APPEARANCE SELF-ATTITUDES OF AFRICAN AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN AMERICAN WOMEN: MEDIA COMPARISONS AND INTERNALIZATION OF BEAUTY IDEALS

African American (AA) women have reported less body image disturbance than European American (EA) women, but questions remain about the nature and extent of this difference. This study examined differences in the body image of 80 AA women and 89 EA women with an improved methodology that controlled for body size, distinguished between satisfaction with and importance of body features, and included nonweight (e.g., hair texture, skin color) as well as weight-related features. Results provide evidence that, in contrast to AA women, EA women (a) were more dissatisfied with both weight and specific appearance features, (b) compared themselves more often to media beauty figures and internalized Western beauty standards more, and (c) showed a significant relation between media comparisons and body dissatisfaction. Internalization of Western beauty ideals was related to body dissatisfaction in both groups of women.     

Dark-adaptation of the human rod system: A new hypothesis

Following a long, full bleach, rod dark-adaptation curves from two normal trichromats were obtained with test fields of various size, exposure time and retinal eccentricity. The results show that there is a substantial region of threshold recovery with an approximately constant, linear slope of about 0.27 log per minute of dark-adaptation, which is independent of the test variables. It is suggested that the increase in sensitivity during this constant, linear slope is completely determined by changes in the concentration of bleached rhodopsin. The relationship between change of relative threshold (T) and fraction of bleached rhodopsin ( B ) is given by T=B ^3,7. This exponential law is well described by the displacement of the equilibrium between the active and inactive states of an allosteric enzyme built as a tetrarner.     

Mechanisms of long-term dark adaptation

It has previously been suggested that long-term dark adaptation is controlled by bleaching signals that regulate the activity of an allosteric, positively cooperative protein (Stabell et al., 1986a, b). Recent biochemical evidence strongly supports this assumption, indicating that the primary regulator of the light-sensitive channels in the plasma membrane of the outer segments of the photoreceptors is a homo-oligomeric, allosteric, positively cooperative protein. In this report, we discuss the possibility that signals from bleached photopigments may control the dark-adaptation process through the allosteric protein of the plasma membrane. It is suggested that the concentrations of the bleached photopigment and of the allosteric effector are reciprocal quantities.     

The factor structure of the Maslach Burnout Inventory in two Swedish human service organizations

The Maslach Burnout Inventory, MBI, is a well established measure of burnout. Its validity outside the USA is, however, uncertain. The aim of the present study was therefore to apply the MBI on personnel in two Swedish human service organizations, comparing factor solutions and scoring norms to the original results. The population consisted of 5730 employees in the Social Insurance Organization (SIO) and the Individual and Family Care section (IFC) of the social welfare agencies. Principal components analysis, principal axes and alpha factor analyses were performed, all with varimax rotation. The suggested three factor solution showed to be remarkably stable irrespective of type of analysis. Score levels were somewhat lower on two subscales in the Swedish population. The conclusion is that the psychometric properties of the MBI seem to be very satisfactory and stable, at least in comparison between Sweden and USA. It is suggested that the dimensionality of MBI is rather invariant, but that the score levels covary with national, cultural, or professional contexts within the human services.     

Prevention, solution-focused therapy, and the illusion of mental disorders

Therapy theorists' criticism of the lack of specific mechanisms in the prevention of mental disorders is examined from the perspective of solution-focused therapy (SFT), which argues that solutions can be unrelated to problems, and that it is not even necessary to know what a problem is in order to solve it. It is suggested that the shift of attention from problems to solutions in SFT offers a conceptual framework within which the criticism is not relevant, and from which theorists of therapy and prevention can share a common outlook. This outlook involves a focus on encouraging productive, useful, positive behavior, with a corresponding deemphasis on an skepticism about current conceptualizations of mental disorders.     

Race bias in diagnosis and treatment of juvenile offenders: Findings and suggestions

There is evidence that Black juvenile delinquents have received biased differential treatment in mental health care systems. Research shows that the White juvenile offender often is assessed as having a psychological problem while the Black juvenile offender is more often seen as exhibiting behavior characteristic of his culture and more often than not receives inadequate psychological counseling. This article integrates information on juvenile delinquency, interracial diagnosis, and cross-cultural understanding. It is hoped the information will aid the forensic psychological professional to better understand culturally different children and youth as well as examine his or her own cache of cultural baggage which may interfere with the appropriate assessment and treatment of Black juvenile offenders.     

Research as a family therapy intervention technique

The utilization of the research process as an intervention has recently been described in the family therapy literature. However, it is important to draw a distinction between research as intervention and research as a unique family therapy intervention technique. From a family systems perspective, research as an intervention technique may make therapy more palatable for some families. A case study is presented in which this technique created the context for change for a family involved in a chronic illness research project.The author would like to thank Dr. Wendy L. Watson for her participation as a member of the clinical team and Drs. Fabie Duhamel and Wendy L. Watson for their helpful critiques on earlier drafts of this paper.Supported by a grant from the Albert Foundation for Nursing Research.     

Equal Opportunity Programs: A Case for Counseling

The Civil Rights Act of 1964, under Title VI, requires that institutions of higher education submit enrollment figures according to ethnic breakdown for federal monies to be allocated. Such requirements are indicative of efforts to diversify student populations. The Higher Education Act of 1965 also incorporates a number of related programs—Supplemental Opportunity Grants, College Work Study, Talent Search, Upward-Bound—which are designed to provide direct or indirect assistance to disadvantaged students. (Gordon, 1975)     

THE QUESTION OF BLACK PHILOSOPHY

Philosophy Born of Struggle is an ambitious undertaking. It is explicitly conceived, the editor explains, as "a guide to the ideas of modern Afro-American philosophers," and "a historical resource directory for their works."¹ An anthology of texts with bibliographical apparatus, the volume has an implicit hortatory purpose as well. In representing Afro-American philosophy as a "unidimensional text of divergent components"—concerned with the meaning of democracy and the human costs of "capitalism, colonial domination, and ontological designation by race"—the editor dignifies Afro-American philosophy conceptually, as a subject in its own right, calling in effect for its sustained historical treatment as such.²