Substance use and partner violence among urban women seeking emergency care

Growing evidence suggests intimate partner violence (IPV) and substance misuse are co-occurring problems that disproportionately affect low income urban women seeking care in emergency departments (EDs) and represent leading causes of injuries that result in ED visits. This paper examines temporal bidirectional associations between different types of drug and alcohol use and different types of IPV in a longitudinal study of a representative sample of 241 low-income urban women receiving emergency care from an ED in the Bronx, New York. After adjusting and matching for sociodemographics and potentially confounding multilevel risk and protective covariates, women who reported using heroin in the prior 6 months at Wave 1 were twice as likely as nonheroin-using women to indicate any physical, injurious, or sexual IPV at subsequent waves and were 2.7 times more likely to indicate experiencing an injury from IPV at subsequent waves. Crack or cocaine use in the past 6 months at Wave 1 was associated with an increased likelihood of injurious IPV and severe verbal abuse at subsequent waves. Findings also suggested that sexual IPV was significantly associated with subsequent use of crack or cocaine. The multiple bidirectional associations found linking these problems underscore the need for conducting routine screening for IPV and substance misuse among women in low-income urban EDs, and for improving linkages to services that will ultimately reduce the risk of morbidity, disability, and mortality related to these co-occurring problems.     

Counseling in the Philippines: Past,Present, and Future

The history of colonization and persistent attempts at self‐governance in the Philippines parallel the beginnings of counseling in the country, which were largely influenced by the United States. Because of the Guidance and Counseling Act of 2004 and the Psychology Act of 2009, counseling is on its way to professionalization and regulation. Counseling is growing in depth and credibility, as evidenced by applications in practice that are not only indigenous but powerfully relevant.     

Brief Exposure to Misinformation Can Lead to Long‐Term False Memories

Do false memories last? And do they last as long as true ones? This study investigated whether experimentally created false memories would persist for an extended period (one and a half years). A large number of subjects (N = 342) participated in a standard three‐stage misinformation procedure (saw the event slides, read the narrations with misinformation, and then took the memory tests). The initial tests showed that misinformation led to a significant amount of false memory. One and a half years later, the participants were tested again. About half of the misinformation false memory persisted, which was the same rate as for true memory. These results strongly suggest that brief exposure to misinformation can lead to long‐term false memory and that the strength of memory trace was similar for true and false memories. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Relationship between reaction time variability and motor skill development in ADHD

Slower and more variable reaction times to computerized tasks have been documented in children diagnosed with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Recent research supports a role for attentional lapses in generating abnormally variable and slow responses. However, given the association between ADHD and impairments in motor control, we hypothesized that slower or more variable reaction times might also correlate with motor development. The aim of this case-control study was to explore the relationship between motor function, reaction speed and variability, and ADHD. After comprehensive educational and clinical assessments, motor skill development was evaluated in 35 children ages 9 to 14 (19 with ADHD) using the Physical and Neurological Examination for Subtle Signs (PANESS) test battery. Finger-sequencing speed and variability were quantified with goniometers. Reaction times were measured with 20 trials each of computerized simple and choice (binary) tasks. Compared to healthy controls, children with ADHD had slower and more variable reaction times, and these findings correlated with impaired motor development (PANESS) and slow and variable finger sequencing (goniometers). Further studies of motor development in ADHD may identify factors influencing speed and variability of reaction times.     

The reciprocal relationship between psychological contract fulfilment and employee performance and the moderating role of perceived organizational support and tenure

This study investigated the reciprocal relationship between perceptions of psychological contract fulfilment and employee performance (sales made and sales targets), and whether this was moderated by the quality and length of the social exchange relationship captured, respectively, through perceived organizational support (POS) and organizational tenure. We used a sample of 146 sales advisors and a four‐point longitudinal design and found support for reciprocal links where performance predicted subsequent psychological contract fulfilment and vice versa. The strength of the relationship between performance and psychological contract fulfilment increased over time. The quality of the social exchange relationship (i.e., POS) moderated reciprocal links between sales made and sales targets met and perceptions of psychological contract fulfilment at earlier, but not later, time points. One way to interpret the findings is the changing nature of the unfolding relationship between support, psychological contract fulfilment, and performance, where a supportive relationship buffers failing to deliver at earlier time points, but at later time points employee performance and psychological contract fulfilment associate more strongly as both parties prioritize delivery.     

材料情绪性对条件推理影响的眼动研究

以大学生为被试,采用不同情绪效价的条件命题作为实验材料,运用眼动仪器记录被试进行条件推理的过程和结果,探讨了材料情绪性对条件推理的影响状况.实验采用3(材料情绪性:正性情绪、负性情绪、中性情绪)×4(推理形式:MP、DA、AC、MT)的重复测量实验设计.研究结果发现,正性和负性情绪材料的条件推理成绩显著地低于中性情绪材料,结果支持抑制假说.     

Active coping with stress suppresses glucose metabolism in the rat hypothalamus

We used 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose small-animal positron-emission tomography to determine whether different styles of coping with stress are associated with different patterns of neuronal activity in the hypothalamus. Adult rats were subjected to immobilization (IMO)-stress or to a non-immobilized condition for 30 min, in random order on separate days, each of which was followed by brain-scanning. Some rats in the immobilized condition were allowed to actively cope with the stress by chewing a wooden stick during IMO, while the other immobilized rats were given nothing to chew on. Voxel-based statistical analysis of the brain imaging data shows that chewing counteracted the stress-induced increased glucose uptake in the hypothalamus to the level of the non-immobilized condition. Region-of-interest analysis of the glucose uptake values further showed that chewing significantly suppressed stress-induced increased glucose uptake in the paraventricular hypothalamic nucleus and the anterior hypothalamic area but not in the lateral hypothalamus. Together with the finding that the mean plasma corticosterone concentration at the termination of the IMO was also significantly suppressed when rats had an opportunity to chew a wooden stick, our results showed that active coping by chewing inhibited the activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis to reduce the endocrine stress response.