Inhibiting reactions to emotional versus non‐emotional response cues in schizophrenia: Insights from a motor‐process paradigm

Recent models of schizophrenia suggest deficient use of contextual response cues when confronted with countermanding emotional cues. It is important to clinically validate these models by testing patients diagnosed with schizophrenia on tasks with competing emotional and contextual response determinants. Control and schizophrenia groups completed a novel task that elicited motor responses consistent with, or in opposition to, pre‐potent emotional actions (i.e., approach vs. avoidance). An analogous non‐emotional task was also used to examine cue‐conflict impairment more generally. The groups demonstrated statistically equivalent performance decrements on incongruent versus congruent trials on both tasks. However, within the schizophrenia group, the incongruency effect was significantly greater in the emotional versus non‐emotional task. These data suggest that, while patients with schizophrenia were able to employ contextual response cues to override competing emotional responses, they were slower to resolve emotional versus non‐emotional response conflict. When patients were subdivided according to the presence or absence of disorganized symptoms, this effect was confined to patients with disorganized symptoms.     

Willingness to use microbicides varies by race/ethnicity, experience with prevention products, and partner type.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate women's willingness to use vaginal microbicides to reduce/prevent HIV infection, using measures grounded in the individual, behavioral, and social contexts of sex. DESIGN: A cross-sectional study that enrolled a sample (N = 531) of 18-55 year old Latina, African-American, and White women in the U.S. between October, 2004, and July, 2005. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Willingness to use microbicides and individual- and context-related variables (e.g., demographics, relationship status). RESULTS: Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported a one-dimensional, 8-item scale, with high internal consistency (alpha = .91). Subgroup analyses within the Latina (n = 166), African- American (n = 193), and White sub-samples (n = 172) also supported a unidimensional scale with strong internal validity and high reliability. Race/ethnicity as a contextual factor, a woman's history of using prevention products, and the nature of the sexual partnership were predictive of willingness to use microbicides (R = .41). That is, women with greater frequencies of condom use, a history of spermicide use, and non-main sexual partners had higher predicted Willingness to Use Microbicides scale scores, while White women had lower predicted scores. CONCLUSION: The Willingness to Use Microbicides scale serves as the first psychometrically validated measure of factors related to microbicide acceptability. Developing and implementing psychometrically validated and contextualized microbicide acceptability measures, in an effort to understand microbicide users and circumstances of use, is crucial to both clinical trials and future intervention studies.     

Effects of Street Harassment on Anxiety,Depression, and Sleep Quality of College Women

Sex Roles - The goal of the present study was to treat street harassment as a public health issue akin to sexual harassment in terms of its negative effects. Anxiety and depression were...     

Further evaluation of idiosyncratic functions for severe problem behavior: Aggression maintained by access to walks

The results of functional analyses of problem behavior can sometimes be undifferentiated. This lack of differentiation might be due to methodological problems or the absence of variables relevant to problem behavior in the assessment. The current case example provides a clarification of undifferentiated functional analysis results through the inclusion of a particular reinforcer that was not a part of the initial functional analysis. In addition, treatment data showed a decrease in problem behavior when the putative reinforcer was provided response‐dependently or response‐independently. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fluid intelligence is independently associated with all-cause mortality over 17 years in an elderly community sample: An investigation of potential mechanisms

The long-term relationship between lower intelligence and mortality risk in later life is well established, even when controlling for a range of health and sociodemographic measures. However, there is some evidence for differential effects in various domains of cognitive performance. Specifically, tests of fluid intelligence may have a stronger association with mortality than do tests of crystallized intelligence. The present study examines the relationship between intelligence and mortality in a sample of 896 Australian community-dwelling males and females, aged 70–97 at recruitment and followed for up to 17 years. There were 687 deaths during the follow-up period. Cox proportional hazard regression models examined whether the relationship between intelligence and mortality might be mediated by socioeconomic status, by health behaviors, by health status, or a combination of these. Higher fluid intelligence — as measured by the Symbol–Letter Modalities Test — was strongly associated with lower mortality rates (Hazard ratio = 0.80; 95% confidence interval = 0.72–0.88), even after accounting for any combination of potential mediators and confounders. A significant association between crystallized intelligence, as measured by the National Adult Reading Test, and mortality (HR = 0.89; 95% CI = 0.80–0.99) was attenuated by the inclusion of socioeconomic, health status measures, and health behavior measures and when deaths from the first four years of the study were excluded. The findings show little support for the hypothesized mechanisms of the intelligence–mortality relationship.     

Teaching Responsible Research and Innovation: A Phronetic Perspective

Science and Engineering Ethics - Across the European research area and beyond, efforts are being mobilized to align research and innovation processes and products with societal values and needs,...     

Threshold Theory Tested in an Organizational Setting: The Relation Between Perceived Innovativeness and Intelligence in a Large Sample of Leaders

A large sample of leaders (N = 4257) was used to test the link between leader innovativeness and intelligence. The threshold theory of the link between creativity and intelligence assumes that below a certain IQ level (approximately IQ 120), there is some correlation between IQ and creative potential, but above this cutoff point, there is no correlation. Support for the threshold theory of creativity was found, in that the correlation between IQ and innovativeness was positive and significant below a cutoff point of IQ 120. Above the cutoff, no significant relation was identified, and the two correlations differed significantly. The finding was stable across distinct parts of the sample, providing support for the theory, although the correlations in all subsamples were small. The findings lend support to the existence of threshold effects using perceptual measures of behavior in real-world organizational settings, and thus beyond creative potential measures applied in the psychological laboratory where it has previously been documented.     

Partner effects of Mexican cultural values: the couple and parenting relationships

In this investigation, the authors explored the impact of individuals' cultural values on their partners' relationship adjustment and perceptions of their parenting relationship. The authors examined Mexican cultural values of simpatía (i.e., harmonious interpersonal relationships) and respeto (i.e., respect for authority figures) using a sample of 50 Mexican-origin couples in southern Arizona. Congruent with their hypotheses, results supported the proposition that fathers' simpatía is positively associated with both relationship adjustment and the parenting relationship as reported by mothers, whereas fathers' respeto is negatively associated with both relationship adjustment and the parenting relationship as reported by mothers. However, the authors found little evidence of a contribution of mothers' cultural values to fathers' perceptions of either relationship adjustment or the parenting relationship. They interpret these findings to suggest that mothers' relationship adjustment and parenting relationship are more sensitive to and dependent on fathers' degree of traditional cultural values among Mexican-origin families.