Toward Reducing Risk for Eating Disorders and Obesity in Latina College Women

The efficacy of 2 computer‐based programs was tested with Latina college women (N= 64). Compared with participants in the control group, intervention participants improved their motivation to eat fruits and vegetables (F&V; p= .042) and to participate in physical activity (p= .023) and significantly increased their F&V intake (pre‐ to posttest, p < .001; pre‐follow‐up, p= .002). Body dissatisfaction improved at a trend level (p= .055). Some modest effects of computer‐based programs were found.     

Justification magnets

The main message of Philosophy of Science after Feminism is twofold: that philosophy of science needs to locate science within its wider societal context, ceasing to analyze science as if it existed in a social/political/economic vacuum; and correlatively, that philosophy of science needs to aim for an understanding of scientific rationality that is appropriate to that context, a scientific rationality that integrates the ethical with the epistemic. The ideal of socially responsible science that the book puts forward, in fact, maintains that sound social values as well as sound epistemic values must control every aspect of the scientific research process, from the choice of research questions to the communication and application of results. And it is this that raises troubling questions for Matt Brown, Hugh Lacey, and Libby Potter. In this paper I attempt to answer their questions and make explicit exactly what is in the offing if I succeed.     

Book reviews

Gunnel Borgegard, Olav Fanuelsen, Christine Hall (ed.), The Ministry of the Deacon, 2. Ecclesiological Explorations (Uppsala: Nordic Ecumenical Council, 2000), 91–85564–10–9, 285 pp.

Dennis M. Doyle, Communion Ecclesiology (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2000) 1–57075–327‐X, ix + 195 pp.

Nicholas M. Healy, Church, World and the Christian Life: Practical‐Prophetic Ecclesiology. Cambridge Studies in Christian Doctrine 7 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 0–521–78650–9 (pbk), 199 pp.     

Variability in photos of the same face

Psychological studies of face recognition have typically ignored within-person variation in appearance, instead emphasising differences between individuals. Studies typically assume that a photograph adequately captures a person’s appearance, and for that reason most studies use just one, or a small number of photos per person. Here we show that photographs are not consistent indicators of facial appearance because they are blind to within-person variability. Crucially, this within-person variability is often very large compared to the differences between people. To investigate variability in photos of the same face, we collected images from the internet to sample a realistic range for each individual. In Experiments 1 and 2, unfamiliar viewers perceived images of the same person as being different individuals, while familiar viewers perfectly identified the same photos. In Experiment 3, multiple photographs of any individual formed a continuum of good to bad likeness, which was highly sensitive to familiarity. Finally, in Experiment 4, we found that within-person variability exceeded between-person variability in attractiveness. These observations are critical to our understanding of face processing, because they suggest that a key component of face processing has been ignored. As well as its theoretical significance, this scale of variability has important practical implications. For example, our findings suggest that face photographs are unsuitable as proof of identity.     

Evidence-Based Strategies Improve Assessment of Pediatric Bipolar Disorder by Community Practitioners

The misdiagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder (PBD) has become a major public health concern. Would available evidence-based assessment (EBA) strategies help improve diagnostic accuracy, and are clinicians willing to consider these strategies in practice? The purpose of the present study was to document the extent to which using an EBA decision tool--a probability nomogram--improves the interpretation of family history and test data by clinicians and to examine the acceptability of the nomogram technique to clinicians. Over 600 clinicians across the US and Canada attending continuing education seminars were trained to use the nomogram. Participants estimated the probability that a youth in a clinical vignette had bipolar disorder, first using clinical judgment and then using the nomogram. Brief training of clinicians (less than 30 minutes) in using the nomogram for assessing PBD improved diagnostic accuracy, consistency, and agreement. The majority of clinicians endorsed using the nomogram in practice. EBA decision aids, such as the nomogram, may lead to a significant decrease in overdiagnosis and help clinicians detect true cases of PBD.     

Contribution of Peer Deviancy Training to the Early Development of Conduct Problems: Mediators and Moderators

Three variables were tested as moderators of the relationship between peer deviancy training and child antisocial behavior in a longitudinal study of 267 boys and girls from ages 5.3 to 9.3 years. Deviancy training was directly measured by observation of the discourse and play of children with same-gender classmates. Peer deviancy training was significantly related to multi-setting child antisocial behavior from ages 5.3 to 9.3 years. Child impulsivity, poor parental discipline, and peer rejection were all significant moderators of that relationship, even in the context of their direct association with trajectories of antisocial behavior and after controlling for deviant peer affiliation. These moderator effects appeared to be associated with children's increased sensitivity to peer modeling and reinforcement of deviant discourse and play. Not all children are equally affected by peer deviancy training, and an array of intervention strategies are described that may serve to protect children from deviant peer influence.     

In Concert and Alone: Divorce and Congregational Experience

Sociologists have paid little attention to the experience of divorce in religious congregations. Numerous quantitative studies suggest that religion can provide health and wellness during such life disruptions, but we know little about the social and individual processes that might foster these benefits. I address this gap in the literature drawing from data collected in a four‐year ethnographic study of divorce and ending life partnerships across six religious traditions. I analyze the experiences of 41 individuals who ended life partnerships while active in their congregations. Despite intense points of communal connection through ritual, respondents named largely private strategies for settling heightened emotion, physical and psychological pain, and creating a new self. Permeating their communal experiences was a marked sense of aloneness, resulting from individual shame and congregational silence, as well as their understanding of divorce‐work as ultimately private self‐work.     

Empowering communities through social media

Multicultural competence is a cornerstone of modern day counseling psychology. The new multicultural and social justice competencies highlight the integration of social justice and multicultural frameworks. These competencies include community engagement through social justice advocacy. Social media may be one way to advocate for social justice for underserved or marginalized communities. Social media networks impact in the Arab Spring and the 2016 United States (U.S.) Presidential election suggests that people may utilize social media to inform and act on their social or political views. Throughout this article, we will explore the benefits of social media for raising critical consciousness, as defined by Freire, and examine how counseling psychologists can utilize social media to engage in social justice advocacy in diverse communities.     

Going beyond the evidence: abstract laws and preschoolers' responses to anomalous data

Given minimal evidence about novel objects, children might learn only relationships among the specific entities, or they might make a more abstract inference, positing classes of entities and the relations that hold among those classes. Here we show that preschoolers (mean: 57 months) can use sparse data about perceptually unique objects to infer abstract physical causal laws. These newly inferred abstract laws were robust to potentially anomalous evidence; in the face of apparent counter-evidence, children (correctly) posited the existence of an unobserved object rather than revise the abstract laws. This suggests that children's ability to learn robust, abstract principles does not depend on extensive prior experience but can occur rapidly, on-line, and in tandem with inferences about specific relations.