A randomized trial of skin cancer prevention in aquatics settings: the Pool Cool program.

Skin cancer is increasing, and prevention programs are essential. This study evaluated the impact of a skin cancer prevention program on sun-protection habits and swimming pool environments. The intervention included staff training; sun-safety lessons; interactive activities; providing sunscreen, shade, and signage; and promoting sun-safe environments. A randomized trial at 28 swimming pools in Hawaii and Massachusetts tested the efficacy of this program (Pool Cool) compared with an attention-matched injury-prevention control program. Results showed significant positive changes in children's use of sunscreen and shade, overall sun-protection habits, and number of sunburns and improvements in parents' hat use, sun-protection habits, and reported sun-protection policies and environments. Observations corroborated the positive findings. Pool Cool had significant positive effects at swimming pools in diverse audiences.     

The developing ego in group psychotherapy

Analytic group psychotherapy offers the potential for developing ego functions and enhancing identity formation. The nature of the interaction in group psychotherapy forces participants to deal with their perception of reality and revise their perceptions. After a brief review of the literature, focusing on the theoretical basis and ego development in analytic group psychotherapy, the paper discusses the following ego functions and gives an example of each: adaptation to reality, judgment, drive control, object relations (relationships with others), thought process and communication, defenses, affect differentiation, autonomy, mastery-competence, regulation of self-esteem, and frustration tolerance. The paper concludes with an example of assessing ego functions from a clinical vignette taken from one group psychotherapy session.     

Correlation of eye color on self-paced and reactive motor performance.

Researchers continue to examine the distinctiveness of motor performance by dark- versus light-eyed individuals. Dark-eyed individuals generally perform better at reactive type tasks (boxing, hitting a ball, defensive positions in football, rotary pursuit), while light-eyed individuals perform better at self-paced tasks (bowling, golf, pitching baseballs). Subjects performed two tasks, rotary pursuit and ball tossing (with light and dark background). Eye color (light or dark) and accuracy of performance were recorded for each subject. No significant difference was found between eye color and performance on the pursuit rotor (reactive activity). A significant difference was found between men's and women's performance in throwing a ball (self-paced activity) at a light-colored background.     

Academic achievement in Blacks and Whites: Are the developmental processes similar?

Genetic and environmental influences on academic achievement were investigated in four groups of siblings: (1) White full siblings, (2) White half-siblings, (3) Black full siblings, and (4) Black half-siblings. Our expectation was that the variances and covariances among three achievement tests would have the same structure across the four groups. This expectation was confirmed by a quantitative genetic model that imposed equal factor loadings across groups. This best fitting model had two factors: a Genetic factor representing genetic variation and a Shared Environment factor representing environmental differences among families. Reading recognition, reading comprehension, and mathematics tests all loaded on the Genetic factor, but primarily mathematics loaded on the Shared Environment factor. The quantitative genetic model was next fit to the achievement test means. Its successful fit suggested that the genetic and environmental influences involved in producing individual variation were the same as those producing the group-mean differences. In this sample, genes accounted for 66% to 74% of the observed group difference in verbal achievement and 36% of the difference in mathematics achievement. Shared environment accounted for the remainder, 34% to 26% of the difference in verbal achievement and 64% of that in mathematics achievement.     

Genetic Counseling Practices in Germany: A Comparison Between East German and West German Geneticists

As part of an international study of ethics and genetics, we present a comparison between survey responses of 43 East German and 212 West German geneticists to anonymous questionnaires. Both groups indicated that the experience of the Third Reich has impacted the genetics profession in Germany today. East German geneticists reported more directive counseling practices after prenatal diagnosis for 10 of 26 conditions than those from West Germany. When asked to give their personal opinions about pregnancy termination, East Germans were more accepting of abortion than their West German colleagues for 7 of 24 fetal indications. In addition, there were significant differences between the two sample groups for 8 questions on the perception of disability and society. Discussions with German geneticists suggest that, while both groups were affected by Germany's experience of Nazism, different abortion laws, political systems, and ideas about the doctor-patient relationship in former East and West Germany may account for discrepancies in reported genetic counseling practices and in attitudes toward abortion and disability.     

Selective information processing and schematic content related to eating behavior

An adaptation of the Stroop color-naming task was used to investigate selective information processing related to eating behavior in 90 undergraduate women. This study differed from previous studies by (a) treating eating behavior as a continuous variable and (b) looking at five separate categories of words including color, neutral, food, body shape, and other emotionally salient words. We did not find a strong pattern of relation between the Stroop task and eating and body image measures. Results suggest that in a nonclinical population, direct methods of accessing cognitions related to eating may be more fruitful than indirect measures.     

Lamarque and Olsen on Literature and Truth

In Fiction, Truth and Literature , Lamarque and Olsen argue that if a critic claims or attempts to prove that the outlook of a work of literature is true or false, he is not engaging in literary or aesthetic appreciation. This paper argues against this position by adducing cases where literary critics discuss the truth or falsity of a work's view, when their opinions are obviously relevant to the work's aesthetic assessment. The paper considers in detail the way factual errors damage a work's aesthetic standing, and shows that Lamarque and Olsen's alternative account of the role of propositional truths in literature only looks plausible because it considers a restricted range of examples. Finally, it considers the role intention, date and genre play in discussions of the aesthetic damage done by literal falsehood.     

In the Eye of the Beholder? Parental Ratings of Externalizing and Internalizing Symptoms

Variations in ratings of externalizing and internalizing symptoms may contain a trait (i.e., shared view) component when behavioral symptoms that generalize across context are perceived and an individual view component when they are misperceived or when each informant has access to different symptoms. Using a LISREL model, we estimated the trait and the informant-specific, individual view components in parental ratings of externalizing and internalizing symptoms of adolescent siblings. The model demonstrated that mothers' and fathers' ratings contained a substantial individual view component (from 21% to 50% of total rating variance, depending on rater and trait). Except for fathers' ratings of internalizing symptoms (13%), parental ratings also contained a substantial trait component (42% to 58%). Mother's, father's, and child's ratings may be averaged to estimate a trait of externalizing. To estimate an internalizing trait, it may be best to combine just the mother's rating with the child's self-rating.     

Norms for Parental Ratings on Conners' Abbreviated Parent-Teacher Questionnaire: Implications for the Design of Behavioral Rating Inventories and Analyses of Data Derived from Them

Despite the wide usage of Conners' 10-item Abbreviated Parent-Teacher Questionnaire (APTQ), normative data for parental ratings on the APTQ are rare. Moreover, its psychometric properties as a stand alone behavioral rating instrument have yet to be examined in detail. Using data from parental ratings for 6,841 children aged 5 to 14 years, this paper reports the psychometric properties of the APTQ and provides normative and prevalence estimates for four age cohorts (5 to 6, 7 to 8, 9 to 11, and 12 to 14 years) by gender. In presenting the findings, the paper highlights key methodological issues endemic to the design of behavioral rating inventories like the APTQ and the analysis of data derived from them. These issues are illustrated and discussed in terms of their implications for the measurement and determination of prevalence estimates of problem behaviors in child psychology and child psychiatry. The need to revise the design, content, and response formats of child behavior rating inventories is stressed.