State Aid to Religiously Affiliated,Non-Public Schools: An Emerging Trend or Same Old Same Old?

This article reviews judicial attitudes with regard to the constitutionality of aid for children in religiously affiliated non-public schools. The first part highlights the extent to which the Supreme Court appears to have turned the corner in its willingness to examine the effective use of resources in regular education rather than just the acceptability of aid. The second section reviews how Congressional and regulatory activities have contributed to lower court decisions that continue to focus on the narrow issues of how much money can be spent and the appropriate locations for the delivery of services to children who attend religiously affiliated non-public schools rather than the quality of education that they may be eligible to receive. Given the distinctions between the ways in which children in religiously affiliated non-public schools are treated based on whether they have disabilities, this article examines recent legal trends in considering whether there will be a new era in providing children who attend religiously affiliated non-public schools with the state aid that they deserve.     

Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and Cognitive Performance in a Population-Based Sample of the Oldest Old: Impact of Comorbid Dementia

We examined the relationship between type 2 diabetes mellitus and cognitive function in a population-based sample of very old people. The sample comprised 338 persons, aged 80-93 years (mean age 83.5 years), of whom 70 persons had type 2 diabetes mellitus. Measures of cognitive functioning included tests of perceptual speed, visuo-spatial ability, inductive reasoning, short-term memory, semantic memory, episodic memory, and the Mini-Mental State Examination. Regression analyses showed that type 2 diabetes mellitus duration was related to test performance across all cognitive domains, with the exception of short-term memory, such that longer duration was associated with lower test performance. When cases with dementia were excluded from the sample, further analyses showed that diabetes duration was not associated with cognitive test performance. This indicates that diabetes is not related to lower cognitive function in the general population of non-demented old people. Diabetes, however, increases the risk for cerebrovascular incidents, like stroke, that may contribute to vascular dementia.     

Anticipating the Societal Challenges of Nanotechnologies

“In this article we sketch out the landscape for this Special Issue on anticipating and embedding the societal challenge of nanotechnologies. Tools that actors may choose to employ for these processes are articulated, and further explored through the introduction of the seven articles which comprise this Issue. Taken together, these articles create a cogent narrative on the societal challenges posed by nanotechnologies. They are drawn together by three distinct themes, each of which is briefly considered within this context of this Introductory article”.     

Information underpinning anticipation of goal-directed throwing

We identified the information used to anticipate throw direction in handball. In two experiments, we examined how anticipation performance is affected when the information from one of five body areas (right arm, shoulders, hips, trunk, or total throw side) was either neutralized or decoupled from the motion of other body segments. In the first experiment, performance was significantly reduced when information from the throwing arm was neutralized, irrespective of skill levels. Skilled participants were negatively affected when the shoulders, hips, and trunk were neutralized, whereas less-skilled participants showed trends toward improvement under identical conditions. In the second experiment, partially disrupting relative motion via decoupling was not enough to reduce the anticipation performance among skilled participants to chance levels, whereas less-skilled participants lost their ability to anticipate in three conditions. Our findings suggest that skilled and less-skilled participants employ different information extraction strategies, yet information from the throwing arm is critical to anticipation for both groups. The two experiments suggest that relative motion mediated by both the absolute displacement trajectories of individual marker locations and their relative timings are important in informing anticipation, irrespective of skill level.     

The Role of Psychological Climate in Neutralizing the Effects of Organizational Politics on Work Outcomes

The present study examined the moderating impact of psychological climate on the relationship between perceived organizational politics and both commitment and turnover intent. Data were gathered from 131 restaurant employees who completed surveys at work. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that a 6-factor conceptualization (supportive management, role clarity, contribution, recognition, self-expression, and challenge) provided the most adequate model representation of the psychological climate construct. Results indicate that politics perceptions interacted with each climate factor (with the exception of challenge) in predicting commitment. Conversely, politics perceptions interacted only with supportive management and self-expression to predict turnover intent. Implications for theoretical development and empirical research in this domain are provided.     

Misrepresentation in the Consumer Context

Research in social psychology suggests that motives such as self‐bolstering and impression management can lead people to engage in deliberate misrepresentations during interpersonal communications. This article extends our understanding of such behavior to a new domain; that of consumer communications. Drawing on research on lying behavior and symbolic consumption, we suggest that misrepresentation about products and possessions is particularly likely to occur when these products or possessions are used to create a positive self‐image in the context of social interaction. Experiments 1 and 2 simulate a social interaction wherein misrepresentation about the purchase price of a product helps participants to manage impressions. A third experiment extends these findings by testing for wealth‐related misrepresentation in the context of an interaction wherein participants actually communicate their family's wealth to a recipient. Consistent with predictions derived from existing research on symbolic consumption, all 3 experiments provide support for the critical importance of recipient status on the likelihood of misrepresentation. The first 2 experiments additionally examine the role of individual differences and brand differences. Results on these dimensions are also supportive of our underlying theoretical premise regarding the antecedents of lying behavior.     

Developing Standard Recommendations (Guidelines) for Genetic Counseling Practice: A Process of the National Society of Genetic Counselors

The National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC) supports the development of practice recommendations (guidelines) in the field of genetic counseling. This paper reviews the basic components of NSGC genetic counseling practice recommendations as well as the process for formal adoption of such documents, as approved by the Board of Directors of the NSGC.     

Assessment Instruments Used by Addictions Counselors

The Association for Assessment in Counseling's Committee on Assessment and Training in Addictions Counseling conducted a survey of Master Addictions Counselors (MACs) certified by the National Board for Certified Counselors. The intent of the survey was to identify which standardized assessment instruments were most frequently used by MACs and perceived to be most important in their substance abuse practices. This article describes survey results and provides training and practice recommendations.