A Feasibility Trial of Mental Health First Aid First Nations: Acceptability,Cultural Adaptation,and Preliminary Outcomes

The Mental Health First Aid First Nations course was adapted from Mental Health First Aid Basic to create a community‐based, culturally safe and relevant approach to promoting mental health literacy in First Nations contexts. Over 2.5 days, the course aims to build community capacity by teaching individuals to recognize and respond to mental health crises. This feasibility trial utilized mixed methods to evaluate the acceptability, cultural adaptation, and preliminary effectiveness of MHFAFN. Our approach was grounded in community‐based participatory research principles, emphasizing relationship‐driven procedures to collecting data and choice for how participants shared their voices. Data included participant interviews (n = 89), and surveys (n = 91) from 10 groups in four provinces. Surveys contained open‐ended questions, retrospective pre‐post ratings, and a scenario. We utilized data from nine facilitator interviews and 24 facilitator implementation surveys. The different lines of evidence converged to highlight strong acceptability, mixed reactions to the cultural adaptation, and gains in participants’ knowledge, mental health first aid skill application, awareness, and self‐efficacy, and reductions in stigma beliefs. Beyond promoting individual gains, the course served as a community‐wide prevention approach by situating mental health in a colonial context and highlighting local resources and cultural strengths for promoting mental well‐being.     

Index Contents of Volume 37 (1973)

The validity of various indicators of response distortion on the Personality Assessment Inventory–Adolescent (PAI–A; Morey, 2007a) and its potential usefulness to detect malingering were evaluated by having 17- and 18-year-old students complete the PAI–A attempting to simulate Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) under coached or noncoached conditions. Scores for these respondents on the Negative Impression and Positive Impression scales, the Malingering Index, and the Rogers Discriminant Function (RDF) were compared to those of 17- and 18-year-old patients receiving clinical diagnoses of ADHD. Simulating respondents also completed the Conners Adult ADHD Rating Scale (CAARS) to determine if they could successfully simulate self-reported symptoms of ADHD. A total of 45% of simulating participants obtained CAARS scores reflecting clinically significant symptoms of ADHD. All indicators demonstrated the ability to distinguish between actual patients and feigned responses of successful simulators, with the RDF demonstrating the greatest accuracy in distinguishing these groups.     

Does working memory training lead to generalized improvements in children with low working memory? A randomized controlled trial

Children with low working memory typically make poor educational progress, and it has been speculated that difficulties in meeting the heavy working memory demands of the classroom may be a contributory factor. Intensive working memory training has been shown to boost performance on untrained memory tasks in a variety of populations. This first randomized controlled trial with low working memory children investigated whether the benefits of training extend beyond standard working memory tasks to other more complex activities typical of the classroom in which working memory plays a role, as well as to other cognitive skills and developing academic abilities. Children aged 7–9 years received either adaptive working memory training, non‐adaptive working memory training with low memory loads, or no training. Adaptive training was associated with selective improvements in multiple untrained tests of working memory, with no evidence of changes in classroom analogues of activities that tax working memory, or any other cognitive assessments. Gains in verbal working memory were sustained one year after training. Thus the benefits of working memory training delivered in this way may not extend beyond structured working memory tasks.     

The Relative Contribution of Economic Valence to Contingency Management Efficacy: A Pilot Study

We investigated the extent to which a contingency management (CM) procedure that deducted money from a grand total available at the end of the study compared to a procedure in which money accumulated with continued abstinence from cigarette smoking. Results suggested that the procedure in which money increased contingent on abstinence resulted in a significantly greater likelihood of obtaining a clinically relevant (i.e., 48-hr) period of abstinence. In terms of attendance, participants in the condition in which monetary reinforcement accrued with consecutive instances of abstinence were significantly less likely to miss consecutive appointments than those in which money was deducted for failure to abstain.     

Correspondence among observer ratings of Rorschach,Big Five Model,and DSM-IV personality disorder constructs

Observer ratings were collected using instruments designed to measure the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.; American Psychiatric Association, 1994) personality disorders (Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire-4+ [PDQ-4+]; Hyler, 1994), the Big Five model (B5M; Goldberg's [1999] International Personality Item Pool), and Rorschach-derived constructs. For the latter, we revised the Rorschach Rating Scale (Meyer, Bates, & Gacono, 1999) to lower its reading level and renamed it the Rorschach Construct Scale (RCS) to emphasize its reliance on rated constructs. The RCS consists of 6 factors. Joint factor analysis of RCS, PDQ-4+, and B5M items also resulted in 6 factors: Self-Centeredly Exploitative, Poor Ego Resiliency, Extraversion, Task Conscientiousness, Openness to Ideas, and Emotional and Expressive Constriction. The first 2 factors received high loadings from RCS, PDQ-4+, and B5M variables. The sixth factor received high loadings from just RCS variables.     

On Conducting Construct Validity Meta-Analyses for the Rorschach: A Reply to Tibon Czopp and Zeligman (2016)

We respond to Tibon Czopp and Zeligman's (2016) critique of our systematic reviews and meta-analyses of 65 Rorschach Comprehensive System (CS) variables published in Psychological Bulletin (2013). The authors endorsed our supportive findings but critiqued the same methodology when used for the 13 unsupported variables. Unfortunately, their commentary was based on significant misunderstandings of our meta-analytic method and results, such as thinking we used introspectively assessed criteria in classifying levels of support and reporting only a subset of our externally assessed criteria. We systematically address their arguments that our construct label and criterion variable choices were inaccurate and, therefore, meta-analytic validity for these 13 CS variables was artificially low. For example, the authors created new construct labels for these variables that they called “the customary CS interpretation,” but did not describe their methodology nor provide evidence that their labels would result in better validity than ours. They cite studies they believe we should have included; we explain how these studies did not fit our inclusion criteria and that including them would have actually reduced the relevant CS variables’ meta-analytic validity. Ultimately, criticisms alone cannot change meta-analytic support from negative to positive; Tibon Czopp and Zeligman would need to conduct their own construct validity meta-analyses.     

PROMOTING LOW-FAT ENTREE CHOICES IN A PUBLIC CAFETERIA

Reductions in dietary fat have been recommended in the prevention of coronary heart disease. Because entrees contribute substantially to total meal fat content, we evaluated a cafeteria-based intervention for increasing the purchase rate of low-fat entrees (M = 6.83 g) relative to nonlowfat entrees (M = 25.59 g). The intervention included a poster listing the benefits of a LF diet and the daily LF entrees (i.e., broiled or baked chicken and fish dishes). During 6 days per phase, food selections (N = 3,264) were monitored by trained observers. The intervention, which cost $80.00, produced significant increases (i.e., from 20% to 35%) in the purchase rate of LF entrees.     

Cloninger's temperament dimensions and threat, stress, and performance appraisals during different challenges among young adults

ABSTRACT We examined the relationship of Cloninger's temperament factors—Novelty Seeking, Harm Avoidance, Reward Dependence, and Persistence—to perceived threat and stress and performance appraisals during different challenges, i.e., mental arithmetic, the reaction time task, and three public speaking tasks, among 97 young adult men and women. Temperament was measured by the Temperament and Character Inventory. The results showed that, although some of the predictions made by Cloninger's model were confirmed, some were unsupported. The results revealed also some associations between temperament and cognitive appraisals that were intelligible, but not predicted by Cloninger's model. There were considerable domain specificity and gender differences in the associations found. Cloninger's temperament dimensions are related to threat, stress, and performance appraisals, thereby influencing individual's stress vulnerability, adjustment, and personal functioning.