Predicting preference for items during periods of extended access based on early response allocation

Top‐ranked items were identified during 30‐min free‐operant preference assessments for 9 individuals. Data from each session were analyzed to identify the item (a) that was engaged with first in each session and (b) to which the most responding was allocated after 5 min, 10 min, 15 min, 20 min, and 25 min had elapsed in each session. The results indicated that the first‐engaged item and the 5‐min high‐allocation item predicted the top‐ranked item in 55% and 62% of the sessions, respectively. The results also showed that engagement with the top‐ranked item from the first session decreased across subsequent sessions for 6 of the 9 participants. The implications of the results for brief versus extended stimulus preference assessments are discussed.     

Proposition 187 reexamined: Attitudes toward immigration among California voters

The purposes of this study were to examine socio-demographic predictors of attitudes toward immigration in a community-based sample (N = 494) from the Los Angeles area; and to explore the relationship between attitudes toward immigration and the providing of educational and health services to the children of undocumented immigrants. Not providing services to the children of undocumented immigrants was a key element of California's Proposition 187. Attitudes toward immigration were measured with the Attitudes Toward Immigration Scale (ATIS). The providing of services was measured through the participants' evaluations of a school scenario and a health care scenario. Results indicated that participants who were middle-aged or older, less educated, identified as Republican, and were third generation or greater were more likely to hold negative attitudes toward immigration. Furthermore, participants holding negative attitudes toward immigration were less likely to provide education and health care services to the children of undocumented immigrants.     

Speech perception development in children with dyslexia

Several studies have indicated that dyslexics show a deficit in speech perception (SP). The main purpose of this research is to determine the development of SP in dyslexics and normal readers paired by grades from 2nd to 6th grade of primary school and to know whether the phonetic contrasts that are relevant for SP change during development, taking into account the individual differences. The achievement of both groups was compared in the phonetic tasks: voicing contrast, place of articulation contrast and manner of articulation contrast. The results showed that the dyslexic performed poorer than the normal readers in SP. In place of articulation contrast, the developmental pattern is similar in both groups but not in voicing and manner of articulation. Manner of articulation has more influence on SP, and its development is higher than the other contrast tasks in both groups.     

Accompagnement médical et communautaire dans un essai de prévention biomédicale : vers une nouvelle forme d’éducation ?

The recent implementation of innovative biomedical preventive approaches to combat the continued high prevalence of HIV among certain populations, has refocused attention on the question of support in the management of treatment adherence. What distinguishes these approaches from classic research on similar themes is that the populations concerned are not HIV positive. The objective of this study was to assess participant and physician satisfaction with medical and community support provided in the ANRS-IPERGAY trial. As part of this trial, individual interviews were conducted with physicians and with HIV-negative participants involved in the trial. Collective interviews and focus groups were also conducted with the participants. A content thematic analysis was performed on the full two corpuses’ data, with the aim of investigating discourse themes regarding the support offered as part of the trial. The discourse analysis of the HIV-negative participants and physicians underlined their satisfaction with many aspects of the medical and community support provided during the trial. The results were interpreted with respect to new forms of patient education necessary for the implementation of the medicalized prevention.     

The Normative Underpinnings of Democracy and the Balance between Morality and Legitimacy

ABSTRACT

Jürgen Habermas’s political philosophy incorporates the view that legitimacy is immanent to law, even though it makes morality a central component of democratic legitimacy. Taking this as a starting point, the article examines one criticism that applies to Habermas’s political theory, insofar as he puts morality at the centre of his reconstruction of the concept of legitimacy. Habermas claims that the moral point of view justifies only those norms that embody universalizable interests and rules out those that embody particular interests. Therefore, the objection is that particular citizens will have no reason to endorse these norms and act according to them because these norms do not incorporate their interests. The article goes on to show that Habermas can successfully answer this objection by means of the principle of discourse. The principle performs this function, inasmuch as it has a post-Kantian nature. On the one hand, it incorporates Kantian autonomy. And on the other, the Hegelian insight that autonomy has to be actualized through modern institutions and practices.     

Connecting Eating Pathology with Risk for Engaging in Suicidal Behavior: The Mediating Role of Experiential Avoidance

Individuals with eating pathology, particularly those with diagnosed eating disorders, are at high risk for suicide. It is less clear whether undiagnosed eating pathology and subsyndromal eating disorders carry the same risk and, if so, what mechanisms may explain why higher levels of eating pathology yield greater risk for engaging in suicidal behaviors. The indirect relationship between disordered eating and risk for suicidal behaviors via facets of experiential avoidance was tested using a multiple‐mediator model. The model was tested using bootstrapping estimates of indirect effects in a sample of 218 noncollege student adults (Mage = 32.33, 66.1% women) with a history of suicidal attempt and/or history of nonsuicidal self‐injury (NSSI). Results revealed that disordered eating indirectly predicted risk for suicidal behaviors, distress aversion (i.e., negative attitudes or dislike of distress), and procrastination (i.e., delaying engagement with distressing activities). Results suggest that targeting experiential avoidance and helping those who have a history of engaging in suicidal behaviors and/or NSSI develop regulation strategies to use during times of distress may be of utmost importance for treatment and prevention of eating pathology.     

Personifying the Radical

This study examines relationships among individual dispositions, news framing of civil liberties restrictions, security concerns, and political tolerance. We theorize that news frames condition the effects of individual dispositions on security and tolerance attitudes. To explore these relationships, an online‐survey experiment was conducted with 650 respondents. This experiment presented alternative versions of news stories about domestic security policies following September 11, and the policies' implications for a fringe activist group. One factor was whether the activists targeted by the government advocated for a cause supported or opposed by the respondent; another factor was whether the story framed government actions against the activists at the individual or group level. Findings show that individual framing—as opposed to group framing—made participants less tolerant of radicals they opposed and more tolerant of radicals they supported. Similar effects were observed for political ideology. Implications of personification as a framing device are discussed.