Ethical Considerations of Multiple Roles in Forensic Services

Attorneys increasingly rely on the services of mental health practitioners. Although some practitioners lack training, the promise of professional rewards lead some to accept opportunities with resulting ethical quandaries. Due to significant differences between the objectives of traditional mental health services and expert testimony, problems occur when clinicians venture into forensic services. Attorneys and judges, unfamiliar with mental health specialties, may seek to press a mental health practitioner into multiple roles. Although not all multiple roles are ethically inappropriate, caution demands careful parsing of particular roles: (a) academic/behavioral science expert; (b) fact witness as a treating therapist; (c) expert witness based on a clinically oriented assessment; (d) pretrial and/or trial consultant; and (e) professional critic of other experts. Possible ethical issues and risks associated with accepting multiple roles are identified and strategies for avoiding or minimizing harm or exploitation are discussed.     

Effects of workaholism on volunteer firefighters’ performance: a moderated mediation model including supervisor recognition and emotional exhaustion

ABSTRACT

Background and Objectives: Although workaholism has been associated with job performance, the mechanisms that explain this relationship remain unclear. In this study, we investigated the conditional indirect effects of workaholism on performance via emotional exhaustion, across low and high levels of supervisor recognition.

Methods: We conducted an empirical cross-sectional study using a sample of 1028 volunteer firefighters who completed a self-report questionnaire assessing workaholism, emotional exhaustion, work performance, and supervisor recognition.

Results: Tests of latent interactions were performed using the latent moderated structural equation modeling approach. Consistent with our predictions, results revealed that the negative indirect effects of workaholism on performance, through emotional exhaustion, were stronger when supervisor recognition was low.

Conclusions: Theorical contributions and perspectives, as well as implications for practice are discussed.     

Which body features are associated with female adolescents’ body dissatisfaction? A cross-cultural study in Australia,China and Malaysia

This study investigated how dissatisfaction with various aspects of the body is associated with overall body dissatisfaction among female adolescents in Western and Asian cultures. Data used in the study were obtained from 58 Malaysian Malays, 95 Malaysian Chinese, 242 Chinese from China, and 81 non-Asian Australians aged 12–19 years (M = 15.72, SD = 1.72) who were recruited from high schools. Participants completed a questionnaire assessing dissatisfaction with their body overall, and dissatisfaction with varying aspects of their body. Malaysian Chinese were the most dissatisfied with their bodies. After controlling for body mass index (BMI), age and dissatisfaction with weight/shape, upper, middle and lower body, and muscles, dissatisfaction with the face was positively correlated with overall body dissatisfaction among Malaysian Malays and Australians. These findings demonstrate the importance of using assessment measures that address all possible areas of body focus as well as being tailored to the relevant culture.     

Working with the complexities of adolescent mental health problems: applying time-limited adolescent psychodynamic psychotherapy (TAPP)

This article discusses the application in a CAMHS setting of a distinctive intervention for adolescent mental health difficulties, time-limited adolescent psychodynamic psychotherapy (TAPP). TAPP has been developed specifically for working with adolescents and the characteristic developmental and psychosocial complexities they present to mental health services. It is widely recognised that supporting the developmental process in adolescence is central to therapeutic interventions and the therapeutic aim of TAPP is to enable recovery of the capacity to meet developmental challenges. The key factors of TAPP are described, including the formulation and working with a developmental focus, the therapeutic stance, working with transference and counter-transference, working with time limits, and the emphasis is placed on engagement of adolescents in therapy in TAPP. The experiences of introducing and developing TAPP in the CAMHS service are discussed with two brief and one extended case examples and this leads to a discussion of the kinds of outcomes achieved. It is concluded that TAPP is a key and relevant intervention for adolescents in complex and vulnerable situations; further work will be undertaken to continue its application in these settings and to formally assess outcomes.     

Empathic forecasting: How do we predict other people's feelings?

When making affective forecasts, people commit the impact bias. They overestimate the impact an emotional event has on their affective experience. In three studies we show that people also commit the impact bias when making empathic forecasts, affective forecasts for someone else. They overestimate the impact an emotional event has on someone else's affective experience (Study 1), they do so for friends and strangers (Study 2), and they do so when other sources of information are available (Study 3). Empathic forecasting accuracy, the correlation between one person's empathic forecast and another person's actual affective experience, was lower than between-person forecasting correspondence, the correlation between one person's empathic forecast and another person's affective forecast. Empathic forecasts do not capture other people's actual experience very well but are similar to what other people forecast for themselves. This may enhance understanding between people.     

Wading through the stereotypes: positive and negative associations between media use and black adolescents' conceptions of self

Although concern is often expressed that frequent media exposure may adversely affect the self-esteem and racial self-esteem of African American youths, evidence to support this assumption has been limited. To examine this issue, the author collected data among 156 African American high school students, testing connections among racial self-esteem, three dimensions of self-esteem, and multiple forms of media use. Whereas initial comparisons revealed media use to be a negative correlate of self-esteem, further analysis demonstrated that this association varied depending on the media genre and the domain of self in question, the content of students' media diets, and the individual characteristics of the viewer. In addition, both stronger identification with popular Black characters and greater religiosity emerged as possible protective factors.     

Learning in a unidimensional absolute identification task

We tested whether there is long-term learning in the absolute identification of line lengths. Line lengths are unidimensional stimuli, and there is a common belief that learning of these stimuli quickly reaches a low-level asymptote of about seven items and progresses no more. We show that this is not the case. Our participants served in a 1.5-h session each day for over a week. Although they did not achieve perfect performance, they continued to improve day by day throughout the week and eventually learned to distinguish between 12 and 20 line lengths. These results are in contrast to common characterizations of learning in absolute identification tasks with unidimensional stimuli. We suggest that this learning reflects improvement in short-term processing.     

The relationship between the quality of cooperative learning, students' goal preferences, and perceptions of contextual factors in the classroom

This study examined relationships between the quality of cooperative learning (CL) and students' goal preferences and perceptions of contextual factors in the classroom. Subjects were 1,920 students in secondary vocational schools. The study focused on four different types of goals: social support, belongingness, mastery, and superiority goals. It was found that social support goals had the strongest relation with the quality of CL. Further we found that the quality of CL was best predicted by a combination of social support goals, evaluations of the extent that students were taught cooperation skills, perception of teacher monitoring behavior, and the availability of academic and emotional peer support. Female students' preferences for mastery and social goals were stronger than those of male students, whereas male students had a stronger preference for superiority goals. Program type functioned as a moderator variable within the relation of students' superiority/ individuality goals and the quality of CL.     

Knockdown of Nurr1 in the rat hippocampus: implications to spatial discrimination learning and memory

Nurr1 expression is up-regulated in the brain following associative learning experiences, but its relevance to cognitive processes remains unclear. In these studies, rats initially received bilateral hippocampal infusions of control or antisense oligodeoxynucleotides (ODNs) 1 h prior to training in a holeboard spatial discrimination task. Such pre-training infusions of nurr1 antisense ODNs caused a moderate effect in learning the task and also impaired LTM tested 7 d later. In a second experiment, ODN infusions were given immediately after the animals had received two sessions of training, during which all animals showed normal learning. Although antisense treated rats were significantly impaired during the post-infusion stages of acquisition of the task, no group differences were observed during the LTM test given 7 d later. These animals were subjected 3 d later to reversal training in the same maze in the absence of any additional treatments. Remarkably, rats previously treated with antisense ODNs displayed perseveration: The animals were fixated with the previously learned pattern of baited holes, causing them to be significantly impaired in the extinction of acquired spatial preferences and future learning. We postulate that Nurr1 function in the hippocampus is important for normal cognitive processes.