Preventing Substance Abuse Among American-Indian Adolescents: A Bicultural Competence Skills Approach

Tobacco, alcohol, and drug use are problems for American-Indian people. We reviewed these problems and the explanations for them and described a bicultural competence skills approach for preventing substance abuse with American-Indian adolescents. Data from a study of that approach suggest its efficacy with American-Indian youth. At posttest and a 6-month follow-up, American-Indian subjects who received preventive intervention based on bicultural competence skills concepts improved more than did American-Indian subjects in a no-intervention control condition on measures of substance-use knowledge, attitudes, and interactive skills, and on self-reported rates of tobacco, alcohol, and drug use. Our findings have implications for future substance-abuse prevention research with American-Indian people.     

Developmental change in the understanding of affective meaning in music

The development of the understanding of affective meaning in music was investigated. Subjects aged 4, 5, 6, and 19 assigned verbal labels to musical segments previously determined by adults to be representative of one of four affects (happy, sad, angry, afraid). Analysis of correct interpretations and errors revealed a pattern of interactions among age, sex, and affect indicating that the ability to verbalize an understanding of affective meaning in music consistent with that of adult subjects is present during the preschool years. Age-related similarities in performance, as well as differences favoring both younger and older subjects, were observed and were discussed in relation to recent research in, and theories of, affective development and communication.The authors thank H. Julia Hannay, Edward Kemery, Shiela MacDonald, and Robert McGrath for their assistance in this research. The conceptual inspiration of Joseph Intrieri is gratefully acknowledged. We also thank Leslie Brody, Robin Hornik, and several anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier draft of the paper. Portions of this research were presented at the Southeastern Conference on Human Development, Baltimore, April 1982.     

An availability bias in professional judgment

When branches of a fault tree are pruned, subjects do not fully transfer the probability of those branches to the ‘all other’ category. This underestimation of the catch-all probability has been interpreted as an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ form of the availability bias. The present work replicates this underestimation bias with professional managers. It then demonstrates the effectiveness of a corrective tactic, extending the tree by generating additional causes, and also reveals that more easily retrieved short-term causes dominate the generation process. These results do not differ across managers' culture, education or experience. After evaluating such alternative explanations as category redefinition, we conclude that availability is a major cause, though possibly not the sole cause, of the underestimation bias.     

The Effect of Contextual Factors on Individuals' Job Performance

The intent of this study is to apply a cross-level design to examine the influence of contextual factors upon individuals' performance. The results support the hypothesis that peer group characteristics predict individual performance beyond individual characteristics. The implications for using a cross-level approach to study the effects of contextual variables on individual-level phenomena are discussed.     

Noncompliance with Persuasive Appeals for a Prosocial,Altruistic Act: Blood Donating1

Effects of persuasive messages, responsibility denial (RD), and attitude-accessing on blood-giving attitudes, intentions, moral obligations, and behavior were examined. In Study 1, participants (n= 84) who heard a message emphasizing moral reasons for donating indicated a more favorable postmessage attitude and stronger moral obligation to donate than participants exposed to a message aimed at reducing fear, a combined moral and fear- reduction message, or no message. Combined message participants showed greatest intent to donate, yet only 14% of all participants attended a campus drive. In Study 2, low (n= 52) and high (n= 60) RD individuals heard the message arguments and were asked to access their attitudes. Low compared to high RD individuals stated a stronger sense of moral obligation, particularly when they accessed their thoughts relevant to blood donating, and behavioral intention, especially in the combined message condition. Few participants attended a blood drive (12.5%), yet most were low RD individuals from the nonaccessed attitude condition (83%). Results suggest that few individuals will engage in the altruistic act of blood donating, despite the experimental use of persuasive messages and accessing issue-relevant attitudes.     

COMPARISON OF STAFF TRAINING STRATEGIES TO PROMOTE GENERALIZED TEACHING SKILLS

Two studies compared the effectiveness of different strategies for promoting generalization of staff skills in teaching self-care routines to clients with developmental disabilities. In Study 1, 9 direct-care staff members of group homes were trained sequentially through four conditions: (a) the provision of written instructions, (b) performance-based training using a single client program exemplar and simulated clients (single case training), (c) performance-based training using actual developmentally delayed clients as trainees (common stimuli training), and (d) performance-based training using multiple client program exemplars with simulated clients (general case training). The results indicated that staff members did not reach all generalization criteria until general case training was provided. Because staff members had been trained sequentially through several conditions in Study 1, a second study controlled for potential sequence effects. In Study 2, 7 staff members were trained using only the general case strategy after baseline. All staff members reached generalization criteria with only general case training, replicating the findings of Study 1. Together, the two studies demonstrated that the general case training strategy was more effective at promoting generalized training effects across clients, settings, and client programs than other commonly used staff training approaches.