The Relation of Perceived Neighborhood Danger to Childhood Aggression: A Test of Mediating Mechanisms

In the current study, two mediational mechanisms, parenting practices and children's beliefs about aggression, were hypothesized to account for the relationship between perceived neighborhood danger and childhood aggression. Using structural equation modeling, data were analyzed from an inner-city school-based sample of 732 predominantly African American 5th graders. Results suggested that perceived neighborhood danger was associated with strong positive beliefs about aggression, which in turn was associated with high levels of aggression. The hypothesized mediating role of parenting practices (restrictive discipline, parental monitoring, and parental involvement) on the relation between perceived neighborhood danger and child aggression was not supported. However, the current findings suggest that children's positive beliefs about aggression mediated the relationship between restrictive discipline and aggression. Directions for future research are discussed.     

Sex and cultural differences in the factorial structure of the self-directed search

Holland's Self-Directed Search was administered to 247 male and 252 female high school students, aged 16 to 18 years, attending state schools in New Zealand. Principal factor analysis was used in an attempt to identify six orthogonal factors analogous to Holland's six personality types. The Social and Enterprising scales could not be split into two factors in either sample, and the Investigative and Realistic scales defined a single factor for the female students. Computed distances between pairs of the six personality types in five dimensional factorial space were compared with the relative ordering of the distances expected from Holland's hexagonal model. The positions of the types in space corresponded more closely with the model for the males than they did for the females. The results, in conjunction with those of similar studies in Israel and the United States, imply that the correspondence between some summary codes on the SDS and existing occupational classifications based on Holland's types may be less than perfect, particularly for females. Also, care should be taken when using codes on the SDS to calculate Holland's indices of “consistency,” especially for females.     

Superior Students' Occupational Preferences and Their Fathers' Occupations

The relationship between the occupational preferences of 147 superior students and their fathers' occupations was traced over the 4-year period that the students attended high schools in Wisconsin. Analysis of the data indicated that both male and female superior students tended to state vocational preferences at the professional level early in high school and to maintain this preference throughout. Their occupational preferences were generally at a higher level than those of their fathers. There was no trend away from general preferences for work at a professional level toward naming of specific occupations within that level. The results suggest that theories of vocational development that imply that stages are passed through during later adolescent periods do not apply to the superior student population of this study.     

Predecisional information acquisition: Effects of task variables on suboptimal search strategies

Effective overall performance in judgment tasks generally involves both acquisition of information and integration of the information acquired. When information is costly the decision maker must balance acquisition costs against improved decisional accuracy, a complex balancing problem in which, laboratory evidence suggests, humans often do poorly. The three experiments reported here extend this earlier evidence to different task structures, subject pools, incentive systems, information volumes, decision aids, and kind of data sources. Though each of these factors was found to affect performance, the general finding was of persistent underpurchase (buying less information overall than is optimal) and mispurchase (buying poor sources when better sources are available at the same cost), with significant inflation of overall costs. It is proposed that unaided human judgment is unequal to the complexity of the cost/benefit trade-offs involved in acquiring costly information, and that formal decision analysis should be preferred whenever the stakes justify.     

Contracting, prompting, and reinforcing substance use disorder continuing care: a randomized clinical trial.

Although continuing care is strongly related to positive treatment outcomes for substance use disorder (SUD), participation rates are low and few effective interventions are available. In a randomized clinical trial with 150 participants (97% men), 75 graduates of a residential Veterans Affairs Medical Center SUD program who received an aftercare contract, attendance prompts, and reinforcers (CPR) were compared to 75 graduates who received standard treatment (STX). Among CPR participants, 55% completed at least 3 months of aftercare, compared to 36% in STX. Similarly, CPR participants remained in treatment longer than those in STX (5.5 vs. 4.4 months). Additionally, CPR participants were more likely to be abstinent compared to STX (57% vs. 37%) after 1 year. The CPR intervention offers a practical means to improve adherence among individuals in SUD treatment.     

Item-specific and relational encoding effects in children's recall and recognition memory for words

This study tests the hypothesis that children's deficiency in encoding itemspecific and relational information in episodic events contributes to age differences in recall and recognition. In two experiments, grade school children and college adults were presented with word triplets varying in categorical relatedness. The processing of the item-specific and relational information in the triplets was independently manipulated. Experiment 1 assessed cued recall, and Experiment 2 assessed recognition of both the central target and incidental contextual members of each triplet. The results showed that the processing manipulations had independent and different effects on recall and recognition, on memory for the members of the different kinds of triplets, on the use of the retrieval cues, and on memory for target and incidental words. Developmental differences were found in both recall and recognition, and of both target and incidental words, that varied with triplet type and the processing manipulations and that were attributable to differences in the encoding of item-specific and relational information in the triplets. The discussion contrasts alternative accounts of children's encoding deficiency, and suggests that the distinction between automatic, age-invariant, and strategic age-sensitive encoding processes needs to be redrawn.     

Sexually selective cognition: beauty captures the mind of the beholder

Across 5 experimental studies, the authors explore selective processing biases for physically attractive others. The findings suggest that (a). both male and female observers selectively attend to physically attractive female targets, (b). limiting the attentional capacity of either gender results in biased frequency estimates of attractive females, (c). although females selectively attend to attractive males, limiting females' attentional capacity does not lead to biased estimates of attractive males, (d). observers of both genders exhibit enhanced recognition memory for attractive females but attenuated recognition for attractive males. Results suggest that different mating-related motives may guide the selective processing of attractive men and women.     

Rule Violations in Intercollegiate Athletics: A Qualitative Investigation Utilizing an Organizational Justice Framework

Cheating and rule violations in intercollegiate athletics continue to be relevant issues in many institutions of higher education because they reflect upon the integrity of the institutions in which they are housed, causing concern among many faculty members, administrators, and trustees. Although a great deal of research has documented the numerous rule violations in NCAA intercollegiate athletics, much of it has failed to combine sound theory with practical solutions. The purpose of this study was to examine the possible extensions of the organizational justice framework to the problem of rule violations in intercollegiate athletics. In doing so, the current study examined (a) perceived areas of injustice among coaches at NCAA Division I institutions, (b) avenues by which coaches resolve these injustices, and (c) potential solutions for resolving injustices in an attempt to reduce NCAA violations. Six NCAA Division I basketball coaches from various parts of the country (four from men's teams and two from women's teams) were interviewed using a semi-structured format. Despite the NCAA's efforts to create parity, results showed that coaches perceived several areas of inequities in recruiting, including financial resources and academic standards. The interviewed coaches described several means that are currently used to resolve these inequities and offered recommendations for changes to reduce injustice in the future.     

Estimated Intelligence Moderates Cognitive Processing Therapy Outcome for Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms

Although patient intelligence may be an important determinant of the degree to which individuals may comprehend, comply with, and ultimately benefit from trauma-focused treatment, no prior studies have examined the impact of patient intelligence on benefit from psychotherapies for PTSD. We investigated the degree to which educational achievement, often used as a proxy for intelligence, and estimated full scale intelligence quotient (FSIQ) scores themselves moderated treatment outcomes for two effective psychotherapies for PTSD: Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) and Written Exposure Therapy (WET). Participants, 126 treatment-seeking adults with PTSD (52% male; mean age = 43.9, SD = 14.6), were equally randomized to CPT and WET; PTSD symptom severity was measured at baseline and 6-, 12-, 24-, 36-, and 60-weeks following the first treatment session. Multilevel models revealed that participants with higher FSIQ scores experienced significantly greater PTSD symptom reduction through the 24-week assessment in CPT but not WET; this effect did not persist through the 60-week assessment. Educational achievement did not moderate symptom change through either 24- or 60-weeks. Individuals with higher FSIQ who are treated with CPT may experience greater symptom improvement in the early stages of recovery.