Community treatment for the seriously mentally ill: Is this community psychology?

Community treatment for seriously mentally ill individuals fits well into the philosophy of community psychology. Community psychologists have skills and experiences with other populations that represent assets in improving the ACT service model and producing richer and more useful research results for the future. Maybe we should ask ourselves why community psychologists have obviously avoided this intervention area and the population of seriously mentally ill individuals. Does this represent an adolescent reaction to the parent discipline — clinical psychology? Is the label “mentally ill” as stigmatizing to community psychologists as it is to the general population? Are these individuals written off as not worthy of or capable of benefiting from preventive interventions? Advocates for the seriously mentally ill are mounting a backlash against prevention services. We would be well advised at this time to become involved in community treatment and demonstrate that community psychology is forall vulnerable and at-risk population groups. If the truth of the matter is that “community psychology is not doing much of a job of empowering people” (Berkowitz, 1990), maybe the truth of the matter is also that we need to reach out to more disenfranchised populations with research to show that community psychologycan do the job of empowering some.     

Sex differences in children's time use

A sample of children (410 on a school day and 347 on a non-school day) was examined to determine differences in time spent in household work, leisure activities, school, paid work, personal care, and sleep by males and females. Males spent more time in leisure activities and less time in household work and personal care than females. Differences in time allocation appeared to be in accordance with traditional male-female roles. These patterns were established at early ages.     

The Use of Contextual Information by Right Brain-Damaged Individuals in the Resolution of Ambiguous Pronouns

Two experiments were conducted with the primary purpose of investigating the ability of right brain-damaged (RBD) individuals to use contextual information—at the level of the single sentence, in terms of the integration of information between clauses, and at the level of a minimal discourse (i.e., two sentences)—in the resolution of ambiguous pronouns. The investigation was extended to a group of left brain-damaged (LBD) and non-brain-damaged (NBD) individuals. Contrary to the prevailing view that RBD patients have difficulty in the use of contextual information to process language, both experiments were consistent in demonstrating that the RBD group was influenced by contextual information in a manner similar to that demonstrated by both the LBD and NBD groups.     

EFFECTS OF HIGH-PROBABILITY REQUESTS ON THE SOCIAL INTERACTIONS OF YOUNG CHILDREN WITH SEVERE DISABILITIES

High-probability requests were used to increase social interactions in 3 young boys with severe disabilities who had been identified as severely socially withdrawn. A multiple baseline design across participants was used to evaluate the effects of high-probability request intervention on (a) social initiations, (b) social responses, (c) continued interactions, and (d) performance of high- and low-probability requests. The students were observed in a second setting to examine generalization effects across peers who did not participate in the training sequence and settings. The results demonstrated that the high-probability requests increased the students' responsiveness to low-probability requests to initiate social behavior. Increases were also found in (a) unprompted initiations and extended interactions to the training peers, (b) unprompted initiations and extended interactions to peers who were not involved in the training procedure, and (c) generalized unprompted initiations and interactions in a second nontraining setting. The students maintained increased levels of initiations and interactions after all prompts were removed from both the training and nontraining settings.     

Avoidance Responses to Alternative Alcohol Warning Labels1

A preference-based measure of responses to warning labels was used to study alternative alcohol warning labels that differed in: (a) length, (b) presence of qualifier words, (c) alternative content, and (d) specific beverage. The specific risks mentioned were more important than the overall label length, qualifier words reduced avoidance responses, various alternative warnings elicited more avoidance responses than the existing alcohol warning label, and more avoidance responses were made to labels on a whiskey bottle than on a beer bottle. Warnings with the words “poison,”“cancer,” or “health problems” were the most powerful. The results for college students in Study 1 were replicated in a high-school sample in Study 2.     

The Effect of Information Format and Performance Pattern on Performance Appraisal Judgments in a Computerized Performance Monitoring Context1

This paper examines how the presentation of computer-monitored performance information affects performance judgments. Two factors were examined: the performance pattern and the information format. In a computer simulation, subjects were responsible for evaluating the performance of a computer-monitored typist. They were assigned to one of three format conditions: a periodic, delayed, or summarized format. The pattern of the typist's performance was also varied: It either improved, worsened, or remained about the same during the simulation. Results indicate that performance pattern affected subjects' ratings of overall performance, performance quality, and performance consistency. Both factors influenced ratings of future performance and recall of specific performance information. Implications of these results for performance appraisals and computerized performance monitoring systems are discussed.     

The Heritability of Characteristics Associated with Dispositional Empathy

ABSTRACT This investigation used data from Loehlin and Nichols's (1976) study of over 800 sets of twins to examine evidence for the heritability of three facets of empathy: empathic concern, personal distress, and perspective taking. Expert judges first identified sets of adjectives, included within Loehlin and Nichols's original data, which reflected each empathy construct; these items were then validated in an independent sample. Comparisons of the responses given to these items by identical and fraternal twins in the Loehlin and Nichols investigation revealed evidence of significant heritability for characteristics associated with the two affective facets of empathy—empathic concern and personal distress—but not for the nonaffective construct of perspective taking. This pattern is consistent with the view that temperamental emotionality may underlie the heritability of affective empathy.     

Worldly and workaday worries: Contemporary concerns of children and young adolescents

Top-of-the-head worries were elicited from young people, grades 4 to 8, both before and after they completed quantitative risk assessments of specific health and environmental problems. Results revealed that many students carry a substantial worry burden that includes not only personal matters such as grades and social relations, but also concerns about death and about global issues such as homelessness and environmental degradation. The gender and grade differences that emerged were consistent with a developmental extension from self to societal perspectives. Differences in worry profiles from before to after the risk assessment interviews revealed some impact of recent exposure, as illustrated by a pre—post increase from 7% to 30% in students spontaneously expressing AIDS-related concerns. Implications of the breadth and severity of young people's concerns are discussed, as are the ambiguities inherent in standard assessment approaches.This research was supported by grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HD27035) and the University of California Universitywide AIDS Research Program (R901040). We very much appreciate the cooperation of Sally Snyder and the Irvine Unified School District, Amy Watson and the Corinne A. Seeds University Elementary School, Trina Panaqua and the Bruin Kids of UCLA, and the Fernald Child Study Center. Special thanks are due to the 4th- through 8th-grade student participants. We are also grateful to Ellen Dellis, Virginia Elderkin-Thompson, Judy Hollingshead, Alison Holman, Judy Koch-Jones, and Kim Witte for their help with the interviews and to Tammy Merlo, Shealen Nash, and Beth Twambley for competent coding assistance. Finally, we thank the anonymous editorial reviewers for constructive comments on the nature of fear and worry.     

Hearing the Difference: Theorizing Connection

Hearing the difference between a patriarchal voice and a relational voice defines a paradigm shift: a change in the conception of the human world. Theorizing connection as primary and fundamental in human life leads to a new psychology, which shifts the grounds for philosophy and political theory. A crucial distinction is made between a feminine ethic of care and a feminist ethic of care. Voice, relationship, resistance, and women become central rather than peripheral in this reframing of the human world.