Factors affecting agreement between severely mentally ill alcohol abusers' and collaterals' reports of alcohol and other substance abuse.

This study examined subject-collateral reports of alcohol use among a sample of 167 dually diagnosed individuals seeking outpatient treatment at a community mental health clinic. All subjects met Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.; American Psychiatric Association, 1994) criteria for a schizophrenia-spectrum or bipolar disorder and for alcohol abuse or dependence. Subjects were recruited within 2 weeks of treatment entry and completed measures of cognitive functioning, alcohol dependence severity, psychiatric symptoms, and quantity and frequency of substance use over the previous 60 days using the Timeline Follow-Back interview (L. C. Sobell & M. B. Sobell, 1996). They also provided a urine sample, which was screened for recent drug use. Collateral interviews were conducted by phone and included an assessment of the subject's alcohol and drug use over the same 60-day period. Collaterals also reported their confidence in the accuracy of their reports. Overall, the results indicated generally poor subject-collateral agreement. However, subject-collateral agreement appeared better for those individuals (n = 97) with negative urine drug screens. The most consistent predictor of subject-collateral discrepancy scores was subjects' recent drug use. Recommendations for enhancing the validity of self-reports of substance use in a severely mentally ill population are discussed.     

The Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory as a Culturally Relevant Personality Measure in Applied Settings

This paper introduces the development of the Cross‐Cultural (Chinese) Personality Assessment Inventory (CPAI) as a culturally relevant measure for personality assessment in collectivistic cultures. In addition to universal personality traits, the CPAI included indigenously derived scales that assessed the relational aspects of personality. We reported three studies that illustrated the usefulness of these indigenous scales in Chinese organizational settings. The Interpersonal Relatedness factor scales on the CPAI contributed additional value beyond scales from the universal factors of Social Potency and Dependability in profiling MBA students at senior‐level positions, in assessing hotel workers’ customer orientation, and in predicting senior executives’ leadership behaviors.     

How Risk is Perceived, Constructed and Interpreted by Clients in Clinical Genetics, and the Effects on Decision Making: Systematic Review

As an individual’s understanding of their genetic risk may influence risk management decisions, it is important to understand the ways in which risk is constructed and interpreted. We systematically reviewed the literature, undertaking a narrative synthesis of 59 studies presenting data on the ways in which individuals perceive, construct and interpret their risk, and the subsequent effects. While most studies assessed perceived risk quantitatively, the combined evidence suggests individuals find risk difficult to accurately quantify, with a tendency to overestimate. Rather than being a stand-alone concept, risk is something lived and experienced and the process of constructing risk is complex and influenced by many factors. While evidence of the effects of perceived risk is limited and inconsistent, there is some evidence to suggest high risk estimations may adversely affect health and lead to inappropriate uptake of medical surveillance and preventative measures by some individuals. A more focused approach to research is needed with greater exploration of the ways in which risk is constructed, along with the development of stronger theoretical models, to facilitate effective and patient-centered counseling strategies.     

The Importance of Program Evaluation: How Can it be Applied to Diverse Genetics Education Settings?

The role of a genetic counselor often entails providing education to patient, community and/or health professional groups. While counseling supervision assists genetic counselors to be reflective about their clinical work and to enhance clinical skills, evaluation is a rather analogous process in the provision of education. Program evaluation of education activities can be applied to provide information about the needs of the target group (needs assessment), the delivery of the program (process evaluation) as well as determining the extent to which the education activity has met its intended aims (summative evaluation). Evaluation assists the educator to assess the impact of their program and provides an evidence base about genetics education. Although program evaluation can be a complex activity, the tools are ones that can be used by individuals to evaluate single or simple education activities. The components of evaluation are discussed with reference to genetic counseling practice and three very different examples of actual evaluations are provided to illustrate the diversity of evaluation strategy and programs to which it can be applied.     

Differential acquisition, extinction, and reinstatement of conditioned suppression in mice

In animals, the reappearance of conditioned fear responses after extinction has been primarily investigated using single-cue conditioning paradigms. However, a differential paradigm can overcome several of the disadvantages associated with a single-cue procedure. In the present study, the reinstatement phenomenon was assessed in mice using a differential conditioned suppression paradigm. In a first phase, one conditioned stimulus (CS + ) was consistently paired with an unconditioned stimulus (US; footshock) while another CS (CS-) was not, resulting in selective suppression of previously trained instrumental behaviour during the CS + . After the extinction phase, half of the animals (reinstatement group) were presented with unsignalled USs, while the other half were not (control group). A differential return of conditioned responding was observed in the reinstatement group, but not in the control group. The implications of these findings for future conditioning research are discussed.     

Opting out or Pushed off the Edge? The Glass Cliff and the Precariousness of Women's Leadership Positions

The glass cliff refers to the phenomenon whereby women are overrepresented in leadership roles associated with high risk and an increased chance of failure. Research into the glass cliff has focused on documenting the existence of the phenomenon and understanding the psychological processes that contribute to the appointment of women to precarious positions. This paper summarises this research and extends it by examining the implications that glass cliff positions have, both for the women who occupy them and for the organisations in which they exist. The gender-stress-disidentification model suggests that glass cliff positions are inherently stressful, and lead women to experience a reduced sense of organisational identification. This, in turn, has important implications for organisations in terms of reduced commitment and increased turnover. Taken together, the research presented here offers an alternative analysis of women's increasing disaffection with the workplace, which takes into account gender differences in workplace experience.     

The relationship between monoaminergic gene expression,learning, and optimism in red junglefowl chicks

Animal Cognition - Intra-species cognitive variation is commonly observed, but explanations for why individuals within a species differ in cognition are still understudied and not yet clear....     

Expert Testimony on Child Sexual Abuse:a Qualitative Study of the Swedish Approach toStatement Analysis

Statement analysis is an evaluation method occasionally used forassessing children's testimony in cases of alleged sexual abuse. InSweden, statement analytical evaluations can be presented as expertevidence in legal proceedings. The purpose of the present study was toexplore the Swedish application of statement analysis, developed by Dr.Arne Trankell. Ten written expert witness reports were subjected to acombination of qualitative and quantitative content analysis. Inaddition to exploring what information was considered in theevaluations, the study focused on the way experts integrated data, andhow they interpreted the results of their evaluations. Statementanalysis in Sweden is characterised by a case-related approach, ascompared to the way of using pre-defined criteria within the frameworkof Statement Validity Analysis. Experts used statement characteristicsin different ways and emphasised different aspects of cases in order toreach their conclusions. Most experts used alternative hypotheses inorder to evaluate their data. Although the use of hypothesis-testing hasstrong support in the literature, there appeared to be risks for logicalmistakes connected to the conveyance of tentative hypotheses intoconclusions. The results are discussed in relation to other applicationsof statement analysis.     

Job Characteristics and Life Satisfaction in the EU: a Domains-of-Life Approach

Applied Research in Quality of Life - Working life has come to permeate every domain of life. Characteristics once thought to affect only the job domain have become important determinants of how...     

The Effect of PTSD Symptom Change on Suicidal Ideation in a Combined Military and Civilian Sample Engaged in Cognitive Processing Therapy

In light of the well-established relationship between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and suicidal ideation (SI), there has been a push for treatments that simultaneously improve symptoms of PTSD and decrease SI. Using data from a randomized controlled hybrid implementation-effectiveness trial, the current study investigated the effectiveness of Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT; Resick, Monson, & Chard, 2016) on PTSD and SI. The patient sample (N = 188) was diverse in military and veteran status, gender, and comorbidity, and 73% of the sample endorsed SI at one or more points during CPT. Participants demonstrated significant improvement in SI over the course of CPT. Multilevel growth curve modeling revealed a significant association between PTSD symptom change and change in SI. Results from cross-lagged multilevel regressions indicated that PTSD symptoms predicted SI in the next session, yet SI in a given session did not predict PTSD symptoms in the next session. Potentially relevant clinical factors (i.e., military status, gender, depression diagnosis, baseline SI, study consultation condition) were not associated with the relationship between PTSD symptoms and SI. These results add to the burgeoning literature suggesting that evidence-based treatments for PTSD, like CPT, reduce suicidality in a range of individuals with PTSD, and that this reduction is predicted by improvements in PTSD symptoms.