An Examination of the Mediational Effects of Cognitive and Attitudinal Factors of a Parent Intervention to Reduce College Drinking

As part of a parent intervention to reduce heavy-drinking, college freshmen were assessed for their attitudes toward drinking and reasonable alternatives to drinking on the weekends, as well as cognitive variables underlying attitudinal variables. Intervention parents received a handbook the summer prior to college entrance with information about college drinking and best practices for parent-teen communication. Results revealed that the association between intervention condition and drinking outcomes was mediated by attitudes favorable to drinking and reasonable alternatives to drinking, as well as beliefs about alcohol related behavior. This parent program was shown to be efficacious for changing high-risk drinking in college. Findings are discussed regarding the further development of college drinking prevention programs involving parents.     

Neurobehavioral sequelae of child sexual abuse.

This study examined intellectual and memory functioning in a sample of sexually abused children compared to demographically and age-matched controls. The severity of abuse and other pertinent factors were also examined in relation to cognitive performance. Elevated levels of psychopathology were present in the abused children, as well as diminished performance on tasks influenced by attention/concentration. However, after controlling for differences in IQ and socioeconomic status (SES), significant differences in memory function were not found. Results are discussed in the context of stress effects on cognition and the potential resiliency of cognitive function in children undergoing treatment for sexual abuse.     

Size matters: Attracting new immigrants to Canadian cities

Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver have attracted most new immigrants to Canada. Small and medium-sized cities in Canada are keen to share the wealth that new immigrants represent, and federal and provincial governments support a more even distribution of settlement. As a result, the idea of attracting new immigrants to smaller locations is a pressing policy issue. This research weighs the characteristics of place that new immigrants consider on arrival. It uses findings from the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada (Statistics Canada, 2003) to construct an index that ranks five medium-sized cities in British Columbia in terms of their potential attractiveness to new immigrants. The index created proves robust and reliable from a statistical viewpoint. The study confirms that immigrants are attracted to cities where friends and family or other immigrants live. Moreover, the increase in attractiveness of a city is primarily related to its size. The index is an indicator of the role that population and the extant number of immigrants in situ plays in determining the appeal of smaller cities. From a policy perspective, if governments wish to “spread the wealth” associated with immigration and an expanded labour force, a proactive policy stance that enumerates and communicates the appeal of less prominent communities is vital. This is an important finding, and we offer policy options that account for the relationship of population size to immigrant retention.     

Breaking and creating habits on the working floor: A field-experiment on the power of implementation intentions

Previous research has shown that implementation intentions are effective tools to promote new behavior. The present study aimed to provide the first evidence that conscious planning is an effective tool in replacing well-learned habits with new habits. This was tested in a field-experiment on repetitive behavior in the domain of recycling, using 109 employees of a tele-company as participants. Recycling behavior of the participants was observed by the actual amount of paper and the number of plastic cups in their personal wastebaskets. Following a pre-measure, participants were assigned to either implementation intention conditions, conditions in which an eye-catching facility was placed to promote recycling behavior, or control conditions. Recycling behavior was substantially improved in the facility as well as the implementation intention conditions in week 1 and week 2 and still 2 months after the manipulation. These data supported our hypothesis that planning breaks down unwanted habits and creates new ones.     

Introducing research methods and reflexivity into family therapy training

Research training does not always sit easily with family therapy trainees due to the perceived difficulty of the terrain and the mismatch between the primacy given to research and their developing expertise in the clinical work. Despite these tensions, research forms a core component to advanced training and is a requisite module for students completing an M.Sc. Following the provision of suboptimal teaching in research methods for M.Sc. candidates, a substantial redesign of the course was undertaken, taking into account the context of students' learning. This paper reports on the contextual influences on this new approach, and outlines the key pedagogical strategies that support student learning within the formal teaching sessions and beyond. We present a summary of the outcomes so far.     

Endogenous orienting modulates the Simon effect: critical factors in experimental design

Responses are faster when the side of stimulus and response correspond than when they do not correspond, even if stimulus location is irrelevant to the task at hand: the correspondence, spatial compatibility effect, or Simon effect. Generally, it is assumed that an automatically generated spatial code is responsible for this effect, but the precise mechanism underlying the formation of this code is still under dispute. Two major alternatives have been proposed: the referential-coding account, which can be subdivided into a static version and an attention-centered version, and the attention-shift account. These accounts hold clear-cut predictions for attentional cuing experiments. The former would assume a Simon effect irrespective of attentional cuing in its static version, whereas the attention-centered version of the referential-coding account and the attention-shift account would predict a decreased Simon effect on validly as opposed to invalid cued trials. However, results from previous studies are equivocal to the effects of attentional cuing on the Simon effect. We argue here that attentional cueing reliably modulates the Simon effect if some crucial experimental conditions, mostly relevant for optimizing attentional allocation, are met. Furthermore, we propose that the Simon effect may be better understood within the perspective of supra-modal spatial attention, thereby providing an explanation for observed discrepancies in the literature.     

Detection and validation of unscalable item score patterns using item response theory: an illustration with Harter's Self-Perception Profile for Children

We illustrate the usefulness of person-fit methodology for personality assessment. For this purpose, we use person-fit methods from item response theory. First, we give a nontechnical introduction to existing person-fit statistics. Second, we analyze data from Harter's (1985) Self-Perception Profile for Children (Harter, 1985) in a sample of children ranging from 8 to 12 years of age (N = 611) and argue that for some children, the scale scores should be interpreted with care and caution. Combined information from person-fit indexes and from observation, interviews, and self-concept theory showed that similar score profiles may have a different interpretation. For some children in the sample, item scores did not adequately reflect their trait level. Based on teacher interviews, this was found to be due most likely to a less developed self-concept and/or problems understanding the meaning of the questions. We recommend investigating the scalability of score patterns when using self-report inventories to help the researcher interpret respondents' behavior correctly.     

Regulating cognitive control through approach-avoidance motor actions

In two studies, the regulatory function of approach-avoidance cues in activating cognitive control processes was investigated. It was hypothesized that avoidance motor actions, relative to approach motor actions, increase the recruitment of cognitive resources, resulting in better performance on tasks that draw on these capacities. In Study 1, error rates on a verbal response mode version of the Stroop task were analyzed. On inconsistent Stroop trials, participants in the avoidance condition made significantly fewer errors than those in the approach condition. In Study 2, performance differences on a task switching paradigm were investigated. Crucially, approach and avoidance motor actions were manipulated within-subjects by alternating between approach and avoidance motor actions on 4 blocks of trials. Temporal switching costs were significantly lower while performing an avoidance, compared to an approach motor action. These results support our hypothesis that avoidance cues, relative to approach cues, lead to improved performance on cognitive control tasks.