Suicide survivors seeking mental health services: a preliminary examination of the role of an active postvention model

Archival data from suicide survivors presenting for treatment from 1999-2005 at the Baton Rouge Crisis Intervention Center (BRCIC) were used to examine differences in those who received an active model of postvention (APM; n=150) compared to those who received a traditional passive postvention (PP, n=206). APM presented sooner for treatment (48 days) than PP (97 days). APM survivors were more likely to have been the survivor of a violent suicide. APM were more likely than PP to attend survivor support group meetings and APM attended more groups. To better understand the efficacy of APM in helping survivors, a prospective evaluation is needed.     

Color preferences in gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)

Color plays an important biological role in the lives of many animals, with some species exhibiting preferences for certain colors over others. This study explored the color preferences of two species of ape, which, like humans, possess trichromatic color vision. Six western lowland gorillas, and six chimpanzees, housed in Belfast Zoological Gardens, were exposed to three stimuli (cloths, boxes, sheets of acetate) in red, blue, and green. Six stimuli of the same nature, in each of the three colors, were provided to both species for 5 days per stimulus. The amount of interest that the animals showed toward each stimulus of each color was recorded for 1 hr. Results showed that the apes, both when analyzed as two separate groups, and when assessed collectively, showed significant color preferences, paying significantly less attention to the red-, than to the blue- or green-colored stimuli. The animals' interest in the blue- and green-colored stimuli did not differ significantly. Overall, the findings suggest that gorillas and chimpanzees, our closest living relatives, may harbor color preferences comparable to those of humans and other species.     

The signing brain: the neurobiology of sign language

Most of our knowledge about the neurobiological bases of language comes from studies of spoken languages. By studying signed languages, we can determine whether what we have learnt so far is characteristic of language per se or whether it is specific to languages that are spoken and heard. Overwhelmingly, lesion and neuroimaging studies indicate that the neural systems supporting signed and spoken language are very similar: both involve a predominantly left-lateralised perisylvian network. Recent studies have also highlighted processing differences between languages in these different modalities. These studies provide rich insights into language and communication processes in deaf and hearing people.     

New Essays on the Metaphysics of Moral Responsibility

This is the introduction to a volume of new essays in the metaphysics of moral responsibility by John Martin Fischer, Carl Ginet, Ishtiyaque Haji, Alfred R. Mele, Derk Pereboom, Paul Russell, and Peter van Inwagen. I provide some background for the essays, cover the main debates in the metaphysics of moral responsibility, and emphasize some of the authors’ contributions to this area of philosophy.     

Do wild New Caledonian crows (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Corvus moneduloides</Emphasis>) attend to the functional properties of their tools?

New Caledonian crows are the most proficient non-hominin tool manufacturers but the cognition behind their remarkable skills remains largely unknown. Here we investigate if they attend to the functional properties of the tools that they routinely use in the wild. Pandanus tools have natural barbs along one edge that enable them to function as hooking implements when the barbs face backwards from the working tip. In experiment 1 we presented eight crows with either a non-functional (‘upside-down’) or a functional pandanus tool in a baited hole. Four of the crows never flipped the tools. The behaviour of the four flipping birds suggested that they had a strategy of flipping a tool when it was not working. Observations of two of the eight crows picking up pandanus tools at feeding tables in the wild supported the lack of attention to barb direction. In experiment 2 we gave six of the eight crows a choice of either a barbed or a barbless pandanus tool. Five of the crows chose tools at random, which further supported the findings in experiment 1 that the crows paid little or no attention to the barbs. In contrast, a third experiment found that seven out of eight crows flipped non-functional stick tools significantly more than functional ones. Our findings indicate that the crows do not consistently attend to the presence or orientation of barbs on pandanus tools. Successful pandanus tool use in the wild seems to rely on behavioural strategies formed through associative learning, including procedural knowledge about the sequence of operations required to make a successful pandanus tool. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

The Relationship between Religiosity and Drug Use among “At Risk” Women

This study focuses on the interplay between religiosity and drug use in a sample of 250 adult women from the Atlanta, Georgia metropolitan area who were interviewed between August 1997 and August 2000. The research addresses two principal questions: (1) Is there a relationship between the level of religiosity and the amount of illegal drug use reported? (2) If so, is this relationship maintained in multivariate analysis when the effects of other potentially relevant factors like demographic characteristics, childhood maltreatment experiences, psychosocial traits, and substance user-related measures are taken into account? We found that religiosity is related to the amount of drugs women used. Four variables were retained in the final multivariate drug use prediction model: religiosity, coping with everyday stresses, number of family members who are substance abusers, and amount of oral sex. Greater amounts of drugs were used by women who were less religious, less capable of coping with stress, had more drug-abusing family members, and reported having more oral sex. Together, these items explained nearly one-fifth of the variance in the dependent variable. The implications for substance abuse prevention and intervention efforts are discussed.     

Friendship as a moderator of the relationship between social skills problems and peer victimisation

Previous research, primarily in North America, has found that individual factors (e.g., ‘internalising problems’) and social factors (e.g., friendship) interact to influence children's levels of peer victimisation. Some research has found that the identity of children's friends and friendship quality (as ‘protective factors’) are more important than the sheer number of friends. However, studies have produced conflicting findings. A peer nomination inventory was used to assess social skills problems, peer victimisation, peer acceptance, and several different aspects of friendship. Four hundred and forty‐nine children aged 9 to 11 years completed the inventory at two time points over the course of an academic year. Social skills problems were found to predict an increase in peer victimisation over time. Two friendship variables were found to moderate this relationship: a) number of friends, and b) the peer acceptance of the very best‐friend. The relationship was found to be weaker for those children with lots of friends and for those children with a ‘popular’ best‐friend. The findings advance understanding of the factors that promote peer victimisation. Aggr. Behav. 32:110–121, 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

The Importance of Interpersonal Similarities in the Teacher Mentor/Protégé Relationship

The present study assessed the effect of interpersonal similarities between mentors and protégés in a large formal teacher mentoring program. The dependent variables included protégés’ satisfaction with the services provided by the program and perception of the program as influencing the decision to continue as a New York City Public School teacher. Two years of responses to surveys indicated that mentor-protégés similarities, most notably in the relatively intangible areas of outside interests, teaching styles, or personality types, fostered stronger relationships between mentors and protégés.