Risk-taking attitudes among young drivers: the psychometric qualities and dimensionality of an instrument to measure young drivers' risk-taking attitudes

Adolescents are proportionately more frequently involved in traffic accidents than are other age groups. A strategy for promoting road safety is to change the attitudes likely to influence driving behavior. However, the lack of valid and reliable instruments to measure risk-taking attitudes makes it difficult to evaluate the effects of measures aimed at changing attitudes among young drivers and their passengers. The present study tested the psychometric qualities of a scale intended to measure adolescents' risk-taking attitudes to driving. The results are based on a self-completion questionnaire survey carried out among 3,942 adolescents and young adults, aged 16-23 years, in Norway in 1998/1999. Using both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, 11 dimensions of risk-taking attitudes were identified. Parametric as well as nonparametric methods were applied to test the homogeneity of items within each attitude dimension. The reliability and validity of the dimensions were satisfactory. The attitude dimensions were significantly correlated with self-reported driving behavior, as well as accident frequency. The application of the new measurement instrument in studies aimed at evaluating safety campaigns is discussed.     

Learning related modulation of functional retrieval networks in man

The medial temporal lobe has been implicated in studies of episodic memory tasks involving spatio-temporal context and object-location conjunctions. We have previously demonstrated that an increased level of practice in a free-recall task parallels a decrease in the functional activity of several brain regions, including the medial temporal lobe, the prefrontal, the anterior cingulate, the anterior insular, and the posterior parietal cortices, that in concert demonstrate a move from elaborate controlled processing towards a higher degree of automaticity. Here we report data from two experiments that extend these initial observations. We used a similar experimental approach but probed for effects of retrieval paradigms and stimulus material. In the first experiment we investigated practice related changes during recognition of object-location conjunctions and in the second during free-recall of pseudo-words. Learning in a neural network is a dynamic consequence of information processing and network plasticity. The present and previous PET results indicate that practice can induce a learning related functional restructuring of information processing. Different adaptive processes likely subserve the functional re-organisation observed. These may in part be related to different demands for attentional and working memory processing. It appears that the role(s) of the prefrontal cortex and the medial temporal lobe in memory retrieval are complex, perhaps reflecting several different interacting processes or cognitive components. We suggest that an integrative interactive perspective on the role of the prefrontal and medial temporal lobe is necessary for an understanding of the processing significance of these regions in learning and memory. It appears necessary to develop elaborated and explicit computational models for prefrontal and medial temporal functions in order to derive detailed empirical predictions, and in combination with an efficient use and development of functional neuroimaging approaches, to further the understanding of the processing significance of these regions in memory.     

Occupational Therapists' Experience Concerning Occupational Performance in Adults With Asperger Syndrome

Persons with Asperger Syndrome often seem to have difficulty performing everyday occupations. This study aimed to describe occupational therapists' experience concerning abilities to occupational performance among adults with Asperger Syndrome. Data were collected in interviews with eight occupational therapists and analyzed using a qualitative method. Results showed that clients with Asperger Syndrome often possess abilities but seem to have difficulties knowing when, where, and how they should use them. The ability to adapt behavior in accordance with cues from the environment was identified as the core category. Environment plays a major role in how these persons interact in different situations.     

Elternschaft, Krebs und Kindersorgen

Background

The diagnosis of parental cancer may destabilize the whole family, parents and children as well. The Hamburg children of somatically ill parents (COSIP) intervention supports parental skills and adaptation of children to the situation. There is currently no evidence for criteria to determine which family members should be involved in the COSIP intervention, predominantly the parents (parent setting), the children (child setting) or both (family setting).

Aim of the study

Data from a multicentre study were analyzed with respect to the predominant intervention settings, the correlation between setting and aims of intervention as well as variables that predict the involvement of children in the intervention.

Material and methods

A total of 203 documented cases were analyzed. Different variables that had been documented by the therapists were included in a regression analysis model in order to identify predictive variables.

Results

In 142 cases the intervention was carried out in a specific intervention setting. In 57?% of the cases children were involved (32?% family setting and 25?% child setting). A systematic relationship between the reported intervention aims and the intervention setting was not detected. The most powerful predictor was the existence of emotional problems of children as reported by the child itself.

Conclusions

Decision-making on intervention settings should therefore take the assessment of emotional symptoms of children by the means of age-appropriate self-reporting tools into consideration. Further investigations are needed to reveal variables concerning needs, motivation and capabilities of the family members as well as institutional conditions.     

Effects of Personal Epistemology on the Understanding of Multiple Texts

We examined whether the text understanding of students holding naïve and sophisticated epistemological beliefs was differentially affected by text format, also controlling for effects of gender, word decoding, and prior knowledge on understanding. The participants were 39 Norwegian first-year teacher students, and the topic of reading was attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It was found that only readers holding sophisticated epistemological beliefs displayed adequate understanding when reading multiple, partly conflicting, texts about ADHD, whereas students holding naïve epistemological beliefs gained better understanding when reading a single textbook-like source with identical content. This finding, however, depended on the level of understanding being measured by the criterial task, with only the task measuring deeper situational text understanding showing an interaction between epistemological beliefs and text format. This study provides evidence that not only knowledge itself, but also personal beliefs about knowledge, may enhance or constrain deeper understanding of multiple texts.     

Differences in the Psychic Representation of the Body in Bulimic and Anorexic Patients: A Study with the Body Grid

Development and use of a new form of a body grid are reported in the present article by means of comparing body perception and its distortions of 32 anorectic patients with a group of 31 bulimic patients. The body grid allows the users to discriminate the degree of body acceptance and the level of integration and dissociation tendencies of single body parts. With the body grid we are able to identify important differences in body image and “body-experience profiles” of bulimic and anorectic patients. Furthermore, with the body grid some insights into the structure of the body image are depicted in the form of a readily accessible graphic figure, making them useful for therapeutic focusing, treatment, and experience, tasks that rarely have been achieved by conventional methods like questionnaires or so-called projective tests.     

‘If it makes you feel good it must be right’: Embodiment strategies for healthy eating and risk management

The following arguments are constructed around the encounter of embodied experiences and societal discourses. On the basis of an ethnographic study of 34 Danish consumers, we present different consumers' strategies in relation to their perception of healthy food and management of food‐related health risk. Drawing on a subsample representing particular subject positions in relation to healthy eating, we argue for an increased role of embodiment in consumers' risk handling. The study shows that because of the overload of information, consumers increasingly turn to personal experiences and bodily feelings as the instrument and strategy for evaluating possible health risk and benefit. Furthermore, the study shows how these evaluations are related to broader political and socio‐economic issues as well as closely intertwined with notion of trust and mistrust. Through embodied feelings, consumers navigate and negotiate their position in relation to social discourses of health and risk. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

We have travelled a long distance and sorted out the mess in the drawers: Metaphors for moving towards the end in psychotherapy

Aim: To explore the process of ending in psychotherapy, in particular how clients and therapists draw on their notions of client improvements and prepare for the upcoming end. Data: The data comes from an intensive process‐outcome study at the University of Oslo, Norway. The study includes audio‐recording from all sessions and separate post‐therapy interviews with clients and therapists. Twelve psychotherapy dyads were selected because they had reached a ‘good enough’ ending. Therapy duration ranged from 7–43 months. The number of sessions ranged from 10–67. Method and analysis: A hermeneutical‐phenomenological approach analysed and combined the observational and reflexive data. The analysis was carried out using a method for systematic text condensation and through reflexive dialogues with the material and between the researchers. Findings and discussion: The language of improvement towards the end of treatment seemed packed with metaphors conveying growth in both affective and relational management. Metaphors based on travel (how they have moved); cleaning (how they have cleaned up and sorted out things); sensing (how the clients have grown stronger, got their heads above water and see things differently); and the clients’ feeling of having received something (gifts or tools) are widely used. Such metaphors are created in the interaction with a mutual sensitivity to their capacity to confirm and regulate affect towards the end. In this sense, the metaphors celebrate accomplishments in a way that exceeds therapy, and the client can keep them to use afterwards.