The effects of two AIDS risk-reduction interventions on heterosexual college women's AIDS-related knowledge,attitudes and condom use

An intervention combining AIDS information with condom eroticization, condom normalization, and communication skills training was found to increase both AIDS-related knowledge and condom use among Canadian college students. 112 unmarried female undergraduates (mean age, 18 years) were randomly assigned to this combination intervention (n = 49), an information-only intervention (n = 44), or a pre-test/post-test control group (n = 19). 80% of students had engaged in vaginal intercourse and 14% in anal intercourse. 84% of coitally active women had engaged in unprotected intercourse in the past year and 48% had not used condoms consistently with any sexual partner. Condom use in the pre-intervention period was associated with positive attitudes toward the method and the perception that condom use was normative among peers. One month after the interventions, both the combination and information groups, but not controls, showed an increase over baseline in AIDS-related knowledge. However, among the 36 students who were coitally active in the 1-month periods before and after the intervention, only the combination intervention was associated with increased condom use. In the combination group, the percentage of episodes of intercourse protected by condoms increased from an average of 21.8% in the month preceding the study to 50% during the 4-week follow-up period. Due to the small sample size and design of the study, it was not possible to determine which component of the multifaceted educational intervention was most responsible for this change.     

Developing Approaches to Competence: Away from the Metaphor of Competence as a Hidden Object

Assessments of linguistic ability amongst inner city African American children in the 1960’s and cross-cultural assessments of problem solving skills amongst participants without formal education in several contexts around the world have both demonstrated the need for investigators to distinguish the possible existence of some form of competency from the matter of whether evidence of that competency can be elicited with a particular assessment tool. In both of the previously mentioned cases, the evidence suggests that participants had the competencies in question and failed to demonstrate them (at least partially) as a result of the nature of the assessment context. The current article takes these demonstrations of the need for culturally sensitive assessment as a point of departure, and argues that today, a further development in how competence is understood is necessary. For all its benefits, the idea of culturally sensitive assessment still relies on the problematic characterization of competencies as discrete sets of stable underlying dispositions. Current research from the dynamic systems perspective in psychology suggests that intelligent human action involves the contextual and self-organized emergence of adaptive behavioral solutions, rather than the expression of preplanned, latent competencies. An adequate conceptualization of competence must therefore account for this emergence, rather than positing competencies as hidden or latent behavioral performances.     

Psychosocial correlates of parenting stress, lack of support and lack of confidence/security

The purpose of the current study was to identify important correlates of parenting stress, frequently conceptualized as a mediator of suboptimal family function, and of social support and confidence/security, often regarded as buffers. Potential correlates of these concepts were assessed in questionnaires at delivery and at one year, in a sample of 16,000 families in Sweden. Predictors (1) of parenting stress were parental dissatisfaction and poor child sleeping patterns; (2) of lack of support included lack of confidence/security, parents born abroad, single motherhood, and maternal health problems; and (3) of lack of confidence/security were lack of support and serious life events. Mothers lacking social support or confidence/security exhibited significantly higher stress. Although parenting stress is a complex phenomenon certain risk factors can be emphasized, such as sleep problems which appear more important than child health problems. These risk factors can be used both in efforts to prevent stress and in studies of stress effects.     

Emotion valence,intensity and emotion regulation in immigrants and majority members in the Netherlands

We were interested in interethnic differences and similarities in how emotion regulation strategies (reappraisal, suppression and social sharing) can be predicted by emotion valence and intensity. The sample consisted of 389 Dutch majority members and members of five immigrant groups: 136 Turkish and Moroccan, 105 Antillean and Surinamese, 102 Indonesian, 313 Western and 150 other non‐Western immigrants. In a path model with latent variables we confirmed that emotion regulation strategies were significantly and similarly related to emotion valence and intensity across the groups. Negative emotions were more reappraised and suppressed than positive emotions. Intensity was positively related to social sharing and negatively related to reappraisal and suppression. The Dutch majority group scored higher on emotion valence than Turkish and Moroccan immigrants. Also, the Dutch majority group scored lower on reappraisal than all non‐Western groups, and lower on suppression than Turkish and Moroccan immigrants. We conclude that group differences reside more in mean scores on some components than in how antecedents are linked to regulation strategies.     

Dependence and a Kantian conception of dignity as a value

Kantian moral concepts concerning respect for human dignity have played a central role in articulating ethical guidelines for medical practice and research, and for articulating some central positions within bioethical debates more generally. The most common of these Kantian moral concepts is the obligation to respect the dignity of patients and of human research subjects as autonomous, self-determining individuals. This article describes Kant’s conceptual distinction between dignity and autonomy as values, and draws on the work of several contemporary Kantian philosophers who employ the distinction to make sense of some common moral intuitions, feelings, and norms. Drawing on this work, the article argues that the conceptual distinction between dignity and autonomy as values is indispensable in the context of considering our obligations to those who are dependent and vulnerable.     

THE RELATIONSHIPS AMONG BODY IMAGE, BODY MASS INDEX, EXERCISE, AND SEXUAL FUNCTIONING IN HETEROSEXUAL WOMEN

Problems related to negative body image are very common among young women. In this study, we examined the relationship between women's body image and their sexual functioning over and above the effects of physical exercise and body mass index (BMI) in a sample of 214 university women. Low situational body image dysphoria and low body dissatisfaction were associated with high sexual assertiveness and sexual esteem, low sexual anxiety, and fewer sexual problems. Positive body image was significantly associated with better sexual functioning, even after controlling for BMI and exercise. Although related to body image, BMI and exercise did not predict sexual functioning. These results were interpreted as indicating that a woman's subjective body image is significantly related to her sexual functioning beyond the effects of actual body size and level of physical exercise.