Virtual and physical venues as contexts for HIV risk among rural men who have sex with men.

Rural men who have sex with men (MSM) have few identifiable venues in which to congregate and meet potential sex partners. The Internet provides a venue for rural MSM to meet, and this is potentially troubling because studies of urban MSM suggest that HIV risk is higher for men who date online. The goals of this study were to identify venues where rural MSM meet their sexual partners and to examine their association with high-risk sexual practices. Six hundred sixty-three predominantly single, gay, Caucasian MSM completed an online survey of their sexual activities. Results showed that the Internet and bars were the most popular venues for meeting sex partners. Highest rates of risk behaviors were associated with Internet dating and venues in which immediate sexual encounters typically occur, suggesting that prevention in rural areas should target multiple-risk environments.     

Traumatized mothers can change their minds about their toddlers: Understanding how a novel use of videofeedback supports positive change of maternal attributions

This study explored the use of a brief experimental intervention that integrates principles of infant-parent psychotherapy, videofeedback, controlled exposure to child distress in the context of parental posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and stimulation of parental reflective functioning (RF). The Clinician Assisted Videofeedback Exposure Session (CAVES) was applied to 32 interpersonal violence-exposed mothers of very young children (8-50 months) with respect to change of maternal perception of her child. While we found no significant reduction over two videotaped assessment visits with a mental health professional, we did find a significant reduction in the degree of negativity of maternal attributions towards her child following the videotaped visit focused on the CAVES (p<.01). Maternal RF, a mother's capacity to think about mental states in herself and her child, accounted for 11% of the variance in reduction of maternal negativity after accounting for baseline levels of negativity. Clinician-assisted videofeedback appears to support emotional self-regulation of mothers with violence-related PTSD. Focusing with a therapist on videofeedback of child separation distress exposes mothers to avoided mental states of helplessness and perceived loss of protection. Negative maternal attributions may mark violent trauma-associated emotion dysregulation and projected self-representations of the maltreated mother.     

Isolating the evocative and abative effects of an establishing operation on challenging behavior

Establishing operations (EO) influence operant responding by altering the reinforcing effectiveness of consequences (reinforcer establishing or abolishing effect) and changing the frequency of behavior that has been reinforced by those consequences in the past (evocative or abative effect) (Michael, 1982 , 1993 ). In this study we attempted to isolate the evocative and abative effects of an EO for positively reinforced challenging behavior with a person with autism and developmental disabilities. The study consisted of three phases. First, an analogue functional analysis identified attention as maintaining challenging behavior. Second, access to attention was systematically controlled (continuous access versus no access) immediately prior to functional analysis sessions in which the participant received attention on an FR1 schedule. Results of this phase indicated that challenging behavior occurred at higher levels during the functional analysis sessions when access to attention was restricted immediately prior to sessions (i.e., no access appeared to function as an EO). In the third phase, prior access to attention was again controlled as in the second phase of the study, however the participant was then placed on extinction. The results of this final phase seem to indicate that no access to the reinforcer prior to extinction had an evocative effect (produced high levels of responding) whereas access to the reinforcer had an abative effect (produced lower levels of responding) during extinction sessions. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Internet identification and future internet use.

This paper reports a study investigating the relationship between Internet identification and future Internet use. We predict that Internet identification is stable over time and that it is predictive of future use. The participants were 216 undergraduate students (184 females and 32 males) from five universities in the United Kingdom. They completed a questionnaire concerning their use of the Internet and a measure of Internet identification at the start of the academic year and at the end of the academic year. We found that Internet identification measured at the beginning of the academic year was positively related to Internet identification measured at the end of the academic year. Furthermore, there was a positive relationship between Internet identification and future general Internet use and a positive relationship between Internet identification and future educational Internet use.     

From beliefs to skills: the secularization of literacy and the moral education of citizens

The premise advanced here is that reading is of religious and spiritual significance; consequently, when literacy is secularized, divorced from faith and considered apart from readers’ beliefs and values, there are consequences for learning. It is suggested that current educational policy which legitimates the view that literacy is more concerned with skills (which are often misguidedly regarded as neutral) than beliefs (and interpretation) militates against the fostering of morally aware citizens. Young people need to do more than communicate accurately and in an appropriate form; they need to be sufficiently discriminating readers of the world they inhabit and of people’s beliefs and values. It is suggested that when proper attention is devoted to values in literacy education (as well as skills) children will have the language they need to negotiate wisely in a market place of ideas where an astonishingly diverse array of goods is on offer.     

A comparative effectiveness trial of functional behavioral assessment methods

Clinicians report primarily using functional behavioral assessment (FBA) methods that do not include functional analyses. However, studies examining the correspondence between functional analyses and other types of FBAs have produced inconsistent results. In addition, although functional analyses are considered the gold standard, their contribution toward successful treatment compared with other FBA methods remains unclear. This comparative effectiveness study, conducted with 57 young children with autism spectrum disorder, evaluated the results of FBAs that did (n = 26) and did not (n = 31) include a functional analysis. Results of FBAs with and without functional analyses showed modest correspondence. All participants who completed functional communication training achieved successful outcomes regardless of the type of FBA conducted.     

The phenomenon objection to conceptual engineering

Philosophical Studies - Conceptual engineering is sometimes presented as an alternative to conceptual analysis. But one important objection to conceptual analysis threatens to carry across: that...     

Two Directions in a Search for Symmetry in Rats

The Psychological Record - Two methodologies that have been successful in producing emergent symmetry in some nonhuman species include multiple exemplar training (sea lions) and successive...     

Why do people with an anxiety disorder utilize more nonmental health care than those without?

OBJECTIVE: It is unclear why nonmental healthcare utilization is greater among those with psychological problems. The authors examined healthcare utilization in HMO patients to determine whether greater utilization in anxiety disorder (AD) patients was explained by anxiety symptoms (increasing sensitivity to physical symptoms) or comorbid illness (causing greater need for services). DESIGN: Patients were randomly selected from the database of a multi-specialty practice and 1,041 completed a survey assessing psychological symptoms, health behaviors, and demographics. Anxiety symptoms were assessed by questionnaire and the presence of an AD was determined from the medical chart. Healthcare encounters and medication use were abstracted from medical charts and HMO claims data. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Healthcare utilization. RESULTS: Both AD and anxiety symptoms predicted utilization, but symptoms were not associated with utilization in a model that also included AD. Comorbid illness was significantly associated with utilization independent of AD and somewhat reduced the strength of the AD-utilization association. The results were replicated in comparison of those with any psychiatric disorder to those without. CONCLUSION: Among those with AD, greater utilization is not explained by anxiety symptoms but is partly explained by greater comorbid illness. Further study is needed to understand excess healthcare utilization among AD patients.     

Relative sensitivities to large-field optic-flow patterns varying in direction and speed

Motion in depth results in radial optic-flow patterns. Forward motion results in radially expanding patterns, whereas backward motion generates contracting patterns. Radial optic-flow patterns are typically represented with a positive speed gradient, ie zero speed at the point of fixation, and maximum speed at the periphery. However, the actual speed profile in such a stimulus will depend upon the relative depth of objects in the scene. Using large-field stimuli (82 deg diameter) we determined relative sensitivities to radial expansion and contraction patterns and also to various types of speed gradients: positive, negative, random, and flat. We found that, even when large-field stimuli are used, observers are more sensitive to radially contracting patterns than to expanding patterns. Sensitivity to the positive speed gradient was not consistently different from either the negative or random gradients. Sensitivity to the flat gradient depended upon the speed of the stimuli. The finding of greater sensitivity to radial contraction is discussed in terms of the functional requirements involved in the use of optic-flow signals in maintaining balance. On the basis of the present findings, the utility of comparing psychophysical results based on thresholds against physiological data based on suprathreshold stimuli is also discussed.