A Qualitative Study of Health Professionals' Views Regarding Provision of Information About Health-Protective Behaviors During Genetic Consultation for Breast Cancer

This study aimed to explore health professionals' views and practice regarding the provision of information about health-protective behaviors (e.g., exercise, alcohol consumption, diet) during genetic consultation for breast cancer. Ten genetic counselors participated in three focus groups, and seven medical specialists were interviewed in a focus group or individually. Data was analyzed using the constant comparative method. Findings suggested that health professionals held differing, often opposing, views about the value of health-protective behaviors for women at increased risk of breast cancer. The content and extent of information provided about health-protective behaviors varied widely, and participants expressed a need to form consensus regarding information provision both within and across clinics. The main barriers to providing information regarding health-protective behaviors included the lack of research evidence regarding the impact of these factors and higher priority of other information need to be provided in the limited consultation time. Participants generally did not consider it their role to promote health-protective behaviors, and were concerned about the psychological impact of providing information about behavioral risk factors during genetic consultations.     

Age-related differences in ambulatory blood pressure during daily stress: evidence for greater blood pressure reactivity with age

Prior research on age and emotions has found that older adults may show better physiological regulation to stressful stimuli than do younger adults. However, the stress reactivity literature has shown that age is associated with higher cardiovascular reactivity to laboratory stress (J. R. Jennings et al., 1997). The authors investigated these conflicting findings further by examining daily ambulatory blood pressure in 428 middle-aged to older adults. Consistent with the age and reactivity literature, relatively old individuals showed significantly greater increases in ambulatory diastolic blood pressure compared with younger individuals when dealing with daily stressors. However, results also revealed that relatively old individuals reported less of an increase in negative affect during daily stress compared with their younger counterparts. The results of this study are consistent with the age-related increase in cardiovascular risk but highlight the complex links between stress and different facets of the aging process.     

Effects of number of items and visual display variability onsame-different discrimination behavior

We explored college students' discrimination of complex visual stimuli that involvedmultiple-item displays. The items in each of the displays could be all the same, all different, or diverse mixtures of some same and some different items. The participants had to learn which of two arbitrary responses was correct for each of the displays without being told about the sameness or differentness of the stimuli. We observed a general improvement in discrimination performance--a rise in choice accuracy and a fall in reaction time-as the number of icons in the display was increased, even when the participants had been trained from the outset with displays containing different numbers of items and when smaller numbers of items were not randomly distributed but grouped in the center of the display. The participants' discrimination behavior also depended on the mixture of same and different items in the displays. Striking individual differences in the participants' discrimination behavior disclosed that people sometimes respond as do pigeons and baboons trained with a similar task. This and previous related research suggest that variability discrimination may lie at the root of same-different categorization behavior.     

cluster types of attitudes toward multiple role planning of single,korean, female undergraduates

The current study explored the attitudes that single, Korean, female college students have toward multiple role planning. Cluster groups among the participants were identified by their scores on the Korean language version (Yang, 1997) of the Attitudes Toward Multiple Role Planning (ATMRP; Weitzman, 1992) measure, and significant differences in career‐ and marriage‐related variables were also examined. Five clusters were derived using cluster analysis based on participants' scores on the ATMRP. Significant differences among clusters were found on career‐ and marriage‐related variables. This study contributes to the understanding of various patterns in attitudes toward multiple roles and suggests effective interventions for each group in the career decision‐making process.     

The effect of a multicomponent literacy instruction model on literacy growth for kindergartners and first‐grade students in Chile

In the present study we examined the impact of a comprehensive literacy instruction model called Collaborative Language and Literacy Instruction Project (CLLIP) on language and literacy achievement over the course of a year by Spanish‐speaking children in Chile. Participants included kindergartners (N = 312) from high and low socioeconomic backgrounds and first‐grade students (N = 305) from high SES families. The CLLIP model targeted phonological awareness, alphabetics and phonics, fluency, vocabulary, reading comprehension and writing, and included coaching and sustained follow‐up as key elements for teacher professional development. The results showed promise for the CLLIP model in the Chilean context. Kindergartners in CLLIP classrooms had faster growth rates in letter naming, word reading, vocabulary, and phonemic segmentation fluency than those in control classrooms, and had higher scores at the end of the year in phonemic segmentation fluency, letter naming, and word reading. In addition, kindergartners from high SES families had faster growth rates than kindergartners from low SES families in letter naming and word reading. Effect sizes ranged from small (d = .18 in word reading) to fairly large (d = .70 in letter‐naming fluency). First‐grade students in CLLIP classrooms had faster growth rates than students in control classrooms in vocabulary, nonword reading fluency, word reading, and reading comprehension. Effect sizes were small in vocabulary, nonword reading fluency, and reading comprehension (.23 ≤ d ≤ .28) and medium in word reading (d = .50). These results suggest that the present multicomponent literacy instructional model had a positive impact on Chilean children's literacy acquisition.     

Moral realism as moral motivation: The impact of meta-ethics on everyday decision-making

People disagree about whether “moral facts” are objective facts like mathematical truths (moral realism) or simply products of the human mind (moral antirealism). What is the impact of different meta-ethical views on actual behavior? In Experiment 1, a street canvasser, soliciting donations for a charitable organization dedicated to helping impoverished children, primed passersby with realism or antirealism. Participants primed with realism were twice as likely to be donors, compared to control participants and participants primed with antirealism. In Experiment 2, online participants primed with realism as opposed to antirealism reported being willing to donate more money to a charity of their choice. Considering the existence of non-negotiable moral facts may have raised the stakes and motivated participants to behave better. These results therefore reveal the impact of meta-ethics on everyday decision-making: priming a belief in moral realism improved moral behavior.