Genetic Counseling Services and Training of Genetic Counselors in Israel: An Overview

Genetic counseling services have existed in Israel since 1964 and are available in almost all the major hospitals. Given the socialized healthcare system and small country size, genetic services are generally accessible and often free. The existence of founder mutations in various communities in Israel makes genetic testing easier to perform. Yet, the ethnic, cultural and religious diversity of the population has major implications on the design of the screening programs and the use of genetic services. The Israeli Association of Genetic Counselors (IAGC) was established in 2008 and had existed informally since 1989. There are two Master level genetic counseling training programs (6 students/class, 2 year program): Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School (established in 1997) and the Technion (established in 2009). Genetic counselors’ clinical training is largely observational and 2 years of supervised counseling sessions post degree are required for board exam eligibility. Genetic counselors are licensed and lead counseling sessions individually, but currently must work under medical geneticist supervision. This is the first article to summarize the history and training of Master level genetic counselors in Israel. Genetic services, coverage and regulations are also described.     

Doing bad through being selective in doing good: the role of within-unit variability in ethical leadership

Although it is commonly assumed that perceptions of equity at work have a significant impact on employee absenteeism, our understanding of the equity–absence relationship is limited in that (1) little is known about equity concepts other than procedural and distributive justice; and (2) for the most part, research has overlooked variables likely to mediate and moderate the impact of equity on absenteeism. Drawing from the effort–reward imbalance model (ERI; Siegrist, 1996), our study advances past research by investigating the association between status inconsistency (a situation in which there is a mismatch between, for example, a person's education and his/her income) and absenteeism, and the variables likely to account for this association. Results from a sample of 416 customer-care employees show that stress mediates the relationship between status inconsistency and absenteeism, and that HRM practices attenuate this relationship. Moderated mediation analyses further reveal that HRM practices moderate the indirect effect of status inconsistency on absenteeism via stress.     

Asymmetrical perceptual load in lateralised word processing

We applied the Load Theory of attention (Lavie, 1995, 2005) to the case of distraction during processing of lateralised words presented in either the right or the left visual fields. Previous research (Brand-D'Abrescia & Lavie, 2007) showed that lexicality affects selective attention such that the number of letters in a search task only increases perceptual load and reduces irrelevant distractor effects for searches in nonwords but not in words. The present study examined the hypothesis that the effect of lexicality on distractor processing would be stronger for words presented to the left compared to the right hemisphere. The results supported this hypothesis and their implications for attention to words in the two cerebral hemispheres are discussed. We suggest that the efficiency of attentional selection differed because perceptual load in the visual fields taxed processing depending on hemispheric language expertise.     

The Effect of Humor on Aggression Catharsis in the Classroom

Two studies were designed to measure the cathartic effects of humor on aggressive responses. In the first study, two versions (easy and difficult) of Raven's intelligence test were administered to two groups of high school students. Only the easy version could be solved in the alloted time. Rosenzweig's (1951) Picture Frustration test was then administered and the students' aggressive responses were scored. Results showed that those who did not solve the problems had significantly higher scores on aggressivity than did the others. The second study, using four different groups, was planned according to a modified Solomon design. Two of the four groups of students completed the difficult part of the Raven test, and then two videotapes were presented: a humorous one to two groups and a neutral one to the others. Finally, the Rosenzweig Picture Frustration test was administered to all four groups. An analysis of variance computed on the aggressivity scores showed one significant difference: frustrated students who viewed the humorous videotape had lower scores than those viewing the neutral one.     

Reducing the dauer larva: molecular models of biological phenomena in Caenorhabditis elegans research

One important aspect of biological explanation is detailed causal modeling of particular phenomena in limited experimental background conditions. Recognising this allows one to appreciate that a sufficient condition for a reduction in biology is a molecular model of (1) only the demonstrated causal parameters of a biological model and (2) only within a replicable experimental background. These identities—which are ubiquitous in biology and form the basis of ruthless reductions (Bickle, Philosophy and neuroscience: a ruthlessly reductive account, 2003)—are criticised as merely “local” (Sullivan, Synthese 167:511–539, 2009) or “fragmentary” (Schaffner, Synthese, 151(3):377–402, 2006). However, in an instructive case, a biological model is preserved in molecular terms, demonstrating a complex phenomenon that has been successfully reduced.     

Is the emotional Stroop task a special case of mood induction? Evidence from sustained effects of attention under emotion

Sustained effects of emotion are well known in everyday experience. Surprisingly, such effects are seldom recorded in laboratory studies of the emotional Stroop task, in which participants name the color of emotion and neutral words. Color performance is more sluggish with emotion words than with neutral words, the emotional Stroop effect (ESE). The ESE is not sensitive to the order in which the two groups of words are presented, so the effect of exposure to emotion words does not extend to disrupting performance in a subsequent block with neutral words. We attribute this absence of a sustained effect to habituation engendered by excessive repetition of the experimental stimuli. In a series of four experiments, we showed that sustained effects do occur when habituation is removed, and we also showed that the massive exposure to negative stimuli within the ESE paradigm induces a commensurately negative mood. A novel perspective is offered, in which the ESE is considered a special case of mood induction.     

Beyond words: evidence for automatic language–gesture integration of symbolic gestures but not dynamic landscapes

Understanding actions based on either language or action observation is presumed to involve the motor system, reflecting the engagement of an embodied conceptual network. We examined how linguistic and gestural information were integrated in a series of cross-domain priming studies. We varied the task demands across three experiments in which symbolic gestures served as primes for verbal targets. Primes were clips of symbolic gestures taken from a rich set of emblems. Participants responded by making a lexical decision to the target (Experiment 1), naming the target (Experiment 2), or performing a semantic relatedness judgment (Experiment 3). The magnitude of semantic priming was larger in the relatedness judgment and lexical decision tasks compared to the naming task. Priming was also observed in a control task in which the primes were pictures of landscapes with conceptually related verbal targets. However, for these stimuli, the amount of priming was similar across the three tasks. We propose that action observation triggers an automatic, pre-lexical spread of activation, consistent with the idea that language–gesture integration occurs in an obligatory and automatic fashion.     

Post-combat adaptation: improving social support and reaching constructive growth

Background and Objectives: Posttraumatic stress disorder, a commonly researched mental health outcome associated with trauma, does not develop in the majority of survivors. More common trajectories of adaptation include resilience, and posttraumatic growth (PTG). The objectives of the current study were to: (1) describe posttrauma adaptation profiles in a sample of Israeli male military veterans (N?=?448); and (2) to explore the protective factors that promote constructive PTG within two profiles of posttrauma adaptation.

Methods: The study used secondary data to estimate latent profile mixture models and a series of logistic regression analyses.

Results: Demographic controls, combat related variables, endorsement of coping strategies, and reports of improvement in social support were not significant predictors of constructive growth in the resilient class. However, those in the struggling growth subset of the sample who reported improvement in perceived social support increased the odds of reaching constructive growth.

Conclusion: These findings highlight the importance of tailored clinical interventions that account for more complex profiles of posttrauma adaptation; and further, provide evidence that adaptation takes place over time. Finally, these findings call for future research to continue to explore the quality of PTG and the contexts in which protective factors promote positive adaptation.     

Heuristics and biases in mental arithmetic: revisiting and reversing operational momentum

ABSTRACT

Mental arithmetic is characterised by a tendency to overestimate addition and to underestimate subtraction results: the operational momentum (OM) effect. Here, motivated by contentious explanations of this effect, we developed and tested an arithmetic heuristics and biases model that predicts reverse OM due to cognitive anchoring effects. Participants produced bi-directional lines with lengths corresponding to the results of arithmetic problems. In two experiments, we found regular OM with zero problems (e.g., 3+0, 3?0) but reverse OM with non-zero problems (e.g., 2+1, 4?1). In a third experiment, we tested the prediction of our model. Our results suggest the presence of at least three competing biases in mental arithmetic: a more-or-less heuristic, a sign-space association and an anchoring bias. We conclude that mental arithmetic exhibits shortcuts for decision-making similar to traditional domains of reasoning and problem-solving.     

Non-cognitive antecedents of pay and pay expectations: gender-based differences in a masculine work setting

Research on gender differences in the effects of non-cognitive traits and behaviours on pay is rather scant and focuses largely on the big five personality traits. To address this gap, we consider the equivocal findings regarding the direct associations of intrinsic motivation, self-efficacy, and networking with pay, arguing for gender differences in the degree to which actual pay and pay expectations are influenced by these non-cognitive factors. Hypotheses are tested using a sample of 250 individuals working in traditionally masculine jobs at a single high-technology firm. Participants completed two surveys, and income data were retrieved from the firm’s archives. Intrinsic motivation was positively related to actual pay and pay expectations among men and was negatively related to both pay measures among women. Self-efficacy was positively related to actual pay among women and was unrelated to actual pay among men. Networking was positively related to actual pay among men and was negatively related to actual pay among women. Finally, self-efficacy and networking were unrelated to pay expectations among both men and women. We draw from notions of gender stereotypes, backlash, and tokenism to discuss gender-based differences in how organizations appraise and reward non-cognitive traits and behaviours.