The Dynamics of Job-Seeking Behavior

Job placement readiness as a continuum is discussed. High and low readiness are specifically treated. Personality characteristics and case histories of the two types are given.     

The effects of message framing and ethnic targeting on mammography use among low-income women.

The authors examined the effects that differently framed and targeted health messages have on persuading low-income women to obtain screening mammograms. The authors recruited 752 women over 40 years of age from community health clinics and public housing developments and assigned the women randomly to view videos that were either gain or loss framed and either targeted specifically to their ethnic groups or multicultural. Loss-framed, multicultural messages were most persuasive. The advantage of loss-framed, multicultural messages was especially apparent for Anglo women and Latinas but not for African American women. These effects were stronger after 6 months than after 12 months.     

Self‐paced study time as a cue for recall predictions across school age

Recent work on metacognition indicates that monitoring is sometimes based itself on the feedback from control operations. Evidence for this pattern has not only been shown in adults but also in elementary schoolchildren. To explore whether this finding can be generalized to a wide range of age groups, 160 participants from first to eighth grade participated in a study based on a self‐paced study time (ST) allocation paradigm. In contrast to previous studies, picture pairs instead of word pairs were used as stimuli to compensate for reduced reading skills in younger participants. Actual ST and judgments of learning (JOLs) made at the end of each study trial were used as core variables. The results are in line with previous findings, in that children's JOLs decreased with increasing ST, suggesting that JOLs were based on the memorizing effort heuristic that easily learned items are more likely to be remembered. Weaker inverse relationship between JOLs and ST was found for the younger children. Overall, these results underline the importance of mnemonic cues in shaping metacognitive feelings not only in adults but also in older children and expose a developmental trend in their use along childhood.     

EFFECTIVENESS OF FUNCTIONAL COMMUNICATION TRAINING WITH AND WITHOUT EXTINCTION AND PUNISHMENT: A SUMMARY OF 21 INPATIENT CASES

Functional communication training (FCT) is a frequently used treatment for reducing problem behavior exhibited by individuals with developmental disabilities. Once the operant function of problem behavior is identified by a functional analysis, the client is taught to emit an appropriate communicative response to obtain the reinforcer that is responsible for behavioral maintenance. Studies on FCT have typically used small numbers of participants, have reported primarily on clients for whom FCT was successful, and have varied with respect to their use of other treatment components. The main purposes of the present study were to evaluate the efficacy of FCT for treating severe problem behavior in a relatively large sample of individuals with mental retardation (N = 21) and to determine the contribution of extinction and punishment components to FCT treatment packages. FCT with extinction was effective in reducing problem behavior for the majority of clients and resulted in at least a 90% reduction in problem behavior in nearly half the applications. However, when demand or delay-to-reinforcement fading was added to FCT with extinction, treatment efficacy was reduced in about one half of the applications. FCT with punishment (both with and without fading) resulted in at least a 90% reduction in problem behavior for every case in which it was applied.     

Pathological narcissism and serial homicide: Review and case study

Serial homicide, as a psychopathological condition, has been described as long ago as 1886. The traits and characteristics of serial murderers are varied, as are the theories that attempt to explain their motivation. Theorists have emphasized, for example, traumatic events in early life, sexual disturbance and dynamics, and neurobiological abnormalities. In the past fifteen years, as narcissistic disturbance in general has been better understood, a relationship has been noted between pathological narcissism and serial homicide. Narcissistic personality disorder, narcissistic injury, underlying feel-ings of inadequacy and humiliation, self-glorifying compensatory fantasies, and the erection of narcissistic defenses have all been mentioned as important factors in un-derstanding the serial killer. An illustrative case report, which encompasses many of these characteristics, is presented here along with a review of clinical research, theory, and findings.     

Understanding and Treating Pain in Ethnically Diverse Patients

A revolution has taken place during the past 25 years in the understanding and treatment of chronic pain. Psychologists have contributed tremendously to this revolution. However, the primary psychological models of pain treatment have failed to adequately integrate the empirical findings and theoretical understanding of the role of ethnic factors. The goal of this paper is to address this problem by demonstrating the importance of understanding ethnic factors in treating pain, providing an overview of ethnic factors in pain, and proposing guidelines for Clinical Psychologists who treat pain patients from ethnically diverse backgrounds.