School context and health in adolescence: The role of sense of coherence

The aim of this study was to examine the role of school variables and sense of coherence (SOC) in the explanation of health. For this purpose, data were collected from a representative sample of adolescents, aged 13 to 18 years, selected for the Health Behavior in School‐aged Children survey in Spain. Using Structural Equation Modelling, three nested models were tested that represented different hypothesized models of the relationships among school factors, SOC and health. According to goodness‐of‐fit indices, in the best model, school‐related stress and SOC mediated the influence of support from classmates and teachers on health, and SOC had a direct effect on stress. The results supported the idea that a supportive school climate and SOC are relevant to adolescents' health. Furthermore, SOC was the most influential variable; apart from its direct positive effect on health, SOC seemed to condition the degree to which students perceived school demands to be stressful. Specifically, students with a high SOC were less likely to suffer from high levels of school‐related stress.     

Where Are We Now? Some Thoughts on the Current Scene

Although not as yet fully implemented, laws, executive orders, administrative rulings, and court decisions are now available for dealing with the more blatant forms of discrimination against women. But we do not as yet have protection against the subtler forms—the exclusionary "stag effect", for example, and the putdown—which can have equally damaging effects. Research is called for to document just how the self-image of women is injured by these forms of behavior and how their professional careers are prejudiced by them. Collective coping mechanisms are called for. Recourse to the courts may be called for in some cases, but in others these subtle forms of bahvior that have discriminatory consequences for women are inadvertent and require primarily that we call attention to them.     

Patterns of Women’s Aggression Against Partners and Others: Broadening Our Understanding of Violence

Research on women's aggression typically focuses on relational aggression. However, the study of violence must include multiple forms of violence such as aggression against partners and non‐partner others, while also considering victimization experiences by partners and non‐partners. The focus of this study is the multiple experiences of violence (perpetration and victimization) of women who are incarcerated. Incarcerated women are likely to experience higher rates of both than women in community settings, but most will be released in a brief period of time. Using a random sample (N = 580) we conducted cluster analyses to identify five patterns of women's aggression. Clusters varied depending on the target/s of aggression (i.e., partner and/or others), and type of aggression (i.e., physical and/or intimidation). Multinomial logistic regression was performed to determine the relationship between women's membership in a perpetration cluster and their victimization. Victimization history was related to an increased risk of perpetrating aggression, and varied depending on the target and type of aggression. Our findings provide support that research and interventions addressing women's use of aggression must also address their victimization history. Furthermore, results indicate that for some women, aggression towards partners and others is related. Future research should investigate multiple forms of aggression.     

Revisiting Dr. Rosen: Villain or unjustly-treated innovator?

This paper analyzes the life and the work of Dr. J.N. Rosen, who pioneered attempts to treat psychosis from a psychoanalytic standpoint at a time when conventional approaches advocated pharmacological and physical treatments. His psychotherapeutic technique, which became known as “direct analysis,” divided opinion among practitioners and later attracted a degree of notoriety as the result of several law suits following the deaths of patients under his care. This paper reviews the major publications on direct analysis, examines the events that brought it into contact with a hostile mass media, and reassesses the contribution of the approach to psychotherapy. With certain reservations, Rosen is adjudged to have been an outstanding clinician who pre-empted modern attitudes to the treatment of psychotic individuals, but the theoretical basis of his work, about which his closest collaborators were tellingly unable to fully agree, fails to provide an adequate account of how it helped those who were mentally ill.     

Identifying Perceived Neighborhood Stressors Across Diverse Communities in New York City

There is growing interest in the role of psychosocial stress in health disparities. Identifying which social stressors are most important to community residents is critical for accurately incorporating stressor exposures into health research. Using a community‐academic partnered approach, we designed a multi‐community study across the five boroughs of New York City to characterize resident perceptions of key neighborhood stressors. We conducted 14 community focus groups; two to three in each borough, with one adolescent group and one Spanish‐speaking group per borough. We then used systematic content analysis and participant ranking data to describe prominent neighborhood stressors and identify dominant themes. Three inter‐related themes regarding the social and structural sources of stressful experiences were most commonly identified across neighborhoods: (1) physical disorder and perceived neglect, (2) harassment by police and perceived safety and (3) gentrification and racial discrimination. Our findings suggest that multiple sources of distress, including social, political, physical and economic factors, should be considered when investigating health effects of community stressor exposures and psychological distress. Community expertise is essential for comprehensively characterizing the range of neighborhood stressors that may be implicated in psychosocial exposure pathways.     

Concurrent Performance of Gunner's and Robotics Operator's Tasks in a Multitasking Environment

In this study, we simulated a generic mounted crew station environment and conducted an experiment to examine the workload and performance of the combined position of gunner and robotics operator. Results showed that participants' gunnery task performances degraded significantly when he had to concurrently monitor, manage, or teleoperate an unmanned ground vehicle compared to the gunnery single task condition. For the robotics tasks, participants had the lowest performance when using the semi-autonomous robot, indicating overreliance on the aided target recognition capabilities available when task load was heavy (i.e., concurrent performance of the gunnery task). Participants' perceived workload increased consistently as the concurrent task conditions became more challenging. Individual difference factors such as spatial ability and perceived attentional control were found to correlate significantly with some of the performance measures. Implications for military personnel selection were discussed.     

Crying for a Vision: The Native American Sweat Lodge Ceremony as Therapeutic Intervention

The Native American sweat lodge ceremony or sweat therapy is being used increasingly in various medical, mental health, correctional, and substance abuse treatment centers serving both Native and non‐Native clients. This article explores the sweat lodge ceremony's background, elements of Native American spirituality, origin story, cultural symbolism, prayer, and contemporary use. Current evidence of effectiveness and therapeutic benefits is presented, then implications for integrating the sweat lodge ceremony as a complementary counseling approach are discussed.     

Time crawls: the temporal resolution of infants' visual attention

Conscious visual perception of the constantly changing environment is one of the brain's most critical functions. In virtually every moment of every daily activity, the visual system is confronted with the task of accurately representing and interpreting scenes that change rapidly over time. Adults can judge the identity and order of changing images presented at a rate of up to 10 Hz (~50 ms per image); this limit reflects a finite temporal resolution of attention. In the research reported here, although 6- to 15-month-old infants could detect the presence of rapid flicker without difficulty, their ability to segment individual alternating states within the flicker was severely limited: Fifteen-month-old infants had a temporal resolution of attention approximately one order of magnitude lower than that of adults (~1 Hz). Coarse temporal resolution constrains how infants perceive and utilize dynamic visual information and may play a role in the visual processing deficits found in individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders.