A Leader-Led Supervision Group as a Model for Practicing Genetic Counselors

With the stage set by the overview of supervision models in the previous paper, thispaper now presents the development and evolution of a currently ongoing leader-ledsupervision group for experienced genetic counselors. I discuss the procedures forgetting started; the creation and maintenance of the contract; typical issues and themesconsidered; the format for case presentation; and the overall growth of the group and itsmembers.     

Assessment of Emotional Avoidance in Adolescents: Psychometric Properties of a New Multidimensional Measure

Emotional avoidance—which includes cognitive and attentional processes that function as means of avoiding or dampening emotional experiences—may be a transdiagnostic risk and maintenance factor for emotional disorders. However, existing measures generally assess separate aspects of emotional avoidance, and few multidimensional measures exist for adolescents. The aim of the current study was to establish the psychometric properties of a new multidimensional measure of emotional avoidance for adolescents--the Emotional Avoidance Strategy Inventory for Adolescents (EASI-A; Fairholme et al. 2008)--employing an exploratory structural equation modeling framework. Analyses yielded a three-factor structure for the EASI-A, including subscales measuring Avoidance of Emotion Expression, Avoidance of Thoughts and Feelings, and Distraction. Moderate correlations were observed between the EASI-A and a measure of thought suppression, and the EASI-A was significantly associated with anxiety and depression symptoms. The EASI-A is a new, psychometrically sound measure that will aid in the assessment of avoidance as a vulnerability factor for psychopathology and as an outcome and mechanism for treatments of emotional disorders in adolescents.     

The Ethics of Treating Animals as Resources: A Post-Heideggerian Approach

This paper describes the phenomenological ethics implicit in Heidegger’s later work. It is argued that these phenomenological ethics take the form of a perfectionist ethics in which one consciously resists the temptation to nihilistically enframe other entities as Bestand. Despite Heidegger’s reputation as an inferior animal philosopher, it is then argued that we can employ this ethics to improve our relationship with non-human animals. Specifically, our use of them in the agricultural setting is examined to determine whether or not our current practices are ethical according to Heidegger’s normative model. Ultimately it is concluded that, more often than not, animals are harmed both ontically and ontologically by our modern farming practices. We are called on instead to try to dwell meditatively with other entities, to be-with them in such a way that respects them as inexhaustibly meaningful instantiations of being as such. This requires changes to the way in which we satisfy our needs as consumers.     

Object naming induces reliance on orientation-independent representations during longer-term, but not short-term, visual remembering

Naming novel objects with novel count nouns changes how the objects are drawn from memory, revealing that object categorisation induces reliance on orientation-independent visual representations during longer-term remembering, but not during short-term remembering. Serial position effects integrate this finding with a more established conceptualisation of short-term and longer-term visual remembering in which the former is identified as keeping an item in mind. Adults were shown a series of four novel objects in orientations in which they would not normally be drawn from memory. When not named ("Look at this object"), the objects were drawn in the orientations in which they had been seen. When named with a novel count noun (e.g., "Look at this dax"), the final object continued to be depicted in the orientation in which it had been seen, but all other objects were depicted in an unseen but preferred (canonical) orientation, even though participants could still remember the orientations in which they had been seen. Although orientation-dependent exemplar representations appear to be more accessible than orientation-independent generic representations during short-term remembering, the reverse is the case during longer-term remembering. How the theoretical framework emerging from these observations accommodates a broader body of evidence is discussed.     

When disagreement gets ugly: perceptions of bias and the escalation of conflict

It is almost a truism that disagreement produces conflict. This article suggests that perceptions of bias can drive this relationship. First, these studies show that people perceive those who disagree with them as biased. Second, they show that the conflict-escalating approaches that people take toward those who disagree with them are mediated by people's tendency to perceive those who disagree with them as biased. Third, these studies manipulate the mediator and show that experimental manipulations that prompt people to perceive adversaries as biased lead them to respond more conflictually-and that such responding causes those who engage in it to be viewed as more biased and less worthy of cooperative gestures. In summary, this article provides evidence for a "bias-perception conflict spiral," whereby people who disagree perceive each other as biased, and those perceptions in turn lead them to take conflict-escalating actions against each other (which in turn engender further perceptions of bias, continuing the spiral).     

Is counter-terrorism policy evidence-based? What works, what harms, and what is unknown

Is counter-terrorism policy evidence-based? What works, what harms, and what is unknown. One of the central concerns surrounding counter-terrorism interventions today, given the attention and money spent on them, is whether such interventions are effective. To explore this issue, we conducted a general review of terrorism literature as well as a Campbell systematic review on counter-terrorism strategies. In this article, we summarize some of our findings from these works. Overall, we found an almost complete absence of evaluation research on counter-terrorism strategies and conclude that counter-terrorism policy is not evidence-based. The findings of this review emphasise the need for government leaders, policy makers, researchers, and funding agencies to include and insist on evaluations of the effectiveness of these programs in their agendas.     

Collaboration in Business Schools: A Foundation for Community Success

Business schools are often thought of as being accountable for the individual student’s personal development and preparation to enter the business community. While true that business schools guide knowledge development, they must also fulfill a social contract with the business community to provide ethical entry-level business professionals. Three stakeholders, students, faculty, and the business community, are involved in developing and strengthening an understanding of ethical behavior and the serious impacts associated with an ethical lapse. This paper discusses the ways the business schools may enhance the student’s ethical knowledge and understanding, and proposes a roadmap that business schools may use to develop or strengthen a strong ethical culture. The authors, Leland Horn and Michael Kennedy, are third year doctorate of management students at Colorado Technical University, 4435 North Chestnut Street, Colorado Springs CO 80907.     

An analysis of calendar performance in two autistic calendar savants

We acquired large data sets of calendar performance from two autistic calendar savants, DG and RN. An analysis of their errors and reaction times revealed that (1) both individuals had knowledge of calendar information from a limited range of years; (2) there was no evidence for the use of memorized anchor dates that could, by virtue of counting away from the anchors, allow correct responses to questions about other dates; and (3) the two individuals differed in their calendar knowledge, as well as in their ability to perform secondary tasks in which calendar knowledge was assessed indirectly. In view of the fact that there are only 14 possible annual calendars, we suggest that both savants worked by memorizing these 14 possible calendar arrangements.     

Biphasic ERK1/2 activation in both the hippocampus and amygdala may reveal a system consolidation of contextual fear memory

There is accumulating evidences to suggest that memory consolidation in some conditions involves two waves of neuronal plastic change. Using two fear conditioning procedures in male C57BL/6J mice, we have recently shown that consolidation of the foreground contextual fear memory required two waves of ERK1/2 activation in hippocampal CA1, while consolidation of cue conditioning was only associated with the early phase of activation. The present experiment further showed that this bi-phasic pattern of ERK1/2 activation was not restricted to hippocampal CA1, but could also be observed in other fear memory-related brain areas. The unpaired conditioning procedure (context in foreground) induced two waves of ERK1/2 activation in hippocampal CA1 and CA3, as well as in the LA and BLA nuclei of the amygdala. In contrast, the paired conditioning procedure (context in background) led to a transient early phase only in hippocampal CA1 and LA. In addition, ERK1/2 phosphorylation in the hippocampus was found to correlate with that in the amygdala nuclei specifically after the unpaired procedure. Taken together, our data suggest that the observed biphasic pattern of neuronal plastic events may reflect the interplay between hippocampal and amygdala activity-dependent plasticity critical for the system consolidation of contextual fear memory.