Self‐Efficacy as a Moderator of the Effects of Job‐Search Workshops on Re‐Employment: A Field Experiment1

We investigated the additive and interactive effects of self‐efficacy as a possible moderator of the effects of a job‐search workshop on re‐employment outcomes. We recruited 659 recently unemployed respondents and randomly assigned them to an experimental group invited to participate in the job‐search workshop (n = 442), or a control group (n = 217). All respondents provided pretest data using self‐administered questionnaires, and posttest data using questionnaires mailed to them 1 and 6 months after the workshop. No direct effects of the intervention on re‐employment outcomes were found. The pretest–posttest change in self‐efficacy interacted with the experimental condition to predict 3 re‐employment outcomes. However, only 1 of the 3 moderating effects found supported our prior expectation in this regard.     

Jumping to interpretations: social anxiety disorder and the identification of emotional facial expressions

A small body of research suggests that socially anxious individuals show biases in interpreting the facial expressions of others. The current study included a clinically anxious sample in a speeded emotional card-sorting task in two conditions (baseline and threat) to investigate several hypothesized biases in interpretation. Following the threat manipulation, participants with generalized social anxiety disorders (GSADs) sorted angry cards with greater accuracy, but also evidenced a greater rate of neutral cards misclassified as angry, as compared to nonanxious controls. The controls showed the opposite pattern, sorting neutral cards with greater accuracy but also misclassifying a greater proportion of angry cards as neutral, as compared to GSADs. These effects were accounted for primarily by low-intensity angry cards. Results are consistent with previous studies showing a negative interpretive bias, and can be applied to the improvement of clinical interventions.     

The Effect of Disruptions During Counseling on Recall of Genetic Risk Information: The Case of Cystic Fibrosis

Genetic counseling is a communication process with two main functions: information provision and supportive counseling. The information transmission function may be compromised by disruptions that occur during counseling. At least two mediators are possible: (a) disruptions may interfere with memory by creating distractions and divided attention during encoding or (b) disruptions may degrade the flow of interaction which requires that participants engage in conversation repair rather than the task at hand. This study examined both alternatives in a group of parents (N=20 families, 40 individual parents) whose infant had received a newborn screening for cystic fibrosis (CF). Upon arrival at the hospital, each parent completed a questionnaire designed to assess his or her knowledge of CF. Their interaction with the genetic counselor was videotaped and coded for the presence of disruptions. Six weeks after the counseling, parents again completed the knowledge measure. The data showed a direct negative effect for disruptions during counseling on memory for CF-related risk information six weeks later. Disruptions also produced the anticipated effect on conversation, but counter to expectations, interruptions of conversation flow was positively associated with knowledge at time 2.     

ASPECT-SWITCHING AND VISUAL PHENOMENAL CHARACTER

John Searle and Susanna Siegel have argued that cases of aspect-switching show that visual experience represents a richer range of properties than colours, shapes, positions and sizes. I respond that cases of aspect-switching can be explained without holding that visual experience represents rich properties. I also argue that even if Searle and Siegel are right, and aspect-switching does require visual experience to represent rich properties, there is reason to think those properties do not include natural-kind properties, such as being a tomato.     

Dependency Stereotypes and Aging: The Implications for Getting and Giving Help in Later Life

Older adults are often stereotyped as dependent on others. This study explored how seeing an older adult receiving help triggers the dependency stereotype, by examining perceptions of older and younger adults helping and being helped by others. Participants (183 younger and older adults) read vignettes of young and old people helping others and rated the helpers and helpees on 2 variables: one a composite of dependency and capability; and the other composed of thoughtfulness, generosity, and unselfishness (i.e., considerateness). Participants rated older helpees as dependent, no matter who helped them. Younger helpers and those who helped the elderly rated high on considerateness. Females rated helpers more positively than did males. Implications of these findings for older adults are discussed.     

Emotional faces in neutral crowds: Detecting displays of anger,happiness, and sadness on schematic and photographic images of faces

Detection of angry, happy and sad faces among neutral backgrounds was investigated in three single emotion tasks and an emotion comparison task using schematic (Experiment 1) and photographic faces (Experiment 2). Both experiments provided evidence for the preferential detection of anger displays over displays of other negative or positive emotions in tasks that employed all three target emotions. Evidence for preferential detection of negative emotion in general was found only with schematic faces. The present results are consistent with the notion that the detection of displays of anger, and to some extent sadness, does not reflect on a pre-attentive mechanism, but is the result of a more efficient visual search than is the detection of positive emotion.     

Understanding the Nature and Consequences of Children’s Exposure to Violence: Research Perspectives

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has a long history of supporting research to enhance the scientific understanding of and effective interventions for a range of problems associated with children’s exposure to violence. Recently, funded research has improved our understanding of the nature and consequences of children’s exposure to violence. This article describes an NIH initiative for research on children’s exposure to violence, examples of projects supported by the initiative, and emerging research topics for this important scientific area.

From marine ecology to crime analysis: Improving the detection of serial sexual offences using a taxonomic similarity measure

Jaccard has been the choice similarity metric in ecology and forensic psychology for comparison of sites or offences, by species or behaviour. This paper applies a more powerful hierarchical measure—taxonomic similarity (Δ_s), recently developed in marine ecology—to the task of behaviourally linking serial crime. Forensic case linkage attempts to identify behaviourally similar offences committed by the same unknown perpetrator (called linked offences). Δ_s considers progressively higher‐level taxa, such that two sites show some similarity even without shared species. We apply this index by analysing 55 specific offence behaviours classified hierarchically. The behaviours are taken from 16 sexual offences by seven juveniles where each offender committed two or more offences. We demonstrate that both Jaccard and Δ_s show linked offences to be significantly more similar than unlinked offences. With up to 20% of the specific behaviours removed in simulations, Δ_s is equally or more effective at distinguishing linked offences than where Jaccard uses a full data set. Moreover, Δ_s retains significant difference between linked and unlinked pairs, with up to 50% of the specific behaviours removed. As police decision‐making often depends upon incomplete data, Δ_s has clear advantages and its application may extend to other crime types. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.