Crib death: a biobehavioral phenomenon?

In developed countries, more children under 1 year of age die of crib death (sudden infant death syndrome, SIDS) than of all other causes combined. Researchers and clinicians have proposed many possible causes of SIDS, but the abrupt, unexpected death of some babies remains mysterious and frightening. Although infant behavior may explain some of these deaths, scant attention has addressed behavioral characteristics of babies who die without medical explanation. Any explanation of SIDS must account for the fact that most SIDS deaths occur at 2 to 5 months of age, acknowledging that a protective mechanism appears to spare babies before 2 months but then disappears. The respiratory occlusion reflex serves as an initial defense against smothering and can provide such an explanation. Infantile reflexes wane, after providing opportunities for learned responses to be acquired. During this well-documented neurobehavioral transition from subcortical to cortically mediated responding, some babies, viable for the first 2 months, may become especially vulnerable if they fail to acquire sufficiently strong defensive behaviors needed to prevent occlusion after the waning of the life-preserving reflex. Recent success of back-to-sleep directives, urging that babies sleep on their backs to avoid smothering, supports this hypothesis.     

Can I Make a Difference? Efficacy,Employment, and Disability

Political efficacy is a widely studied phenomenon and an important predictor of political participation, but little is known about the political efficacy of the millions of people with disabilities in the United States. This paper reports the results of a nationally representative telephone survey of 1,240 people—stratified to include 700 people with disabilities—following the November 1998 elections. Several measures of efficacy that help predict political activity were found to be significantly lower among people with disabilities than among otherwise similar people without disabilities. Although lower levels of internal efficacy and civic skills could largely be explained by educational and employment gaps, lower levels of other variables (external efficacy, perceived influence of people with disabilities, and perceived treatment of people with disabilities) remained after applying a wide range of controls, indicating that people with disabilities are less likely to see the political system as responsive to them. This perception is concentrated among non–employed people with disabilities. The lower efficacy levels linked to "disability gaps" in employment, income, education, and group attendance appear to account for as much as half of the disability political participation gap; hence, policies intended to increase employment and educational opportunities for people with disabilities have potentially important political effects.     

Prozac and the Post-human Politics of Cyborgs

Working through the lens of Donna Haraway's cyborg theory and directed at the example of Prozac, I address the dramatic rise of new technoscience in medicine and psychiatry. Haraway's cyborg theory insists on a conceptualization and a politics of technoscience that does not rely on universal “Truths” or universal “Goods” and does not attempt to return to the “pure” or the “natural.” Instead, Haraway helps us mix politics, ethics, and aesthetics with science and scientific recommendations, and she helps us understand that (without recourse to universal truth or universal good) questions of legitimacy in science come down to local questions of effect and inclusion. What, in the case of my example, are the effects of Prozac? And for whom? Who is included and empowered to create legitimate psychiatric knowledge? Who is excluded and why? And, what political strategies will increase the democratic health of psychiatric science and practice?     

Ideologies of Diversity and Inequality: Predicting Collective Action in Groups Varying in Ethnicity and Immigrant Status

Ideological positions regarding social diversity and status inequality are examined as predictors of people's willingness to engage in collective action. Using social dominance theory and social identity theory, we hypothesized that the relationships between ideology, ethnic identification, and orientation toward collective action will vary depending on the position of one's group. Comparisons were made between four U.S. groups: White natives, White immigrants, Black/Latino natives, and Black/Latino immigrants. Groups differed in their endorsement of social diversity and social inequality, as well as in their orientation toward collective action and their ethnic group identification. For all groups, ethnic identity mediated the link between ideology and collective action, but the valence and magnitude of paths differed as a function of ethnicity and immigrant status. Social diversity was more critical for U.S. immigrants (White and Black/Latino); social inequality accounted for more variance in native-born U.S. groups (although in opposite directions for the two groups).     

Human variable ratio performance

The generality of the mathematical principles of reinforcement (MPR) was tested with humans. In Experiment 1A, participants’ mouse clicks were reinforced according to a series of variable-ratio (VR) values. In one condition, a situated task was used (searching for treasure on a map presented via a PC monitor); in the other, abstract version of the task, participants clicked on a white screen. Under the “map” condition, response rates increased with increasing ratio value before decreasing with further ratio increases; under the “no-map” condition, response rates decreased linearly from a peak at the smallest ratio. In Experiment 1B, the pattern of responding was confirmed under the “map” conditions using a different set of ratio values. In Experiment 2, reinforcer magnitude was manipulated using the “map” context. Response rates did not differ significantly when large rather than small cash reinforcers were delivered according to a VR 30 but were significantly higher when large rather than small cash reinforcers were delivered according to a VR 120. Together these experiments offer qualified support for extending MPR to the behavior of human participants.     

Addressing issues of workplace harassment: counseling the targets

Workplace violence has recently received attention because of the killing of several individuals by their coworkers. However, more common are passive and nonfatal forms of aggressive behavior that are manifested as psychological and emotional harassment. Workplace harassment includes dysfunctional personal interactions characterized by bullying behaviors, personal attacks, and attempts to denigrate others. Targets of workplace harassment may experience stress, depression, low self‐esteem, loss of sleep, and even posttraumatic stress disorder. Strategies that counselors can use to work effectively with targets are discussed.     

Validity of the Suicide Assessment Checklist in an Emergency Crisis Center

Validity of the Suicide Assessment Checklist (SAC; J. R. Rogers, 1990) was investigated in a sample of 1,969 admissions to a psychiatric emergency crisis center. Internal consistency reliability for rated items of the SAC was .87. Supporting construct‐related validity, total score differences were found in the expected directions as a function of referral reason. Convergent validity was based on observed correlations between selected SAC items and conceptually similar items on the Beck Depression Inventory (A. T. Beck, 1970). Supporting criterion‐related validity, total score differences in the expected directions were found as a function of disposition setting. Recommendations are made for the use of the SAC in the practice of counseling.