Protection Motivation Theory and Adolescents' Perceptions of Exercise1

Coping strategies endorsed by adolescents in dealing with a potential threat to their health were assessed in a study which investigated components of protection motivation theory. Year 9 and 10 high school students were presented with information about cardiovascular disease risk and the role of exercise in maintaining cardiorespiratory fitness. Three components specified by the theory were manipulated: response efficacy (effectiveness of exercise in preventing cardiovascular disease), response costs (costs associated with taking up a regular program of exercise) and self-efficacy (belief in ability to carry out a program of exercise) in a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design with two levels (high vs. low) of each variable. It was hypothesized that such information would affect participants' perceptions of response efficacy, response costs, self-efficacy, and their selection of coping strategies. Six dependent variables were investigated: two adaptive coping strategies (behavioral intention to exercise, rational problem solving) and four maladaptive strategies (avoidance, wishful thinking, hopelessness, arid fatalism). Manipulation checks found significant differences between the high and low conditions of each independent variable. Adaptive strategies were strongly endorsed, whereas endorsement of the maladaptive strategies ranged from minimal to complete disagreement. Participants in the high self-efficacy condition indicated stronger intentions to exercise. Students in the low response efficacy condition demonstrated more endorsement of hopelessness and fatalism than did students in the high response efficacy condition. When exercising status was included as a fourth independent variable, it was found that active adolescents endorsed the adaptive coping strategies more strongly than did inactive adolescents. The cognitive coping strategies adopted by adolescents when dealing with perceived threats to their health may be influenced by information on the efficacy of relevant behavior, by perceptions of their ability to perform such behavior, and by their actual involvement with the behavior of concern.     

Waiting for Paternity: Interpersonal and Contextual Implications of the Timing of Fatherhood

The aim of this study was to examine the effects of life-span contextual variation on father-child relationships. Sixty families in which both parents were either younger than 26 or older than 29 when they began childbearing, and whose child was between the ages of 3 and 5 at the time of the study participated. Videotaped observations of father-child play were collected. Questionnaires were also administered to fathers, assessing their marital satisfaction, work-home compatibility, and social network attributes. Older fathers established stronger connections to extra-familial contexts and displayed greater reliance on verbal mechanisms to engage children during play. Younger fathers maintained a more traditional style of fathering and engaged their children through physical stimulation. The implications of these findings for models of father-child relationships were explored.     

MMPI correlates of extreme field independence and field dependence in a psychiatric population.

34 male and 34 female hospitalized psychiatric patients were divided into field-independent and field-dependent groups on the basis of rod-and-frame test performance and their MMPI scores were compared. A multiple discriminant analysis followed by a series of 2 X 2 factorial analyses of variance was used to assess the results. As in previous studies, more similarities than differences were found between the two cognitive styles. However, field-independent subjects tended to be more unconventional, aggressive, antisocial, and perhaps defensive than field-dependent subjects. Explanations of results were explored in reference to previous findings.     

Beoadbent's filter theory: Postulate H and the problem of switching time

Groups of digits were presented binaurally and dichotically to subjects who were asked to recall them. Different rates and patterns of presentation were used, the design being based on that of Broadbent (1954). Broadbent's findings in this field were confirmed. If subjects are presented with simultaneous pairs of digits at a rate of 2 pairs per second dichotically, they cannot recall them if they are asked to alternate between the ears. If however the presentation is staggered, so that although the rate is constant the signals do not overlap, subjects can recall alternately from the two ears. It is suggested that these findings are better interpreted as an interference effect, not a rate effect. Criticism is offered of similar designs to measure “switching rate”. Criticism is also offered of Broadbent's estimate of “perception time” in such experiments. An analysis of the quantity and type of errors made by subjects is given, which suggests that Broad-bent's theory of a short term store on the peripheral side of a selective filter is in need of revision.     

Introducing dental students to reflective practice: a dental educator’s reflections

There is growing consensus that being reflective and developing reflective practice is an important part of becoming a healthcare professional, adding to and enhancing our everyday professional values, knowledge and skills. For dentists, reflective practice is an essential part of dental training and professional development with dental undergraduate curricula creating and scaffolding opportunities for students to be reflective and develop reflective writing skills. This article describes the introduction of a reflective portfolio to the undergraduate Bachelor of Dental Science (BDS) programme at the University of Bristol. This will be followed by the author sharing some personal reflections, as the faculty member overseeing the assessment of these reflective portfolios, on the first year of this initiative. Lessons learned from the exercise as well as areas for future work and improvement will also be mentioned.     

Event-related potentials in neuropsychological studies of language

Experiments are described in which event-related potentials (ERPs) are employed to study the specialization of functions between and within the cerebral hemispheres during the performance of language and nonlanguage tasks by normal adults. Similar studies of deaf subjects suggest that the functional organization of the brain may be altered after different early language and sensory experiences. Studies of patients with alexia without agraphia suggest that the ERP may be a valuable tool with which to study cerebral reorganization after brain damage.     

Exploring the association between color-blind racial ideology and multicultural counseling competencies

The authors examined the association between color-blind racial ideology and self-reported multicultural counseling competencies in 130 applied psychology students and mental health workers. Results from 1 sample (n = 79) indicated that greater levels of color-blind racial ideology as measured by the Color-Blind Racial Attitudes Scale (Neville, Lilly, Duran, Lee, & Browne, 2000) were (1) related to lower self-reported multicultural counseling awareness and knowledge as measured by the Multicultural Counseling Knowledge and Awareness Scale (MCKAS; Ponterotto, Gretchen, Utsey, Rieger, & Austin, 2002) and (2) accounted for a significant amount of variance in MCKAS scores over and above that explained by self-reported multicultural training, social desirability, and participant race. Findings from another sample also provided empirical support for the link between higher color-blind racial ideology and lower multicultural case conceptualization ability (n = 51), after controlling for the influence of the number of multicultural course(s) taken. Implications of the findings and future directions are provided.