A Preliminary Examination of Sexual Orientation as a Social Vulnerability for Experiencing HIV/AIDS-related Stigma

This investigation is a preliminary examination of sexual orientation as a social vulnerability for experiencing HIV/AIDS-related stigma, specifically concerns about disclosure and public attitudes. Participants were 36 heterosexual men and 82 gay men with HIV/AIDS. Consistent with prediction, a heterosexual sexual orientation was significantly associated with HIV/AIDS disclosure concerns. This effect was evident after controlling for various demographic variables, CD4 T-cell count, time since HIV diagnosis, self-esteem, and coping styles. Also, as predicted, similar levels of enacted stigma were evident regardless of sexual orientation. Further work is needed to understand the process of HIV/AIDS disclosure for heterosexual men with this illness and to differentiate the experience of HIV/AIDS-related stigma among gay and straight men with HIV/AIDS.     

Worked to Death: The Relationships of Job Demands and Job Control with Mortality

Despite recent calls in the literature to examine the effects of the occupational context on physiological outcomes, such as mortality, little research has accumulated on this front. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate the interactive relationship between job demands, control, and death. Drawing from the job design, stress, and epidemiology literatures, we argue that job demands will be positively related to mortality under conditions of low control, and negatively related to mortality under conditions of high control. We tested our hypothesis using a 7‐year time‐lagged design in a sample of 2,363 individuals from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. Our results supported our hypothesis, with results showing that for individuals in low control jobs, high job demands are associated with a 15.4% increase in the odds of death compared to low job demands. For those in high control jobs, high job demands are associated with a 34% decrease in the odds of death compared to low job demands. Supplementary analyses revealed a similar pattern predicting body mass index in the group of surviving individuals. We discuss the implications of these findings for theory and practice, while proposing several avenues for future research.     

Using Participatory System Dynamics Modeling to Examine the Local HIV Test and Treatment Care Continuum in Order to Reduce Community Viral Load

Achieving community‐level goals to eliminate the HIV epidemic requires coordinated efforts through community consortia with a common purpose to examine and critique their own HIV testing and treatment (T&T) care system and build effective tools to guide their efforts to improve it. Participatory system dynamics (SD) modeling offers conceptual, methodological, and analytical tools to engage diverse stakeholders in systems conceptualization and visual mapping of dynamics that undermine community‐level health outcomes and identify those that can be leveraged for systems improvement. We recruited and engaged a 25‐member multi‐stakeholder Task Force, whose members provide or utilize HIV‐related services, to participate in SD modeling to examine and address problems of their local HIV T&T service system. Findings from the iterative model building sessions indicated Task Force members’ increasingly complex understanding of the local HIV care system and demonstrated their improved capacity to visualize and critique multiple models of the HIV T&T service system and identify areas of potential leverage. Findings also showed members’ enhanced communication and consensus in seeking deeper systems understanding and options for solutions. We discuss implications of using these visual SD models for subsequent simulation modeling of the T&T system and for other community applications to improve system effectiveness.     

A Quasi-Experimental Evaluation of the Effects of Police Body-Worn Cameras (BWCs) on Response-to-Resistance in a Large Metropolitan Police Department

The current study provides a statistically rigorous program evaluation of the impact of police body-worn cameras (BWCs) on police response-to-resistance (e.g., use of force). Results indicate that BWC officers’ mean frequency of response-to-resistance decreased by 8.4% from the 12 months pre-BWC implementation to the 12 months post-BWC implementation compared with a 3.4% increase observed for the matched sample of non-BWC officers. Police departments should consider adopting BWCs alongside other strategies to reduce police response-to-resistance, and to improve transparency and accountability. Study limitations and directions for future research are also discussed.     

脑成像在心理学研究领域的价值

现在普遍使用的脑成像技术给心理学研究增加了新的数据和资料。和任何新的方法一样,我们需要决定如何以适当的方式应用这项技术。这项技术如何以现有的方法所不能的方式帮助回答理论问题？这项技术最好是作为因变量还是作为预测变量来使用？它如何与其它感兴趣的心理变量相关？这种新的成像技术有助于我们了解大脑的运作及其与心理学的关系。研究人员需要弄清楚如何利用这项技术提供的信息加深对心理现象的理解。     

Pain-related anxiety and marijuana use motives: a pilot test among active marijuana-using young adults

The present investigation examined pain-related anxiety in regard to marijuana use motives among a sample of young adult marijuana users (N = 180; 45% women; M(age) = 21.11 years, SD = 6.41). Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were used to determine the relations between pain-related anxiety and marijuana use motives. After controlling for current marijuana use frequency (past 30 days), daily cigarette smoking rate, current rate of alcohol consumption, level of bodily pain (current), and other marijuana use motives, pain-related anxiety was significantly and uniquely associated with coping and conformity motives for marijuana use. Pain-related anxiety was not significantly related to other marijuana use motives. These results offer novel empirical insight pertaining to a relation between pain-related anxiety and coping as well as conformity motives for marijuana use among active users.     

Decision support for real-time, dynamic decision-making tasks

By definition, dynamic decision making dictates that multiple and interrelated decisions be made in a continuously changing environment. Such decision making is difficult and often taxes individuals’ cognitive resources. Here I investigated ways in which to support decision making in these environments. I evaluated three forms of decision support: outcome feedback, cognitive feedback, and feedforward that incorporated (to varying degrees) common features of learning theories associated with dynamic tasks. Participants in a laboratory experiment performed a real-time, dynamic decision-making task while receiving one of the different types of decision support. During the first 2 days, individuals received one type of decision support, but on the third day they performed the task without this support. Participants who received feedforward improved their performance considerably and continued to exhibit improved performance even after discontinuation of the decision support on the third day. Neither outcome feedback nor cognitive feedback resulted in improved performance. More research is necessary to conclusively identify the best forms of dynamic decision-making support and their durability when transferred to new tasks.     

A cross‐cultural study of environmental belief structures in USA,Japan, Mexico,and Peru

Throughout history, the way in which people conceive nature/human relationships has dramatically changed, and different cultures also have divergent notions regarding the role humans play in nature. In Western societies a “new environmental paradigm” (NEP) of ecological nature has apparently replaced the old “human exception paradigm” (HEP), which conceives of humans as being superior and apart from nature. Previous research has shown that, in those societies, a marked dichotomy exist between these two apparently contradictory paradigms, meaning that people who accept the NEP reject the HEP. Countries other than Western ones also exhibit a bias towards the ecological paradigm; however, their world‐views are not necessarily dualistic, since they may adhere to the NEP and, simultaneously, believe that human beings are “special.” This study compares world‐views in four different countries. Responses of 1358 undergraduates from USA, Japan, Mexico, and Peru to the HEP and the NEP scale were analysed to see if they confirmed three factors previously found: (1) a vision of separation from nature (HEP), (2) a necessary “balance” between human needs and nature preservation, and (3) the need to impose “limits” on the human impact on nature. This trifactorial structure was tested using confirmatory factor analysis. USA students exhibited two dimensions (HEP‐NEP) and the other samples showed the expected three factors, although they intercorrelated differentially, depending on the national sample. In all samples “balance” and “limits” were positively correlated. In the Peruvian and Japanese samples the HEP and “balance” were negatively correlated while the USA sample produced a negative covariance between HEP and NEP. In the Japanese sample HEP and “limits” were uncorrelated but in Peru these factors covaried negatively, while in the Mexican sample they were positively correlated. The HEP‐NEP two‐factor structure would seem to be limited to Western nations. More countries need to be measured.     

Whose Metaphysics of Presence? Heidegger's Interpretation of Energeia and Dunamis in Aristotle

In the recently published 1924 course, Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie, Martin Heidegger offers a detailed interpretation of Aristotle's definition of kinesis in the Physics. This interpretation identifies entelecheia with what is finished and present‐at‐an‐end and energeia with being‐at‐work toward this end. In arguing against this interpretation, the present paper attempts to show that Aristotle interpreted being from the perspective of praxis rather than poiesis and therefore did not identify it with static presence. The paper also challenges later variations of Heidegger's interpretation, in particular his account of dunamis in the 1931 course on Metaphysics Theta, which insists that its mode of being is presence‐at‐hand. By arguing that this reading too is untenable, the paper concludes that Aristotle's metaphysics is not a metaphysics of presence and that his texts instead point toward a possibility of metaphysics ignored by the attempts of Heidegger and others to overcome it.