Avoidance of timeout from response-independent food: effects of delivery rate and quality

In three experiments, a rat's lever presses could postpone timeouts from food pellets delivered on response-independent schedules. In Experiment 1, the pellets were delivered at variable-time (VT) rates ranging from VT 0.5 to VT 8 min. Experiment 2 replicated the VT 1 min and VT 8 min conditions of Experiment 1 with new subjects. Finally, subjects in Experiment 3 could postpone timeouts from delivery of pellets that differed in quality rather than quantity (unsweetened versus sweetened pellets). In general, response rates and success in avoiding increased as a function of the rate and quality of the pellets. Also, performance efficiency increased as the experiments progressed, that is, the avoidance response occurred later and later in the response-timeout interval. The results support the conclusion that timeout from reinforcement has functional properties similar to those of more commonly studied aversive stimuli (e.g., shock).     

Diversity Challenges in Community Research and Action: The Story of a Special Issue of AJCP

This story explores an intervention conducted in a Catholic parish community in New York City. The intervention, conducted by the author and a Jesuit priest, focused on issues of unity and diversity among the various Chinese immigrant subgroups in the parish (primarily Cantonese‐ and Mandarin‐speakers). Issues of class, power, and a history of colonialism in the Catholic Church are explored as central to the relations among culturally diverse Chinese American community members and between the members and the practitioners and the church authority. The author especially focuses on how the dynamics that played out in the intervention reflected wider issues of economics, labor practices, and political elitism in the wider Chinatown community. A central part of the author's argument is about power relationships between this parish community and Chinatown and how these power relationships are embedded within broader racial and economic oppression within the United States.     

Adults who are more anxious and were anxiously attached as children report later first memories

Here, we examined retrospective reports of adults’ earliest autobiographical memory, the age of this report and whether the reported age was associated with exposure to early life adversity, current anxiety and childhood attachment. Across four studies, we found that reporting a later ‘earliest’ memory was associated with higher self-reported anxiety in both American (Studies 1, 2 and 4) and Australian (Study 3) samples. Furthermore, in Studies 2–4, we found that reporting a later earliest memory uniquely predicted anxiety when controlling for number of adverse childhood events (a risk factor for the development of anxiety). In Study 4, we established that this relation is partially mediated by childhood anxious attachment. Although we consistently demonstrated that later earliest memories were associated with current anxiety, we found little evidence for a relation between reported age at the time of earliest memory and childhood adversity. We also found no evidence of gender differences in the associations of interest. These results suggest that poorer memory of early childhood is associated with greater childhood anxious attachment and anxiety in adulthood. The implications of this work are discussed in terms of the adaptive nature of autobiographical memory and the development of a coherent life narrative.     

The Moral Injury Symptoms Scale–Military Version–Short Form: Further Scale Validation in a U.S. Veteran Sample

Journal of Religion and Health - This study assessed the Moral Injury Symptoms Scale – Military Version – Short Form’s (MISS-M-SF) factor structure and construct validity....     

Self-monitored motives for smoking among college students.

College student smokers (N = 50) were asked to carry electronic diaries for 14 days and record smoking events (n = 1,139). They indicated why they were smoking each cigarette on a checklist of potential motives. Results suggest that a desire to reduce craving (62.8% of occasions) and habit/automatic processes (42.8%) were the most frequent motives. More dependent and daily smokers were especially likely to endorse smoking to reduce craving and for habit/automatic reasons and were less likely to cite coping with negative emotion as a reason for smoking. Dependent and daily smokers were more likely to endorse at least 1 dependence-like motive and were less likely to exclusively attribute smoking to nondependence motives. Self-monitored motives appeared valid, according with conceptually related states, activities, and events in the diary records. Diary-recorded motives were compared with smokers' responses to a retrospective motives questionnaire administered at baseline. The 2 assessment modes produced discrepant estimates of the most influential motivational processes. Questionnaire responses incompletely forecast conceptually similar diary-reported motives. Dependence and daily smoking showed a different pattern of associations with diary-based versus retrospective motives measures.     

Acute systemic fibroblast growth factor-2 enhances long-term memory in developing rats

Recent findings have provided much insight into the mechanisms underlying long-term memory formation, and it is now known that long-term memory depends on the activation of a molecular cascade that culminates with structural changes in the brain. However, little is known about the signals that give rise to or regulate these structural changes. In this article we propose that fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF2), a mitogen for several cell types, may be one of the molecular signals critically involved in the structural changes underlying long-term memory. If FGF2 is part of the signalling cascade involved in long-term memory, then increasing the activation of FGF2 should facilitate memory. In Experiments 1 and 2, we demonstrated that systemic injection of FGF2 (20 ng/g of body weight) facilitated memory for contextual fear in 16, 19, and 22 day old male Sprague Dawley rats. Experiment 3 demonstrated that the observed facilitation of memory was not due to FGF2 increasing rats’ sensitivity to footshock. These results implicate FGF2 as a possible molecular signal in long-term memory, and further, illustrate a novel means of enhancing memory.     

Disciplined Litigation,Vigilant Litigation,and Deformation: Dramatic Organization Change in Jehovah's Witnesses

Jehovah's Witnesses' long‐term development presents an interesting case of evolution in line with the “deformation thesis,” an attempt at explaining dramatic shifts in organizational forms, activities, and even beliefs in controversial religious minorities. Derived from resource mobilization tradition, this thesis assumes that radical transformations result from major defensive resource allocation mandated by negative reactions of societal institutions. This is especially the case with reference to the adoption by Jehovah's Witnesses, a millenarian group, of a “disciplined litigation”strategy in the 1940s, a pattern later to be incorporated in religious activities and beliefs of the organization. Today, disciplined litigation and its successor, “vigilant litigation,” seem legitimate ways to adapt to the prevailing religious climate and structure. As such, it can be conceived as a model for defensive moves taken by “younger” controversial religious minorities and reflects the enormous influence of the law and legal systems in shaping minority religions.