Selective responsiveness of chronically ill children to assessments of depression.

Many investigators have noted that depression is a common symptom among pediatric cancer patients. However, prevalence rates vary widely across studies. This variation in prevalence rates may be due, in part, to selective reporting of patients based on measures used and environmental cues. In this study, we evaluated 50 chronically ill pediatric patients (19 cancer and 31 diabetic patients) for their use of selective reporting of depression. Factors in the 2 x 2 design were Intervention (disclosure videotape and cartoon videotape) and Examiner (familiar examiner and unfamiliar examiner). In the Intervention manipulation, subjects were shown either a videotape prompting the child that self-disclosure was appropriate or a tape of a cartoon (control condition). In the Examiner manipulation, subjects were administered the experimental measures by either a familiar (parent) or unfamiliar (research assistant) examiner. Dependent variables were the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI; Kovacs, 1981), the Depression scale of the Roberts Apperception Test for Children (RATC; McArthur & Roberts, 1982), and a depression measure taken from the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL; Achenbach & Edelbrock, 1983). As hypothesized, the Examiner x Intervention interaction revealed that children who did not view the disclosure videotape and who were tested by an unfamiliar examiner gave significantly lower self-reports of depression on the CDI than children in the other conditions. However, parent and child projective reports of depression did not vary as a function of experimental condition. The results are interpreted as selective responding on the part of pediatric patients. Limitations of assessing internal psychological states in children are discussed.     

Behavioral competition in a case of Rett syndrome

Major behavioral features of Rett syndrome are the loss of instrumental reaching and grasping and the presentation of some variant of hand-hand or hand-mouth stereotypy. As part of an experimental home intervention program, a 3-year-old girl with Rett syndrome was exposed to four types of contingency games designed to elicit instrumental reaching, kicking, vocalization, and eye movement, respectively. Parent and subject performance were videorecorded on seven occasions over the initial 2-month period. Evaluation of these records provided evidence of contingency learning in all but the vocalization games. Stereotypic hand clasping was examined in relation to the performance of instrumental behavior (reaching, kicking, looking). Coincidental (short-term mutual inhibition arising by chance co-occurrence), associative (short-term mutual inhibition arising by having elicitor in common), and foundational (long-term mutual inhibition arising by having neural network in common) forms of specific behavioral competition were defined and examined. Evidence for coincidental and foundational competition was found in the relation between reaching and hand clasping. Implications for the support of functional hand use are discussed.     

Teaching ethics in engineering and computer science: A panel discussion

At a conference, two engineering professors and a philosophy professor discussed the teaching of ethics in engineering and computer science. The panelists considered the integration of material on ethics into technical courses, the role of ethical theory in teaching applied ethics, the relationship between cases and codes of ethics, the enlisting of support of engineering faculty, the background needed to teach ethics, and the assessment of student outcomes. Several audience members contributed comments, particularly on teaching ethical theory and on student assessment. This panel discussion took place at a mini-conference, Practicing and Teaching Ethics in Engineering and Computing, held during the Sixth Annual Meeting of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics, Washington, D.C., March 8–9, 1997. Biographical information on panelists: Charles Glagola is an assistant professor of civil engineering at the University of Florida. He is a registered professional engineer in the states of Florida and Alabama. Before coming to academia, he had extensive industry experience culminating with his owning and operating a construction and engineering firm in Pensacola, Florida. He currently teaches engineering ethics as part of a professional issues course in the Department of Civil Engineering, and a one-hour engineering ethics course that is offered to all engineering students through the College of Engineering. Moshe Kam is professor of electrical and computer engineering at Drexel University. He heads Drexel’s Data Fusion Laboratory which specializes in multisensor systems and robot navigation. His professional interests include detection and estimation, distributed decision making, forensic applications of image processing, and engineering ethics. Michael Loui is professor of electrical and computer engineering and associate dean of the Graduate College at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. From 1990 to 1991, he served at the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C. His scholarly interests include computational complexity theory, theory of parallel and distributed computation, fault-tolerant software, and professional ethics. Caroline Whitbeck is a philosopher of science, technology and medicine and is the Elmer G. Beamer-Hubert H. Shneider Professor in Ethics at Case-Western Reserve University. She also directs the WWW Ethics Center for Engineering & Science— http://ethics.cwru.edu— under a grant from the National Science Foundation. The focus of her current work is practical ethics, especially ethics in scholarly and scientific research. Her book, Ethics in Engineering Practice and Research, will appear from Cambridge University Press in winter 1997–98.     

Childhood abuse and spiritual development among women religious

Childhood abuse is known to have a negative influence on human development. This study expected to find a spiritual attitude of acceptance, as measured by the Ego Grasping Orientation scale, would help mitigate effects of childhood abuse in the realm of spiritual development. Spiritual Experience Index (SEI) scores for 350 religious women were treated as a measure of spiritual maturity. Contrary to expectation, however, the sexually and the physically abused groups with a more accepting attitude scored lower on the SEI than the abused with a more controlling attitude and the nonabused. Implications for spiritual development and well-being are discussed.     

Newborn screening for cystic fibrosis: Educational implications

We examined the educational implications of newborn screening for cystic fibrosis (CF) as performed by combining the measurement of immunoreactive trypsin with analysis for the most common CF mutation, F508. Four out of 77 (5%) of maternity staff from 11 hospitals in rural New South Wales, Australia had learned about the salient features of the screening protocol from a pamphlet distributed from a central laboratory. In comparison, a didactic lesson resulted in a significantly greater (p<0.00006) number of maternity staff learning about the salient features of the screening protocol. Most maternity staff expanded their explanation to parents of newborn babies because of the didactic lesson.     

PREDICTORS OF RESPONSES TO UNWANTED SEXUAL ATTENTION

Data were collected from 4,011 male and female university students, faculty, and staff regarding responses to unwanted sexual attention. Women and undergraduate students reported the highest incidence of unwanted sexual attention; most harassers were peers. Ignoring the behavior was the most common response, followed by avoiding the harasser and talking to others about the harassment. Harassment severity was the strongest predictor of responses, with more direct responses being made to more severe harassment. Bivariate correlational analyses suggested that unwanted sexual attention was rated as more distressing by women than by men, by faculty/staff than by students, by individuals with less tolerant attitudes toward harassment, and when the harasser was in a position of authority or when the harassment was of longer duration. In path analyses, only the relations between attitudes and responses were mediated by differences in perceived severity. The gender and status (i.e., student vs. faculty/staff) of the harassee, the duration of the harassment, and whether the harasser was in a position of authority had direct effects on responses not attributable to perceived severity. Implications for policy and future research are discussed.     

Children's understanding of the self-presentational strategies of ingratiation and self-promotion

Eight- and eleven-year-olds' explanations for the self-presentational behaviour of story characters provided clear support for a predicted shift between these ages from understanding in terms of psychological to understanding in terms of interpersonal processes. However, a prediction that the strategy of self-promotion would be better understood than that of ingratiation was not supported.     

Microcomputers in psychology laboratory courses

The implementation of a microcomputer-based laboratory curriculum is described and analyzed in terms of general guidelines for introducing computer-based instruction. Procedures are suggested for analyzing need, choosing a system, and implementing the project. Pedagogical considerations arising from the use of computer technology are also discussed.     

Central integration effects with stabilized afterimages

Prolonged patterned afterimages were used to study integration effects in stabilized images. Seven Ss were presented with various configurations of a pattern through a prism stereoscope, both monocularly and binocularly. Some of the fragmentations and regenerations reported in the binocular condition could only have resulted as a function of organization of the inputs to the two eyes, suggesting that postretinal processes are operative in stabilized image phenomena.