Prevention of pathological gambling: a randomized controlled trial

Although the gambling industry is expanding rapidly throughout North America and around the world, there are only a few empirically evaluated programs aimed at the prevention of pathological gambling (PG). The purpose of this study was to measure the effectiveness of a new prevention program aimed at PG. The Stop & Think! program was designed to teach at-risk video lottery terminal (VLT) gamblers cognitive restructuring and problem-solving skills that may help to prevent the development of PG. These skills were taught through a variety of methods - including an automated educational presentation, video and text vignettes, audio training tapes, and skill rehearsal. The program was evaluated using a randomized, 2-group experimental design with a wait-list control group and pre-, post-, and follow-up measures. Results indicated that, compared with the control group, the experimental group was less at risk for developing a gambling problem after the program. The experimental group endorsed fewer gambling-related cognitive distortions, engaged in less VLT gambling, and had lower scores on a measure of PG. The results of this study provide the basis for the implementation of the Stop & Think! program in the province of Prince Edward Island, Canada, and perhaps other jurisdictions too.     

Calibration algorithm for eyetracking with unrestricted head movement

This article reports a calibration procedure that enables researchers to track movements of the eye while allowing relatively unrestricted head and/or body movement. The eye—head calibration algorithm calculates fixation point based on eye-position data acquired by a head-mounted eyetracker and corresponding head-position data acquired by a 3-D motion-tracking system. In a single experiment, we show that this procedure provides robust eye-position estimates while allowing free head movement. Although several companies offer ready-made systems for this purpose, there is no literature available that makes it possible for researchers to explore the details of the calibration procedures used by these systems. By making such details available, we hope to facilitate the development of cost-effective, nonproprietary eyetracking solutions.     

“We Never was Happy Living Like a Whiteman” : Mental Health Disparities and the Postcolonial Predicament in American Indian Communities

In the context of increasing attention to disparities in health status between U.S. ethnoracial groups, this article examines the dilemma of divergent cultural practices for redressing disparities in mental health status in American Indian communities. Drawing upon an ethnographic interview with a tribal elder from a northern Plains Indian reservation, a prototypical discourse of distress is presented and analyzed as one exemplar of the divergence between the culture of the clinic and the culture of the community. Situated in the context of continuing power asymmetries between tribal nations and the U.S. federal government, the implications of this cultural divergence for the efforts of mental health professionals, practitioners, and policymakers are identified as a predicament that only the conventions and commitments of a robust community psychology have the potential to resolve.     

Environmental Correlates of Gambling Behavior in Urban Adolescents

The present study considered the relation between adolescent gambling behavior and the perceived environment, the component of Jessor and Jessor’s (1977) Problem Behavior Theory that assesses the ways that adolescents perceive the attitudes and behaviors of parents and peers. The predominantly African-American sample included 188 sophomores from two urban public high schools. Using the South Oaks Gambling Screen-Revised for Adolescents to assess gambling risk, rates of both at-risk (20.7%) and problem (12.8%) gambling were found to be high. Boys displayed more gambling problems than did girls. The perceived environment accounted for significant variance in gambling problems and frequency, with proximal components displaying stronger relationships than distal components. Perceiving parent gambling and friend models for problem behavior were positively correlated with gambling problems, and friend models were positively related to gambling frequency. Among girls, family support was positively related to gambling problems. Among boys, this relation was negative. The authors Emerson M. Wickwire, Jr. James P. Whelan, and Andrew W. Meyers are members of The Institute for Gambling Education and Research, Department of Psychology, The University of Memphis, Memphis, TN. The primary research interest of this group is the prevention and treatment of gambling related problems. David M. Murray, Ph.D., is the Chair of the Division of Epidemiology at the School of Public Health, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH.     

A metric for integrating theoretically related but statistically uncorrelated constructs

When considering psychological constructs in a pairwise fashion, a 2 x 2 category system, based on median splits, is often adopted for analytic convenience. If theoretical focus is on an individual's integration of the two constructs, then categorical procedures are subject to information loss and unreliability in high density regions of the data. A continuous metric is proposed which ameliorates these problems and is suitable for correlational analyses. The construct of psychological androgyny is used for illustrative purposes.