-analyses incorporate methodological quality in models of study results either as predictors, or, more interestingly, in interactions with theoretical moderators.

Objective and methods: We survey 200 meta-analyses in three health promotion domains to examine when and how meta-analyses incorporate methodological quality.

Results: Although methodological quality assessments commonly appear in contemporary meta-analyses (usually as scales), they are rarely incorporated in analyses, and still more rarely analysed in interaction with theoretical determinants of the success of health promotions. The few meta-analyses (2.5%) that did include such an interaction analysis showed that moderator results remained significant in higher quality studies or were present only among higher quality studies. We describe how to model quality interactively with theoretically derived moderators and discuss strengths and weaknesses of this approach and in relation to current meta-analytic practice.

Conclusions: In large literatures exhibiting heterogeneous effects, meta-analyses can incorporate methodological quality and generate conclusions that enable greater confidence not only about the substantive phenomenon but also about the role that methodological quality itself plays.     

Associative activation of stimulus representations restores lost salience: implications for perceptual learning

In 3 experiments, rats received preexposure to presentations of a compound flavor BX. The effective salience of B was then tested by assessing its ability to interfere with the aversion controlled by another flavor or the tendency to drink a saline solution after the induction of a salt need. It was found that the effective salience of B was maintained when during preexposure, presentations of BX alternated with presentations of X alone. This was true both when BX was presented as a simultaneous compound (Experiment 1) and as a serial compound (X-->B; Experiments 2 and 3); salience was not maintained when the serial compound took the form B-->X (Experiments 2 and 3a). It was argued that the salience of B declines during preexposure but is restored when presentations of X are able to activate the representation of B by way of the associative X-B link.     

What the voice reveals: within- and between-category stereotyping on the basis of voice

The authors report research that attempts to shift the traditional focus of visual cues to auditory cues as a basis for stereotyping. Moreover, their approach examines whether gender-signaling vocal cues lead not only to between-category but also to within-category gender stereotyping. Study 1 showed that both men and women vary within category in how feminine their voices sound and that perceptions of vocal femininity are highly consensual. Furthermore, the measured acoustic characteristics that differed between gender were also related to perceptions of within-gender femininity. Subsequent studies demonstrated that variability in vocal femininity affects gender stereotyping when the targets are all of the same gender (Study 2) and when the targets are of different genders (Study 3). In the latter case, evidence of both category-based and feature-based stereotyping was found. Mediation analyses showed that the relationship between acoustics and stereotyping was in part due to femininity.     

Challenges using motivational interviewing as an adjunct to exposure therapy for obsessive-compulsive disorder

Exposure and response prevention (EX/RP) is an efficacious treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). However, patients often do not adhere fully to EX/RP procedures. Motivational interviewing (MI) has been shown to improve treatment adherence in other disorders. This pilot study used a randomized controlled design to examine whether MI can be successfully added to EX/RP and whether this intervention (EX/RP + MI) could improve patient adherence to between-session EX/RP procedures relative to EX/RP alone. Thirty adults with OCD were randomized to 18 sessions of EX/RP or EX/RP + MI. Therapists rated patient adherence at each exposure session. Independent evaluators assessed change in OCD and depressive symptoms, and patients completed self-report measures of readiness for change and quality of life. The two treatment conditions differed in degree of congruence with MI but not in conduct of EX/RP procedures. Both groups experienced clinically significant improvement in OCD symptoms, without significant group differences in patient adherence. There are several possible reasons why EX/RP + MI had no effect on patient adherence compared to standard EX/RP, each of which has important implications for the design of future MI studies in OCD. We recommend that MI be further evaluated in OCD by exploring alternative modes of delivery and by focusing on patients less ready for change than the current sample.     

Gender label and perceived infant emotionality: a partial replication of a classic study

In a study often referred to as "classic," Condry and Condry (1976) showed a videotaped infant to participants, telling half of them the infant was a boy and half it was a girl. Participants who thought they were viewing a boy rated the infant's reaction to a jack-in-the-box as anger; those who thought they were viewing a girl rated the reaction as fear. Participants in the present partial replication of the Condrys' study did not rate the infant differently based on the infant's gender label, although there was evidence that participants' own sex affects their perception of an infant's emotionality. Results were discussed in light of inconsistent results among other gender-labeling studies and relevant methodological, historical, and theoretical issues.