HIV/STD Risk Factors for Women with Violent Male Partners

This study compared 167 women, categorized as nonabused, emotionally abused, or physically abused in their primary relationships, on sexual risk factors. Physically abused women differed in several ways: greater STD risk, psychosocial distress, and substance use; more traditional gender role beliefs; lower self-esteem; more likely to have been raped and to engage in sex for pay; and less likely to attend the project's STD/HIV risk reduction groups. Within primary relationships, they differed in amount of decision-making power about safer sex, likelihood of nonmonogamy, use of substances before sex, and self-efficacy about initiating condom use. African American women reported higher rates of emotional abuse than White women, a finding related mainly to their lower socioeconomic status in this sample.     

The Darlington Family Assessment Sytem: clinical guidelines for practitioners

The Darlington Family Assessment System (DFAS) consists of a framework of widely accepted concepts, a semi-structured family interview and rating scale, and a detailed account of how to use the system in clinical practice. The model views health issues within a family life-cycle (developmental) framework. It assesses problems at four systemic levels: the child perspective, the parental perspective, the parent-child perspective, and the whole family perspective. The semi-structured interview is designed to see how family members perceive problems and to map out other possible problems, and is a useful basic training tool. Empirical work suggests that the framework of key concepts and the rating scale offer a powerful method for describing and differentiating families. There is evidence that the model is useful as a training method for health professionals undergoing basic training. Detailed clinical guidelines have also been developed, to show how the model can be applied in practice. The advantage of the model is that it can be used with a variety of therapeutic approaches, and to inform choices about which interventions are likely to be successful or not.     

Illusory Personal Control as a Determinant of Bet Size and Type in Casino Craps Games1

Langer's (1974, 1975) theory regarding the conditions under which subjects performing a chance task will suffer from an illusion of control over the outcome has specified 6 conditions proposed to enhance the illusion ofcontrol in chance tasks. A number of studies have applied her theory and predictions to gambling, a real‐world arena of chance tasks where participants have been observed to act as if the outcomes are controllable by the use of various “logical” (acting on the “gambler's fallacy”) and superstitious strategies (e. g., blowing on dice). Thus far, however, these studies have not been conducted in naturalistic gaming environments and have yielded mixed results regarding the operation of the illusion of control. The present research offers the first study of the operation of the illusion of control in such a real‐world context. In order to examine the effects of active vs. passive task participation (a variable hypothesized by Langer to affect the illusion of control), patrons of Reno casinos were observed placing craps bets on their own and another yoked patron's dice rolls. It was hypothesized that subjects would (a) place higher bets and (b) place more “difficult” bets (e. g., where only one specific number, as opposed to any of several numbers, may win) on their own rolls (when they would experience the illusion of control over the outcome) than on other patrons' roles (when they would not experience such an illusion). That is, players were expected to generally adopt riskier betting strategies when throwing the dice. Results supported the hypotheses.     

Applying Science and Applied Science: What’s the Difference?

Prandtl’s work on the boundary layer theory is an interesting example for illustrating several important issues in philosophy of science such as the relation between theories and models and whether it is possible to distinguish, in a principled way, between pure and applied science. In what follows I discuss several proposals by the symposium participants regarding the interpretation of Prandtl’s work and whether it should be characterized as an instance of applied science. My own interpretation of this example (1999) emphasised the degree of autonomy embedded in Prandtl’s boundary layer model and the way it became integrated in the larger theoretical context of hydrodynamics. In addition to extending that discussion here I also claim that the characterization of applied science which formed the basis for the symposium does not enable us to successfully distinguish applied science from the general practice of ‘applying’ basic scientific knowledge in a variety of contexts.     

Oral Examination Anxiety in Physicians, Narcissism, and Object Relations

By applying object relations theory, both examiners and candidates can increase understanding of examination anxiety in oral certification in order to enhance the fairness and validity of the examinations. Unconscious images of self and others which examiners and candidates may project onto each other can affect the examination. The examiner must observe himself, the candidate, and the other examiner, lest a transference affecting the examination's progress occur, and to avoid an enactment, which may interfere with the examination. This observing should appropriately support the candidate in functioning at an optimal level of competence. Unconscious processes may prejudice the examiner's attitude towards a candidate, thus jeopardizing the examination's fairness and validity. The candidate's anxiety, based on projections onto the examiners, may interfere with his/her optimal functioning and affect the outcome. If a candidate's anticipatory anxiety is excessive, he/she needs to decide if it needs to be managed on a symptomatic or psychotherapeutic basis. Candidate and examiner both need to monitor their feelings during the examination in order to optimise the examination's fairness and validity. All these issues may also be considered in the relationship between psychiatric educators and trainees.     

Fimbria-fornix lesions disrupt the dead reckoning (homing) component of exploratory behavior in mice

Exploration is the primary way in which rodents gather information about their spatial surroundings. Thus, spatial theories propose that damage to the hippocampus, a structure thought to play a fundamental role in spatial behavior, should disrupt exploration. Exploration in rats is organized. The animals create home bases that are central to exploratory excursions and returns, and hippocampal formation damage alters the organization of exploration by disrupting returns. Mice do not appear to readily establish home bases in novel environments, thus, for this species, it is more difficult to establish the contribution of the hippocampus to exploration. The purpose of the present study was threefold: develop a task in which mice center their exploration from a home base, determine whether the exploratory behavior is organized, and evaluate the role of fimbria-fornix lesions on exploration. Mice were given a novel exploratory task in which their nesting material was placed on a large circular table. Video records of control and fimbria-fornix mice were made in both light and dark (infrared light) conditions. Exploration patterns (outward trips, stops, and homeward trips) were reconstructed from the video records. Control mice centered their activity on their bedding, from which they made circuitous outward trips marked by many stops, and periodic direct returns. The bedding-centered behavior and outward trips of the fimbria-fornix mice were similar to those of the control mice, but significantly fewer direct return trips occurred. The direct homeward trips observed under light and dark conditions were consistent with a dead-reckoning strategy, in which an animal computes its present position and homeward trajectory from self-movement cues generated on the outward trip. Because the fimbria-fornix lesions disrupted the homeward component of exploratory trips, we conclude that the fimbria-fornix may contribute to dead reckoning in mice. The results also show that the home-bedding methodology facilitates the establishment of a home base by mice, thus providing a useful methodology for studies with mice.     

On Typologies for Relating Science and Religion

Geoffrey Cantor and Chris Kenny have criticized attempts to classify various ways of relating science and religion. They hold that all typologies are too simple and too static to illuminate the complex and changing historical interactions of science and religion. I argue that typologies serve a useful pedagogical function even though every particular interaction must be seen in its historical context. I acknowledge the problems in making distinctions between categories of classification and examine some alternative typologies that have been proposed. I leave as an open question whether my fourfold typology is applicable to differing religious traditions. Finally I consider some parallels between typologies for science‐religion interactions and typologies for relationships between religions. Can our discussions be both interdisciplinary and interreligious without the danger of imposing the conceptual framework of one discipline or religious tradition on another discipline or tradition?     

Mood and Information Processing: When Happy and Sad Look the Same

Two studies were conducted to demonstrate that sad and happy moods can cause individuals to be similarly sensitive to the valence of observed stimuli with regard to how effortfully such stimuli are processed. In Study 1, individuals in whom a sad or happy mood had been induced unitized a behavior sequence less finely when its contents were neutral as opposed to positive. Individuals in a neutral mood state maintained a comparable level of unitization regardless of the valence of the behavior sequence. In Study 2, individuals in whom a sad or a happy mood had been induced processed the arguments in a persuasive communication more extensively when its contents were affectively uplifting rather than depressing. Sad individuals showed this pattern only if no prior affective expectation was provided. Taken together, these studies may fit with the notion that under certain conditions sad and happy individuals similarly decrease the amount of information processed from a neutral (Study 1) or depressing (Study 2), relative to a positive, stimulus.     

Psychometrics properties of the Swansea Muscularity Attitudes Questionnaire (SMAQ)

The psychometric soundness of the Swansea Muscularity Attitudes Questionnaire (SMAQ) was examined using two independent samples of Canadian male post-secondary students (Ns = 250 and 310, respectively). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses suggested that the final 19-item version of the SMAQ is represented by three latent constructs, which we have labeled: intention to become more muscular (eight-items), positive attributes of muscularity (nine-items), and engagement in muscle-building activities (two-items). Alpha coefficients for the intention and positive subscales were very good (i.e., range = .86–.92). Correlation coefficients between the two-items comprising the engagement subscale also suggest that they can be combined into a composite measure (rs = .70 [study 1] and .58 [study 2]). Various tests of criterion-related and construct validity were conducted, with results indicating that the SMAQ subscales are valid indicants of the drive for muscularity.     

Internet use and loneliness in older adults.

Use of the Internet by seniors as a communication technology may lead to changes in older adult social relationships. This study used an online questionnaire to survey 222 Australians over 55 years of age on Internet use. Respondents primarily used the Internet for communication, seeking information, and commercial purposes. The results showed negative correlations between loneliness and well-being. Multiple regression analyses revealed that greater use of the Internet as a communication tool was associated with a lower level of social loneliness. In contrast, greater use of the Internet to find new people was associated with a higher level of emotional loneliness.