Genetic Testing of Children at Risk for Adult Onset Conditions: When is Testing Indicated?

We report a family with an extensive history of colon cancer consistent with hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC). A specific disease causing mutation was identified in affected individuals; p.W714X MLH1 mutation. Given the very young age of onset of cancer in some affected family members, with the youngest affected individual being 19 years of age, genetic counseling was recommended to children as young as 9 years. Ethical issues arose when affected families requested genetic testing for their underage children. Here we describe and debate the value of offering molecular testing for this adult onset disorder to several children in this particular family. We also examine possible molecular causes for the very young age of onset in some family members.     

Age-related differences in responses to thoughts of one's own death: mortality salience and judgments of moral transgressions

Two experiments explored age differences in response to reminders of death. Terror management research has shown that death reminders lead to increased adherence to and defense of one's cultural worldview. In Study 1, the effect of mortality salience (MS) on evaluations of moral transgressions made by younger and older adults was compared. Whereas younger adults showed the typical pattern of harsher judgments in response to MS, older adults did not. Study 2 compared younger and older adults' responses to both the typical MS induction and a more subtle death reminder. Whereas younger adults responded to both MS inductions with harsher evaluations, older adults made significantly less harsh evaluations after the subtle MS induction. Explanations for this developmental shift in responses to reminders of death are discussed.     

Emotion-focused Therapy: The Transforming Power of Affect

Emotion-focused therapy (EFT) is an empirically supported humanistic treatment that views emotion as fundamental to experience, as contributing to both adaptive and maladaptive functioning, and as essential to therapeutic change. EFT combines both following and guiding the client’s experiential process, emphasizing the importance of both relationship and intervention skills. Utilizing markers of particular emotional processing difficulties at the core of client problems, therapists intervene with matched interventions aimed to resolve the emotional processing difficulty. This process helps clients access new adaptive emotional resources, transform maladaptive emotional responses, address emotional interruption and regulation, make sense of experience, and construct new meaning and self-narrative.     

Managing terror when self-worth and worldviews collide: Evidence that mortality salience increases reluctance to self-enhance beyond authorities

Terror management theory posits that one’s self-esteem and worldview operate jointly to manage mortality concerns. Accordingly, past research shows that mortality salience (MS) increases self-enhancement and worldview defense. The current research is the first to examine MS effects when self-enhancement threatens to undermine aspects of the worldview, in this case the credibility and status of worldview-representative authorities. MS led to reluctance to self-enhance following positive personality test feedback when the test was judged negatively by institutional authorities (Study 1a), as well as unwillingness to contradict self-esteem threatening feedback sanctioned by authorities (Study 1b). Mortality salient participants also rated themselves higher on valued dimensions unless it meant viewing themselves more positively than their parents (Study 2) and admired political icons (Study 3). Taken together, these results show that MS increases self-enhancement unless doing so challenges important representatives of the worldview. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Comparison of Media-Literacy Programs to Strengthen College Women's Resistance to Media Images

This study examined whether, in comparison to no-intervention and video-only intervention control conditions, two distinct media literacy interventions could promote media skepticism and reduce negative body image in a sample of college women ( N = 110). It was expected that an externally oriented ( i.e., feminist sociocultural) media literacy intervention would have its greatest impact on measures related to media skepticism, while an internally oriented ( i.e., cognitive) intervention would have its greatest impact on measures related to negative body image. Contrary to expectations, in comparison to the no-intervention condition, both media literacy interventions were similar in effectiveness to a video-only ("Slim Hopes," Kilbourne, 1995) condition in increasing participants' skepticism about the realism, similarity, and desirability of media that depict a thin ideal of beauty. There were no between-group differences on negative body image at posttest, suggesting that negative attitudes about one's body may require more extensive, longer-term interventions.     

Evidence for terror management theory: I. The effects of mortality salience on reactions to those who violate or uphold cultural values

On the basis of terror management theory, it was hypothesized that when mortality is made salient, Ss would respond especially positively toward those who uphold cultural values and especially negatively toward those who violate cultural values. In Experiment 1, judges recommended especially harsh bonds for a prostitute when mortality was made salient. Experiment 2 replicated this finding with student Ss and demonstrated that it occurs only among Ss with relatively negative attitudes toward prostitution. Experiment 3 demonstrated that mortality salience also leads to larger reward recommendations for a hero who upheld cultural values. Experiments 4 and 5 showed that the mortality salience effect does not result from heightened self-awareness or physiological arousal. Experiment 6 replicated the punishment effect with a different mortality salience manipulation. Implications for the role of fear of death in social behavior are discussed.     

一个参与者眼中的行为遗传学史上的里程碑

行为遗传学的历史,从横切面看,就好似一个由心理学、遗传学、生物学、进化论、人类学、人口学、生物统计、社会学以及法哲学等学科组合成的万花筒。任何一对学科的演进都呈正相关。虽然任何一对学科都不至于相互否定,但是,他们各自独特的历史和人物,又使得每一对学科并不完全相似