Survey on Using Ethical Principles in Environmental Field Research with Place-Based Communities

Science and Engineering Ethics - Researchers of the Northeast Ethics Education Partnership (NEEP) at Brown University sought to improve an understanding of the ethical challenges of field...     

A Critical Assessment of Null Hypothesis Significance Testing in Quantitative Communication Research

Null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) is the most widely accepted and frequently used approach to statistical inference in quantitative communication research. NHST, however, is highly controversial, and several serious problems with the approach have been identified. This paper reviews NHST and the controversy surrounding it. Commonly recognized problems include a sensitivity to sample size, the null is usually literally false, unacceptable Type II error rates, and misunderstanding and abuse. Problems associated with the conditional nature of NHST and the failure to distinguish statistical hypotheses from substantive hypotheses are emphasized. Recommended solutions and alternatives are addressed in a companion article.     

Physiological Reactions to a Suicide Film: Suicide Attempters,Suicide Ideators,and Nonsuicidal Patients

A film about two teenagers who commit suicide was shown to three groups of psychiatric inpatients: 17 who had attempted suicide, 20 who had expressed suicidal thoughts, and 10 who were not suicidal. Anxiety before and after the film was evaluated with psychometric (anxiety rating scale) and physiological tools (heart and respiration rate, blood pressure, electromyogram). Values noted before and after screening, and the degree of change in these values, were compared. In addition, psychomotor agitation was rated at several points during the film. Most results were negative. The suicide attempters had significantly lower postscreening heart rates and a significantly lesser change in heart and respiration rates than the other two groups. The suicide attempters revealed an increase in psychomotor agitation until the discovery of the suicide and a decrease thereafter, whereas the agitation of the nonsuicidal patients continued to increase from the start to the end of the film. The study suggests that on some parameters, suicide attempters reveal less anxiety than nonsuicidal psychiatric patients following exposure to a simulated suicide. The reaction of suicide ideators falls somewhere between the two groups.     

Hypnotic enhancement of cognitive-behavioral interventions for pain: an analogue treatment study.

Recent meta-analyses have shown that adding hypnosis enhances the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy. This hypnotic enhancement effect was evaluated in the analogue treatment of pain. Individuals scoring in the high (n = 135) and low (n = 150) ranges of hypnotic suggestibility were randomly assigned to 1 of 6 conditions: Stress Inoculation Training, the same treatment provided hypnotically, nonhypnotic analgesia suggestions, hypnotic analgesia suggestions, a hypnotic induction treatment, or a control condition. The 5 analogue treatments reduced experimental pain more than the control condition, but were not different from one another. Under circumstances optimized to detect an enhancement effect, neither Stress Inoculation Training nor analgesia suggestions produced more relief when delivered in a hypnotic context than identical treatments provided nonhypnotically.