The Effects of Fear of AIDS and Gender on Responses to Fear-Arousing Condom Advertisements

The effects of message fear arousal, fear of AIDS, and gender on attitudinal responses to condom advertisements were tested in a laboratory experiment. Ninety-five male and 96 female college students, previously assessed for fear of getting AIDS, rated the effectiveness of 1 of 4 high-fear or 4 low-fear condom ads in motivating them to buy the product. Contrary to prediction, the high-fear condom ads did not significantly differ from low-fear ads in effectiveness. The prediction that subjects' fear of AIDS would interact with ad fear level was also not supported. However, subjects with a high fear of getting AIDS viewed ads as more effective than did low-fear subjects. As predicted, male subjects viewed ads as more effective than did women. Results support the health belief model's tenet that a sense of vulnerability facilitates acceptance of a message. Implications of the results for condom use promotion in AIDS prevention materials are discussed.     

Research on familial Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (FCJD) resulting in presymptomatic testing: Implications for the human genome project

A research study to identify the priori gene mutation in a family with familial Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (FCJD) evolved into presymptomatic diagnostic testing. Our experience with one case raises concerns regarding similar studies that will ensue as a result of the Human Genome Project. Technological advances in human molecular genetics make it difficult for Institutional Review Boards (IRB) to adequately evaluate proposed studies. Additionally, changes in the implications of the study may occur after initial IRB approval, due to technological progress. While FCJD, like Huntington's disease (HD), has adult onset and causes progressive dementia and ataxia, protocols established for presymptomatic testing of HD were not included in the FCJD study design. It is thus recommended that IRB committees include a genetics professional and that IRB-approved research studies be reevaluated on a regular basis to monitor the impact that technological advances may have on participating human subjects.     

Factors governing the effective remediation of negative affect and its cognitive and behavioral consequences

The present experiment tested the hypothesis that the remediation of negative emotion will be most effective when the remedial procedure matches the experience or cognition that induced the negative state--process-specificity hypothesis. Other hypotheses examined were that negative states induced by cognitive reflection related to the self would be resistant to remediation, even by a same-process positive procedure, and that changes in emotional expressions may make it appear that a negative state has been effectively remediated when lingering effects on behavior and cognition indicate that it has not. Negative emotional states were induced in second-grade children by one of four processes, all of which involved social rejection content: cognition that focused on (a) the self (thinking about oneself being rejected by a peer) or (b) another person (thinking about a peer being rejected); or experience that related to (c) oneself (actually being socially rejected) or (d) observing another (vicarious: seeing a peer be socially rejected). These inductions were then followed by a positive, remedial induction whose content was the reverse (social acceptance) and whose process did or did not match that of the negative induction. As predicted, except for negative self-cognitions, it was found that the behavioral (altruism) and cognitive (performance on a block design task) consequences of negative emotion were alleviated when the positive remediation was of the same type as the original induction. Emotional expressions were consistently positive following remediation, regardless of their type. The results are discussed in terms of differing processes for maintaining negative emotion as a function of the character of induction, and the implications for the understanding of clinical depression in children are noted.     

Cognitive reactivity, dysfunctional attitudes, and depressive relapse and recurrence in cognitive therapy responders

Dysfunctional attitudes can foreshadow depressive relapse/recurrence. Priming mood, through induction paradigms, is hypothesized to activate dysfunctional attitudes. Cognitive reactivity (CR) refers to mood-linked increases in dysfunctional attitudes after priming. Here we explored the extent to which CR as well as residual, unprimed, dysfunctional attitudes predicted depressive relapse/recurrence among depressed patients who responded to acute phase cognitive therapy (CT). Consenting adults, aged 18–70, with recurrent major depressive disorder (n = 523) participated in a two-site randomized controlled trial examining the durability of continuation phase treatments. Patients received 16–20 sessions of CT. Among the 245 incompletely remitted responders, 213 agreed to undergo a mood induction paradigm. After 8 months of continuation phase treatments, participants were followed an additional 24 months. Although the mood induction significantly lowered mood in 80% of responders, the expected CR was not evident. By contrast, higher unprimed dysfunctional attitudes following CT did predict relapse/recurrence over 20 and 32 months post-randomization. The findings of this large longitudinal study of incompletely remitted CT responders challenge the notion that it is necessary to prime mood in order to maximize dysfunctional attitudes’ prediction of relapse and/or recurrence. While findings cannot be generalized beyond CT responders, they emphasize the clinical importance of reducing dysfunctional attitudes in preventing depression.     

Training experts: individuation without naming is worth it

There is growing evidence that individuation experience is necessary for development of expert object discrimination that transfers to new exemplars. Individuation training in human studies has primarily used label association tasks where labels are learned at both the individual and more abstract (basic) level, and expertise criterion requires that individual-level judgments become as fast as basic-level judgments. However, there are training situations when the use of labels is not practical (e.g., with animals or some clinical populations). Moreover, labeling itself can facilitate object discrimination, thus it is unclear what role labels play in the acquisition of expertise in such training paradigms. Here, participants completed an online game that did not require labels in which they interacted with novel objects (Greebles) or control objects (Yufos). Games either required individuation or categorization. We then assessed the impact of this exposure on an abridged Greeble training paradigm. As expected, participants who played Yufo games or Greeble categorization games showed a significant basic-level advantage for Greebles in the abridged training paradigm, typical of novices. However, participants who played the Greeble identity game showed a reduced basic-level advantage, suggesting that individuation without labels may be sufficient to acquire perceptual expertise.     

Providers' voices on telebehavioral health: Survey of an outpatient counseling agency in Alaska

Hope Counseling Center sought to expand behavioral health services to underserved populations in Alaska by offering telebehavioral health services. Providers completed a questionnaire addressing their experiences, opinions, and training needs as they relate to telebehavioral health. Open conversations about the training needs, limitations, and benefits of telebehavioral health supported program development and led to training on new equipment, rapport building, and telebehavioral health outcome studies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

We Don’t Need the Guru: Shambhala Facebook Group and (Re)Creating Vajrayāna Buddhism

International Journal of Hindu Studies - The Shambhala Facebook group created a space for individuals to reimagine their religious teachings and practices without the Tibetan Tantric Buddhist...     

Does Teaming Obscure Low Performance? Exploring the Temporal Effects of Team Performance Diversity

Organizations are increasingly using team-based projects to achieve goals. As such, it is important to understand how team members (e.g., their differences) influence team outcomes such as effectiveness. In the present study, we examine performance diversity, differences in members’ past performance, as an antecedent to team effectiveness. In addition, we assessed the length of time the group performed together as a moderator and social loafing among members as a mediator of the performance diversity—team effectiveness relationship. Using multisource data for 673 individuals in 139 project teams, we found that performance diversity had an increasingly negative effect for groups that were together longer. Specifically, greater diversity resulted in more social loafing, thereby diminishing team satisfaction and supervisor-rated team performance.