Clinical Behaviors for Addressing Religious/Spiritual Issues: Do We Practice What We Preach?

To determine if counselors integrate clinical behaviors for addressing religious/spiritual issues in counseling consistent with their ratings of the importance of such behaviors, the authors conducted a national survey of American Counseling Association (ACA) members. Seventy‐eight ACA members rated the importance of and frequency with which they engaged in a set of 30 clinical behaviors that were identified in the existing literature as addressing religious/spiritual issues within counseling. Results indicated possible disparities between importance and frequency ratings. Potential barriers to counselors' utilization of religious and spiritually directed clinical behaviors were identified.     

Depression and heart rate variability in cardiac rehabilitation patients: exploring the roles of physical activity and fitness

Cardiac patients with depression have shown altered autonomic nervous system functioning, expressed as reduced heart rate variability. This may be associated with poorer physical fitness and less physical activity among depressed patients. These relationships were explored among patients enrolled in outpatient cardiac rehabilitation. 22 depressed and 22 nondepressed patients, matched for sex and age, were assessed at enrollment. The Beck Depression Inventory and structured interviews were used to measure depression. Patients completed ambulatory monitoring of ECG (i.e., Holter) and physical activity, as well as a treadmill stress test. Depression was associated with several measures of heart rate variability. Activity and fitness were lower among the depressed patients. Although exploratory, accounting for activity and fitness attenuated the relationship between depression and heart rate variability. This suggests that altered fitness and activity may help explain altered autonomic tone that characterizes patients with cardiovascular diseases who are psychologically depressed.     

A time of change: Behavioral and neural correlates of adolescent sensitivity to appetitive and aversive environmental cues

Adolescence is a developmental period that entails substantial changes in affective and incentive-seeking behavior relative to both childhood and adulthood, including a heightened propensity to engage in risky behaviors and experience persistent negative and labile mood states. This review discusses the emotional and incentive-driven behavioral changes in adolescents and their associated neural mechanisms, focusing on the dynamic interactions between the amygdala, ventral striatum, and prefrontal cortex. Common behavioral changes during adolescence may be associated with a heightened responsiveness to incentives and emotional cues while the capacity to effectively engage in cognitive and emotion regulation is still relatively immature. We highlight empirical work in humans and animals that addresses the interactions between these neural systems in adolescents relative to children and adults, and propose a neurobiological model that may account for the nonlinear changes in adolescent behavior. Finally, we discuss other influences that may contribute to exaggerated reward and emotion processing associated with adolescence, including hormonal fluctuations and the role of the social environment.     

Improving the Credibility of Child Sexual Assault Victims in Court: The Impact of a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner

The present study investigated the influence of a sexual assault nurse examiner's (SANE's) testimony on mock juror perceptions of a child or adolescent victim of child sexual assault. Community members (N = 252, 156 females) read a fictional criminal trial summary of a child sexual assault case in which the victim was 6 or 15 years old and the prosecution presented medical testimony from a SANE or a traditional registered nurse (RN), or did not present medical testimony. Mock jurors were more likely to render guilty verdicts when a SANE testified compared with the other two testimony conditions. In addition, pro-victim judgments (e.g., sympathy toward the victim) and negative defendant judgments (e.g., anger toward the defendant) mediated this relation. Finally, cognitive network representations of the case demonstrated that the RN and no-medical-testimony groups were similar and the SANE group was distinct from the other two conditions. We discuss these results in terms of the implications of SANE testimony in child sexual assault court cases. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Something to Shout About: A Simple,Quick Performance Enhancement Technique Improved Strength in Both Experts and Novices

In sports where an explosion of power or strength is necessary (e.g., weight lifting, tennis), athletes often yell or grunt to increase force production. Martial artists have used a similar technique for centuries called a kiap, but scientific evidence of its effectiveness is scarce. This study examined the effect of kiaping on strength and whether expertise influenced its effectiveness. Fifty (25 novices, 25 experts) martial artists completed a handgrip strength test under no kiap and kiap conditions. Performance for all participants was significantly better with the kiap (437.1 Newtons ± 94.9) than without (408.0 Newtons ± 90.6; p < .001).     

The Development of Discrimination of form and Area

The Time Competence Scale from the Personal Orientation Inventory was administered to 28 male and 47 female college students who then described their real and ideal self-concepts using the Interpersonal Check List. Self-actualizing individuals manifested greater congruence between their real and ideal self-concepts than did nonactualizing persons. Dominance was seen as a significantly more desirable integrative mechanism by the nonactualizing subjects. There was a nonsignificant trend in the desirability of an increase in acceptance as a function of the degree of self-actualization. Findings are discussed in terms of individuals' perceptions of congruence with their environment.     

Reasoning Ability in Young Children

The astrological assumption of personality differences among individuals born under different sun signs was investigated. Significant differences were obtained between sun sign groups on four of the 18 scales of the California Psychological Inventory (CPI) as follows: Communality, Socialization, Flexibility, and Femininity. The overall pattern of results based on F ratios, multiple comparisons between means, and estimates of strength of association was interpreted as showing no meaningful relationships between sun sign and scores on Communality, Socialization, and Flexibility. Adopting even the most conservative standards of inference, however, all of the test statistics employed indicated a powerful effect on the Femininity scale. Implications for future research were discussed.     

Predictors of the intent to adopt preventive innovations: a meta‐analysis

Because the literature suggests significant differences in the adoption rate of traditional innovations and those innovations classified as preventive, we examine the effectiveness of the constructs of the theory of planned behavior and social cognitive theory in predicting the adoption of preventive innovations. The current study synthesized 89 correlations from 63 studies (n = 31,158). The corrected mean correlation estimates were .51 for attitude, .52 for subjective norms, and .43 for planned behavioral control. The corrected mean correlation estimate for self‐efficacy was .47. By understanding the predictor variables of the intent to adopt a preventive innovation, proponents of specific preventive innovations may be better equipped to select strategies that could accelerate the diffusion process.