Predictors of suicidal ideation among "at risk" cocaine-using African American women

The focus of this study was to identify factors that differentiate women drug abusers who had experienced suicidal ideation from those who did not. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 221 cocaine-using women in Atlanta, GA, 88 (39.8%) of whom reported thinking about committing suicide at least once during the 90 days prior to interview and 133 (60.2%) of whom did not. Multivariate logistic regression was used to identify predictors of suicidal ideation, and post hoc goodness-of-fit tests were conducted to assess the robustness of final models derived. Model 1 excluded all psychosocial functioning measures and Model 2 included these items. Both models showed that suicidal ideation was more common among women who were unemployed, had been abused sexually, engaged in sexual relations to cope with stresses, or had less helpful relatives. In addition, Model 1 revealed a heightened risk for women experiencing financial problems and those who had a previous mental health diagnosis, whereas Model 2 showed an elevated risk among women who experienced anxiety and those who had lower levels of self-esteem. These findings suggest the need for prevention and intervention programs that target at-risk women, and for such programs to include an emphasis on suicidal ideation in addition to focusing on risk factors that are addressed more commonly.     

The classification of violence risk

The Classification of Violence Risk (COVR) is an interactive software program designed to estimate the risk that a person hospitalized for mental disorder will be violent to others. The software leads the evaluator through a chart review and a brief interview with the patient. At the end of this interview, the software generates a report that contains a statistically valid estimate of the patient's violence risk-ranging from a 1% to a 76% likelihood of violence-including the confidence interval for that estimate, and a list of the risk factors that the program took into account to produce the estimate. In this article, the development of the COVR software is described and several issues that arise in its administration are discussed.     

Hypo-egoic self-regulation: exercising self-control by diminishing the influence of the self

Theory and research dealing with self-regulation have focused primarily on instances of self-regulation that involve high levels of self-reflection and effortful self-control. However, intentionally trying to control one's behavior sometimes reduces the likelihood of achieving one's goals. This article examines the process of hypo-egoic self-regulation in which people relinquish deliberate, conscious control over their own behavior so that they will respond more naturally, spontaneously, or automatically. An examination of spontaneously occurring hypo-egoic states (such as flow, deindividuation, and transcendence) suggests that hypo-egoic states are characterized by lowered self-awareness and/or an increase in concrete and present-focused self-thoughts. In light of this, people may intentionally foster hypo-egoism via two pathways-(a) taking steps to reduce the proportion of time that they are self-aware (such as repeating a behavior until it is automatic or practicing meditation) or (b) increasing the concreteness of their self-thoughts (such as inducing a concrete mindset or practicing mindfulness). In this way, people may deliberately choose to regulate hypo-egoically when effortful control might be detrimental to their performance.     

Adult age, gender, and race group differences in images of aging

Younger and older African American and Caucasian American adults, who were matched by age (M age = 40.63 years), completed a survey on perceptions of aging and subjective age. The 2 groups did not differ in the age they considered someone to be old (M age = 74.5 years). However, when asked which age was the happiest age, African Americans chose a significantly younger age (M age = 18.26 years) than did Caucasian Americans (M age = 31.32 years), and this racial group difference interacted with age differences such that older Caucasian Americans named an older age than did younger Caucasian Americans. The authors found no such age difference for African Americans. When asked if old age was a happy time, 60% of Caucasian Americans answered yes, whereas only 2% of African Americans answered yes. These and other differences in images and concerns of old age and subjective age suggest a far more negative view of aging for African Americans and a need for changes in the provision of positive information about aging for this group.     

EFFECTS OF TREATMENT INTEGRITY FAILURES DURING DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT OF ALTERNATIVE BEHAVIOR: A TRANSLATIONAL MODEL

Differential reinforcement of alternative behavior (DRA) is used frequently as a treatment for problem behavior. Previous studies on treatment integrity failures during DRA suggest that the intervention is robust, but research has not yet investigated the effects of different types of integrity failures. We examined the effects of two types of integrity failures on DRA, starting with a human operant procedure and extending the results to children with disabilities in a school setting. Human operant results (Experiment 1) showed that conditions involving reinforcement for problem behavior were more detrimental than failing to reinforce appropriate behavior alone, and that condition order affected the results. Experiments 2 and 3 replicated the effects of combined errors and sequence effects during actual treatment implementation.     

Looking a gift horse in the mouth as a defense against increasing intimacy

The authors hypothesize that people who fear dependence evidence a particular defensive bias by perceiving benefits received to have been less voluntarily given, which justifies not depending upon their partner. In Study 1, both members of married couples completed daily diaries regarding benefits they gave and received and the extent to which each was given involuntarily versus voluntarily. Avoidant attachment measured before marriage predicted perceiving one’s spouse to have given benefits less voluntarily, controlling for that spouse’s reports of how voluntarily benefits had been given. In Study 2, participants identified three specific benefits received from a friend. Days later, participants were primed with avoidant feelings or not before reporting the extent to which the benefits identified earlier had been given voluntarily. Participants primed to feel avoidant perceived their friend to have given them benefits less voluntarily than did the remaining participants.     

First graders' literacy and self-regulation gains: The effect of individualizing student instruction

We examined the effect of individualizing student instruction (ISI; N = 445 students, 46 classrooms) on first graders' self-regulation gains compared to a business-as-usual control group. Self-regulation, conceptualized as a constellation of executive skills, was positively associated with academic development. We hypothesized that the ISI intervention's emphasis on teacher planning and organization, classroom management, and the opportunity for students to work independently and in small groups would promote students' self-regulation. We found no main effect of ISI on self-regulation gains. However, for students with weaker initial self-regulation, ISI was associated with greater self-regulation gains compared to peers in control classrooms. The ISI effect on self-regulation was greater when the intervention was more fully implemented.     

Passive‐Submissive and Active‐Emotional Trait Dependency: Evidence for a Two‐Factor Model

ABSTRACT Dependency plays an important role in both normal and abnormal personality, but the construct remains loosely defined, both in clinical practice and the research literature. Moreover, although a number of measures purport to measure trait dependency, little agreement exists as to the structure of dependency within or across these instruments. Furthermore, what constitutes the low end of trait dependency remains unclear. Five hundred nine undergraduates completed a battery of 14 dependency scales and subscales, a subset of whom (n=322) also completed a broad measure of personality pathology (SNAP‐2). Exploratory factor analysis of the dependency measures yielded two correlated factors—Passive‐Submissive and Active‐Emotional dependency—as well as a third, unrelated factor, Detachment/Autonomy, all with differential correlates to the pathological personality traits of the SNAP‐2. Taken together, these data suggest a clear, 2‐factor model for trait dependency that is distinct from detachment/autonomy.