The drug‐crime nexus among adolescents and their peers

The purpose of this paper is to determine the nature of the drug‐crime relationship by exploring the influence of friend behaviors on both adolescent delinquent and substance using behavior. The sample consists of 1381 adolescents evenly divided by gender into three age groups (12, 15 and 18 years old). In general, there is an increase in intensity of substance use from the youngest to the oldest age level with male and female levels being similar within each age group. There are both age and gender differences when examining delinquent behavior. There is a relationship between adolescent drug use and crime (especially among males), however this relationship is relatively modest. In addition, while friends’ behavior is a very strong predictor of the same type of behavior in subjects, there are no strong crossover relationships. Thus, the hypothesis that both types of behavior are part of a specific deviant peer subculture is not confirmed.     

Radical Otherness: Sociological and Theological Approaches

Abstract

This article reports two studies on the development of the Embodied Spirituality Scale (ESS), an instrument designed to measure the level of integration between one's experience of sexuality and spirituality. Both studies were limited to specifically Christian samples. Study 1 reports the initial construction of the ESS. Participants in Study 1 consisted of 128 women and 64 men (ages 16 to 75, M = 22.7 years). Study 2 reports a validation study of the ESS. Participants in Study 2 consisted of 125 female (46.5 per cent) and 142 male (52.8 per cent) adults between the ages of 18 and 78 (M = 47; SD = 10.9). The results offer empirical support for the concept of embodied spirituality as an integral relationship between sexuality and spirituality. The results also suggest that, as a measure of embodied awareness, the ESS may offer clues to the nature of the ‘active ingredient’ in the relationship between spirituality and health.     

Existential themes in the treatment of people at suicide risk. Understandings and practices of specialist healthcare professionals

ABSTRACT

This qualitative study focuses on the ways in which existential themes were understood and addressed in therapeutic relationships with patients who had attempted suicide. Health care professionals (HCP) from Norway specialist healthcare participated in focus groups. The interviews were transcribed and analysed by systematic text-condensation through a four-step procedure. We found that the HCPs emphasised the context-specific functions of their departments. They considered these conversations essential but demanding. They indicated existential themes of hope/hopelessness, loneliness, meaning, life/death, shame, religion and suicide. The HCPs’ understandings of themes deemed to be existential and how they should be addressed were primarily based on clinical experience. This appeared to exacerbate the pressure on their personal involvement, leading to the question of whether patients’ existential needs are tackled or instead disappear into a conversational vacuum. The study suggests that HCPs' professional competence of existential themes pertaining to patients at suicide risk needs to be strengthened.     

The Factor Structure and Reliability of a Six-Item Sense of Coherence Measure

The study investigated the factor structure and reliability of a six-item sense of coherence (SOC) measure. Participants were a South African white collar employee sample (n=7185) purposively selected from over 300 different companies across various business sectors. The sample constituted 34% male and 66% female and 34% Black, 18% Coloured, 11% Indian and 37% White employees. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used for the structural analysis. The reliability of the scores was also estimated. A unidimensional structure seemed to best represent the six-item SOC measure. The internal reliability of the scores from the measure was high.     

Changes in peripheral social partners and loneliness over time: the moderating role of interdependence

We examined the relationships between age, changes in the number of peripheral partners, and changes in loneliness over 2 years among 365 Hong Kong Chinese aged 18-91 years. We also tested the moderating role of interdependent self-construal in the relationships. Results showed that the well-documented negative association between age and number of peripheral partners over time was only significant for individuals with low and medium interdependence but not for those with high interdependence. Moreover, only older and middle-aged adults high in interdependence benefitted from having more peripheral social partners by showing decreased loneliness in the 2-year interval.     

Whether a religious group membership is shared and salient influences perceived similarity,political support,and helping intention toward refugees,but not charitable donation

This research investigates the ways in which (un)shared religious group memberships contribute to individual helping responses through perceived similarity in the context of a refugee emergency. Across three studies (N = 762), we examined religious sub-groups of British people's helping responses to religious subgroups of Syrian refugees, in quasi-experimental and experimental designs. Overall findings suggest that sharing a religious group membership with refugee targets increases perceived similarity, political support, and helping intention, but not charitable donation—regardless of shared group membership being subtle or salient. However, when refugee targets' religious identity is that of a salient unshared group membership, not sharing a religious group membership reduces perceived similarity, political support, and helping intention, among those who are religious—with again charitable donation remaining unchanged. These results provide critical insights into developing more effective and unique strategies to promote and mobilize support for refugees among different groups of potential helpers.     

Stimulus expectancy modulates inferior frontal gyrus and premotor cortex activity in auditory perception

In studies on auditory speech perception, participants are often asked to perform active tasks, e.g. decide whether the perceived sound is a speech sound or not. However, information about the stimulus, inherent in such tasks, may induce expectations that cause altered activations not only in the auditory cortex, but also in frontal areas such as inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and motor cortices, even in the absence of an explicit task. To investigate this, we applied spectral mixes of a flute sound and either vowels or specific music instrument sounds (e.g. trumpet) in an fMRI study, in combination with three different instructions. The instructions either revealed no information about stimulus features, or explicit information about either the music instrument or the vowel features. The results demonstrated that, besides an involvement of posterior temporal areas, stimulus expectancy modulated in particular a network comprising IFG and premotor cortices during this passive listening task.     

Microstructural organization of corpus callosum projections to prefrontal cortex predicts bimanual motor learning

The corpus callosum (CC) is the largest white matter tract in the brain. It enables interhemispheric communication, particularly with respect to bimanual coordination. Here, we use diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) in healthy humans to determine the extent to which structural organization of subregions within the CC would predict how well subjects learn a novel bimanual task. A single DTI scan was taken prior to training. Participants then practiced a bimanual visuomotor task over the course of 2 wk, consisting of multiple coordination patterns. Findings revealed that the predictive power of fractional anisotropy (FA) was a function of CC subregion and practice. That is, FA of the anterior CC, which projects to the prefrontal cortex, predicted bimanual learning rather than the middle CC regions, which connect primary motor cortex. This correlation was specific in that FA correlated significantly with performance of the most difficult frequency ratios tested and not the innately preferred, isochronous frequency ratio. Moreover, the effect was only evident after training and not at initiation of practice. This is the first DTI study in healthy adults which demonstrates that white matter organization of the interhemispheric connections between the prefrontal structures is strongly correlated with motor learning capability.     

A glass full of optimism: Enrichment effects on cognitive bias in a rat model of depression

Investigations of cognitive biases in animals are conceptually and translationally valuable because they contribute to animal welfare research and help to extend and refine our understanding of human emotional disorders, where biased information processing is a critical causal and maintenance factor. We employed the "learned helplessness" genetic rat model of depression in studying cognitive bias and its modification by environmental manipulations. Using a spatial judgment task, responses to ambiguous spatial cues were assessed before and after environmental enrichment to test whether this manipulation would cause an optimistic shift in emotional state. Twenty-four congenitally helpless and nonhelpless male rats were trained to discriminate two different locations, "rewarded" versus "aversive." After successful acquisition of this spatial discrimination, cognitive bias was probed by measuring responses to three ambiguous locations. Latencies to "reach" and to actively "choose" a goal pot were recorded alongside exploratory behaviors. An overall strain difference was observed, with helpless rats displaying longer "reach" latencies than nonhelpless rats. This implies a "pessimistic" response bias in helpless rats, underscoring their depressive-like phenotype. No strain differences were observed regarding other behavioral measures. Half of the animals were then transferred to enriched cages and retested. Environmental enrichment resulted in reduced "choose" latencies in both rat strains, associating enrichment with more optimistic interpretations of ambiguous cues. Our results emphasize the suitability of cognitive bias measurement for animal emotion assessment. They extend the methodological repertoire for characterizing complex phenotypes and bear implications for animal welfare research and for the use of animal models in preclinical research.