BEHAVIORAL COMMUNITY INTERVENTION TO REDUCE THE RISK OF SKIN CANCER

Peer leader modeling, posted feedback, posted goals, and a commitment raffle were used at two swimming pools to increase behaviors associated with skin cancer prevention. During the intervention condition, pool lifeguards modeled the protective behaviors by wearing sunglasses, t-shirts, and hats, using zinc oxide and sunscreen, and staying in the shade. Children and adolescents (1 to 16 years old) increased their use of two or more protective behaviors from a baseline mean of 6.5% to 26.9% during the intervention. Adults (older than 16 years) increased their protective behaviors from a baseline mean of 22% to 37.95% during the intervention. The lifeguards increased their use of all the protective behaviors from a baseline mean of 16.7% to 63.5% during intervention. Ways to improve and expand this intervention are discussed.     

Synchrnoic consciousness from a neurological point of view: the philosophical foundations for neuroethics

Daniel Kolak’s theory of synchronic consciousness according to which the entire range of dissociative phenomena, from pathologies such as MPD and schizophrenia to normal dream states, are best explained in terms of consciousness becoming simultaneously identified as many selves, has revolutionary therapeutic implications for neurology and psychiatry. All these selves, according to Kolak—even the purely imaginary ones that exist as such only in our dreams—are not just conscious but also self-conscious, with beliefs, intentions, living lives informed by memories (confabulatory, in the case of the fictional ones) and personal histories. Kolak’s derivation of psychiatrically relevant aspects of his theory—a neurological rendition of a Kantian transcendental argument—can be given a straightforward neurological, and therefore open to scientific scrutiny, interpretation that would then more easily lend itself to the clinical setting in which these perplexing phenomena, along with their purveyors, must live and cope. This will be the main focus of this paper.     

A Comparison of Survey Data Collected by Regular Mail and Electronic Mail Questionnaires

A survey was conducted by the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) to examine the telecommunications needs of the organization's membership. A component of this study permitted an examination of two response modalities (regular mail and e-mail) across a number of variables. Separate samples of 585 were drawn to take the survey. The first sample consisted of all those organization members who had registered their e-mail address with the organization while the second sample was randomly selected from those members who did not list an e-mail address. The first group was sent a nine question instrument via e-mail while the second group was asked to fill out a ten question instrument via regular mail. Overall response rates were low and significantly different [30% for the e-mail group and 36% for the regular mail group, ² (1) = 10.42, p < .01], though not uncommon for institutional surveys. Individual item response rates, however, were statistically significantly higher for the e-mail group across a number of dimensions. The results suggest that for some organizations, e-mail questionnaires may be a viable mechanism for conducting surveys. Suggestions are made on how to improve overall response rates.