The Effects of School Bonding on High School Seniors’ Academic Achievement

The authors examine the effects of school bonding on academic achievement (measured by math achievement scores) in a sample of 12th graders from the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 ( Ingels, Pratt, Rogers, Siegel, & Stutts, 2005 ). Components of school bonding have proximal and distal effects on academic achievement. Attachment to school and school involvement had direct effects on achievement; attachment to teachers and school commitment behaviors had indirect effects on achievement through school‐related delinquency and prior achievement. Implications for counselors are discussed.     

基因治疗的伦理问题及对策探讨

基因治疗在给患者带来生命希望的同时,也带来了诸如潜在的风险、技术的滥用、责任的漠视、公平的忽略、生命的亵渎等前所未有的伦理问题.有必要从构建基因治疗的伦理原则、健全基因治疗的法律规范、建立基因干预的准入与审批机制、提高从业人员的道德意识等方面对基因治疗进行规范,使基因治疗这一新兴技术向着为人类造福的方向持续健康发展.     

Outpatient Psychotropic Medication Use in the US: A Comparison Based on Foster Care Status

Using data from the Client/Patient Sample Survey, a nationally representative study of outpatient mental health service utilization, the prevalence and correlates of psychotropic medication receipt for youth who live with families and in foster care are compared. The medication rate is similar for both groups, with slightly more than one-third of youth treated with medication. Additionally, when medication is prescribed, it is the sole intervention provided for close to one half of each group, and the distribution of other services received (such as clinical case management and collateral services) is similar, regardless of living situation. However, the predictors of medication use differ for the two groups. Among foster care youth, only presenting problems of depressed mood, being withdrawn, and suicidality significantly increase the odds of medication; among youth with families, sociodemographic characteristics (male gender), and a range of clinical factors (disruptive behavior disorder, presenting problems of hyperactivity and sleep disturbance, prior mental health service receipt, and inpatient or residential care referral sources) increase the likelihood of medication. The conclusion that distinct sets of factors predict medication for the two groups was reinforced by results of multivariate analyses; foster care status moderates the association between medication receipt and only one of the correlates examined (gender). Implications, limitations, and areas for future research are presented.     

阿尔茨海默病的非药物干预与照料

目前阿尔茨海默病尚无根治性的治疗方法,药物治疗基本上是针对临床症状的对症治疗,只能在一定时期内起到改善或延缓疾病发展的作用。非药物治疗包括心理、社会、环境等综合干预,通过多重感官刺激、身体和智能锻炼、芳香治疗、感觉刺激、个性化音乐等方法,配合药物治疗以期尽可能长地保持阿尔茨海默病患者的功能水平,延迟日常生活能力的下降,减轻照料者负担,从而改善阿尔茨海默病患者及其家属的生活质量。对照料者的培训是非药物治疗的重要环节,照料的质量直接影响患者及家属的情绪和生活质量。     

Inhibitory Control and Moral Emotions: Relations to Reparation in Early and Middle Childhood

ABSTRACT. This study examined links between inhibitory control, moral emotions (sympathy and guilt), and reparative behavior in an ethnically diverse sample of 4- and 8-year-olds (N = 162). Caregivers reported their children's reparative behavior, inhibitory control, and moral emotions through a questionnaire, and children reported their guilt feelings in response to a series of vignettes depicting moral transgressions. A hypothesized meditation model was tested with inhibitory control relating to reparative behavior through sympathy and guilt. In support of this model, results revealed that high levels of inhibitory control were associated with high levels of reparative behavior through high levels of sympathy and guilt. However, the mediation of inhibitory control to reparation through guilt was significant for 4-year-olds only. Results are discussed in relation to the temperamental, regulatory, and affective-moral precursors of reparative behavior in early and middle childhood.     

The Role of an Incubation Period in Creative Problem Solving

ABSTRACT

This experimental study tested the spreading-activation hypothesis that an incubation period helps to sensitize problem solvers to relevant concepts. The study also tested the selective forgetting hypothesis that an incubation period helps to desensitize problem solvers to irrelevant concepts. Chinese Chess GO players, 28 experts and 29 novices, solved 18 remote association tasks (RAT) and lexical decision tasks (LDTs) under immediate, rest, and incubation conditions. After each RAT, a set of LDTs incorporating the RAT solution and the irrelevant concept were presented, either immediately, or after a 2-min delay, or after a 2-min delay filled with incubation tasks. The findings of the study support the spreading activation hypothesis and suggest that spreading activation occurs only in a fixated mind. No support was found for the selective forgetting hypothesis.     

Sleep on it, but only if it is difficult: Effects of sleep on problem solving

Previous research has shown that performance on problem solving improves over a period of sleep, as compared with wakefulness. However, these studies have not determined whether sleep is beneficial for problem solving or whether sleep merely mitigates against interference due to an interruption to solution attempts. Sleep-dependent improvements have been described in terms of spreading activation, which raises the prediction that an effect of sleep should be greater for problems requiring a broader solution search. We presented participants with a set of remote-associate tasks that varied in difficulty as a function of the strength of the stimuli–answer associations. After a period of sleep, wake, or no delay, participants reattempted previously unsolved problems. The sleep group solved a greater number of difficult problems than did the other groups, but no difference was found for easy problems. We conclude that sleep facilitates problem solving, most likely via spreading activation, but this has its primary effect for harder problems.     

Responsibility judgments and responses to people living with AIDS in China: testing an attributional perspective

With one in five individuals in the world living in China, there is an urgent need for HIV prevention and understanding HIV/AIDS stigma in China. This study applies an attributional analysis to Chinese students' responses to AIDS, examining effects of attributions of causal controllability for HIV infection on reactions to people living with HIV/AIDS. Students (n = 309) read one of two scenarios describing an AIDS patient and manipulating controllability of AIDS onset. Controllability of AIDS onset contributed to responsibility judgments, less positive affect, and lower desires to personally interact with the patient. Responsibility judgments predicted interaction wishes directly and indirectly through positive affect. Results provide support for Weiner's interpersonal attributional model. Implications for responses to AIDS in China are discussed.     

Misorientation characteristics of penetrating morphologies at the growth front of abnormally growing grains in aluminum alloy

The initial stage of abnormal grain growth of the aluminum alloy 5052 has been investigated using electron back-scattered diffraction to analyze the characteristic of misorientations of the penetrating morphology at the growth front. Among the 84 penetrating morphologies examined, none of the penetrated grain boundaries has low angles or coincidence site lattice (CSL) relations, whereas 66 penetrating grain boundaries have low angles or CSL relations. These results strongly suggest that the penetrating morphologies should result from triple-junction wetting.     

Finite Mixtures for Simultaneously Modeling Differential Effects and Nonnormal Distributions

Regression mixture models have been increasingly applied in the social and behavioral sciences as a method for identifying differential effects of predictors on outcomes. Although the typical specification of this approach is sensitive to violations of distributional assumptions, alternative methods for capturing the number of differential effects have been shown to be robust. Yet, there is still a need to better describe differential effects that exist when using regression mixture models. This study tests a new approach that uses sets of classes (called differential effects sets) to simultaneously model differential effects and account for nonnormal error distributions. Monte Carlo simulations are used to examine the performance of the approach. The number of classes needed to represent departures from normality is shown to be dependent on the degree of skew. The use of differential effects sets reduced bias in parameter estimates. Applied analyses demonstrated the implementation of the approach for describing differential effects of parental health problems on adolescent body mass index using differential effects sets approach. Findings support the usefulness of the approach, which overcomes the limitations of previous approaches for handling nonnormal errors.