Factors Associated With Adverse Mental Health Outcomes in Locally Recruited Aid Workers Assisting Iraqi Refugees in Jordan

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) serve Iraqis living in Jordan as “guests.” In 2008, 258 Jordanian humanitarian staff and Iraqi volunteers working for NGOs completed a needs assessment survey. Work characteristics, stressors, and support variables were evaluated regarding their influence on depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and burnout through multivariate logistic regressions. There was a significant difference in depression, anxiety, and burnout across nationality. Traumatic exposure increased the risk for anxiety, depression, and PTSD. Working longer in the humanitarian sector was associated with less risk of anxiety and depression, and lower social support was a risk for anxiety. Managers were at higher risk for burnout, and low team cohesion was a risk for burnout. Implications for aid organizations are discussed.     

Evidence for Age-related Changes to Temporal Attention and Memory from the Choice Time Production Task

ABSTRACT

The effect of aging on interval timing was examined using a choice time production task, which required participants to choose a key response based on the location of the stimulus, but to delay responding until after a learned time interval. Experiment 1 varied attentional demands of the response choice portion of the task by varying difficulty of stimulus–response mapping. Choice difficulty affected temporal accuracy equally in both age groups, but older participants' response latencies were more variable under more difficult response choice conditions. Experiment 2 tested the contribution of long-term memory to differences in choice time production between age groups over 3 days of testing. Direction of errors in time production between the two age groups diverged over the 3 sessions, but variability did not differ. Results from each experiment separately show age-related changes to attention and memory in temporal processing using different measures and manipulations in the same task.     

McDowell’s Alternative Conceptions of the World

Abstract

Feminists have interpreted Rousseau's attitudes to women as characteristic of a patriarchal ideology in which passion, nature and love are associated with the feminine and repressed in favour of masculine reason, culture and justice. Yet this reading does not cohere with Rousseau's adulation of nature, nor with the repression of writing and culture in favour of natural speech which Derrida finds in his texts. This paper uses Rousseau's accounts of his personal experiences to resolve this conflict and to develop a more complex understanding of Rousseau's attitudes to women. The reading emphasizes that Rousseau operated with a triadic picture in which reason, the passions of the heart and the passions of the body are distinguished. The discussion of Derrida's reading of Rousseau gives rise to some reflections on the relationship of speech and writing to subjectivity, autonomy and women's oppression.     

Embodied cognition and skilled health behaviour

The present research examines health persuasion from an embodied cognition perspective by proposing that engaging the motor system during presentation of a health message will lead individuals to become more skilled at performing the prescribed behaviour. Participants watched a video on the importance of flossing while either imaging themselves flossing or imaging themselves flossing while minimally engaging the motor system (i.e. touching a piece of floss). Females (but not males) who touched an individual floss while watching the video demonstrated better flossing skills 1 week later. Over time, participants (both males and females) who engaged the motor system also developed more accessible attitudes and had a stronger relationship between their perceived flossing efficacy and actual flossing skill. Implications for the theories of embodied cognition and health interventions are discussed.     

Perceptions of treatment control moderate the daily association between negative affect and diabetes problems among adolescents with type 1 diabetes

Perceived control over diabetes may serve to buffer the relationship between adolescents’ experience of daily negative affect and daily problems with diabetes. In a daily diary study including 209 adolescents (ages 10.5–15.5) with type 1 diabetes, we examined how daily affect related to daily fluctuations in experience of diabetes problems, and whether perceptions of control moderated these daily associations. Using hierarchical linear modelling, we found that day-to-day experiences of negative affect were associated with more frequent daily diabetes problems. Perceptions of treatment control moderated associations between negative affect and number of problems; negative affect was more strongly associated with number of problems among teens perceiving lower versus higher treatment control over their illness. The same pattern of association was not apparent for personal control. Results suggest that perceived treatment control may help to buffer detrimental associations between negative affect and adolescents’ ability to successfully manage their diabetes.     

Laboratory Simulated Gambling: Risk Varies Across Participant-Stake Procedure

ABSTRACT. This study investigated whether risk taking on a laboratory gambling task differed depending on whether participants gambled with earned or experimenter-provided game credits. Participants made repeated choices between two options, one to wager game credits on a game that produced probabilistic gains and losses, and one to gain game credits with certainty. Choice was investigated across stake and no-stake conditions and condition order was counterbalanced across conditions. Risk taking was higher under stake than no-stake conditions, but only when stake conditions were experienced first. There was no effect on risk taking of the amount of the certain gain. Results are consistent with previous research showing that participant-stake procedures promote greater risk taking than procedures that allow participants to gamble with their own earnings, and also show that experience gambling with earned credits has an enduring effect on risk taking.     

Exploring the Relationship Between Religious Coping and Spirituality Among Three Types of Collegiate Substance Abuse

Religion and spirituality are protective factors against collegiate substance abuse; however, considering the variance among different types of drug abuse is important. We investigated religious coping and spirituality in relation to hazardous drinking, marijuana use, and psychostimulant use. Results indicated that positive religious coping and several dimensions of spirituality protect against hazardous drinking and marijuana use. Furthermore, differences in religious coping and spirituality may not exist between groups of psychostimulant users.