Community norms about suppression of AIDS-related prejudice and perceptions of stigma by people with HIV or AIDS

We investigated the relationship between community motivations to control AIDS-related prejudice and the experience of stigma by community members with HIV or AIDS, using self-reports from 203 New England residents with HIV or AIDS and 2,444 randomly selected residents of the same New England communities. Multilevel regression analyses revealed that the disclosure concerns of participants with HIV or AIDS were lower in communities where residents were motivated by personal values to control AIDS-related prejudice, and were higher in communities where residents were motivated by social pressure to control AIDS-related prejudice. Reported experiences with discrimination and exclusion were unrelated to community motivations. The results of our study suggest that external and internal pressures to control prejudice shape the experience of stigmatization.     

Convergence of scores on the interview and questionnaire versions of the Eating Disorder Examination: a meta-analytic review

Significant discrepancies have been found between interview- and questionnaire-based assessments of psychopathology; however, these studies have typically compared instruments with unmatched item content. The Eating Disorder Examination (EDE), a structured interview, and the questionnaire version of the EDE (EDE-Q) are considered the preeminent assessments of eating disorder symptoms and provide a unique opportunity to examine the concordance of interview- and questionnaire-based instruments with matched item content. The convergence of EDE and EDE-Q scores has been examined previously; however, past studies have been limited by small sample sizes and have not compared the convergence of scores across diagnostic groups. A meta-analysis of 16 studies was conducted to compare the convergence of EDE and EDE-Q scores across studies and diagnostic groups. With regard to the EDE and EDE-Q subscale scores, the overall correlation coefficient effect sizes ranged from .68 to .76. The overall Cohen's d effect sizes ranged from .31 to .62, with participants consistently scoring higher on the questionnaire. For the items measuring behavior frequency, the overall correlation coefficient effect sizes ranged from .37 to .55 for binge eating and .90 to .92 for compensatory behaviors. The overall Cohen's d effect sizes ranged from -0.16 to -0.22, with participants reporting more binge eating on the interview than in the questionnaire in 70% of the studies. These results suggest the interview and questionnaire assess similar constructs but should not be used interchangeably. Additional research is needed to examine the inconsistencies between binge frequency scores on the 2 instruments.     

Life without definitions

The question ‘what is life?’ has long been a source of philosophical debate and in recent years has taken on increasing scientific importance. The most popular approach among both philosophers and scientists for answering this question is to provide a “definition” of life. In this article I explore a variety of different definitional approaches, both traditional and non-traditional, that have been used to “define” life. I argue that all of them are deeply flawed. It is my contention that a scientifically compelling understanding of the nature of life presupposes an empirically adequate scientific theory (vs. definition) of life; as I argue, scientific theories are not the sort of thing that can be encapsulated in definitions. Unfortunately, as I also discuss, scientists are currently in no position to formulate even a tentative version of such a theory. Recent discoveries in biology and biochemistry have revealed that familiar Earth life represents a single example that may not be representative of life. If this is the case, life on Earth today provides an empirically inadequate foundation for theorizing about life considered generally. I sketch a strategy for procuring the needed additional examples of life without the guidance of a definition or theory of life, and close with an application to NASA’s fledgling search for extraterrestrial life.     

Music therapy with hospitalized infants—the art and science of communicative musicality

Infants seek contingent, companionable interactions with others. Infants in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), while receiving care that optimizes their chances of survival, often do not have the kind of interactions that are optimal for their social development. Live music therapy (MT) with infants is an intervention that aims for contingent, social interaction between therapist and infant. This study, with a limited numbers of infants, examined the effectiveness of an MT intervention in the NICU at The Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne. Two groups of late pre‐term and full‐term infants were recruited to the study; one was given MT and the other was not. A healthy group of infants not given MT served as an additional control. The effect of MT was indexed using two measures reflecting infant social engagement: the Neurobehavioral Assessment of the Preterm Infant (NAPI) and the Alarm Distress Baby Scale (ADBB). Results suggest that the MT intervention used at The Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne supports infants' neurobehavioral development. In particular, hospitalized infants who received MT were better able to maintain self‐regulation during social interaction with an adult, were less irritable and cried less, and were more positive in their response to adult handling, when compared with infants who did not receive the intervention. These are important prerequisites for social interaction and development. Further and larger scale research using MT with this population is indicated.     

Primary Care Physicians’ Awareness, Experience and Opinions of Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing

The purpose of this study was to assess primary care physicians’ awareness, experience, opinions and preparedness to answer patients’ questions regarding direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing. An anonymous survey was mailed to 2,402 family and internal medicine providers in North Carolina. Of the 382 respondents, 38.7% (n = 148) were aware of and 15% (n = 59) felt prepared to answer questions about DTC genetic tests. Respondents aged 50 or older were more likely to be aware of DTC genetic testing than those less than 40 years old (OR = 2.42). Male providers were more likely to feel prepared to answer questions than female providers (OR = 2.65). Among respondents who reportedly were aware, family practitioners were more likely than internists (OR = 3.30) to think DTC testing was clinically useful, and 18.9% had patients ask questions or bring in test results. The small percent of physicians who were aware of DTC genetic testing or felt prepared to answer questions about it suggests that education of providers will be necessary if testing becomes more widespread.     

Avoidant coping in panic disorder: a yohimbine biological challenge study

Few studies have addressed whether the use of avoidance-oriented coping strategies is related to the development of panic in patients with panic disorder(PD). Self-report, clinician-rated, and physiological data were collected from 42 individuals who participated in a yohimbine biological challenge study, performed under double-blind, placebo-controlled conditions. Participants included 20 healthy controls and 22 currently symptomatic patients who met DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria for PD. Consistent with prediction, patients with PD who had higher perceived efficacy of avoidance-oriented strategies in reducing anxiety-related thoughts reported increased severity in panic symptoms during the yohimbine challenge condition as compared to the placebo. Further, patients with PD who had more fear of cognitive dyscontrol, cardiovascular symptoms, and publicly observable anxiety also reported increased severity in panic symptoms during the challenge. Healthy controls who had more fear of cardiovascular symptoms similarly reported increased severity in panic symptoms during the challenge. No effects were found for heart rate response to the challenge agent. These results provide support for the role of avoidance-oriented coping strategies and fear of anxiety-related symptoms as risk and maintenance factors in the development of panic symptoms, particularly within a biological challenge model.     

Using consumer preference information to increase the reach and impact of media-based parenting interventions in a public health approach to parenting support

Within a public health approach to improving parenting, the mass media offer a potentially more efficient and affordable format for directly reaching a large number of parents with evidence-based parenting information than do traditional approaches to parenting interventions that require delivery by a practitioner. Little is known, however, about factors associated with parents' interest in and willingness to watch video messages about parenting. Knowledge of consumer preferences could inform the effective design of media interventions to maximize parental engagement in the parenting messages. This study examined parents' preferred formats for receiving parenting information, as well as family sociodemographic and child behavior factors that predict parents' ratings of acceptability of a media-based parenting intervention. An ethnically diverse sample of 162 parents of children ages 3-6 years reported their preferences for various delivery formats for parenting information and provided feedback on a prototype episode of a video-format parenting program based on the Triple P Positive Parenting Program. Parents reported the strongest preference for self-administered delivery formats such as television, online programs, and written materials; the least preferred formats were home visits, therapists, and multiweek parenting groups. Parents' ratings of engagement, watchability, and realism of the prototype parenting episode were quite strong. Parents whose children exhibited clinical levels of problem behaviors rated the episode as more watchable, engaging, and realistic. Mothers also rated the episodes as more engaging and realistic than did fathers. Lower income marginally predicted higher watchability ratings. Minority status and expectations of future problems did not predict acceptability ratings. The results suggest that the episode had broad appeal across groups.     

Norine G. Johnson (1935-2011)

On November 19, 2011, Norine G. Johnson, the ninth woman to serve as president of the American Psychological Association (APA), lost a valiant battle with cancer. Norine's curiosity about her grandmother's strength led to much of her later work on the development of strength and resiliency in adolescent girls and in women. She received her doctorate in 1972, with a minor in child development, and she became one of the first to be considered a pediatric psychologist, a newly emerging specialty. Norine became involved in organized psychology as her children got older. When she learned there had not been a woman president of the Massachusetts Psychological Association (MPA) for almost 50 years, she was appalled. An ardent feminist, who had served on MPA's Board of Directors, she could not let the situation remain that way. She ran for president and won, serving from 1981 to 1983, and then mentored many women colleagues into the role. MPA sent her to the Council of the APA as one of their representatives, and she immediately ran for a seat on the Finance Committee, later serving as chair of the committee. During her tenure on the Finance Committee, she helped create financial policy that changed APA from an organization whose assets were threatened and shrinking to a financially solid association. Norine considered Division 35 (Psychology of Women) to be her home in APA, a place filled with warmth, collegiality, and shared values. She and Judith Worell spearheaded the extremely important and successful 1993 National Conference on Education and Training in Feminist Practice. Norine was elected to the APA Board of Directors in 1997, where she served with distinction, continuing to focus on the financial well-being of the Association. Not surprisingly, she went from that role to being elected APA president. Her focus as president was on the changes in the health care delivery system in the United States. She was a staunch champion of the biopsychosocial model of health. Under her presidential leadership, the APA Mission Statement was amended to add the word "health," confirming the importance of health to the psychological community. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Problems of Measuring Character and Personality

The present study examined whether expressed acceptance of a person with AIDS reflects genuine acceptance or a desire to appear to be accepting. Theory and research on the effects of mortality salience on acceptance of stigmatized people provided the framework for investigating this question. After writing about death or another aversive topic, participants indicated their acceptance of a target with AIDS while connected to physiological equipment that they believed could detect lies (bogus pipeline) or was simply measuring physiological responses to participation in the study. As predicted, participants in the mortality salience/bogus pipeline condition indicated significantly less acceptance of the target with AIDS than participants in the other three conditions, suggesting that acceptance of a person with AIDS is at least partially a result of wanting to appear to be accepting, without necessarily genuinely accepting someone with AIDS.