‘That Most Difficult of Words’: A Therapeutic Relationship Across Divides

This paper describes the development of a therapeutic relationship of ten years' duration between an African American adolescent with severe conduct difficulties and anti-social behaviors, and a white, liberal Orthodox Jewish psychoanalyst. The developing capacity to mentalize and consider self in relation to other as well as the negotiation and reconciliation of various selves are two clinical concepts used to examine this seemingly improbable, yet undeniably, powerful relationship.     

Using Social Cognition and Persuasion to Promote Energy Conservation: A Quasi-Experiment1

A quasi-experiment was conducted to determine if the effectiveness of the R.C.S. Home Energy Audit Program could be improved by training auditors to use social-psychological principles during the audit procedure. Nine experienced home energy auditors attended two 1-day workshops in which they were trained to: (a) communicate vividly; (b) personalize their recommendations to homeowners; (c) induce commitment; and (d) frame their recommendations in terms of “loss” rather than “gain”. The effectiveness of the trained auditors was compared with a control group of experienced auditors who did not receive specific training. Both telephone interview data and utility company records pointed to the success of the auditor training. In interviews, customers served by the trained auditors reported a greater likelihood of acting on the auditors' recommendations, and a large number of these customers reported applying for utility programs to finance retrofits. Utility records validated these customer claims: A significantly larger number of customers served by trained auditors actually did apply for retrofit finance programs. A longitudinal measure of actual energy consumption showed no difference between experimental and control households. Taken as a whole, these findings demonstrate the potential for using principles uncovered in the social psychological laboratory to design applied interventions.     

Visual proprioceptive control of standing in human infants

Human infants learning to stand use visual proprioceptive information about body sway in order to maintain stable posture. Moreover, the visual proprioceptive information is more potent than the nonvisual. This is shown by an experiment in which infants were caused to sway and even fall forward or backward in response to appropriate visual stimulation.     

Sociodemographic Factors Associated with Types of Projects Implemented by Volunteer Lay Health Educators in Their Congregations

This study focused on the association between type of community health interventions and lay health educator variables. Lay health educators are volunteers from local faith communities who complete a healthcare training program, taught by physicians in-training. Lay health educators are instructed to implement health-related initiatives in their respective communities after graduation. Of the 72 graduates since 2011, we surveyed 55 lay health educators to gain insight into their involvement with their congregation and the type of health projects they have implemented. We dichotomized the health projects into “raising awareness” and “teaching new health skills.” Using adjusted logistic regression models, variables associated with implementing health projects aimed at teaching health skills included length of time as a member of their congregation, current employment, and age. These results may help future programs prepare lay health community educators for the type of health interventions they intend to implement in their respective communities.