My place,your place,and no place: Behavior settings as a risk factor for HIV-related injection practices of drug users in Baltimore,Maryland

Information is sparse on the social context of illicit drug injection behaviors and their relationship to HIV infection. This study examined relationships between injection settings, injecting with others, and HIV risk behaviors of sharing needles and not cleaning contaminated needles in a sample of 630 inner-city injecting drug users in Baltimore, MD. Through open-ended interviews, five primary settings of injection behavior were identified. These settings included one's own, friends' and mother's residence, shooting galleries, and semipublic areas. Most participants reported injecting in their own residence (92%) and friends' residence (86%) in the prior 6 months. In a multiple regression analysis, injecting at friends' residence, in shooting galleries, and in semipublic areas and frequency of injecting with others were significantly associated with frequency of sharing uncleaned needles, “slipping” (i.e., failure to disinfect shared needles), and not always cleaning used needles before injecting. Results suggest that interventions may benefit from targeting settings as well as behaviors to reduce the spread of HIV. This research was supported by grants DA04334, DA05911, DA06313, and DA08985 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.     

Patterns of 4-month-old infant responses to hidden silent and sounding people and objects

Responses of 4-month-old infants to hidden people and objects were investigated with equated task demands. Twenty-one 4-month-old infants were administered a combined task, in which they were shown a sounding stimulus that continued to sound after hiding, an auditory task, in which sound was the only source of information about the position of the object in space, and a vision task, in which a silent stimulus was shown to the infants prior to hiding. Five infant behaviours were coded: reaching, gazing, body movements, vocalizations and smiles. The infants reached significantly more for hidden objects than for people, to whom they vocalized instead. They further smiled, and moved their bodies more towards their invisible mother than to the other stimuli. Thus infants responded differentially to people and objects whether the stimuli were soundless (so that there was no cue to their presence) or not. This suggested that infants appreciated (a) that an object had been hidden; (b) this object was either animate or inanimate; and (c) different procedures were appropriate for the retrieval of, or for interacting with animate and inanimate objects. Discussion centres on the underlying representational system that allows for such appreciation.     

The effects of listener training on the development of analogical reasoning

We evaluated the effects of listener training on the emergence of analogical reasoning, as measured via equivalence‐equivalence and explored the role of verbal behavior when solving analogy‐type tasks. We taught 18 college students to select component stimuli from 2 classes, labeled “vek” and “zog,” and evaluated tacts and relational responding in the presence of baseline (AB and BC), symmetry (BA and CB), and transitivity (AC and CA) compounds. In Experiment 1, 5 out of 6 participants passed analogy tests, but none of them engaged in the relational tacts “same” and “different” during tact tests, possibly due to lack of instructional control. A change in instructions during Experiment 2 produced relational tacts in 4 of 6 participants, and 5 participants passed analogy tests. In Experiment 3, we implemented a talk‐aloud procedure to determine if the participants were emitting relational tacts during analogy tests. All 6 participants tacted stimuli relationally and engaged in problem‐solving statements to solve analogy tests. Results from these studies suggest that listener and speaker behavior in the form of relational tacts and other problem‐solving statements influenced the participants' equivalence–equivalence performance.     

Dehumanization of dirty workers and attitudes toward social support

In lay perception, dirty work is a type of labor that degrades human dignity. Work can be perceived as dirty on three bases: social (related to the subordinate position or associated with contact with stigmatized people), physical (related to direct contact with garbage and waste), and moral (related to jobs considered sinful, dubious, or defying social norms). “Dirty” stigma makes workers objects of dehumanization and discrimination, in particular, people distance themselves from dirty workers and are not ready to help and support them. In the experimental study (N = 340), we investigated how certain types of dirty workers are dehumanized compared to nondirty workers and the indirect effect of the type of dirty work on attitudes toward the social support of dirty workers via animalistic (attribution of uniquely human traits) and the mechanistic (attribution of human nature traits) dehumanization. The results show that individuals are willing to offer more social support to a low status but not dirty worker rather than to social or moral dirty workers. At the same time, less social support is provided to nondirty than to physical dirty worker. Animalistic and mechanistic dehumanization mediates the relationship between the types of dirty work and the attitudes toward social support. In particular, less dehumanization leads to more positive attitudes toward social support. The limitations and future directions of the obtained results are discussed.     

Subjective Well-Being,Life Satisfaction and Interpersonal Relationships Associated to Socio-Demographic and Contextual Variables

Applied Research in Quality of Life - This study aims associating children’s satisfaction to their interpersonal relationships within their main contexts of interaction (family, friends and...     

A response to commentaries on positivity

In our response, we aim to further contribute to the ongoing discussion of the construct of positivity and of the related research. We believe that each of the three commentaries has something unique to offer to the literature. By this response we take the opportunity to discuss the ideas that they present, and to illustrate some additional thoughts about positivity and its relationships with germane psychological constructs.     

Statewide Implementation of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Psychosis Through a Learning Collaborative Model

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Psychosis (CBTp) is an evidence-based psychotherapeutic intervention (EBPI) for adults with schizophrenia spectrum disorders that remains under-implemented in the United States (U.S.). There has been little empirical attention on implementation and dissemination strategies for this EBPI. The Learning Collaborative (LC) model is a method of implementing evidence-based practices across agencies and geographic regions that may facilitate CBTp implementation and dissemination in the US.We applied the LC model in an attempt to enhance the accessibility of CBTp in community mental health settings statewide. Providers (N = 56) from 12 agencies voluntarily participated in an in-person, CBTp workshop followed by 6 months of biweekly phone-based consultation sessions (Phase 1). Twenty-one providers opted to participate in an additional 6-month CBTp LC immediately following completion of the initial CBTp LC (Phase 2). Adoption, penetration, provider-perceived skill development, fidelity, as well as provider-perceived implementation barriers were re-assessed during and 6 months after completion of Phase 2.One year after the completion of the Phase 2 LC, 21% of the original trainee group across 3 of the 12 participating agencies continued to offer CBTp to clients. CBTp trainees were treating between one and two clients each. Self-assessed CBTp skills improved modestly over the Phase 2 consultation period. On average, both clinicians and supervisors reached an acceptable fidelity score on the sessions reviewed. Participating providers identified multiple barriers to CBTp implementation, including features of the training and consultation, the agency, the intervention itself, and psychosocial and clinical challenges associated with the client population.Few CBTp implementation studies have applied a framework to CBTp implementation. The authors adapted the LC model in an attempt to promote adoption of CBTp in community mental health clinics across a large, populous state with poor access to mental health services. Identified challenges and recommendations should be considered in future implementation efforts.     

GUATEMALAN, FILIPINO, AND U.S. ADOLESCENTS'IMAGES OF WOMEN AS OFFICE WORKERS AND HOMEMAKERS

Although adolescents of different countries often draw pictures of the ideal woman cooking or working in an office, the meaning of the images may vary cross-culturally. In the present study, 88 adolescents from the Philippines, the U.S.A., and Guatemala interpreted drawings by their same-nationality peers. Interpreters from all three countries described the woman working in an office as hardworking and the woman cooking as a mother cooking for her family. In addition, Filipino adolescents wrote themes of contentment and organization, Guatemalan adolescents wrote themes of betterment, family, and hope, and U.S.A. adolescents wrote themes of contentment and niceness. Similar images of women's roles may have different meanings for adolescents of different cultures, and the use of emic approaches can provide psychological researchers with increased understanding of complex social phenomena.     

Biblical mothers as images of the Church

Among the many images and symbols of the Church which the church Fathers used, biblical mothers had an important role. Some of these images, such as Mary as an image of the Church, became widespread and have influenced later Christian theology and iconography. In this article, both the development and different applications of these images will be explored. How and to what purpose these images were used in the Early Church will also be studied. Among the topics dealt with by using these images were the origin, age, character and purpose of the Church, as well as its relation to several ‘others’ (the Jews, the schismatics and the heretics). In modern ecclesiological discussions, especially of Eve and Mary as images of the Church, the role of the Church in salvation, as well as the communal interpretation of biblical mothers, are relevant.