Substance Use Research with Indigenous Communities: Exploring and Extending Foundational Principles of Community Psychology

Many Indigenous communities are concerned with substance use (SU) problems and eager to advance effective solutions for their prevention and treatment. Yet these communities also are concerned about the perpetuation of colonizing, disorder‐focused, stigmatizing approaches to mental health, and social narratives related to SU problems. Foundational principles of community psychology—ecological perspectives, empowerment, sociocultural competence, community inclusion and partnership, and reflective practice—provide useful frameworks for informing ethical community‐based research pertaining to SU problems conducted with and by Indigenous communities. These principles are explored and extended for Indigenous community contexts through themes generated from seven collaborative studies focused on understanding, preventing, and treating SU problems. These studies are generated from research teams working with Indigenous communities across the United States and Canada—inclusive of urban, rural, and reservation/reserve populations as well as adult and youth participants. Shared themes indicate that Indigenous SU research reflects community psychology principles, as an outgrowth of research agendas and processes that are increasingly guided by Indigenous communities. At the same time, this research challenges these principles in important ways pertaining to Indigenous–settler relations and Indigenous‐specific considerations. We discuss these challenges and recommend greater synergy between community psychology and Indigenous research.     

Time in the eye of the beholder: Gaze position reveals spatial-temporal associations during encoding and memory retrieval of future and past

Time is grounded in various ways, and previous studies point to a “mental time line” with past associated with the left, and future with the right side. In this study, we investigated whether spontaneous eye movements on a blank screen would follow a mental timeline during encoding, free recall, and recognition of past and future items. In all three stages of processing, gaze position was more rightward during future items compared to past items. Moreover, horizontal gaze position during encoding predicted horizontal gaze position during free recall and recognition. We conclude that mental time line and the stored gaze position during encoding assist memory retrieval of past versus future items. Our findings highlight the spatial nature of temporal representations.     

Threshold Theory Tested in an Organizational Setting: The Relation Between Perceived Innovativeness and Intelligence in a Large Sample of Leaders

A large sample of leaders (N = 4257) was used to test the link between leader innovativeness and intelligence. The threshold theory of the link between creativity and intelligence assumes that below a certain IQ level (approximately IQ 120), there is some correlation between IQ and creative potential, but above this cutoff point, there is no correlation. Support for the threshold theory of creativity was found, in that the correlation between IQ and innovativeness was positive and significant below a cutoff point of IQ 120. Above the cutoff, no significant relation was identified, and the two correlations differed significantly. The finding was stable across distinct parts of the sample, providing support for the theory, although the correlations in all subsamples were small. The findings lend support to the existence of threshold effects using perceptual measures of behavior in real-world organizational settings, and thus beyond creative potential measures applied in the psychological laboratory where it has previously been documented.     

Assessment of substance abusers on the MCMI-III and the Rorschach

We examined 60 substance abusers (SA) on the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III (MCMI-III; Millon, 1994) and on eight Rorschach variables from the Comprehensive System (CS; Exner, 2003). On the MCMI-III, SA scored above the cutoff for clinical significance (M > or = BR 70) on Drug Dependence (94.77), Antisocial (82.95), Depressive (74.33), Self-Defeating (71.48), and Alcohol Dependence (70.70). On seven of the CS variables (M+,o,u, XA%, X-%, WSum6Lv2%, M-%, SumT%, and Pure H%) the scores of the SAs suggested significant more psychopathology compared to the scores of 60 university students, whereas the SA's scores on six of these variables (M+,o,u, XA%, X-%, WSum6Lv2%, SumT%, and Pure H%) suggested significantly less psychopathology compared to the scores of 36 schizophrenics. The effect sizes for the significant differences were in the small, medium and large range (d= 0.31 to d= 1.87).     

Neuroendocrine stress responses to an oral academic examination: No strong influence of sex, repeated participation and personality traits

Public speaking tasks have been widely used as laboratory stressors in human research. Fewer studies have investigated similar real life situations like oral examinations and results have been inconsistent. The present study investigated salivary cortisol (as a marker of hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) activity) and salivary alpha-amylase (sAA as a marker of sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activity) within the context of a university examination. Subjects were 40 undergraduate students who participated in an oral examination. Of these, 20 also participated in a second examination within a few weeks. Cortisol and sAA were measured immediately before and after the examination and on a control day. Additionally, subjects filled out personality questionnaires. A strong anticipatory increase in salivary cortisol and sAA as well as more modest further increases between the pre- and post-measurements were detected during the examination. Sex or oral contraceptive use had no influence on either measure. In addition, no significant differences between the first and second examination were observed. The findings indicate the neuroendocrine stress responses to laboratory stressors and to heralded real life stressors as well as the modulatory variables involved differ from each other.     

Familienfunktionalität und Therapieerfolg

Background

Even though it is a treatment standard of child psychotherapy to involve the parents, hardly any research has been carried out about the impact of family functioning on treatment outcome. Aims of the present study were to investigate the change in and the prognostic power of family functioning on treatment outcome of short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy in children and adolescents.

Patients and methods

The sample consisted of 54 children and adolescents undergoing outpatient short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy. To assess family functioning, their parents were asked to complete the Family Assessment Measure (FAM).

Results

Patients from families with high levels of functioning in task accomplishment, communication and affective expression were more often treated successfully. Improvement in levels of functioning in role performance, emotionality and control were only found in the group of successfully treated patients.

Conclusion

Family functioning is a decisive factor in the differential indication of psychotherapeutic treatment in children and adolescents.     

Effectance and control as determinants of video game enjoyment.

This article explores video game enjoyment originated by games' key characteristic, interactivity. An online experiment (N=500) tested experiences of effectance (perceived influence on the game world) and of being in control as mechanisms that link interactivity to enjoyment. A video game was manipulated to either allow normal play, reduce perceived effectance, or reduce perceived control. Enjoyment ratings suggest that effectance is an important factor in video game enjoyment but that the relationship between control of the game situation and enjoyment is more complex.     

Parasocial Interaction and Parasocial Relationship: Conceptual Clarification and a Critical Assessment of Measures

Parasocial interaction and parasocial relationship are often conflated conceptually and methodologically, leaving researchers unclear as to which concept is being tapped. This research clarifies these concepts and experimentally compares the most common measure of parasocial interaction, the Parasocial Interaction Scale (PSI‐Scale), with a newer measure, the Experience of Parasocial Interaction Scale (EPSI‐Scale). Participants (N = 383) viewed a brief videorecording of a woman who either bodily addressed the viewer or not, then completed a questionnaire. The EPSI‐Scale was a better measure of parasocial interaction, understood as a within‐viewing experience of mutual awareness, whereas the PSI‐Scale may measure short‐ or long‐term liking, or something else. To avoid conceptual and empirical confusion, researchers must choose measures with greater care.