Temporal judgments and contextual change

Three experiments investigated effects of environmental context on temporal memory judgments. An equal number of items occurred within each of two equal durations (D1 and D2). Subjects subsequently were asked to judge the length of a given duration in comparison with the other, then to discriminate the correct list and serial position for each recognized item on a test. If environmental context was unchanged, D1 was remembered as being longer than D2; if the context was disrupted during the interval separating D1 and D2, this effect was reduced; and if the context prevailing during D2 also was changed, the effect was eliminated. List discrimination was improved only if the context was changed. Serial-position judgment was not affected by either manipulation. Changes in process context--the internal context produced by the performance of specific cognitive processes--lengthened remembered duration, but the effect did not simply add on to the effects of environmental context. Results are discussed in terms of a contextual-change hypothesis.     

Locus of control and smokeless tobacco use among adolescents

Seventh-grade students from two school districts in rural North Carolina were surveyed to determine the prevalence and correlates of smokeless tobacco use. The survey was carried out as part of a larger project intended to study prevalence of "risky" behaviors, specifically alcohol and tobacco use. Data were collected from 322 students: 49% male, 36.6% nonwhite. Of those reporting use of smokeless tobacco (11.4%), virtually all were male; most reported weekly use, with a small proportion (1.3%) reporting daily use. Locus of control of "occasional" users was significantly more internal than those reporting "regular" use (p less than .05).     

Computer-assisted psychotherapy

By making careful selections and arrangements from the numerous items of information that arise in dynamic psychotherapy and filing them in a microcomputer, this information can be made more readily available to the therapist. Its greater availability can facilitate developing understanding of the patient, making specific and timely insightful interventions, and supporting other aspects of the therapy.     

Egocentrism and ego resiliency: personality characteristics associated with perspective-taking from early childhood to adolescence

In this study we examined the longitudinal relation between ego resiliency and egocentrism. Measures of Level 1 and Level 2 egocentrism were administered to one hundred eleven 3 1/2-year-old children. Independent personality evaluations were available on these children at ages 3, 4, 7, 11, and 14 in the form of Q-sort ratings by independent sets of teachers and examiners. The relation between egocentrism and ego resiliency was observed to depend on level of egocentrism, as well as on sex of subject. In the sample of girls, both Level 1 and Level 2 egocentrism were negatively correlated with ego resiliency concurrently at age 3, but no long-term implications of egocentrism emerged. In the sample of boys, Level 1 egocentrism was consistently negatively associated with ego resiliency from early childhood (age 3) into adolescence (age 14). However, Level 2 egocentrism displayed no concurrent nor any dependable longitudinal relation with ego resiliency. The discussion focuses on possible interpretations of the relation between egocentrism and ego resiliency and on the sex differences in the pattern of longitudinal results.     

The Making of an Interdisciplinary Partnership: The Case of the Chicago Food System Collaborative

Interdisciplinary partnerships foster innovation to address pressing social problems. This paper describes an interdisciplinary partnership called the Chicago Food System Collaborative (CFSC) composed of a team of partners from four academic institutions and three community-based organizations representing a total of eight disciplines that included: community development and community organizing, community psychology, geography, nursing, nutrition, public health, sociology, and urban planning and policy. Partners came together to address the issue of access to healthy foods and nutrition in a working class African American neighborhood. We analyze and discuss the core principles that guided the partnership and its impact across three dimensions: understanding through interdisciplinary action research, building capacity, and facilitating innovations in practices and policies. Despite the challenges of interdisciplinary partnerships, the potential benefits and impact of such efforts reflect their value as a comprehensive approach to addressing complex social problems.     

Beyond Protection Motivation: An Integrative Theory of Health Appeals

We develop an integrated theory of health communication by combining protection motivation theory (PMT; Rogers, 1983) with the stages of change described in the transtheoretical model (Prochaska & DClemente, 1982). Our study challenges the assumption implicit in PMT that perceptions of vulnerability, severity, response efficacy, and self-efficacy are equally weighted across individuals. Rather, we propose that people at different stages of readiness to change are differentially affected by levels of these predictor variables. Results from our experiment confirm that vulnerability, severity, and efficacy (response and self) are the main motivators to change behavior during the precontemplation, contemplation, and action stages, respectively. Furthermore, we explore how specific categories of beliefs identified by the transtheoretical model are associated with perceptions of vulnerability, severity, response efficacy, and self-efficacy.