A Qualitative Exploration of Religion,Gender Norms,and Sexual Decision-Making within African American Faith-Based Communities

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) continues to be a prominent health and social justice issue, especially for African American communities in the Southern United States. Gender role norms, specifically within faith-based communities in the South, pose challenges to empowering women to make safer sexual health decisions. To explore perceptions of gender norms and sexual health, 42 qualitative interviews were gathered from female members of 16 predominantly African American churches in Atlanta, GA. Constructs from the theory of gender and power and the social ecological model were used to guide coding and analysis. Participants discussed their experiences with gender norms and gender-based power differentials at the institutional (i.e., church), familial, and interpersonal (i.e., intimate relationship) levels. Because of the attitudes and beliefs held by their religious communities and families, many participants recalled struggling to assert themselves in sexual relationships and recalled engaging in risky and unwanted sexual behavior, especially during their young adult years. However, as the participants matured, they worked to overturn traditional gender norms, empowering both their children and women in their religious communities to make healthy, autonomous sexual decisions. Moving forward, participants want their churches and members of their faith communities to play an active role in the empowerment of African American women and provide them with the confidence and education necessary to negotiate sexual decisions with their partners.

     

Home-based intervention for infants with developmental disorders

A hom-based therapeutic program for infants with developmental disorders is described. The program is used at the Institute for Psychophysiological and Speech Disorders, Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Significant changes in infant developmental competence provide support for the use of parents as direct intervention agents for their infants. Positive changes in marital and family relationships are important side effects of parent involvement in the therapeutic habilitation of their children.     

Spontaneous head positions in infants during the first 9 postnatal months

The developmental organization of spontaneous head positioning over the first 9 postnatal months of life was investigated in a study of 35 infants. Head positions assumed by infants while at rest were recorded at 11 observation period: at 1 week, 2 weeks, 4 weeks of age, and every 4 weeks thereafter until the infant was 36 weeks old. Results indicated an overall tendency toward a head-right position, which was strongest during the neonatal period, but declined with age. The head-right position bias was qualified by familial handedness.     

We're Here,We're Queer,We're on TV: The Effects of Visual Media on Heterosexuals' Attitudes Toward Gay Men and Lesbians1

Effects of visual media on attitudes toward gay men and lesbians were investigated by exposing 3 groups of participants to a brief video. The first group viewed an anti‐gay video. the second group viewed a pro‐gay video, and a comparison group viewed a neutral video. Participants attitudes were measured immediately following the video after seeing the video, participants were contacted by telephone. and their attitudes were again assessed. Participants were not aware of the connection between the follow‐up assessment and the initial video exposure. At follow‐up. participants attitudes were significantly different. with attitudes with the pro‐gay video group being most positive, and those in the anti‐gay video group being most negative.     

Reflexive orienting to gaze is not luminance dependent

In the investigation of reflexive orienting to cues, two major theories have emerged: One proposes that transients created by the cue trigger attentional shifts, whereas the other argues that object changes are responsible for instigating orienting. In the present study, we examined whether luminance transients produced by the cue can generate reflexive orienting to gaze. Using a temporal order judgment paradigm under luminant or subjectively equiluminant conditions, participants judged which of two peripheral targets onset first. An uninformative gaze cue served to reflexively shift attention toward one object location, thereby temporally prioritizing the target presented there. The results revealed that attention was successfully shifted toward the cued object, as was evidenced by the participants’ selecting the cued object as appearing first significantly more often than the uncued object, even when the two onset simultaneously. Critically, the results were comparable across luminance conditions. Our findings reveal that luminance transients are not necessary for triggering orienting to gaze cues. We suggest that the orienting observed here can be better explained via an object-based hypothesis whereby object changes, not transients, trigger reflexive orienting.