Ecological Factors Impacting Provider Attitudes Towards Human Service Delivery Reform

Although reform efforts are substantially altering the structural operations and guiding ideological framework of the human service delivery system, little empirical work has been done to systematically examine these transformations. This study examines providers' attitudes regarding two reform elements that are being widely implemented: an increased emphasis on inter-agency collaboration and a shift from a medical model service delivery philosophy, that focuses on client deficits, to one that emphasizes consumer strengths. Through survey data collected from 186 providers from 32 human service agencies in one county, the relationship between providers' perceptions of contextual support for human service delivery reform and providers' attitudes towards these initiatives is explored. The findings from this study support the importance of attending to the ecology in which we initiate system reform efforts. For both reform elements, working within contexts that are perceived as providing ideological and functional support for change was associated with positive provider attitudes towards those changes. Staffs' perceptions of the external environment played the most critical role in shaping staff attitudes. Interestingly, unique aspects of providers' work environments were related to positive attitudes towards the two different reforms. The implications of these findings for the success of human service delivery reform are discussed.     

Empathy, Expectations, and Situational Preferences: Personality Influences on the Decision to Participate in Volunteer Helping Behaviors

Although considerable evidence indicates that dispositional empathy is associated with the degree of help that observers will offer needy targets, little is known about the effect of empathy on one's initial willingness to enter situations in which such needy targets might be found. Three studies were conducted to evaluate two related propositions: (1) that dispositional empathy influences such situational preferences, and (2) that this influence is mediated by the expectancies one holds regarding the emotions likely to occur in those situations. Using hypothetical judgments, Study 1 found support for both propositions. Study 2, in which participants believed that their responses actually committed them to encountering needy targets, provided further support for the model, as did Study 3, which examined the experiences of actual community volunteers. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Different Training Procedures Recruit Either One or Two Critical Periods for Contextual Memory Consolidation, Each of Which Requires Protein Synthesis and PKA

We have used a combined genetic and pharmacological approach to define the time course of the requirement for protein kinase A (PKA) and protein synthesis in long-term memory for contextual fear conditioning in mice. The time course of amnesia in transgenic mice that express R(AB) and have genetically reduced PKA activity in the hippocampus parallels that observed both in mice treated with inhibitors of PKA and mice treated with inhibitors of protein synthesis. This PKA- and protein synthesis-dependent memory develops between 1 hr and 3 hr after training. By injecting the protein synthesis inhibitor anisomycin or the PKA inhibitor Rp-cAMPs at various times after training, we find that depending on the nature of training, contextual memory has either one or two brief consolidation periods requiring synthesis of new proteins, and each of these also requires PKA. Weak training shows two time periods of sensitivity to inhibitors of protein synthesis and PKA, whereas stronger training exhibits only one. These studies underscore the parallel dependence of long-term contextual memory on protein synthesis and PKA and suggest that different training protocols may recruit a common signaling pathway in distinct ways.     

Should physics students take a course in ethics?—Physicists respond

A survey was conducted of a subset of the physics community in order to gain insight into attitudes towards integrating ethics into the physics curriculum. The results indicated significant support among some groups for such an integration yet also revealed significant barriers to this process. Respondents were also asked to suggest topics which should be covered under the heading of ethical issues in physics. The great variety of results indicates both that there are many issues worth investigating and that many in the physics community have given a great deal of thought to these issues.     

Reducing risk of head injury in youth soccer: An extension of behavioral skills training for heading

Recently, concerns regarding sport-related concussions have increased within the research literature, the media, and popular culture. One potential source of soccer-related concussions involves the purposeful striking of the ball with one's head (i.e., heading). There is currently limited research on an effective teaching method to improve safe heading technique. In the current study, Behavior Skills Training (BST) was evaluated as a method to teach correct heading techniques to youth soccer players. BST increased the percentage of correct steps for each player based on a task analysis of heading. Based on social validity questionnaires administered to players and the coach, BST was rated as an acceptable form of training. After the final training session, experienced coaches rated each player as having improved from baseline to training.     

Learning phonotactic constraints from brief auditory experience

Three experiments asked whether phonotactic regularities not present in English could be acquired by adult English speakers from brief listening experience. Subjects listened to consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) syllables displaying restrictions on consonant position. Responses in a later speeded repetition task revealed rapid learning of (a) first-order regularities in which consonants were restricted to particular positions (e.g. [baep] not *[paeb]), and (b) second-order regularities in which consonant position depended on the adjacent vowel (e.g. [baep] or [pIb], not *[paeb] or *[bIp]). No evidence of learning was found for second-order regularities in which consonant position depended on speaker's voice. These results demonstrated that phonotactic constraints are rapidly learned from listening experience and that some types of contingencies (consonant-vowel) are more easily learned than others (consonant-voice).     

Interpersonal leveling,independence, and self‐enhancement: a comparison between Denmark and the US,and a relational practice framework for cultural psychology

We argue that the relational model that people use for organizing specific social interactions in any culture determines whether people self‐enhance. Self‐enhancement is not a functional consequence of the (independent or interdependent) cultural model of self. Across three studies, Danes self‐enhanced considerably less than did Americans but were more independent on the Twenty Statements Test, made more individual attributions about social life, made more autonomous scenario choices, and were more independent on the self‐construal scale. Public modesty did not account for these Danish‐American differences in self‐enhancement. However, Danes practiced interpersonal leveling, preferring equality of outcome more than did Americans. This leveling strongly and inversely predicted self‐enhancement within both cultures and mediated Danish‐American differences in self‐enhancement. In contrast, no independence measure systematically predicted self‐enhancement within both cultures nor mediated the cultural differences in self‐enhancement. This dissociation of independence and self‐enhancement demonstrates that self‐enhancing downward social comparisons are not functionally necessary for an independent concept of self. We conclude that social relationships, not the model of the self, mediate the mutual constitution of psyche and culture. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Psychological and social-structural influences on commitment to volunteering

A model is described in which commitment to volunteering is hypothesized to be the result of demographic qualities, personality, identity, values, and social relationships. The model is tested and cross-validated using data from a nationally representative sample of American adults. The results from structural equation modeling analyses suggest that the hypothetical model provides a good fit to the data. Moreover, the findings suggest that the relations of personality and demographic characteristics to hours devoted to volunteering are largely mediated by latent constructs capturing helping identity and community participation. The implications of the model and the findings for our understanding of volunteering are discussed.     

Ideological and personal zeal reactions to threat among people with high self-esteem: motivated promotion focus

After a mortality salience manipulation, participants completed measures of either ideological zeal (Study 1) or personal project zeal (Study 3). Mortality salience increased both kinds of zeal but only among participants with high self-esteem. High self-esteem was positively correlated with dispositional tendencies toward promotion focus, action orientation, and behavioral activation; it was negatively correlated with behavioral inhibition and rumination (Study 2). These findings clarify the role of dispositional self-esteem in mortality salience research and confirm that, as has been found with various other threats, zealous reactions to mortality salience are most pronounced among participants with high self-esteem. Results support a regulatory focus perspective on zealous reactions to threat. Ideological and personal zeal reflect motivated promotion focus reactions that are rewarding because they decrease the motivational relevance, regulatory fit, and subjective salience of threats.     

Nontarget objects can influence perceptual processes during object recognition

Previous experiments have shown that objects are recognized more readily in a semantically consistent visual context. However, the benefit from context could be explained by response bias, and may not reflect the influence of context on the perceptual processes of recognition. We conducted a six-alternative forced-choice experiment to measure semantic and perceptual errors. A target object appeared briefly, surrounded by four context objects. The target was more accurately identified when the context consisted of objects semantically related to the target. The large number of semantic errors, which increased when the context presentation preceded the target, showed that response bias did account for a proportion of the context effect. Nevertheless, significant facilitation was still present after a bias correction. Recognition of an object can be affected by context not only when it is embedded in a coherent naturalistic scene, but also when it is simply near other related objects. Materials associated with this article may be accessed at www.psychonomic.org/archive.