A randomized trial comparing the effects of self-help materials and proactive telephone counseling on teen smoking cessation.

We conducted a 2-arm randomized trial to test the efficacy of self-help materials with or without proactive telephone counseling to increase cessation among teen smokers. Teen smokers (N = 402) recruited from 11 shopping malls and 1 amusement park in the southeastern United States were randomized to 1 of 2 groups: written self-help material plus video; or written self-help material, video, and telephone counseling. Cessation rates based on 7-day point-prevalent abstinence for the self-help and counseling arms were 11% and 16%, respectively (p = .25), at 4 months postbaseline and 19% and 21%, respectively (p = .80), at 8 months postbaseline. Sustained abstinence, reflecting 7-day abstinence at both time points, in the self-help and counseling arms was 7% and 9% (p = .59). Results suggest that minimal self-help cessation approaches that target youth have comparable success to that shown among adult smokers. However, refinements in telephone-counseling approaches may be needed to achieve the success observed in adult populations.     

Windows to the soul: children and adults see the eyes as the location of the self

Where are we? In three experiments, we explore preschoolers’ and adults’ intuitions about the location of the self using a novel method that asks when an object is closet to a person. Children and adults judge objects near a person’s eyes to be closer to her than objects near other parts of her body. This holds even when considering an alien character whose eyes are located on its chest. Objects located near the eyes but out of sight are also judged to be close, suggesting that participants are not using what a person can see as a proxy for what is close to her. These findings suggest that children and adults intuitively think of the self as occupying a precise location within the body, at or near the eyes.     

Blood is thicker: moral spillover effects based on kinship

Three empirical studies document the intuitive spillover of moral taint from a person who engages in immoral acts to another individual who is related by ties of blood kinship. In Study 1, participants were more likely to recommend that the biological grandchild of a wrongdoer, compared to a non-biological grandchild, help the descendants of his grandfather's victims. In Study 2, participants were more willing to hold two long-lost identical twins in custody for a crime committed by one twin than to hold two perfect look-alikes for a crime committed by one look-alike. Study 3 provides direct evidence that spillover effects based on blood kinship are manifested in an intuitive sense of moral taint.     

Developing Intuitions about How Personal and Social Properties Are Linked to the Brain and the Body

This study investigated the development of intuitions about which properties are associated with the brain and which are associated with the body. A sample of 60 children aged 6, 8, and 10 years, as well a sample of 20 adults, were told about a brain transplant between two individuals and were asked about where certain properties resided after the transplant. Adults and older children construed the characteristics associated with fine-motor behaviour, culpability, social contract and best friendships as transferring with the brain. Characteristics associated with gross-motor behaviour, physical/biological properties, ownership and familial relationships were more likely to be seen as remaining with the body. Domain-based explanations for this pattern of results are discussed.     

Why did this happen to me? Religious believers’ and non-believers’ teleological reasoning about life events

People often believe that significant life events happen for a reason. In three studies, we examined evidence for the view that teleological beliefs reflect a general cognitive bias to view the world in terms of agency, purpose, and design. Consistent with this hypothesis, we found that individual differences in mentalizing ability predicted both the tendency to believe in fate (Study 1) and to infer purposeful causes of one’s own life events (Study 2). In addition, people’s perception of purpose in life events was correlated with their teleological beliefs about nature, but this relationship was driven primarily by individuals’ explicit religious and paranormal beliefs (Study 3). Across all three studies, we found that while people who believe in God hold stronger teleological beliefs than those who do not, there is nonetheless evidence of teleological beliefs among non-believers, confirming that the perception of purpose in life events does not rely on theistic belief. These findings suggest that the tendency to perceive design and purpose in life events—while moderated by theistic belief—is not solely a consequence of culturally transmitted religious ideas. Rather, this teleological bias has its roots in certain more general social propensities.     

Disgust,Harm, and Morality in Politics

This study experimentally tests a theoretical framework for moral judgment in politics, which integrates two research traditions, Domain‐Theory and Sentimentalism, to suggest that moral judgment is bidimensional, with one dimension pertaining to harm and the other to moral emotions. Two experiments demonstrate that priming harm associations and the moral emotion of disgust prior to a political issue facilitates moral conviction on the political issue as well as a harsher moral judgment compared to no‐prime and to nonmoral emotional and cognitive negative primes (sadness and damage to objects). In addition, harm cues and disgust, but not sadness or damage, interact with the preexisting attitude toward the political issue in affecting moral conviction.     

Maternal Uniparental Isodisomy Causing Autosomal Recessive GM1 Gangliosidosis: A Clinical Report

Uniparental disomy is a genetic cause of disease that may result in the inheritance of an autosomal recessive condition. A child with developmental delay and hypotonia was seen and found to have severely abnormal myelination. Lysosomal enzyme testing identified an isolated deficiency of beta-galactosidase. Subsequently, homozygous missense mutations in the galactosidase, beta 1 (GLB1) gene on chromosome 3 were found. Parental testing confirmed inheritance of two copies of the same mutated maternal GLB1 gene, and no paternal copy. SNP analysis was also done to confirm paternity. The patient was ultimately diagnosed with autosomal recessive GM1 gangliosidosis caused by maternal uniparental isodisomy. We provide a review of this patient and others in which uniparental disomy (UPD) of a non-imprinted chromosome unexpectedly caused an autosomal recessive condition. This is the first case of GM1 gangliosidosis reported in the literature to have been caused by UPD. It is important for genetic counselors and other health care providers to be aware of the possibility of autosomal recessive disease caused by UPD. UPD as a cause of autosomal recessive disease drastically changes the recurrence risk for families, and discussions surrounding UPD can be complex. Working with families to understand UPD when it occurs requires a secure and trusting counselor-family relationship.