Human growth hormone: the dilemma of expanded use in children

In the specialized area of pediatric endocrinology, the use of human growth hormone (hGH) both for children who have a growth hormone abnormality and for the treatment of non-hGH-deficient children who are short is a current clinical reality that raises important ethical questions. Generally speaking, the use of hGH for those children who are clearly lacking it is an efficacious intervention based upon established clinical criteria. The use of hGH for children who are short, but have no growth hormone abnormality is ethically and clinically more controversial. The moral conundrum of how to gain knowledge about new medical treatments that may be beneficial to children while, at the same time, ethically enrolling them in clinical trials with placebo arms in order to gain such knowledge will continue to be a contentious issue in the conduct of research and in the delivery of health care. In addition, there are questions about what ought to be studied and whether a physical characteristic such as short stature ought to be viewed as a circumstance of less than optimal health.     

Effects of frequency and duration of exercise sessions on physical activity levels and adherence

The purpose of this study was to assess the relations among physical activity, adherence, and frequency and duration of exercise sessions for 33 male and female sedentary university students. Analysis indicated that frequency and duration of the exercise program did not significantly affect adherence. However, frequency and duration of the exercise sessions did significantly affect leisure activity once the structured exercise program terminated.     

Humanisation,democracy and trust: The democratisation of the school ethos

A democratic state is characterised by more than its particular principles and institutions; its citizens must have the democratic virtues and attitudes. One such important attitude is trust, as commentators on the current attempts to create democratic institutions in the USSR emphasise. The paper gives an account of social trust and also the important, though problematic, role that distrust plays in a democracy. Finally the paper considers how the school can instantiate social trust in its own ethos.     

Pupillary activity while listening to verbal passages

Twelve college students were presented with neutral, pleasant, and unpleasant verbal passages each of 120 sec duration. Changes in pupil diameter before, during, and after each passage were continuously monitored. Dilation accompanied the pleasant and unpleasant passages relative to the neutral passage. No evidence for defensive pupillary constriction was found. Habituation occurred during periods of silence as well as during the stimulus passages. These results suggest that a study reported by Hess and Goodwin (1974) as demonstrating pupillary constriction to unpleasant visual material may be interpreted as reflecting differential habituation.     

Female participation rates and the occupational prestige of the professions: Are they inversely related?

Contradictory empirical evidence concerning the impact of increasing numbers of women on the prestige and desirability of selected high-status professions is examined. It is concluded that, when alternative methodological issues are considered, the existing empirical literature does not definitively address the question of whether or not an increasing female participation rate in high-status professions will erode the prestige and desirebility of those professions. A 2 × 2 × 3 factorial design was used to control for the sex of the subjects (132 males, 132 females) and simultaneously manipulate the professions studied and the participation rate of women in those professions (constant, significant increase). The results indicate that the prospect of increasing numbers of women entering high-status professions does not result in a decline in either the prestige or desirability of those professions for the sample used in this study.     

The importance of pattern information for the resolution of depth-ambiguous apparent motion

A single apparent motion display can result in the perception of a rigid three-dimensional motion or a plastic, two-dimensional motion. Previous studies have found that the principal determinant of the perceptual outcome is the temporal properties of the apparent motion stimulus. Here it is shown that the form properties of the stimulus are another determinant and that, in some situations, they may become a more powerful determinant than the temporal properties.     

Self-Enhancement and Social Responsibility: On Caring More, but Doing Less, Than Others

Self-enhancement biases have been found in a variety of self-rated skills, traits, and abilities, yet past research has not examined whether people show such biases in ratings of their social concern and activism. In the present paper, we report the results of two surveys on this question. In the first survey, 549 adults rated their level of concern and activism on one of six different issues (e.g., homelessness). The results showed a general pattern of self-enhancement in professed concern but self-deprecation in activism. In the second survey, a random-digit dialing method was used to contact a representative sample of the general public. A total of 817 respondents rated their level of concern and activism on the issues of environmental protection, animal welfare, and world hunger. The second survey also explored two techniques for debiasing self-enhancement in concern: one based on a cognitive consistency model, and one based on the salience of others' actions. Findings from the second survey replicated those of the first, and both debiasing techniques failed to reduce self-ratings of concern. Moreover, a sizable number of respondents said that they would do more if others showed more concern. These results are consistent with a social dilemma in which citizens feel a personal sense of concern, but are reluctant to act until others show greater concern.     

Physicians' Reactions to Uncertainty: Refining the constructs and scales

The Physicians' Reactions to Uncertainty (PRU) scales were developed to measure physicians' affective reactions to uncertainty. However, the structural (factor) model for the two PRU scales has not been cross validated on an independent sample of physicians. We surveyed 337 physicians in internal medicine at Indiana University to test the structural model for the PRU scales using confirmatory factor analysis and, if necessary, to refine the constructs and scales. The structural model of the original PRU scales did not fit the data (X²=559.26,p<.001) provided by the 265 (79%) respondents. Based on models suggested by 15 volunteers, we refined the constructs and scales. The four new scales are Anxiety Due to Uncertainty (five items,=.85), Concern about Bad Outcomes (three items,=.74), Reluctance to Disclose Uncertainty to Patients (five items,=.76), and Reluctance to Disclose Mistakes to Physicians (two items,=.75). The revised structural models have greater conceptual clarity, better fit to the data, and shorter scale measures than the original PRU model.This research was supported in part by National Research Service Award HS00032 from the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research.