The Personality Assessment Inventory Drug Problems Scale: a validity analysis

An analysis of the relationship among the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI; Morey, 1991, 1996) Drug Problems (DRG) scale scores, the Addiction Severity Index (ASI; McLellan et al., 1992) scores, and urine toxicology reports revealed that the PAI Drug Problem scale scores of 100 substance-using and substance-abusing men and women were distributed in a manner that was in agreement with the guidelines suggested by Morey (1991, 1996) in the PAI manual. There were significant correlations among the PAI DRG scale and the ASI scales related to frequency of use, negative consequences of use, and need and desire for treatment. Overall, higher scores did reflect both more serious involvements with drug use and more serious problems as a consequence of their involvement.     

The effects of attrition on baseline comparability in randomized experiments in education: a meta-analysis

Using meta-analysis, randomized experiments in education that either clearly did or clearly did not experience student attrition were examined for the baseline comparability of groups. Results from 35 studies suggested that after attrition, the observed measures of baseline comparability of groups did not differ more than would be expected given sampling error. The degree of either overall or differential attrition did not relate to baseline comparability, a finding that held under sensitivity analyses. Also, both overall and differential attrition rates were unrelated to posttest effect sizes. All of these analyses, however, lacked sufficient statistical power to detect small but potentially meaningful effects. Results suggest caution is warranted when applying quality scales and other blanket rules pertaining to attrition that are meant to either serve as inclusion-exclusion criteria or in scoring study quality. Much greater attention is needed to both the reporting of attrition in primary studies and to the development of conceptual and empirical models of the attrition process. These developments would aid further investigation of the relation between attrition and study outcomes.     

Tobacco Use Predicts Treatment Dropout and Outcome in an Acute,Transdiagnostic Psychiatric Treatment Setting

Tobacco use is consistently associated with greater levels of depression and anxiety, broadly, and preliminary evidence suggests that current tobacco use is a significant predictor of dropout from psychiatric treatment. The current study extends past work to examine the impact of tobacco use on treatment dropout and outcomes in an acute psychiatric treatment setting. Upon intake to a partial hospitalization program (PHP), patients completed a battery of measures assessing sociodemographic characteristics, current tobacco use, depression and generalized anxiety, and substance use. Patients at the PHP also completed measures assessing levels of depression and generalized anxiety again upon discharge from the program. In line with hypotheses, current tobacco use was a significant predictor of dropout from treatment at the PHP. Importantly, this relationship remained significant when statistically controlling for demographic variables and psychiatric and substance use severity (such as number of previous inpatient psychiatric hospitalizations and degree of alcohol or drug problems). Results from the current study indicate that tobacco use is a significant risk factor for treatment dropout. Further research is needed to replicate these findings and to determine the mechanism underlying this link between tobacco use and treatment dropout for people receiving intensive psychiatric care.     

NMDA signaling in CA1 mediates selectively the spatial component of episodic memory

Recent studies focusing on the memory for temporal order have reported that CA1 plays a critical role in the memory for the sequences of events, in addition to its well-described role in spatial navigation. In contrast, CA3 was found to principally contribute to the memory for the association of items with spatial or contextual information in tasks focusing on spatial memory. Other studies have shown that NMDA signaling in the hippocampus is critical to memory performance in studies that have investigated spatial and temporal order memory independently. However, the role of NMDA signaling separately in CA1 and CA3 in memory that combines both spatial and temporal processing demands (episodic memory) has not been examined. Here we investigated the effect of the deletion of the NR1 subunit of the NMDA receptor in CA1 or CA3 on the spatial and the temporal aspects of episodic memory, using a behavioral task that allows for these two aspects of memory to be evaluated distinctly within the same task. Under these conditions, NMDA signaling in CA1 specifically contributes to the spatial aspect of memory function and is not required to support the memory for temporal order of events.     

Men’s Experience of Psychological Abuse: Conceptualization and Measurement Issues

In this paper the literature on men’s experience of psychological abuse (in the U.S.) is reviewed and the ability to conceptualize and measure such abuse is reconsidered. Scales used to measure psychological abuse based on the experiences of battered women are critiqued as inadequate as measures of psychological abuse of men. Although both men and women direct psychological abuse toward their partners, violence perpetrated by men and women is not necessarily the same. Adopting a gender role perspective on psychological abuse, we argue that women may use different strategies to hurt men including manipulation and gender role harassment, whereas coercive control paired with physical abuse may constitute one version of (male) intimate partner violence.     

Judging as a non-voluntary action

Many philosophers categorise judgment as a type of action. On the face of it, this claim is at odds with the seeming fact that judging a certain proposition is not something you can do voluntarily. I argue that we can resolve this tension by recognising a category of non-voluntary action. An action can be non-voluntary without being involuntary. The notion of non-voluntary action is developed by appeal to the claim that judging has truth as a constitutive goal. This claim, when combined with a conception of judging as a way of settling a question, explains both why judging is genuinely agential, and why it is nevertheless non-voluntary.     

'Hearts on their sleeves': the use of systemic biofeedback in school settings

This article describes how a biofeedback device is used to 'externalize' internal physiological states. Heart rate monitors, emitting audible signals when a specific threshold is reached, are fitted to children and members of the family. This can help all those present to make connections between problematic behaviours and internal states of emotional/physical arousal. Devices may be worn for up to twenty-four hours and computer graph printouts of fluctuating heart rates can assist in contextualizing problematic interactions, particularly if other family members are also fitted with heart rate monitors. In this way biofeedback becomes 'systemic' as people are alerted to the interconnectedness of each others' states. Participants are not only helped to identify stressors leading to heightened states of emotional arousal and resulting 'out-of-control' behaviours, but also to find ways of employing (self-)calming strategies. This article outlines the application of systemic biofeedback in school settings with children at risk of exclusion. With the help of these biofeedback devices pupils begin to manage themselves in situations which would previously have resulted in stressed, angry or violent behaviours.     

A POSTMODERN APPROACH TO WOMEN'S USE OF VIOLENCE: DEVELOPING MULTIPLE AND COMPLEX CONCEPTUALIZATIONS

We review the research on intimate partner abuse and, in particular, the articles in this issue, from within a feminist and postmodern framework. Research on women's use of violence is reviewed in terms of how researchers have constructed and measured violence and have conceptualized intimate partner violence (IPV) and gender. What and how we measure determines what we find ( McHugh & Cosgrove, 2005 ). We call for new conceptualizations of intimate violence and for more complex constructions of gender. We offer a postmodern perspective on gender and IPV arguing that interpersonal violence always involves gender, that approach and method influence results, and that men and women use violence in both similar and different ways.     

Understanding Gender and Intimate Partner Abuse

This issue represents our efforts to apply a feminist or gender lens to the research on violence in intimate relationships and to forward our understanding of gender and interpersonal violence. The paper introduces the articles in this special issue on “Understanding Gender and Intimate Partner Violence” within a framework of theoretical and methodological issues in feminist research. The current articles are viewed as contributing to our understanding of gender and interpersonal violence: by investigating patterns of interpersonal violence; by examining interpersonal violence with the context of lifespan and culture; by positing or testing theoretical models for gender and interpersonal violence; and by arguing for methodological or conceptual advances in the field.