Disaster rescue work: The consequences for the family

This paper reports on the findings of a pilot study investigating the impact of disaster relief work on the wives and family members of the relief workers. The study revealed that the wives did experience stress, although the nature of the problems identifed changed with each phase of disaster involvement. Children may also be affected. The age of the child may be an important determinant of the nature and severity of their problems. Interventions that could be adopted to deal with these concerns are outlined.     

Brief report: Cool down: A procedure for decreasing aggression in adults with traumatic head injury

The application of techniques for reducing verbal and physical aggression can be problematic when the procedures are applied to high functioning adults who have sustained a traumatic head injury. In this investigation, the effect of a ‘cool down’ training procedure on two adult males with brain injuries was examined using the same strategy, which was simultaneously applied to both behaviors for 1 subject and applied only to verbal aggression for a second subject. The cool down training procedure included 2 training sessions per week, plus implementation of a modified training program in the test situation. Results revealed that the cool down training program was effective in reducing both verbal and physical aggression and therefore provides an alternative treatment for adults with head injuries.     

Retrieval processes in perceptual recognition and cued recall: The influence of category size

The purpose of these experiments was to determine whether nonsemantic category size and other variables would influence perceptual recognition as they influence cued recall. Procedures developed by Jacoby and his associates were replicated with words belonging to either small or large nonsemantic categories and with recognition tested under bright-target/patterned-mask conditions. The results indicated that words belonging to larger nonsemantic sets were more difficult to identify. This finding and the results of other manipulations are discussed in relation to the interactive activation model and to the proposal that perceptual recognition performance is dependent on a retrieval process similar to that involved in recall prompted by nonsemantic cues.     

Culturally grounded strategies for suicide and alcohol risk prevention delivered by rural Alaska Native communities: A dynamic wait-listed design evaluation of the Qungasvik intervention

We examined the effectiveness of the Qungasvik (Tools for Life) intervention in enhancing protective factors as a universal suicide and alcohol prevention strategy for young people ages 12−18 living in highly affected rural Alaska Native communities. Four communities were assigned to immediate intervention or to a dynamic wait list. Outcomes were analyzed for 239 young people at four time points over two years of community intervention. Outcomes assessed two ultimate variable protective factors buffering suicide and alcohol risk, and three intermediate variable protective factors at the individual, family, and community level. Dose dependent intervention effects were associated with growth in ultimate but not intermediate variables. This evaluation of the Qungasvik intervention provides support for the effectiveness of its Indigenous strategies for suicide and alcohol misuse prevention in this rural Alaska Native setting. Though findings did not provide support for a theory of change where growth in ultimate variables is occasioned through effects on intermediate variables, research designs focused on young people who enter intervention at lower levels of preexisting protection hold promise for better understanding of intervention change processes. The Qungasvik intervention is responsive to an acute public health need for effective rural Alaska Native suicide and alcohol risk prevention strategies.     

Using Judgments to Understand Decoy Effects in Choice

Students were presented choice triads from several different domains, with alternatives described along two dimensions. In Experiment 1, the decoy alternative in each set was dominated by only one of the two other alternatives in the set. In Experiment 2, the decoy alternative was dominated by both of the other alternatives in the set. Within different blocks of trials, participants rated (a) overall attractiveness of each alternative, (b) importance of the different dimensions, (c) attractiveness of each attribute value, and (d) the justifiability of each alternative. Significant effects of manipulating the decoy were found for justifiability ratings and value ratings, with these combining to predict effects on attractiveness ratings. Results argued against a weight-change model of decoy effects and supported value-shift and value-added models.     

Male Bar Drinkers' Perspective on Female Bar Drinkers

Five focus group discussions were conducted with 34 male bar drinkers to obtain their perception of the character and risks for aggression among women they observe in bars. The majority of the men were European American (61.8%), 29.4% were African American, and 8.8% were from other ethnic groups. Their impressions of women were based on appearance, type and speed of alcohol being consumed, and behavior. Every group suggested that women who dress in a sexually provocative manner or get drunk are more likely to be perceived as “loose” or sexually “easy” by men in general. These findings are consistent with stereotypes of women drinkers as sexually promiscuous and highlight the societal double standards for men and women who drink. The men described a woman calling attention to herself, being alone, out late, or having contact with many men in the bar as vulnerable. These findings are similar to those found during focus group discussions with women bar drinkers (K. A. Parks, B. A. Miller, R. L. Collins, & L. M. Zetes-Zanatta, 1998).     

Comparing choices and variations in people and rats: Two teaching experiments

Two pairs of experiments enabled students to compare their own operant behaviors with those of rats. The students played computer games for points, and the rats pressed levers for food. The first pair of experiments showed that, under concurrent schedules of reinforcement, relative frequencies of choices between two alternatives increased linearly in rats and people as functions of relative frequencies of reinforcement, with similar biases and undermatching observed in both species. The second pair of experiments showed that behavioral variability was controlled by reinforcers contingent on variability, this again true for both species. These experiments helped demonstrate the relevance of animal operant research to an explanation of human operant behavior.