The Effects of a Daily Behavior Report Card Intervention: Inclusion of a Peer Mediator

Daily Behavior Report Cards (DBRCs) have been found to decrease disruptive behaviors of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, intellectual and developmental disorders, and typically developing students. However, although previous studies indicate that peers can assist with the implementation of a variety of interventions (e.g., Check in check out), teachers are often the implementer of DBRCs. In addition, it appears that no studies evaluating DBRCs have included a functional assessment. Thus, the purposes of this study were to assess the effects of a peer-mediated DBRC on disruptive classroom behaviors, determine whether peers could implement their portion of the intervention procedures with high integrity, and assess whether DBRC was effective independent of the functional reinforcer for disruptive behavior. In this study, peer-mediated DBRC led to a decrease in disruptive behavior and an increase in on-task behavior for all three target students who were at risk for EBD. The peer mediators also implemented the DBRC procedures with high integrity. Furthermore, DBRC was effective at suppressing disruptive behavior independent of their presumed functional reinforcer. However, it does appear that different portions of the intervention likely addressed the hypothesized functions of problem behaviors of all three participants.

     

Robert Waska: The Total Transference and The Complete Counter-Transference: The Kleinian Psychoanalytic Approach with More Disturbed Patients

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis -     

Zooming into daily life: within-person associations between physical activity and affect in young adults

Objective: Negative affect in daily life is linked to poorer mental and physical health. Activity could serve as an effective, low-cost intervention to improve affect. However, few prior studies have assessed physical activity and affect in everyday life, limiting the ecological validity of prior findings. This study investigates whether daily activity is associated with negative and positive evening affect in young adults.

Design: Young adults (N = 189, Mdn = 23.00) participated in an intensive longitudinal study over 10 consecutive days.

Main Outcome Measures: Participants wore accelerometers to objectively assess moderate-to-vigorous physical activity continuously throughout the day and reported their affect in time-stamped online evening diaries before going to sleep.

Results: On days when participants engaged in more activity than usual, they reported not only less depressed and angry evening affect but also more vigour and serenity in the evening.

Conclusion: Young adults showed both less negative and more positive affect on days with more activity. Physical activity is a promising health promotion strategy for physical and mental well-being.     

Social distance and trait attribution among four Southeast Asian ethnic groups in the United States

This study explored social distance and trait attribution and the relationship between the two variables in persons of four Southeast Asian ethnic groups. 100 Cambodians, 102 Hmong, 102 Laotians, and 101 Vietnamese in the United States were administered a modified Bogardus Social Distance Scale with respect to seven different ethnic groups (the other three Southeast Asian groups, African American, Hispanic, and White), and rated these other groups on 10 traits: friendly and likable, in good health, unattractive, law abiding, hardworking, loyal, peaceful, unfair and dishonest, unintelligent, and have good morals. Cambodians expressed willingness to have the closest social distance with Whites and Laotians and their trait attributions were more favorable for these two groups. Theoretical and practical implications were suggested.     

Elia Kazan’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">America America</Emphasis>: A Message for America

Elia Kazan’s 1963 film, America America is a tribute to the immigrant experience of his own forebears, and has relevance to the refugee crisis of today. In stark black and white cinematography, the film provides insight into the refugee-immigrant experience, personified in Stavros, a young man longing for freedom, obsessed with an idealized America. His hope and innocence cannot safeguard him. His memories of his happy childhood and loving family create idealizing transferences to a world of others who manipulate and betray him as he undertakes his quest. Eventually he too learns to manipulate and betray, unconsciously identifying with the aggressor. History will offer ethical challenges, the black and white cinematography mirroring the black and white perception of good and bad, the shades of grey evoking a maturation of understanding.     

Ethics,Ethos, and Dualities: Self and Culture,Talking in Tongues

Ethical considerations are experienced as a softly murmuring subtext in the analytic situation. The question of ethics and ethos opens the question of self and culture. Living ethically involves awareness of cultural norms as well as personal judgment, and therefore implies a permeable boundary between self and world. Right and wrong, self and society are de facto dualities, rigid splits or means of balance, perpetual conflict or reconciliation. Western culture has been shaped by the duality of the Dionysian and the Apollonian. In this dualistic tension, is there potential for balance between intoxication and logic in contemporary psychoanalysis? Do psychoanalysts share a common ethic? How do we reconcile the Apollonian ethic of honesty (M. Guy Thompson, The Ethic of Honesty, Rodopi, Amsterdam and New York: 2004) with the Dionysian ethic of the creative use of the self in the transference–countertransference matrix? Using clinical examples and the spiritual and ethical considerations of writers such as Rumi, Martin Buber, and Dostoevsky, psychoanalytic thinkers such as Joyce McDougall, and traditional sources such as Zen Buddhism and the Talmud, this essay examines the effect of the cultural biases of the analyst in the analytic situation, and the hidden ethical dilemmas we face. Is it possible to maintain a “purity of intention” as we maintain respect for the boundaries of the analysand while exploring and utilizing deep countertransferential responses?     

Awareness and Attitudes Regarding Prenatal Testing among Texas Women of Childbearing Age

Despite increased visibility and availability of prenatal testing procedures, very little is known about the attitudes among the populace toward these procedures. Using a computer assisted telephone interview of pregnant and non-pregnant women of childbearing age we analyze awareness and attitudes regarding prenatal tests among a diverse group of women of childbearing age in Texas. We also examine maternal characteristics associated with awareness and the willingness to undergo these procedures. While 89% were aware that such tests are available, younger, black and less educated women were less likely to know about prenatal tests for birth defects. Seventy-two percent of respondents said they would want their baby tested while Hispanic and black women were significantly more likely to express an interest than non-Hispanic whites. This study demonstrates the variability of knowledge and beliefs and confirms the importance of taking time to understand an individual’s personal beliefs, knowledge and attitudes about prenatal diagnosis.     

Personality terms of abuse in three cultures: type nouns between description and insult

In this study terms of abuse are investigated in three different cultures. Spontaneous verbal aggression is to a certain extent reminiscent of the values of a certain culture. One hundred and ninety‐two male subjects from Spain, Germany and the Netherlands were asked to write down terms of abuse that they would use given a certain stimulus situation, and in addition to give their rating of the offensive character of those terms. A total set of 830 useful expressions was thus collected. The frequencies of the expressions were established, and the total list of expressions was categorized in terms of what they were about. In Spanish abusive language is typically about family and relations, in Germany it is typically about anal aspects, and in the Netherlands it is mainly about genitals. Explanations are provided in terms of dimensions on which the three cultures differ. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.