AJCP as a Vehicle for Improving Community Life: An Historic–Analytic Review of the Journal’s Contents

The current article is an analysis of the research represented in American Journal of Community Psychology (AJCP) from 1993 to 1998, including a comparison to two previously published analytic reviews by Lounsbury et al. (J. W. Lounsbury, D. S. Leader, E. P. Meares, & M. P. Cook, 1980) and Speer et al. (P. Speer, A. Dey, P. Griggs, C. Gibson, B. Lubin, & J. Hughey, 1992), respectively. Observed trends are examined with references to major epistemological frameworks and methods used to define community psychology. Four guiding principles were examined to determine the representation of the epistemological frameworks of the articles published in the journal. The frameworks include social action, human diversity and cultural relativity, person–environmental fit, and methodological procedures. The results document the transition of community psychology from its early beginnings to an independent field conducting research consistent with the values articulated at the Swampscott Conference. This paper also comments on how well, after three decades of publication, the journal has served as a vehicle for improving community life.     

Coordination changes in the early stages of learning to cascade juggle

The experiment was setup to examine the coordination changes in assembling the movement form of 3-ball cascade juggling. Eight adult participants learned to juggle over 4 weeks of practice. Juggling scores were recorded at each session and performance was videotaped at eight selected sessions for purposes of movement analysis. Once the basic spatial and temporal constraints on cascade juggling were satisfied, and the figure-8 juggling mode was established, temporal modulations of the relative motions of the hands were emphasized. All participants learned to juggle and the increase over practice in the number of consecutive balls caught was best fit with a power law. The non-proportional rate of performance increment was consistent with the qualitative changes in the form of the hand and ball movement kinematics that occurred over practice.     

Do college students drink more than their non-college-attending peers? Evidence from a population-based longitudinal female twin study

The association of college attendance with alcohol use and alcohol use disorders was examined in a population-based young adult female twin sample identified from a systematic search of birth records. College-attending women consumed a larger overall volume of alcohol than did their non-college-attending peers, but they were not more likely to be diagnosed with an alcohol use disorder. Significant associations between college attendance and alcohol involvement were probed using 3 different complementary research designs: multivariate cross-sectional analyses, longitudinal analyses of the precollege and college years, and cotwin-control analyses of twin pairs discordant for attending college. Although demographic and lifestyle characteristics accounted for most or all of the association between college attendance and alcohol involvement, there was 1 aspect of drinking behavior, occasionally consuming large quantities of alcohol, that remained significantly associated with college attendance even after controlling for these characteristics or for genetic and family background factors. These results are consistent with the conclusion that some aspect of the college experience may be an important environmental risk factor for this pattern of drinking among young adults.     

Ethnicity and Social Support During Pregnancy

Data from two multi-ethnic prospective studies of African American, Latina, and non-Hispanic White pregnant women were used to examine the influence of contextual factors on social support processes during pregnancy. Multiple types of support (perceived support, received support, support satisfaction, network support) and sources of support (baby's father, family, friends) were assessed. The role of ethnicity in social support was examined after controlling for the contribution of related contextual factors (SES, marital status, age, parity, employment) to these processes. The impact of ethnicity and related contextual factors differed across sources of social support. Ethnic differences in support from family and friends, but not from the baby's father, emerged. However, marital status was a consistent predictor of support from the baby's father, and SES was a consistent predictor of support from friends. Overall, the findings of two studies suggest that although ethnicity is associated with support from friends and family, other contextual factors, such as marital status and SES, influence support processes during pregnancy.     

Ritualized Play Using Role Play to Teach Pastoral Care and Counseling

The author's experience of reflection-on-action and reflection-in-action in clinical supervision for counseling provides the basis for an analogous experience in the classroom that promotes the teaching of the practice of general pastoral care. A classroom ritual of role play within a specific process for reflection provides the basis for integrating theory and practice.     

The Interactive Role of Negative Affectivity and Job Characteristics: Are High-NA Employees Destined to Be Unhappy at Work?1

The present study examined whether employees high in negative affectivity (NA) are destined to be unhappy at work. Managerial employees provided information regarding perceptions of job characteristics, negative affectivity (NA), job satisfaction, and intentions to turnover. Using hierarchical regression, our findings suggest that employees who reported being high NA were more reactive to the environmental cues of perceived job scope. Specifically, NA interacted with job scope such that individuals high in NA who perceived their jobs as being higher (lower) in scope reported more (less) job satisfaction than did individuals low in NA. Implications for organizations and future research directions are discussed.     

Mitigating Burnout Among High-NA Employees in Health Care: What Can Organizations Do?

The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which factors in the nursing environment have differential effects on burnout levels among nurses high and low in negative affectivity (NA). Specifically, this field study examined the moderating relationships among role ambiguity, role conflict, and collective efficacy on the NA–burnout relationship among nurses in a hospital setting. Findings suggest that perceived role conflict exacerbates while perceptions of collective efficacy reduce specific dimensions of burnout for nurses high in NA. These results offer some evidence regarding which environmental characteristics may mitigate burnout for high-NA nurses.     

Mothers’ attuned responses to infant affect expressivity promote earlier achievement of language milestones

To investigate infants’ affective expressivity and maternal attuned responsiveness to infant expressivity in relation to early language achievement, 77 dyads were visited in their homes at 9 and 13 months, and mothers were interviewed about their children’s language between 9 and 21 months. Maternal responses that were attuned to infant affect, by selectively matching either the gradient features or the valence of infants’ affective expressions, were more predictive of children’s language achievement than maternal nonmatching responses; and maternal matching responses at 9 months were more predictive of children’s language achievements than maternal responses at 13 months. Moreover, maternal matching responses at 9 months predicted second-year language achievements over and above infant affect expressivity at 9 and 13 months, and over and above maternal matching responses at 13 months. Infants’ affective expressivity per se was not predictive.     

The etiology of psychopathy: A neuropsychological perspective

While there is no universally accepted cause of psychopathy, there are basic biological patterns in brain dysfunction observed in individuals who display psychopathic tendencies. These individuals show significant impairment in specific regions of the brain, particularly the orbital frontal cortex (OFC). Such abnormalities exist in brain areas most involved in impulse control and behavior inhibition. There are also significant environmental factors that the majority of these individuals have in common. For example, a strong correlation exists between attachment disorder and anti-social personality disorder (ASPD). Finally, the differences between ASPD, psychopathy, and sociopathy are considered. While these terms are often used interchangeably, there are clear differences between these psychopathologies.