Blaming the victim: When disease-prevention programs misfire

This study sought to determine whether or not a disease prevention program might have anegative impact on attitudes towards disease victims. Knowledge of, and attitudes towards AIDS and several other serious diseases were assessed before and after college students viewed a filmed educational program on AIDS. Results showed that, compared to a control group, participants who had seen the AIDS film reported significantlygreater fear and dislike of a hypothetical AIDS patient. The film also significantly enhanced participants’ perceptions that AIDS is a preventable disease. Results are discussed in terms of the possibility that health-education programs emphasizing preventability may inadvertently increase peoples’ tendency to blame the victim. Portions of this paper were presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Society, Dallas, Texas, June 1990.     

Potential roles of the medical ethicist in the clinical setting

The medical ethicist is a fairly recent addition to the clinical setting. The following four potential roles of the clinical ethicist are identified and discussed: consultant in difficult cases, educator of health care providers, counselor for health care providers and finally patient advocate to protect the interests of patients. While the various roles may sometimes overlap, the roles of educator and counselor are viewed as being more congruent with the education and training of medical ethicists than are the roles of consultant and patient advocate.     

Creativity in Early and Established Career: Insights into Multi‐Level Drivers from Nobel Prize Winners

The freedom to try new things plays a vital role for employees engaging in creative endeavors. This freedom can be influenced by one's relationship with her supervisor, relationship with her team, and various work pressures. One of the first steps to reaching creative output is to have a playful attitude toward work where there is encouragement and processes that allow individuals to take risks and try new things. However, we argue that what allows someone to try new things earlier in their career and when they are more established might be different. Noteworthy progress has been made in conceptualizing the multi‐level factors that are important for creativity. In the current study, we identified variables associated with a willingness to try new things, part of the exploration phase of creativity, and divided them by the early and established careers of 59 Nobel Prize winners. Using a historiometric approach, we rated individual and team‐level variables to identify what makes someone try new things either earlier or later in her career. Findings indicate that willingness to try new things is related to autonomy, the relationship with one's mentor, team climate, and team network, but not to personal initiative.     

Instructive feedback: Effects of number and type

We evaluated the effects of presenting two instructive feedback stimuli of the same and different types for each target behavior taught. Four elementary school students with mild mental retardation were taught to name photographs of places of interest in the local community using constant time delay and instructive feedback. Initially, the four students were taught one set of photographs with one instructive feedback stimulus (name of the street on which the place was located) for each target photograph. All students learned to name all photographs, and three learned to name the street on which the place was located. The three students who learned to name the street for the place in the photograph were then taught three sets of photographs. Each set included two instructive feedback stimuli for each target photograph: Set 2 had one street name and one activity that occurred in the place; Set 3 had two activities per photograph, and Set 4 had one street name and one activity. The three students learned to name the photographs, but only learned to name the activities and not the street names that were presented through instructive feedback. These finds are discussed in terms of the factors that may control acquisition of instructive feedback stimuli and the implications for practice and future research.     

Variation in hue of a contour-contingent aftereffect due to color adaptation during inspection of the stimulus patterns

The McCollough Effect (a colored line-orientation-contingent aftereffect) has been attributed to the presence of edge detectors specific to wavelength in the human visual system. The present study tests this hypothesis by introducing unlined colored fields into the inspection condition and by comparing the subsequent aftereffect with the aftereffect induced by the inspection condition not including the unlined colored fields. The data indicate that the hues of the aftereffects differ, suggesting that the color and line stimuli may be processed by different populations of neural elements, and that the color-coded edge detector model is not adequate to account for the observations.     

Independence training,need achievement and need affiliation

American white and American Indian grade school boys and girls from the North Central Plains are studied. The previously shown significant and positive relationship between high need achievement and low need affiliation is hypothesized to be a culturally based and sex related phenomenon. The early training of Plains Indian children especially that of boys emphasizes early independence rather than either affiliation or achievement. As hypothesized, it was found in this study both that white children had significantly higher need affiliation scores than Indian children and that boys indicated higher need achievement than girls, indicating cultural and sexual differences. It appeared also that success is a more potent condition for Indian boys in intensifying need achievement scores, whereas failure intensifies the need achievement scores of white children. This suggests that perceived success and failure operate differentially between these cultural groups. Other results also corroborate earlier findings of the culture bias of « standard » intelligence tests.     

Personnel selection to control employee violence

There is a range of on-the-job violent behaviors which are costly and of concern to employers. This review of research shows that on-the-job violence can be predicted when standardized instruments and a statistical model of prediction are used for personnel selection. The research shows that persons will reveal violent tendencies on psychological tests.This is intended as an introductory non-technical business note for managers and human resource professionals.For an empirically based review contact the first author or see: Slora, K.B., Joy, D.S., Jones, J.W., & Terris, W. (1991). The prediction of on-the-job violence. In J.W. Jones (Ed.)Preemployment honesty testing: Current research and future directions. Westport, CT: Quorom Books.     

Physical Attractiveness,Dating Behavior,and Implications for Women

The primary objective of this study was to determine which of two sociological theories of dating preference was more powerful in predicting women's actual dating frequency. The two theories tested were Waller's theory, which emphasizes physical attractiveness, and Blood's theory, which emphasizes personality. The present study supported Waller's theory. Discussion and implications for women and counselors are presented.