ACADEMIC EFFECTS OF PROVIDING PEER SUPPORT IN GENERAL EDUCATION CLASSROOMS ON STUDENTS WITHOUT DISABILITIES

We studied the academic effects on peers without disabilities of serving as peer supports for students with disabilities in general education classrooms. Three peers were studied using a range of indicators, including academic engagement, coursework performance, and social validity assessments. Peers assisting a student with disabilities via curricular adaptation, assignment completion, and social facilitation constituted the multicomponent independent variable. We used withdrawal or multiple baseline designs to demonstrate positive benefits for peers for all measures used. In addition, follow-up data for 2 peers indicated that the positive changes associated with serving as a peer support were maintained for up to 2 months. Our results are discussed in relation to the possible academic and social effects of providing peer supports in general education classrooms for students with and without disabilities.     

Practice and Persuasive Frame: Effects on Beliefs,Intention, and Performance of a Cancer Self-Examination1

Many behaviors are performed less frequently than intended because they require knowledge and skill to overcome behavioral barriers. This experiment tested effects of two factors, direct experience and message frame, that were hypothesized to affect men's intention to perform the testicle self-exam for cancer (TSE) and their actual exam performance, in part by affecting their knowledge and beliefs about overcoming TSE performance barriers. Men's experience performing the TSE on a life-like model and the frame (negative, positive, or neutral) of the recommendation promoting the exam were manipulated factorially. Consistent with prediction, men who practiced (vs. did not practice) the self-exam: (a) endorsed stronger beliefs about behavior-specific knowledge (e.g., ability to imagine a lump), (b) held more positive intention, and (c) translated that intention more consistently into self-reported action, in part because their behavior-specific knowledge increased their tendency to act on their intention. Consistent with action phase theory (Gollwitzer, 1990), intention related more strongly to behavior-specific beliefs than to general, long-term beliefs, and more strongly than attitude related to behavior-specific beliefs. These findings have practical and theoretical implications for promoting healthful and other intended behaviors.     

Adolescents' attitudes toward confidentiality between the school counsellor and the adolescent client

It is increasingly acknowledged that confidentiality is relative rather than absolute in any counselling relationship. This is particularly the case for minors receiving counselling at school, where third parties such as parents and teachers frequently have access to information about an adolescent client. The Australian Psychological Society's Code of Professional Conduct (1986) states that minors are unable to provide voluntary, informed consent in consulting relationships, although current research does not necessarily support this view. The current study investigated adolescents' attitudes to confidentiality in situations that may commonly arise in school counselling. The study also investigated the third parties to whom adolescents believed information should be disclosed by a counsellor. Respondents were 303 male and 254 female students attending three single-sex nongovernment schools. Ages ranged from 13 to 18 years. Results suggested that the adolescents' attitudes to confidentiality generally corresponded with adult views. Many adolescents wanted more autonomy regarding disclosure of information obtained in a counselling situation than the APS code provides. Parents were the only third party to whom the adolescents generally believed disclosure should be made. There were few age differences, but a wide range of opinions were evident, with female adolescents consistently more strongly in favor of confidentiality than males.     

The Contributions of Appearance to Occupational Outcomes in Civilian and Military Settings1

Two archival studies examined the impact of people's appearance on the status and type of civilian and military jobs they hold. Study 1 found that, although appearance was not related to job status, taller men had higher incomes. Additionally, appearance was significantly related to the type of jobs people held. Attractive women and tall men held jobs requiring traits more consistent with the attractiveness halo, while babyfaced women and short men held jobs more consistent with the babyface stereotype. These effects remained after controlling for job-relevant personality and educational variables, suggesting an unjustified bias toward people with certain appearances. Study 2 found that heavier men had lower job status, as reflected in military rank attainment. However, this relationship was eliminated when controlling for intelligence and dependability. Also, babyfaced men achieved higher status through being marginally more likely to win a military award. This unexpected effect was attributed to the contrast between heroic actions and the babyface stereotype. Finally, appearance affected the type of military experience men had. Heavier men were more likely to be in situations involving gunfire or casualties. These studies make an important contribution by extending laboratory findings to the real world, exploring the effects of appearance on job type as well as status, and providing evidence that appearance effects are not solely due to covariation with bona fide job qualifications.     

Biased attention in childhood Anxiety disorders: A preliminary study

This study provides preliminary tests of two hypotheses: (1) Anxiety-disordered children show an attentional bias toward emotionally threatening stimuli, and (2) normal controls show an attentional bias away from emotionally threatening stimuli. Twelve children, 9 to 14 years of age, with primary diagnoses of anxiety disorder were compared with 12 normal controls matched for age, gender, vocabulary level, and reading ability. Subjects completed a reaction time task that measured visual attention toward threatening versus neutral words. The anxious group showed the predicted attentional bias toward threat words. However, controls did not show the predicted bias away from threat words. These results are the first showing that biased attentional processing occurs among clinically anxious children. The potential role of such an attentional bias in childhood anxiety disorders and future direction for research are discussed.This research was supported by a Seed Grant and a Small Grant to the first author from The Ohio State University. Portions of this paper were presented at the 27th Annual Convention of the Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy, Atlanta, November 1993. Thanks are extended to the participants and all those who helped with the project.     

Aesthetic preference and DSM-IIIR personality disorders

This report tested whether those individuals with a cluster B DSM-IIIR personality disorder (narcissistic, borderline, antisocial or histrionic) had higher scores for aesthetic preference for visually complex drawings using the Barron-Welch Art Scale. In a sample of 141 patients and controls, the 56 subjects who met the criteria for one of the cluster B personality disorder diagnoses displayed higher Barron-Welch Art Scale Scores. A multiple regression analysis showed that narcissistic and borderline personality disorder contributed positively, while dependent personality disorder, negatively to preference for complexity. The findings support the notion that aesthetic choices and values reflected through the dimension of openness to experience may contribute to the behavioral manifestations of the personality disorders.     

Prediction of mood and risk appraisals from trait measures: Two studies of simulated driving

Two contrasting hypotheses concerning the relationship between personality and mood are distinguished. First, broad traits may relate to emotional temperament, and so predict mood across situations. Second, the interactionist approach to personality implies that narrow, context specific traits may sometimes be the most powerful predictors of mood within situations. This article reports correlations between mood and broad and narrow trait measures, the Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI; Eysenck and Eysenck, 1964) and the Driving Behaviour Inventory (DBI; Gulian, Matthews, Glendon, Davies and Debney, 1989), within the context of vehicle driving. Mood was measured with the UWIST Mood Adjective Checklist (UMACL; Matthews, Jones and Chamberlain, 1990), in two samples before and after a simulated drive. One sample (N = 73) performed a ‘passive’ drive, in which little interaction with other traffic was required. The second sample (N = 93) performed an ‘active’ driving task, in which subjects had to decide when to overtake other vehicles. Results showed that the DBI traits were more strongly related to mood than EPI traits, particularly following the active drive. The DBI Dislike of Driving scale was the strongest single predictor of post-drive mood. Prior to the drive, subjects also rated accident risk, driving skill, and judgement, for themselves and for a ‘peer’ driver of similar age and sex. Analysis of these data in the combined sample (N = 166) showed that the DBI was the more consistent predictor of self-ratings of risk and driving competence, although some relationships between ratings and the EPI were found. Again, the DBI Dislike of Driving scale was the strongest single predictor of self-ratings. Drivers scoring high on this scale seem immune to drivers' general bias towards rating themselves as safer and more competent than their peers. It is concluded that narrow traits are more predictive than broad traits within the driving context. Data are consistent with the transactional model of driver stress, which proposes that dislike of driving is derived from negative secondary appraisals.     

PREVENTION OF DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS IN SCHOOLCHILDREN:

Abstract— After teaching cognitive and social-problem-solving techniques designed to prevent depressive symptoms, we followed 69 fifth- and sixth-grade children at risk for depression for 2 years. We compared these children with 49 children in a matched no-treatment control group The prevention group re- ported fewer depressive symptoms through the 2-year follow-up, and moderate to severe symptoms were reduced by half. Surprisingly, the effects of the prevention program grew larger after the program was over. We suggest that psychological immunization against depression can occur by leaching cognitive and social skills to children as they enter puberty     

Five points and a lament about Range and Cotton's "Reports of assent and permission in research with children: illustrations and suggestions

This comment responds to an article by Range and Cotton (1995) on reporting of parental permission and child assent procedures in published articles for 4 psychology journals. Issue is taken with the assumptions, methodology, interpretations, and implications of listing researchers in the Range and Cotton article. There is no evidence researchers failed in their ethical obligations or that children were put at risk. Reporting permission/assent in publications is not an ethical requirement. Listing researchers as "failing" to do something not part of an ethical code is lamentable. Too many unfortunate implications and problems can be derived from Range and Cotton's analysis and conclusions.     

Vibrotactile pattern discrimination and communality at several body sites

In a series of experiments, the effects of spatial layout on vibrotactile pattern perception were explored by testing the ability to discriminate between two sequentially presented patterns that share active elements in the same spatial locations. Two-dimensional displays were used in order to examine the functional relationship between discrimination performance and patterncommunality, defined as the sharing elements, on different body sites. Accuracy of discrimination judgments was inversely proportional to communality, regardless of the number of pattern elements. For compact arrays fitted to the finger, palm, and thigh, the effects of communality appeared equivalent. The similarity between finger and thigh functions is remarkable, considering the dramatic differences between these sites in receptor components and structure. When these data were compared with those from arrays with distributed contactors, performance was substantially better with well-separated pattern elements. Such findings help to explicate how information from apposed patterns can best be delivered to the skin through tactile communication systems.