Intervention Induced Changes in Perceptions of Parenting and Risk Opportunities Among Rural African American

A randomized prevention trial was conducted contrasting families who took part in the Strong African American Families Program (SAAF), a preventive intervention for rural African American parents and their 11-year-olds, with control families. The trial, which included 671 families, indicated that intervention-induced changes occurred in intervention-targeted parenting and youth behavior, as well as youth initiation of alcohol use and sexual activity. Four waves of data collected were obtained at pretest, 3-month post-test, 29 month long-term follow up; and 65 month long-term follow up. Three data points were selected and analyzed in the current study: pretest, post-test, and 65 month long-term follow up to capture the sustainability of SAAF during three critical developmental stages—middle childhood, early adolescence, and late adolescence. Intervention-induced changes in parenting mediated the effect of intervention-group influences on changes in the onset and escalation of alcohol use and sexual activity over 65 months through its positive influence on youths’ perceptions and internalization of parental norms and resistance to engaging in risk opportunities. These findings highlight the potential for family-based prevention programs to enhance positive developmental outcomes to reduce HIV-related risk behaviors among rural African American youth.     

Negative Emotions Felt During Trial: the Effect of Fear,Anger, and Sadness on Juror Decision Making

During trial, jurors may experience a variety of emotions, many of which are negative. The current study examined the effects the negative emotions anger, fear, and sadness had on jurors' sentencing decisions and explored whether the cognitive appraisal theory or the intuitive prosecutor model could explain these effects. Jurors viewed the sentencing phase of a capital murder trial and were asked to sentence the defendant. Results indicated that after viewing the trial, jurors reported increased anger and sadness, but not fear. However, only change in anger affected jurors' sentences. Jurors who reported a greater change in anger were more likely to sentence the defendant to death. This effect was mediated by the level of importance that jurors placed on the prosecution's evidence and argument. Consistent with the intuitive prosecutor model, increased anger led to higher ratings of the importance of the aggravating evidence and an increase in death sentences. Implications are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Teaching Elder: Erik H. Erickson

A renowned child psychoanalyst, Erik H. Erikson (1902–1994) is perhaps best known for his work on developmental theory (Childhood and Society, 1950) and his studies of the lives of Martin Luther (Young Man Luther, 1958) and Gandhi (Gandhi's Truth, 1969). Twice he found himself intensely engaged in the role of teacher – once as a young artist who had been called by a friend to help in the progressive school formed for the children of Sigmund and Anna Freud's patients in Vienna (1927–1932), and years later (1960–1970) as a tenured professor at Harvard. This essay describes Erickson's teaching experience in both settings and suggests some of the reasons he was honored by Harvard in 1980 as a “humane teacher.” Implications from Erikson's educational practice are drawn that demonstrate how Erikson moved beyond the rote memorization and authoritarian educational practice he experienced as a youth. The essay suggests Erikson's teaching stance at Harvard fits the author's theological tradition's use of the term “teaching elder.”     

Out of the picture

Photographing Medicine: Images and Power in Britain and America since 1840, by Daniel M. Fox and Christopher Lawrence (New York; Greenwood, 1988), 357 pages, hb £45/$55     

A model of amygdala–hippocampal–prefrontal interaction in fear conditioning and extinction in animals

Empirical research has shown that the amygdala, hippocampus, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) are involved in fear conditioning. However, the functional contribution of each brain area and the nature of their interactions are not clearly understood. Here, we extend existing neural network models of the functional roles of the hippocampus in classical conditioning to include interactions with the amygdala and prefrontal cortex. We apply the model to fear conditioning, in which animals learn physiological (e.g. heart rate) and behavioral (e.g. freezing) responses to stimuli that have been paired with a highly aversive event (e.g. electrical shock). The key feature of our model is that learning of these conditioned responses in the central nucleus of the amygdala is modulated by two separate processes, one from basolateral amygdala and signaling a positive prediction error, and one from the vmPFC, via the intercalated cells of the amygdala, and signaling a negative prediction error. In addition, we propose that hippocampal input to both vmPFC and basolateral amygdala is essential for contextual modulation of fear acquisition and extinction. The model is sufficient to account for a body of data from various animal fear conditioning paradigms, including acquisition, extinction, reacquisition, and context specificity effects. Consistent with studies on lesioned animals, our model shows that damage to the vmPFC impairs extinction, while damage to the hippocampus impairs extinction in a different context (e.g., a different conditioning chamber from that used in initial training in animal experiments). We also discuss model limitations and predictions, including the effects of number of training trials on fear conditioning.     

Wellness,Professional Quality of Life,and Career‐Sustaining Behaviors: What Keeps Us Well?

A sample of 506 professional counselors who were members of the American Counseling Association completed measures of professional quality of life, career‐sustaining behaviors (CSBs), and wellness. Significant differences were found both within the sample based on caseload characteristics and between the participants and available norm groups. Counselors with high wellness scores engaged in more CSBs and reported higher positive professional quality of life factors (compassion satisfaction). Implications for counselors, counselor training, and research are discussed.     

A neural model of hippocampal–striatal interactions in associative learning and transfer generalization in various neurological and psychiatric patients

Building on our previous neurocomputational models of basal ganglia and hippocampal region function (and their modulation by dopamine and acetylcholine, respectively), we show here how an integration of these models can inform our understanding of the interaction between the basal ganglia and hippocampal region in associative learning and transfer generalization across various patient populations. As a common test bed for exploring interactions between these brain regions and neuromodulators, we focus on the acquired equivalence task, an associative learning paradigm in which stimuli that have been associated with the same outcome acquire a functional similarity such that subsequent generalization between these stimuli increases. This task has been used to test cognitive dysfunction in various patient populations with damages to the hippocampal region and basal ganglia, including studies of patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD), schizophrenia, basal forebrain amnesia, and hippocampal atrophy. Simulation results show that damage to the hippocampal region—as in patients with hippocampal atrophy (HA), hypoxia, mild Alzheimer’s (AD), or schizophrenia—leads to intact associative learning but impaired transfer generalization performance. Moreover, the model demonstrates how PD and anterior communicating artery (ACoA) aneurysm—two very different brain disorders that affect different neural mechanisms—can have similar effects on acquired equivalence performance. In particular, the model shows that simulating a loss of dopamine function in the basal ganglia module (as in PD) leads to slow acquisition learning but intact transfer generalization. Similarly, the model shows that simulating the loss of acetylcholine in the hippocampal region (as in ACoA aneurysm) also results in slower acquisition learning. We argue from this that changes in associative learning of stimulus–action pathways (in the basal ganglia) or changes in the learning of stimulus representations (in the hippocampal region) can have similar functional effects.