Context Matters: Promises and Concerns Regarding Nanotechnologies for Water and Food Applications

Expectations in the form of promises and concerns contribute to the sense-making and valuation of emerging nanotechnologies. They add up to what we call ‘de facto assessments’ of novel socio-technical options. We explore how de facto assessments of nanotechnologies differ in the application domains of water and food by examining promises and concerns, and their relations in scientific discourse. We suggest that domain characteristics such as prior experiences with emerging technologies, specific discursive repertoires and user-producer relationships, play a key role in framing expectations of nanotechnology-enabled options. The article concludes by suggesting that domain-specific discourses may lead to undesirable lock-ins into specific de facto assessments pre-structuring anticipatory strategies of actors.     

Disagreement about Taste: Commonality Presuppositions and Coordination

This paper confronts the disagreement argument for relativism about matters of taste, defending a specific form of contextualism. It is first considered whether the disagreement data might manifest an invariantist attitude that speakers have pre-reflectively. Semantic and ontological enlightenment should then make the impressions of disagreement vanish, or at least leave them as lingering ineffectual Müller-Lyer-like illusions; but it is granted to relativists that this does not fully happen. López de Sa's appeal to presuppositions of commonality and Sundell's appeal to metalinguistic disagreement are discussed, and it is argued that, although they help to clarify the issues, they do not fully explain why such impressions remain under enlightenment. To explain it, the paper develops a suggestion that other writers have made, that the lingering impression of disagreement is a consequence of a practical conflict, appealing to dispositions to practical coordination that come together with presuppositions of commonality in axiological matters.     

PTSD, Depressive Symptoms, and Suicidal Ideation in African American Women: A Mediated Model

Although research has shown positive associations among post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depressive symptoms, and suicidal ideation, the nature of these relations is unclear, especially in African American women. This study examined the associations among these comorbid psychological difficulties in a sample of 136 low-income, African American women. Specifically, the goal of this investigation was to ascertain if overall depressive symptoms, as well as both the cognitive-affective and somatic components of depression, mediated the PTSD-suicidal ideation link. Results from bootstrapping analyses revealed that overall depressive symptoms and the cognitive-affective components of depression, but not the somatic components, mediated the PTSD-suicidal ideation link.     

Video Intervention for Child and Caregiver Distress Related to the Child Sexual Abuse Medical Examination: A Randomized Controlled Pilot Study

Children who disclose child sexual abuse are often referred for a comprehensive medical exam to ensure physical well-being and gather evidence. This study examined a brief, developmentally appropriate, psychoeducational video designed to instruct children and caregivers about the exam procedures and coping strategies to be used during the exam. Sixty-nine children ages 4–15 and their caregivers were randomly assigned to view the psychoeducational video (n = 35) or to receive standard practice (n = 34). Distress before, during, and after the exam was assessed in both children and caregiver, as were measures of satisfaction and knowledge about the investigation process and coping strategies. Consistent with hypotheses, results indicated that the video intervention was well-received by families, increased caregiver knowledge, and decreased stress during the examination. Caregiver and child distress decreased from pre to post examination across both conditions, and, unexpectedly, there were no significant differences in these decreases between groups. Overall results from this pilot study are promising in supporting a cost-effective and brief early intervention approach at the time of the medical examination for child sexual abuse for children and their caregivers.     

The phenomenology of self-reported body dysmorphic disorder by proxy

Body dysmorphic disorder by proxy (BDDBP), a preoccupation with a perceived defect in another person's appearance may represent a variant of BDD. However, BDDBP has received little empirical attention. We present here the phenomenology of 11 individuals with self-reported BDDBP. Participants completed an internet-based survey that assessed symptoms, psychosocial impact, and treatment history. Participants (8 females, 3 males) reported preoccupation with a wide array of individuals (e.g., spouse, stranger). Body parts of concern most commonly involved the face and head. Most participants spent several (e.g., 3–8) hours per day preoccupied by perceived defects in the person of concern (POC). All participants engaged in rituals to try to alleviate distress or improve the POC's appearance. Most avoided social/occupational activities, including contact with the POC. The impact of BDDBP was profound, particularly on relationships. Findings may help elucidate diagnostic criteria, course, and treatment.     

Concurrent Performance of Gunner's and Robotics Operator's Tasks in a Multitasking Environment

In this study, we simulated a generic mounted crew station environment and conducted an experiment to examine the workload and performance of the combined position of gunner and robotics operator. Results showed that participants' gunnery task performances degraded significantly when he had to concurrently monitor, manage, or teleoperate an unmanned ground vehicle compared to the gunnery single task condition. For the robotics tasks, participants had the lowest performance when using the semi-autonomous robot, indicating overreliance on the aided target recognition capabilities available when task load was heavy (i.e., concurrent performance of the gunnery task). Participants' perceived workload increased consistently as the concurrent task conditions became more challenging. Individual difference factors such as spatial ability and perceived attentional control were found to correlate significantly with some of the performance measures. Implications for military personnel selection were discussed.     

Remembering the silver lining: Reappraisal and positive bias in memory for emotion

Reappraisal and distraction, unlike suppression, are known to decrease the intensity of negative emotion in the short term. Little is known about long-term characteristics associated with emotion regulation strategies, however. In a longitudinal study, we examined the relation between the strategies people reported using to regulate emotions during a stressful situation and their later memory for their emotions. Students in Italy rated the intensity of positive and negative emotions they were experiencing as they prepared for their high school exit exam. They also rated the extent to which they were regulating emotion using reappraisal, distraction, and suppression. Six weeks later, students recalled their pre-exam emotions. The more students reported engaging in reappraisal before the exam, the more they overestimated positive emotion and underestimated negative emotion when recalling their experience. The association between reported reappraisal and memory bias was partially mediated by positive changes over time in students’ appraisals of the exam preparation experience. Reports of engaging in distraction and suppression were not associated with memory bias. Because remembered emotion guides future choices, these findings suggest that reappraisal is a highly adaptive strategy for coping with stressful situations, not only in the short run, but also in the long run.     

Negative Treatment Effects in Dyadic Psychotherapy: A Focus on Prevention and Intervention Strategies

Therapy holds the potential to harm as well as help. This paper highlights approaches that may help prevent or decrease the incidence of negative effects in psychotherapy. These approaches include supervision, peer consultation, ongoing assessment of the therapeutic process, therapist-client matching, and referrals and transfers. We hope that this paper will serve as a stimulus for clinicians, psychotherapy researchers, and educators to put forth collabo-rative effort into identifying variables directly associated with adverse treat- ment outcomes and determining appropriate prevention and intervention strategies.