Brief motivational intervention with homeless adolescents: evaluating effects on substance use and service utilization.

A brief motivational intervention with 117 homeless adolescents was evaluated using a randomized design and 3-month follow-up. The intervention was designed to raise youths' concerns about their substance use, support harm reduction, and encourage greater service utilization at a collaborating agency. The study was designed to strengthen initial promising results of an earlier study (P. L. Peterson, J. S. Baer, E. A. Wells, J. A. Ginzler, & S. B. Garrett, 2006). Several modifications in the clinical protocol were included to enhance engagement with the intervention. Analyses revealed no significant benefits for intervention participants when homeless youths' substance use rates were compared with those of control participants. Service utilization during the intervention period increased for those receiving the intervention but returned to baseline levels at follow-up. Participants reported overall reductions in substance use over time. Differences between sampling methods for the current and previous study are discussed, as are the limitations of brief interventions with this population. Future research needs to elucidate mechanisms of change and service engagement for highly vulnerable youth.     

Nonspatial attributes of stimuli can influence spatial limitations of attentional control

A wide variety of psychophysical and neurophysiological research suggests that when stimuli are very close together, they cannot be attended separately. As a consequence, they cannot be represented as individual items with specific feature information associated with them. Here we report evidence that the spatial control of attention can be modulated by nonspatial features of the stimuli (such as color and luminance). Observers shifted attention from item to item within highly dense arrays of stimuli. Performance was extremely poor when all of the items in the array were an identical gray. In contrast, performance improved when items differed in color. This finding indicates that nonspatial features, such as color, can facilitate spatial selection and suggests moreover that features can be reliably associated with particular items even when the items are densely clustered.     

Spontaneously occurring mother-infant swapping and the relationships of infants with their biological and foster mothers in a captive group of lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla)

The present study describes spontaneously occurring infant-mother swapping and the relationships of infants with their biological and foster mothers after swapping in a captive social group of lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla). After infant-swapping took place between a primiparous mother with a neonate and a multiparous mother with a 10-month-old infant, the mothers provided appropriate maternal care, including nursing, to their adopted infants, but the older infant still sought refuge with its biological mother more frequently than with its foster mother. Almost 2 years later, the younger infant who was weaned by its foster mother began nursing from its biological mother; the latter subsequently weaned her adopted infant. Thereafter, the older infant who was weaned exhibited an abnormal hair-plucking behavior. These results indicate that it was psychologically stressful for the gorilla infant to quickly transfer its attachment figure from the mother to another adult female when the mother continued to remain in the group.     

Book reviews

Luba Gurdjieff: A Memoir with Recipes. Luba Gurdjieff Everitt with Marina C. Bear, 1993, Berkeley, California: Ten Speed Press 105 pp., £11.99, US$14.94 ISBN 0–89815–360–3

The Taste For Things That Are True. Henri Tracol, 1994 Longmead, Shaftesbury: Element Books 137 pp., £9.99, US$14.95 ISBN 1–85230–468–5

Religion Defined and Explained. Peter B. Clarke & Peter Byrne, 1993 London: Macmillan/New York: St Martin's Press 214 pp. £42.50, US$55.00 ISBN 0–33353–841–2

Sikhism and Christianity: A Comparative Study. W. Owen Cole & P. S. Sambhi, 1993 Basingstoke: Macmillan xii + 221 pp., £10.99 (pb), £35.00 (hb) ISBN 0–33354–107–3 (pb), 0–33354–106–5 (hb)

Hindu Children in Britain. Robert Jackson & Eleanor Nesbitt, 1993 Stoke‐on‐Trent: Trentham Books 240 pp., £15.95 ISBN 0–948080–73–6

Feminist Theology from the Third World: A Reader. Ursula King, ed., 1994 London: SPCK/Orbis 434 pp., £17.50 ISBN 0–88344–963–3

A Time to Chant: The Soka Gakkai Buddhists in Britain. B. Wilson & K. Dobbeleare, 1994 Oxford: Clarendon Press 267 pp., £25.00 ISBN 0–19–827915–9     

THE COSTS OF EATING: A BEHAVIORAL ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF FOOD REFUSAL

Behavioral economic concepts were applied to the analysis and treatment of pediatric feeding disorders in a clinical setting. In Experiment 1, children who chronically refused food were presented with varying amounts of food on a spoon (empty, dipped, quarter, half, and level). Each child exhibited a different but orderly demand function of response (acceptance, expulsion, and mouth clean) by cost (increasing spoon volume) for a constant pay-off of toys and social interaction. In Experiment 2, physical guidance or nonremoval of the spoon for food refusal was initiated at the smallest spoon volume with low levels of acceptance, and was subsequently introduced at the largest spoon volume with moderate levels of acceptance. Treatment was effective in increasing acceptance, and these effects generalized hierarchically across untargeted spoon volumes. The results of both studies provide preliminary support that increasing spoon volume can be equated conceptually with increasing response effort, and that the change from differential reinforcement to physical guidance or nonremoval of the spoon appears to have altered the elasticity of each child's demand function.     

TWO MEASURES OF PREFERENCE DURING FORCED-CHOICE ASSESSMENTS

A forced-choice preference assessment was conducted in which two dependent measures were used to select preferred stimuli: (a) approach responding and (b) latency to the first aberrant response. Stimuli identified as preferred based on both dependent measures were then evaluated during treatment. The results suggested that latency may be a useful measure in the selection of preferred stimuli during forced-choice assessments.     

Social network predictors of bullying and victimization

This study examined whether bullies, victims, and aggressive victims (those who are both bullies and victims) differed on classroom social network variables, gender, and ethnicity. Survey data were collected from a primarily Latino and Asian sample of 1,368 Southern California 6th graders (mean age = 11.3 years). Logistic regression analyses were performed to determine whether network characteristics and ethnicity were associated with each of the outcome variables. Consistent with social cognitive theory, friends' participation in aggressive behaviors was positively associated with being a bully or an aggressive victim, and negatively associated with being a victim. Consistent with social dominance theory, the number of friendship nominations received was negatively associated with being a victim. Female bullies received fewer friendship nominations, but had a higher proportion of reciprocated friendships. Victims were disproportionately Asian. The findings suggest that bullying prevention efforts targeting highly aggressive students may also diffuse to their friends, and that assertiveness training in handling aggressive situations may successfully combat bullying and aggression.