Churches as Neighborhood Organizations and Their Relationship to Street and Domestic Violent Crime: The Role of Denomination,Stability, and Heterogeneity

Recent developments in both theory and research on neighborhood crime have focused attention on the role of organizations. The current research builds on the existing literature to examine the relationship of churches to neighborhood “street” and domestic violence. The findings suggest that churches are fairly stable neighborhood organizations and not importantly heterogeneous, and neither factor appears to be related to neighborhood crime. Alternatively, the number of churches in a neighborhood is positively related to both street crimes and domestic assaults, and denomination does play an important role especially as it relates to domestic assaults. Theoretical and empirical implications are discussed.     

Prevalence of Alcohol Use and Reasons for Drinking Among Occupational Therapists: An Exploratory Investigation

Alcohol use by occupational therapists (OTs) and reasons for consuming alcohol were examined. Five hundred participants, randomly selected from American Occupational Therapy Association membership, were mailed surveys, resulting in 165 completed returns. The majority reported drinking alcohol generally for social-interactive motives, consuming one or two drinks one to four times per month. Two-fifths were found to drink intermittently in a potentially unhealthy manner. The percentage of OTs likely consuming alcohol at harmful levels, though comparatively small, is sufficient to warrant consideration by the profession to address the implications of potential alcohol misuse among a segment of its practitioners.     

Impact of contextual constraint on vocabulary acquisition in reading*

The current study investigated the influence of contextual constraint (strong versus moderate) on incidental vocabulary acquisition in reading, as eye movements of adult skilled readers were monitored. Surprise post-tests followed the reading session, and eye movement behaviour was directly connected to retention data. Longer and more frequent reading/rereading was associated with trials containing a novel target (rather than a known control), and unique patterns of connective rereading between constraint conditions were observed. For reading measures reflecting target word processing and connecting target with context, fixations were generally longer and more frequent for moderate constraint than for strong. The exception was in rereading of informative context, which was generally longer for strong constraint. More and longer fixations while connecting novel targets with informative context proved critical for novel word retention, significantly so for moderate constraint but not for strong, based on eye movement data associated with memory for novel word stimuli.     

Music and Video as Distractors for Boys with ADHD in the Classroom: Comparison with Controls,Individual Differences,and Medication Effects

This study examined the effects of music and video on the classroom behavior and performance of boys with and without attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and examined the effects of 0.3 mg/kg methylphenidate (MPH). In one study, 41 boys with ADHD and 26 controls worked in the presence of no distractor, music, or video. Video produced significant distraction, particularly for the boys with ADHD, and MPH improved the performance of boys with ADHD across distractor conditions.There were individual differences in response to the music such that some boys were adversely affected and others benefited relative to no-distractor.In a second study, music and MPH were assessed in an additional 86 boys with ADHD to examine further the music results. In the presence or absence of music, MPH improved performance relative to placebo. Similar individual differences were found as in Experiment 1.     

Parasite prevalence and the distribution of intelligence among the states of the USA

In this study, we tested the parasite-stress hypothesis for the distribution of intelligence among the USA states: the hypothesis proposes that intelligence emerges from a developmental trade-off between maximizing brain vs. immune function. From this we predicted that among the USA states where infectious disease stress was high, average intelligence would be low and where infectious disease stress was low, average intelligence would be high. As predicted, we found that the correlation between average state IQ and infectious disease stress was ? 0.67 (p < 0.0001) across the 50 states. Furthermore, when controlling the effects of wealth and educational variation among states, infectious disease stress was the best predictor of average state IQ.     

Age differences in three facets of empathy: performance-based evidence

This study investigated age differences in cognitive and affective facets of empathy: the ability to perceive another's emotions accurately, the capacity to share another's emotions, and the ability to behaviorally express sympathy in an empathic episode. Participants, 80 younger (M(age) = 32 years) and 73 older (M(age) = 59 years) adults, viewed eight film clips, each portraying a younger or an older adult thinking-aloud about an emotionally engaging topic that was relevant to either younger adults or older adults. In comparison to their younger counterparts, older adults generally reported and expressed greater sympathy while observing the target persons; and they were better able to share the emotions of the target persons who talked about a topic that was relevant to older adults. Age-related deficits in the cognitive ability to accurately perceive another's emotions were only evident when the target person talked about a topic of little relevance to older adults. In sum, the present performance-based evidence speaks for multidirectional age differences in empathy.     

Lower Cancer Rates Among Druze Compared to Arab and Jewish Populations in Israel, 1999–2009

The Druze are a small ethnic minority in Israel amounting to about 130,000 residents (or 1.7 % of the total population of the country). Unlike other population groups, the Druze strive to keep their own traditions and marry mainly inside their own community. During the last decade, cancer morbidity among both Jews and Arabs in Israel has been increasing, while data on the Druze are little known and have not been analyzed and compared to other population groups to date. To compare cancer morbidity rates among Druze, Arabs and Jews in Israel during 1999–2009, gender-specific and age-standardized incidence rates of all site cancers and specific cancers of three population groups (Jews, Arabs and Druze) were received from the Israel National Cancer Registry for the period 1999–2009. Based on these rates, periodical incidence rates were calculated and mutually compared across the groups stratified by gender. As the analysis shows, the Druze had significantly lower cancer rates compared to both Arabs and Jews. Thus, for all site cancers, there were significantly higher cancer rates in Jewish males versus Druze males (RR = 1.39, 95 % CI = 1.16–1.65) and in Jewish females versus Druze females (RR = 1.53, 95 % CI = 1.27–1.85), but not statistically significant for Arab males versus Druze males (RR = 1.12 95 % CI = 0.93–1.35). Lung cancer rates in Arab males were also higher compared to Druze males (RR = 1.84, 95 % CI = 1.13–3.00). Jewish males had statistically significant higher rates of prostate cancer compared to Druze males (RR = 2.47, 95 % CI = 1.55–3.91). For thyroid and colon cancers, risks were not significantly different at the 95 % CI level; however, the risks were significantly different at the 90 % CI level (RR = 3.62, 90 % CI 1.20–11.02 and RR = 1.69, 90 % CI = 1.03–2.77, respectively). Jewish females had significantly higher rates of invasive breast cancer (RR = 2.25, 95 % CI = 1.55–3.25), in situ cervical cancer (RR = 4.01, 95 % CI = 1.27–12.66) and lung cancer (RR = 3.22, 95 % CI = 1.12–9.24) compared to Druze females. We thus observed lower cancer rates among Druze versus Arab and Jewish populations in Israel. A reason for these differences may be due to different nutritional habits. Druze still keep a less processed nutritional lifestyle, than is common in industrial society. There may also be other reasons that have not been identified yet.     

Impulsivity and Suicidality in Adolescent Inpatients

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among adolescents, and impulsivity has emerged as a promising marker of risk. The present study tested whether distinct domains of impulsivity are differentially associated with suicide ideation, plans, and attempts. Adolescents (n?=?381; boys?=?106, girls?=?275) aged 13–19 years (M?=?15.62, SD?=?1.41) were recruited from an acute, residential treatment program. Within 48 h of admission to the hospital, participants were administered structured clinical interviews assessing mental health disorders and suicidality. Following these interviews, participants completed self-report questionnaires assessing symptom severity and impulsivity. Consistent with past research, an exploratory factor analysis of our 90-item impulsivity instrument resulted in a three-factor solution: Pervasive Influence of Feelings, Feelings Trigger Action, and Lack of Follow-Through. Concurrent analysis of these factors confirmed hypotheses of unique associations with suicide ideation and attempts in the past month. Specifically, whereas Pervasive Influence of Feelings (i.e., tendency for emotions to shape thoughts about the self and the future) is uniquely associated with greater suicidal ideation, Feelings Trigger Action (i.e., impulsive behavioral reactivity to emotions) is uniquely associated with the occurrence of suicide attempts, even after controlling for current psychiatric diagnoses and symptoms. Exploratory gender analyses revealed that these effects were significant in female but not male adolescents. These findings provide new insight about how specific domains of impulsivity differentially increase risk for suicide ideation and attempts. Implications for early identification and prevention of youth suicide are discussed.