The Appropriateness of Using Three Measures of Self‐Beliefs With European American,Latino/a,and Native American College Freshmen

The authors investigated the psychometric appropriateness of the Valuing/Commitment to Education scale (A. M. Gloria, 1993), the Rosenberg Self‐Esteem Scale (M. Rosenberg, 1965), and the Educational Self‐Efficacy Scale (A. M. Gloria, 1993) for use with European American, Latina/o, and Native American college freshmen. Strong to moderate reliabilities were found, as was initial evidence of validity across groups. Los autores investigaron la idoneidad psicométrica de la Valoración/Compromiso con la Escala de Educación (A. M. Gloria, 1993), la Escala Rosenberg de Autoestima (M. Rosenberg, 1965) y la Escala de Autoeficacia Educativa (A. M. Gloria, 1993) para su uso con alumnos universitarios Euroamericanos, Latinos y Americanos Nativos de primer curso. Se hallaron datos que prueban una fiabilidad entre moderada y alta, como lo fue tambien la validez observada inicialmente entre los grupos.     

A Test of Contextual Theory: The Relationship Among Relational Ethics,Marital Satisfaction,Health Problems,and Depression

Few studies have examined the theoretical underpinning of contextual theory. Using structural equation modeling, the relationship among relational ethics (recognized as the most important aspect of contextual theory), marital satisfaction, depression, and illness was examined. Data came from a national sample of 632 mid-life, married individuals. Results supported Nagy’s contextual theory. The total score of the Relational Ethics Scale was a significant predictor of marital satisfaction, and marital satisfaction was significantly associated with depression and health problems. Vertical and horizontal subscales of relational ethics also were significant predictors of depression and health problems through the mediating variable of marital satisfaction.     

Experimental pragmatics: a Gricean turn in the study of language

Discerning the meaning of an utterance requires not only mastering grammar and knowing the meanings of words but also understanding the communicative (i.e., pragmatic) features of language. Although it has been an ever present aspect of linguistic analyses and discussions, it is only over the last ten years or so that cognitive scientists have been investigating--in a concerted fashion--the pragmatic features of language experimentally. We begin by highlighting Paul Grice's contributions to ordinary language philosophy and show how it has led to this active area of experimental investigation. We then focus on two exemplary phenomena--'scalar inference' and 'reference resolution'--before considering other topics that fit into the paradigm known as 'experimental pragmatics'.     

The effects of exposure to an acute naturalistic stressor on working memory, state anxiety and salivary cortisol concentrations

Exposure to an acute naturalistic stressor induces both psychological and physiological changes in humans. The two studies reported here explored the impact of exposure to an acute naturalistic stressor on state anxiety, working memory and HPA axis activation (salivary cortisol). In both experiments, ten healthy male participants were exposed to an acute naturalistic stressor, helicopter underwater evacuation training (HUET), and their physiological and behavioural responses before (first study) and after (second study) the stressor were compared to ten non-stressed controls. The results of both experiments showed that working memory performance was preserved during anticipation of an acute stressor, but impairments were observed immediately after stress exposure. Participants reported significantly higher state anxiety levels during anticipation and following stress exposure, whereas significant elevations in cortisol levels were only observed 25 min post exposure to stress, but not before or immediately after stress exposure. The results of both experiments demonstrated a dissociation between behavioural and biochemical measures and provided evidence for a dissociation of the effects of stress on cognitive and physiological measures depending on the time of testing, with cognitive impairments most evident following stress exposure.     

Breast Cancer in Men: A Need for Psychological Intervention

Male breast cancer is a serious issue that needs to be addressed more fully by the medical and public community. However, due to a lack of awareness and limited research on the topic, there is a general absence of knowledge concerning the psychological implications of this disease in men as well as a need for greater understanding of the medical diagnosis and treatment of male breast carcinoma. Similarly, there still remains a considerable gender difference between the awareness of female breast cancer and male breast cancer Although breast cancer in men makes up only 1% of all breast cancers reported in the United States, it is increasing in incidence. There are approximately 2000 new cases and approximately 450 deaths due to male breast cancer each year. Breast cancer diagnosis and treatment in men is very similar to that described in women, however, it has been shown that men are being diagnosed at a later stage of the disease than women.     

Docile Bodies and Heteronormative Moral Subjects: Constructing the Child and Sexual Knowledge in Schooling

This paper explores the complex relationship between childhood and sexuality by identifying prevailing discourses underpinning the repression and regulation of children’s knowledge of sexuality in Australia since the 1950’s. Examining several primary schooling Health Curricula, and Professional Development, Health and Physical Education Syllabi from the 1950’s to the turn of the new century, we trace the construction of the child and children’s knowledge of sexuality in early childhood (K-6). We believe that teaching sexual knowledge within schooling culture needs to be better aligned with the changing lives of children so as to adequately address different and diverse family experiences.

Institutional Review Boards and Professional Counseling Research

Institutional review boards (IRBs) are responsible for regulating and safeguarding research with human participants in academic institutions in the United States. The authors explore (a) the historical impetus for IRBs, (b) the ethical values and principles as core components of the review process, and (c) the American Counseling Association's (2005) standards for ethical research. In many ways, IRB review and counseling research are complementary, yet some challenges and obstacles unique to counseling research also exist and are elaborated in the article. Implications for counselors initiating research projects and suggestions for implementation are provided.     

V—Vagueness, Realism, Language and Thought

The problem of vagueness and the sorites paradox arise because we try to treat natural language as if it were a unitary formal system. In fact, natural language contains a large variety of representational ontologies that serve different purposes and which cannot be united formally, but which can intuitively be taken as ways of seeing a common basic ontology. Using this framework, we can save classical logic from vagueness and avoid the sorites.     

The Palestinian/Israeli Conflict: A Geopolitical Identity Disorder

In this paper, the author considers that the large-group dynamics in certain war-torn, hot spots throughout the world are symptoms of a “geopolitical identity disorder.” He extrapolates from the model of the severely traumatized psyche in dissociative identity disorder in which there is so much intolerable emotion, destructive aggression and conflict that different selves with different identities develop which are unable to recognize how interdependent and related they actually are. In the most extreme cases, one dissociated self tries to kill off “the other” in order to gain exclusive control of the body and make it comply with his or her wishes and vision. In actuality, however, such an attempt is a dissociated suicide plan with lethal implications. This model is applied to the Palestinian/Israeli situation where there is a deadly battle over the land. A clinical vignette is offered to illustrate these ideas and offer possibilities for help.     

Guessing imagined and live chance events: Adults behave like children with live events

An established finding is that adults prefer to guess before rather than after a chance event has happened. This is interpreted in terms of aversion to guessing when relatively incompetent: After throwing, the fall could be known. Adults (N=71, mean age 18;11, N=28, mean age 48;0) showed this preference with imagined die‐throwing as in the published studies. With live die‐throwing, children (N=64, aged 6 and 8 years; N=50, aged 5 and 6 years) and 15‐year‐olds (N=93, 46) showed the opposite preference, as did 17 adults. Seventeen‐year‐olds (N=82) were more likely to prefer to guess after throwing with live rather than imagined die‐throwing. Reliance on imagined situations in the literature on decision‐making under uncertainty ignores the possibility that adults imagine inaccurately how they would really feel: After a real die has been thrown, adults, like children, may feel there is less ambiguity about the outcome.