Transition to the Clinical Doctorate: Attitudes of the Genetic Counseling Training Program Directors in North America

In North America, genetic counseling is an allied health profession where entry level practitioners currently must hold a master’s degree earned from a graduate program accredited by the American Board of Genetic Counseling. This is one of many health care professions that could transition to an entry level clinical doctorate degree. This study explored the attitudes of genetic counseling training program directors toward such a transition. Thirty-one North American program directors were invited to complete an online survey and a follow-up telephone interview. Twenty-one program directors completed the survey and ten directors also completed a follow up phone interview. There was disagreement among the respondents on the issue of transitioning to a clinical doctorate degree (nine in favor, six against and six undecided). Respondents disagreed about whether the transition would lead to higher salaries (six yes, eight no, and seven unsure) or increased professional recognition (eight yes, eight no, and four unsure). Approximately half (n = 10) of directors were not sure if the transition to a clinical doctorate would help or hurt minority recruitment; six thought it would help and four thought it would hurt. However, the majority (n = 13) thought a clinical doctorate would help genetic counselors to obtain faculty positions. If the field transitions to a clinical doctorate, 11 of the directors thought their program would convert, seven were unsure and one thought their program would shut down. Themes identified in interview data included 1) implications for the profession 2) institution-specific considerations and 3) perception of the unknown. Opinions are quite varied at this time regarding the possible transition to the clinical doctorate among genetic counseling training program directors.     

Emotional state affects gait initiation in individuals with Parkinson’s disease

The purpose of the present study was to determine the impact of manipulating emotional state on gait initiation in persons with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and healthy older adults. Following the presentation of pictures that are known to elicit specific emotional responses, participants initiated gait and continued to walk for several steps at their normal pace. Reaction time, the displacement and velocity of the center of pressure (COP) trajectory during the preparatory postural adjustments, and length and velocity of the first two steps were measured. Analysis of the gait initiation measures revealed that exposure to (1) threatening pictures, relative to all other pictures, speeded the initiation of gait for PD patients and healthy older adults; (2) approach-oriented emotional pictures (erotic and happy people), relative to withdrawal-oriented pictures, facilitated the anticipatory postural adjustments of gait initiation for PD patients and healthy older adults, as evidenced by greater displacement and velocity of the COP movement; and (3) emotional pictures modulated gait initiation parameters in PD patients to the same degree as in healthy older adults. Collectively, these findings hold significant implications for understanding the circuitry underlying the manner by which emotions modulate movement and for the development of emotion-based interventions designed to maximize improvements in gait initiation for individuals with PD.     

A preliminary study of a traumatic injury prevention program

Abstract

This study examined the long-term impact of a five component spinal cord injury prevention program presented to adolescents. A sample of 445 teenagers who attended a junior high school in which an educational intervention was presented three years earlier and a control group of 379 students who had not been exposed to the intervention completed a questionnaire assessing their safety knowledge, attitudes, and self-reported behaviors. Total scores on the questionnaire between treatment and control groups differed significantly. Students in the treatment group reported significantly more frequent seat belt use, stronger belief that seat belts were important to their safety, lower likelihood of riding with friends who had been drinking, higher rates of friends' use of seat belts, greater awareness of the age group most likely to be injured, and increased knowledge that they could prevent spinal cord injury.     

Fear of Intimacy as a Mediator of the Internalized Heterosexism-Relationship Quality Link Among Men in Same-Sex Relationships

This study examined the relationship between internalized heterosexism (also known as internalized homophobia) and fear of intimacy and relationship quality among 88 men in a same-sex romantic relationship. Findings revealed that internalized heterosexism was positively correlated with fear of intimacy (r = .49) and negatively correlated with relationship quality (r = ?.43). In addition, results indicated that fear of intimacy partially mediated the relationship between internalized heterosexism and relationship quality. That is, the data were consistent with the notion that internalized heterosexism leads to more fear of intimacy, which in turn leads to less relationship quality among sexual minority men. Finally, the variables in the model accounted for 28 % of the variance in relationship quality scores. Implications for future research and clinical practice are discussed.     

But I Still Feel Guilt: A Test of a Moral Disengagement Propensity Model

ABSTRACT

We explored the impact of moral disengagement on individual experiences of guilt. We modeled three forms of workplace deviance (withdrawal, interpersonal deviance, and work-family deviance) as mediators between the propensity to morally disengage and guilt, and also includes the moderating effects of perceived work hours culture. Data were collected from 226 employees matched with a colleague and spouse. Results demonstrated that moral disengagement released individuals who engaged in interpersonal and work-family deviance from subsequent feelings of guilt, but only reduced feelings of guilt for those who withdrew. We also found an interactive effect of perceived work hours culture on the relationships between moral disengagement propensity and all three forms of deviance. The indirect effect from moral disengagement propensity to guilt through withdrawal was stronger when perceived work hours was high.     

Unrecognized Posttraumatic Stress Disorder as a Treatment Barrier for a Gang-Involved Juvenile Offender

This study examines the case of GH, an 18-year-old Latino male participating in an employment-based delinquency intervention for gang-affiliated youth. Although postintervention measures revealed that GH showed gains on key outcomes (i.e., delinquency, employment), he experienced sporadic treatment setbacks (e.g., work absenteeism, fighting) that disrupted his progress. A comprehensive psychological assessment suggested that his aggressive, illegal behavior and difficulty maintaining employment could have been influenced by previously undiagnosed posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Excerpts from counseling sessions illustrated how reactive aggression, hypervigilance, sleep disruptions, and emotional numbing could have interfered with treatment gains and ultimately contributed to GH's re-arrest. Implications for early, accurate identification of PTSD in delinquency interventions for gang youth are discussed.     

Intuition as an Influence on Creative Problem-Solving: The Effects of Intuition,Positive Affect,and Training

Intuition may be a critical component of creative thought. To test this hypothesis, a measure of individual differences in intuition was developed. After completing this measure, 320 undergraduates were asked to work on a domain-relevant creative problem-solving task under conditions where positive and neutral affect were induced and they were exposed to 1 of 3 different types of training. It was found that intuitive people produced more creative problem solutions, but that positive affect and training offset the advantage intuitive people showed in creative problem-solving. The implications of these findings for understanding the nature of intuition, and its role in creative problem-solving, are discussed.     

Perception of Maximum Reaching Height When the Means of Reaching Are No Longer in View

Previous research has shown that perception of maximum reaching height is relative to reaching ability even when the means of performing this behavior would bring about (future) changes in reaching ability. Two experiments investigate whether this continues to be the case even when the means of reaching are no longer in view. The results show perception of maximum reaching height reflects impending changes to reaching ability both when the means of performing the reaching task (and changing reaching ability) are present and when they are no longer in view. The results are discussed in the context of prospectivity, retrospectivity, and flexibility—3 fundamental hallmarks of goal-directed behavior.     

ROCs in Eyewitness Identification: Instructions versus Confidence Ratings

From the perspective of signal detection theory, different lineup instructions may induce different levels of response bias. If so, then collecting correct and false identification rates across different instructional conditions will trace out the receiver operating characteristic (ROC)—the same ROC that, theoretically, could also be traced out from a single instruction condition in which each eyewitness decision is accompanied by a confidence rating. We tested whether the two approaches do in fact yield the same ROC. Participants were assigned to a confidence rating condition or to an instructional biasing condition (liberal, neutral, unbiased, or conservative). After watching a video of a mock crime, participants were presented with instructions followed by a six‐person simultaneous photo lineup. The ROCs from both methods were similar, but they were not exactly the same. These findings have potentially important policy implications for how the legal system should go about controlling eyewitness response bias.Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.