Religious Attendance Serves as a Protective Variable Against Suicidal Ideation During Treatment

Several studies have proposed potential mediators of the association between religion and mental health, including social support (SS), locus of control (LOC), and substance abuse (SA), but have been limited by their use of non-clinical samples. The current study, therefore, drew from a clinical sample at risk of violence to self to test associations among these variables, specifically examining the effect of these variables on the relation between religious attendance (RA) and suicidal ideation (SI). A total of 144 adult outpatient psychotherapy clients evidencing SI during treatment were assessed pre-treatment for diagnostic presentation and frequency of RA. Subsequently, before each therapy session, SI, SS, SA, and external LOC (eLOC) during the preceding week were assessed via self-report. RA exerted a significant direct effect on SI within this clinical sample, with increased attendance associated with decreased SI. In contrast to prior reports based on non-clinical samples, SS, SA, or eLOC did not mediate the association of RA to SI. However, these variables did work in tandem, independent of RA, to affect SI. Findings support prior research suggesting that focusing on SS, SA, and LOC may be beneficial to clients experiencing SI. Additionally, for those clients who hold religious practices as a personal value, incorporating discussion of RA may help thwart SI.     

The differences between medical trust and mistrust and their respective influences on medication beliefs and ART adherence among African-Americans living with HIV

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between medical mistrust and trust and to determine if these measures differentially predict antiretroviral therapy (ART) medication adherence for African-American adults living with HIV.

Design: A total of 458 HIV positive African-Americans completed a cross-sectional survey.

Main Outcome Measures: Self-reported ART adherence was collected using the visual-analog scale. The Beliefs About Medicines Questionnaire was used to assess medication necessity and concern beliefs.

Results: All measures of medical mistrust and trust were significantly negatively correlated, ranging from r = ?.339 to ?.504. Race-based medical mistrust significantly predicted medication necessity and concern beliefs, whereas general medical mistrust only significantly predicted medication concerns. Both measures of trust significantly predicted medication necessity beliefs and medication concerns. Higher levels of race-based medical mistrust predicted lower medication adherence, whereas, neither trust in own physician nor trust in health care provider significantly predicted medication adherence. However, trust in own physician significantly predicted medication necessity beliefs, which predicted medication adherence.

Conclusion: Trust and mistrust are not simply opposites of one another. These findings provide evidence for the complexity of understanding the relationship between health care trust, mistrust and patient-related health beliefs and behaviours.     

A Repeated Forced‐choice Line‐up Procedure Provides Suspect Bias Information with No Cost to Accuracy for Older Children and Adults

In two experiments and one follow‐up analysis, we examined the impact of using a repeated forced‐choice (RFC) line‐up procedure with child and adult eyewitnesses. The RFC procedure divides the identification task into a series of exhaustive binary comparisons that produces not only traditional line‐up information (identification decision and confidence) but also information about witness' selection behavior. Experiment 1 revealed that younger children (6‐ to 8‐year‐olds) struggled with the RFC procedure, while older children (9‐ to 11‐year‐olds) performed as well with the RFC procedure as with a simultaneous procedure (with wildcard). Experiment 2 replicated this comparable performance with adults. Witnesses' suspect selection behavior during the RFC was predictive of identification accuracy for older children and adults. A model examined the additional information provided by the RFC in experiments 1 and 2 and provided evidence that witnesses' patterns of responding can be used to estimate suspect selection bias (a proxy for suspect recognition strength) associated with individual line‐up decisions. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The interactive account of ventral occipitotemporal contributions to reading

The ventral occipitotemporal cortex (vOT) is involved in the perception of visually presented objects and written words. The Interactive Account of vOT function is based on the premise that perception involves the synthesis of bottom-up sensory input with top-down predictions that are generated automatically from prior experience. We propose that vOT integrates visuospatial features abstracted from sensory inputs with higher level associations such as speech sounds, actions and meanings. In this context, specialization for orthography emerges from regional interactions without assuming that vOT is selectively tuned to orthographic features. We discuss how the Interactive Account explains left vOT responses during normal reading and developmental dyslexia; and how it accounts for the behavioural consequences of left vOT damage.     

Body Awareness: a phenomenological inquiry into the common ground of mind-body therapies

Enhancing body awareness has been described as a key element or a mechanism of action for therapeutic approaches often categorized as mind-body approaches, such as yoga, TaiChi, Body-Oriented Psychotherapy, Body Awareness Therapy, mindfulness based therapies/meditation, Feldenkrais, Alexander Method, Breath Therapy and others with reported benefits for a variety of health conditions. To better understand the conceptualization of body awareness in mind-body therapies, leading practitioners and teaching faculty of these approaches were invited as well as their patients to participate in focus groups. The qualitative analysis of these focus groups with representative practitioners of body awareness practices, and the perspectives of their patients, elucidated the common ground of their understanding of body awareness. For them body awareness is an inseparable aspect of embodied self awareness realized in action and interaction with the environment and world. It is the awareness of embodiment as an innate tendency of our organism for emergent self-organization and wholeness. The process that patients undergo in these therapies was seen as a progression towards greater unity between body and self, very similar to the conceptualization of embodiment as dialectic of body and self described by some philosophers as being experienced in distinct developmental levels.     

Toward an understanding of the influence of affective states on attentional tuning: comment on Friedman and Förster (2010)

Friedman and F?rster (2010) reviewed an extensive program of research that was consistent with the view that positive affective states broaden, whereas negative affective states narrow, the scope of attention. We applaud their creative investigations into these important psychological questions and appreciate their thorough review. However, recent evidence strongly suggests that the conclusions drawn by Friedman and F?rster need to be tempered, for the recent evidence suggests that motivational intensity rather than affective valence causes the modulations of attentional tuning. That is, affective states of low motivational intensity (e.g., sadness, postgoal positive affect) broaden attention, whereas affective states of high motivational intensity (e.g., disgust, pregoal positive affect) narrow attention. Our viewpoint is that attentional narrowing occurs during affective states of high motivational intensity to aid organisms in acquiring desirable objects and avoiding aversive ones. Attentional broadening occurs during affective states of low motivational intensity to open organisms to new opportunities.     

Individuating information influences partisan judgments

Three studies examined whether Democrats and Republicans expressed favoritism toward an ingroup political candidate, even when the candidates were presented as positive and bipartisan. Participants rated electability and traits, after reading party consistent (Passage 1) and positive, bipartisan information (Passage 2). Conservatism (Studies 1–3), the cognitive reflection test (Studies 2–3), and ingroup loyalty (Study 3) were examined. Republicans showed initially higher favoritism after the first passage. Both Republicans and Democrats showed lower ingroup favoritism after reading the second passage, although Republicans continued to show more favoritism than Democrats in some circumstances. Conservatism was associated with greater favorability toward the Republican candidate. Our results showed no evidence that CRT or ingroup loyalty mediated these associations.     

Additive impact of childhood emotional,physical, and sexual abuse on suicide attempts among low-income African American women

This study examines the association between exposures to multiple forms of childhood abuse (emotional, physical, sexual) and adult suicidal behavior in a sample of low-income, African American women. We hypothesized a linear relation between childhood abuse and risk for making a suicide attempt, such that the more forms of childhood abuse to which a woman was exposed, the greater her risk would be to make a suicide attempt. Logistic regression analyses revealed that, compared to women who did not report any experiences of childhood abuse, women who experienced one, two, or three forms of abuse were 1.83, 2.29, or 7.75 times more likely to attempt suicide, respectively (all statistically significant). Furthermore, compared to women who reported one or two types of abuse, women who reported all three types of abuse were statistically more likely to attempt suicide. These findings have implications for clinicians working with African American women who report either childhood abuse or exhibit suicidal behavior.     

Coping, mood, and aspects of personality in Spanish translation and evidence of convergence with English versions

Research on stress and its influence on health and well-being has flourished for several decades, examining as predictors such psychosocial variables as personality and coping. This work now often targets multiethnic samples. Because many potential participants lack facility in English, a need exists for translations of measures into other languages. We translated 6 instruments into Spanish and studied their characteristics. Of these, 3 were measures of personality qualities: the Life Orientation Test--Revised (Scheier, Carver, & Bridges, 1994), the Behavioral Inhibition/Behavioral Activation Scales (Carver & White, 1994), and the Measure of Body Apperception (Carver et al., 1998). The others were the Brief COPE (Carver, 1997), the Center for Epidemiological Studies--Depression Scale (Radloff, 1977), and an abbreviated version of the Profile of Mood States (McNair, Lorr, & Droppelman, 1971). Correlations between English and Spanish versions in bilingual samples were all above. 72, except for the COPE's Behavioral Disengagement scale. Alpha reliabilities of the Spanish versions were comparable to those of the English versions. Correlations among measures in a sample of cancer patients were similar across languages.