Mental health and North American Indian/Native communities: Cultural transactions,education, and regulation

Critical issues in the delivery of mental health services to North American Indians/Natives residing in rural areas are discussed by describing Indian populations/communities; briefly summarizing available literature concerning the nature of mental health problems within Indian communities; examining Indian belief systems relevant to participation in mental health service delivery processes; exploring community expectations for structuring participatory interactions which may inhibit utilization of mental health services; and describing transactions between Indian consumers and non-Indian professionals which have become typical over time. The rural context was examined as it interacts with individual and community characteristics to affect Indian mental health. Relations between geography and culture, important in understanding the mental health problems of Indian people, are discussed in regard to expanding community healing resources through empowerment, and viewing "education as transformation" as a key concept in enhancing community healing processes.     

The career aspirations and occupational interests of culturally disadvantaged children

The occupational aspirations and interests of a sample of culturally disadvantaged children aged 15½ years and a matched control group were compared. Whilst the disadvantaged boys aspired to jobs of lower social-class status than their control-group peers, the two girls' groups showed very similar aspiration levels, and the disadvantaged group as a whole was oriented towards skilled jobs. The mean occupational interest profiles of the groups did not differ significantly. A higher proportion of the disadvantaged children were reported as being unemployed shortly after leaving school. It is concluded that there was a serious mismatch between the career aspirations of some of the disadvantaged group and their prospects. Ways in which this might be reduced through better school careers guidance and education programmes are briefly considered.     

Is visual lexical access based on phonological codes? Evidence from a picture-word interference task

The claim that lexical access for visual words is mandatorily mediated by their phonological codes was investigated. Ninety-six subjects performed timed naming responses to pictures while instructed to ignore printed words superimposed on the pictures. Distractor words were either semantically related to the picture label or were homophones of a word semantically related to the picture name. On the basis of the claim that homophones initially activate multiple semantic codes, we hypothesized that the homophone and semantic distractors would yield comparable interference. Picture-word stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) was varied between subjects as 0 or +100 msec. For an SOA of 0 msec, semantic interference, but no effect from the homophones, was obtained. For an SOA of +100 msec, no effect was obtained in either condition. In combination, these findings indicate a limited role of phonological codes in visual lexical access. It is suggested that the role of phonology in written word identification may vary dependent on procedure and utility to the task.     

Category and Attribute Knowledge Deterioration in Alzheimer's Disease

A prevalent theory regarding the deterioration of semantic memory in Alzheimer's disease is that it is a bottom-up process. If this is true, performance on tests of attribute knowledge should decline more rapidly than performance on tests of categorical knowledge as dementia severity increases. In the present study, a convincing pattern of findings to either support or reject the theory failed to emerge. This raised questions regarding the ability to separate attribute and categorical knowledge, and whether one can be tested without influence of the other. Questions also were raised regarding the additional cognitive processes needed to complete tasks of semantic memory.     

Some Effects of Crowding in a Prison Environment1

Inmates at a federal correctional institution were examined for their criterion of what constitutes overcrowding. In general, inmates who were housed under highly crowded conditions exhibited less tolerance of overcrowding than did those who were housed under relatively less crowded conditions. Higher crowding also yielded more negative affective responses to the physical environment. This relationship existed only with respect to a social-density measure of crowding and not for a spatial-density measure.     

The Activity Preference Questionnaire: is the forced choice format necessary?

Summary: While the Activity Preference Questionnaire (APQ) appears to provide unusually pure and subtle measures of anxiety proneness, its forced choice format involves several drawbacks. Data are presented which suggest that a rating format can be used which avoids the disadvantages of the forced choice format but incorporates its advantages.     

INTELLIGENCE AND WORK ADJUSTMENT IN AN NYC POPULATION

It seems to be generally accepted that disadvantaged persons perform poorly on aptitude tests even when they may have the ability to do a job (Zimpel & Panger, 1970; Seiler, 1970). Other evidence suggests that race is also a factor in poor test performance (Anderson & Smith, 1969; Parker, Kunce, & Bolanovich, 1970). This study is an attempt to see how useful a widely used intelligence test may be for predicting work adjustment of disadvantaged youth when race is considered as a factor.