A preparation for the experimental analysis of human cigarette smoking behavior

A preparation for the experimental analysis of cigarette smoking is described in detail. The preparation permits the intensive study of cigarette smoking in individual subjects under controlled laboratory conditions. A variety of behavioral and physiological measures used include rate and pattern of puffing, duration of each puff, time spent smoking cigarettes, expired air carbon monoxide levels, cigarette butt weights, and subjective rating scales of various aspects of smoking. The preparation is reliable and permits relatively unobtrusive monitoring of smoking performance. Cigarette smoking occurs in orderly patterns, within subjects; it varies as a function of number of cigarettes provided and hours of smoking deprivation.     

GPS: A Randomized Controlled Trial of Sexual Health Counseling for Gay and Bisexual Men Living With HIV

Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (GBM) continue to have high rates of HIV and sexually transmitted infections, including syphilis. GBM have therefore been identified by public health agencies as a high-priority population to reach with prevention initiatives. Despite the importance of mental health in preventing HIV and related infections, there is a shortage of credentialed mental health professionals to deliver behavioral Counseling interventions. The current study evaluated the efficacy of GPS, a community-based and peer-delivered sexual health promotion motivational interviewing–based intervention for HIV-positive GBM who engaged in condomless anal sex (CAS) in the past 2 months. GPS prevention counseling demonstrated a 43% relative reduction at 3-month follow-up in CAS with serodiscordant partners and significant reductions in sexual compulsivity. The study demonstrated that community-based counselors can administer an efficacious motivational interviewing program, and suggests a continued benefit of counseling methods to promote the sexual health of higher risk populations.     

Religiosity and Excess Weight Among African-American Adolescents: The Jackson Heart KIDS Study

Recent studies suggest that religion and spirituality can yield health benefits for young African-Americans. We examined the relationship between religious practices, spirituality, and excess weight among African-American adolescents (N = 212) residing in the Deep South. Results from modified Poisson regression analysis indicate that adolescents who prayed daily had a lower prevalence of excess weight (PR 0.77 [95% CI 0.62–0.96]) than those who did not. This relationship was only significant for 12–15 year-old participants in age-stratified analysis. These findings suggest that preventive interventions offered to children and younger adolescents can have implications for weight status across the lifespan.

     

Feeling time in nature: The influence of directed and undirected attention on time awareness

In the present study, we examined the impact of the interaction of environmental and task-induced attentional focus on time perception, specifically awareness of the time flow. We tested 48 participants in either a natural or urban setting over three 25- to 35-min sessions. We manipulated the within-subjects factor task by means of two tasks—one requiring directed attention on the task itself, the other undirected attention on the environment—alongside a control condition with no specific task. We measured time awareness, passage of time judgments, felt time judgments, and estimated time as dependent variables. For time awareness, we found an interaction between environment and task: in the natural environment, only a task requiring directed attention reduced time awareness; whereas, in the urban environment, both tasks reduced time awareness compared to the control condition. The results suggest that natural environments increase time awareness unless we focus our attention on a task.     

Genetic and environmental influences on early literacy skills across school grade contexts

Recent research suggests that the etiology of reading achievement can differ across environmental contexts. In the US, schools are commonly assigned grades (e.g. ‘A’, ‘B’) often interpreted to indicate school quality. This study explored differences in the etiology of early literacy skills for students based on these school grades. Participants included twins drawn from the Florida Twin Project on Reading (n = 1313 pairs) aged 4 to 10 years during the 2006–07 school year. Early literacy skills were assessed with DIBELS subtests: Oral Reading Fluency (ORF), Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF), Initial Sound Fluency (ISF), Letter Naming Fluency (LNF), and Phoneme Segmentation Fluency (PSF). School grade data were retrieved from the Florida Department of Education. Multi‐group analyses were conducted separately for subsamples defined by ‘A’ or ‘non‐A’ schools, controlling for school‐level socioeconomic status. Results indicated significant etiological differences on pre‐reading skills (ISF, LNF, and PSF), but not word‐level reading skills (ORF and NWF). There was a consistent trend of greater environmental influences on pre‐reading skills in non‐A schools, arguably representing ‘poorer’ environmental contexts than the A schools. Importantly, this is the case outside of resources linked with school‐level SES, indicating that something about the direct environment on pre‐reading skills in the non‐A school context is more variable than for A schools.     

Renouncing Human Hubris and Reeducating Commonsense

The thesis of this paper is that we are now in the early stage of a revolution even more transformative than the Copernican. That great upheaval brought about a radical shift in the way men and women conceptualized their place in the universe. The revolution now under way entails a sea change in the way we think about ourselves in relation to the planet we inhabit—itself not a simple matter—and also the reeducation of our attitudes, values, feelings, emotions, patterns of behavior, and modes of living. All of which is to say that it requires us to become very different people from the ones we now are.