Anxiety's role in aids prevention

Abstract

Anxiety's role in AIDS risk reduction is discussed. We argue that behavioral techniques will be critical tools for alerting people to the threat of AIDS and their own vulnerability. Informational models have not been found to be sufficient for convincing people of the extent of the threat of AIDS to them. We suggest that techniques aimed at raising people's anxiety over their vulnerability will be necessary to raise their motivation to attend to AIDS messages, and we present techniques aimed at increasing anxiety over vulnerability. Following acknowledgment of vulnerability, people will need to adopt or continue safer sex practices that are viewed as undesirable in contrast to unsafe sex practices that are viewed as less costly and less anxiety provoking. Given a clearer practical and theoretical understanding of the anxiety-producing costs of adopting safer sex behaviors, we present methods for reducing this anxiety. We also discuss the necessity for considering ethnic, minority, and other cultural nuances in social and sexual anxiety and how these might be addressed in efforts to increase safer sex practices.     

The role of body image in the prevention of eating disorders

This article reviews theory and research pertaining to prevention of negative body image and eating disorders. Research derived from the social cognitive model (SCM) and non-specific vulnerability-stressor (NSVS) model indicates that sustained prevention effects for attitudes and behaviors are possible, but not easy to achieve or explain. These limitations are considered in the context of promising research derived from a third model, critical social perspectives (CSP). We conclude that (1) research on practice should aim beyond the examination of efficacy in order to clarify the active ingredients contributing to prevention; and (2) research informed by each of the divergent perspectives can be used to enrich theory and practice in the field of eating disorders prevention.     

Can Messages Make a Difference? The Association Between E‐Mail Messages and Health Outcomes in Diabetes Patients

This investigation examined the impact of social support messages on patient health outcomes. Forty‐one American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian patients received a total of 618 e‐mail messages from their healthcare provider (HCP). The e‐mail messages were divided into 3,565 message units and coded for instances of emotional social support. Patient glycosulated hemoglobin scores (HbA1c) showed significantly improved glycemic control and emotional social support messages were associated with significant decreases in HbA1c values. Patient involvement with the system, measured by system login frequency and the frequency of uploaded blood glucose scores to the HCP, did not predict change in HbA1c.     

A rat's first bite: the nongenetic, cross-generational transfer of information.

Weanling rats, when first exposed to solid food, showed relatively elevated intake if offered the same diet as eaten by their foster dams. Maternal caretakers pass some specific food-related information to their offspring.     

Peripheral control of drinking: gastrointestinal filling as a negative feedback signal, a theoretical and experimental analysis.

The studies described here investigated the hypothesis that the osmotic postingestional satiety signal proposed by McCleary operates through a mechanism related to gut filling rather than by osmotically induced shifts of fluid from osmoreceptors in the brain. A control theory model is presented, which was designed to make quantitatively explicit the hypothesis under question. The results showed that when mannitol, which is not absorbed from the intestine, is added to a highly palatable saccharin-glucose mixture, the amount of fluid consumed decreased in inverse proportion to the mannitol concentration. Mannitol was also shown to block fluid absorption from the intestine at a low concentration (approximately .070 M) and at higher concentrations to lead to a net flux of fluid into the intestinal lumen. It was also shown that mannitol in concentrations that reduced the intake of the palatable solution did not induce thirst when the animals were in water balance. It did induce thirst, however, when the animals were tested in a state of negative water balance. The results of these studies, considered as a whole, support the view that McCleary's osmotic postingestional satiety signal acts as an intestinal distention signal rather than by inducing thirst. The model is found to be reasonably accurate as a first approximation, and suggestions are made for improvements.     

Transforming curves into curves with the same shape

Curves are considered to have the same shape when they are related by a similarity transformation of a certain kind. This paper extends earlier work on parallel curves to curves with the same shape. Some examples are given more or less explicitly. A generalization is used to show that the theory is ordinal and to show how the theory may be applied to measure sensation. The problem of actually transforming curves into curves with the same shape is reduced to the problem of rendering another set of curves parallel. Connections with groups and rings are developed to place the work in a familiar context. These connections and the earlier work on parallel curves are used to obtain necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of transformations, to study the uniqueness of transformations and to show how transformations can be calculated.     

Inheriting the Shadow: Unlived Lives,Unshed Tears

The determination and courage of those whose lives were destroyed by terror, whether the Holocaust or extermination, to move forward in a new life modeled for us, the children, an unspoken mandate to live in the present and to bury the shadows of the past. It has left many of us to face the challenge of finding our center, the anchoring of our being in our lives: personally, professionally, collectively, and culturally. The next generation is not able to mourn lives lost, and being in the present without a past, without links to ethnic cultures or heritage, isolates individuals and affects the collective—indeed, there is no collective except in the communal silences. This article explores the impact of dismembered personal and collective bonds and the need to re-member, resulting in relationships that can move into the future, into the center.     

Spatial Proportional Reasoning Is Associated With Formal Knowledge About Fractions

Proportional reasoning involves thinking about parts and wholes (i.e., about fractional quantities). Yet, research on proportional reasoning and fraction learning has proceeded separately. This study assessed proportional reasoning and formal fraction knowledge in 8- to 10-year-olds. Participants (N = 52) saw combinations of cherry juice and water in displays that highlighted either part–whole or part–part relations. Their task was to indicate on a continuous rating scale how much each mixture would taste of cherries. Ratings suggested the use of a proportional integration rule for both kinds of displays, although more robustly and accurately for part–whole displays. The findings indicate that children may be more likely to scale proportional components when being presented with part–whole as compared with part–part displays. Crucially, ratings for part–whole problems correlated with fraction knowledge, even after controlling for age, suggesting that a sense of spatial proportions is associated with an understanding of fractional quantities.