Theory-based screening for prevention: Focusing on mediating processes in children of divorce

Prevention programs in mental health theoretically can benefit from selecting participants who have a greater likelihood of developing psychological problems because of their exposure to the putative mediators targeted for change in an intervention. Screening on mediators may increase statistical power to detect program effects, enhance the cost-effectiveness of intervention trials, and decrease the possibility of iatrogenic effects. The circumstances that optimize the strategy of screening on the basis of mediating variables are discussed, and data are presented to illustrate the development of a mediational selection strategy to identify families who might best benefit from a preventive intervention for children of divorce. In addition, we present evidence that adjustment problems for children experiencing a divorce, as with most mental health problems, are not the result of one specific factor, but are jointly determined by several mediating processes that occur subsequent to the divorce. The mediational selection strategy developed illustrates the utility of measuring a set of mediational processes central to conferring risk for mental health problems to children of divorce.     

A study of paranormal belief, magical ideation as an index of schizotypy and cognitive style

This study examined the proposal that the association between paranormal belief and magical ideation may be mediated by distinctive cognitive styles for schizotypes as compared to believers in the paranormal. Schizotypes were found to differ from an atypical group of believers in the paranormal and to resemble schizophrenics in terms of cognitive style. Believers expressed a cognitive style reliant on notions of personal responsibility while schizotypes emphasised the role of randomness. Believers differed from schizotypes on more deviant aspects of schizotypy measures yet unexpectedly these groups did not differ on specific facets of paranormal belief. It is tentatively proposed that for some people certain paranormal beliefs represent a cognitive ‘defence’ against acceptance of the uncertainty of life events, while for others paranormal belief may be indicative of psychopathology.     

Choice/Matching Preference Reversals in Groups: Consensus Processes and Justification-Based Reasoning

Individual preferences can vary significantly by the mode in which they are elicited. Thus, the seemingly benign procedural issue of elicitation mode (i.e., choice, buying price, rating, matching) could have a profound effect on group decisions, although elicitation mode has not been much studied as a group procedural variable. Individual preferences differ by elicitation mode when the elicitation contexts differentially emphasize particular aspects of the decision. Emphasis on explainability, for example, may produce decisions that are based only on a few, important, attributes. Because group consensus processes also can encourage particular reasoning strategies, grouping may interact with elicitation mode; that is, group consensus processes may moderate or exacerbate preference reversals. The present study explored a particular elicitation effect, choice versus matching preference reversals, for decisions with both low and high social significance. The results confirmed both that elicitation mode can affect group decisions and that group consensus processes moderate choice/matching preference reversals. Further, evidence from both preference measures and rating scales suggested that the moderation was due to an increase in easily defended, justifiable decisions. Social significance did not affect individual or group decisions, but decreased members′ post group commitment to the group decision. These results have implications both for group decision making and for the study of the role of explanation-based strategies in preference formation.     

Analysis of physical abuse in American schools

This study examined variables included in press reports of excessive infiction of pain on school children over the past ten years. Cross-tabulations were used to examine the relationship between severe corporal punishment with sex of educator, sex of pupil, nature of infraction, severity of punishment, job position of staff member, and age of student. The results indicate that severe corporal punishment is most often administered by males to boys. The frequency steadily increased to 12 or 13 years of age and then decreased. There was no relation between type of misbehavior and severity of punishment. Tentative clinical and educational implications of the study are discussed.     

A sociocultural stress, appraisal, and coping model of subjective burden and family attitudes toward patients with schizophrenia

A sociocultural stress, appraisal, and coping model was developed to understand relatives' burden of care and negative affective attitudes toward patients with schizophrenia. Ninety-two African American and 79 White patients and a significant other (80% mothers) completed 2 10-min family problem-solving discussions. In addition, the Kreisman Rejection Scale and a global self-report rating of family burden were administered to relatives, and a self-report rating of substance use was administered to patients. Results indicated that subjective burden of care and patients' odd and unusual thinking during the family discussion each independently predicted relatives' attitudes toward patients, suggesting that negative attitudes are based in part on both patients' symptoms and perceived burden of care. African American relatives' perceived burden was also predicted by patients' substance abuse. Finally, White family members were significantly more likely than African Americans to feel burdened by and have rejecting attitudes toward their schizophrenic relative suggesting that cultural factors play an important role in determining both perceived burden and relatives' attitudes toward patients.     

Forging difference out of similarity: the multiplicity of corrective experience

In the context of work with an adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse, the interplay of multiple forms of engagement contributing to therapeutic action is explored. The compulsion to repeat old patterns is seen to be gradually overcome by new corrective experience in which the whole of the patient's sense of the analyst as a person is greater than the sum of its parts. Interpretation of enactments--often involving patterns of dominance and submission--is complemented by a range of "helpful" actions that must be detoxified. That process entails the progressive differentiation of coercion and influence, on the one hand, and of compliance and responsiveness, on the other In the end, autonomy and creative responsiveness emerge as integral to each other rather than as mutually exclusive. This development requires that the patient gradually relinquish an "essentialist" view of self and other in favor of a "constructivist" view, in which the ambiguity of experience offers opportunities for new forms of relational engagement and understanding.     

Self-control in honeybees

Self-control means choosing a large delayed reward over a small immediate reward; impulsiveness is its opposite. The metabolic hypothesis states that the amount of self-control across species correlates negatively with metabolic rate (Tobin & Logue, 1994). Foraging honeybees have high metabolic rates; the metabolic hypothesis would predict little self-control in bees. But foraging bees work for the longterm good of their hive, conditions that seem to require self-control. In three experiments, we gave bees the choice between (1) a sweeter delayed reward and a less sweet immediate reward and (2) a large delayed reward and a small immediate reward. Bees showed much self-control, inconsistent with the metabolic hypothesis.     

Quality and Ecology of Adversity as Common Mechanisms of Risk and Resilience

This paper proposes common mechanisms to explain the effects of adversities and of resources that promote resilience. Adversities threaten the satisfaction of basic human needs and the acquisitions of competencies to carry out valued social roles. Adversities can also be characterized in terms of their ecological properties of occurrence in time, and place. Resilience resources at the individual, microsystem and macro levels reduce the negative effects of adversities through their effects on satisfaction of basic human needs and their effects on the occurrence of adversities. The effects of resilience resources are described as preventive, protective and promotive. Implications are presented for the development of interventions to promote resilience.