Gender-Related Jokes in the Workplace: Sexual Humor or Sexual Harassment?1

When does a joke become sexual harassment? In a partial test of an integrative model of gender-related humor in the workplace, the role of personal and situational variables in perceptions of sexual harassment was examined. Other implications of sexual humor in the office were also studied.     

Attraction to a dissimilar stranger as a function of level of effectance arousal

An experiment was carried out to demonstrate that the relationship between attitudes of a stranger and attraction to that stranger can be mediated by effectance arousal and the consequent information search to reduce the arousal. The argument posited was that individuals under high effectance arousal produced by a confusing and ambiguous film would be attracted to dissimilar others as a source of information and uncertainty reduction. Results indicated that high levels of arousal produced greater attraction to a dissimilar stranger than to a similar stranger. This finding was reversed when an explanation was provided along with the confusing film, lending support to the uncertainty reduction position.     

Teaching psychological assessment: training issues and teaching approaches

Clinical psychology graduate programs need to pay attention to important issues involved in teaching psychological assessment, if graduate students are to be adequately prepared. Recent studies have suggested a gap between academic training in psychological assessment and internship expectations. Graduate students are not as well prepared as many internship settings would like. In addition to learning the fundamentals, students need help in dealing with issues of categorizing individuals, using tests in helpful ways, taking responsibility for decision-making, and developing a balance between critical evaluation of tests and appreciation of their usefulness. Teaching approaches for dealing with these issues are discussed. The importance of academic and clinical agencies working together is stressed. Goals for graduate training in assessment are suggested.     

Tackling ethical dilemmas in personality assessment.

This is a useful and thought-provoking special series about ethical issues in personality assessment. All of the articles in this special series are discussed. Some common themes and guidelines emerge from the articles. Given the complexity of many ethical dilemmas, it is important to follow a decision-making model. Several models are presented in this series. One must learn the rules and common ethical dilemmas that occur in the setting one is in. Current ethical problems should be used to prevent similar problems in the future. It is important to consult with other professionals before acting. Finally, work should be done to increase exposure of psychologists to common ethical problems in the field of personality assessment.     

Postpartum mood disorders: Results of an online survey

Purpose: Postpartum mood disorders (PMDs), the distressing mental and emotional symptoms experienced by women after childbirth, are just now receiving the attention they warrant. Given the serious and sometimes life‐threatening nature of PMDs, we used a qualitative research design to examine more closely the nature of symptoms experienced and the effective strategies women used to cope with PMD. Participants: The respondents were 252 members of PMD and breast‐feeding (La Leche League) support groups throughout the United States. Method: Participants responded anonymously to open‐ended questions in an online survey. The data were reviewed by the research team to determine common themes and prevailing issues. Results: Participants reported myriad different symptoms and used a host of various strategies to alleviate problematic thoughts, feelings, and behaviours following childbirth. Postpartum symptoms affected participants’ plans to have future children. For some women, symptoms became more intense during subsequent births. Despite the problematic nature of PMD, more than half of the participants reported receiving little or no information from healthcare providers about PMDs. Implications for counsellors and other healthcare providers are discussed in detail.     

Human Germline CRISPR-Cas Modification: Toward a Regulatory Framework

CRISPR germline editing therapies (CGETs) hold unprecedented potential to eradicate hereditary disorders. However, the prospect of altering the human germline has sparked a debate over the safety, efficacy, and morality of CGETs, triggering a funding moratorium by the NIH. There is an urgent need for practical paths for the evaluation of these capabilities. We propose a model regulatory framework for CGET research, clinical development, and distribution. Our model takes advantage of existing legal and regulatory institutions but adds elevated scrutiny at each stage of CGET development to accommodate the unique technical and ethical challenges posed by germline editing.     

Wearing Two Hats: Counselors Working as Managerial Leaders in Agencies and Schools

The authors argue that many counselors who assume managerial leadership positions within agencies or schools (e.g., head school counselor, director of outpatient services) tread into unknown territory, a phenomenon reflecting the dearth of literature within the counseling field related to effective management. This article attempts to introduce effective managerial leadership practices, drawn largely from management literature, to help guide counselors serving in managerial leadership positions in creating and maintaining vital and productive counseling programs.     

Validation of affective and neutral sentence content for prosodic testing

Conducting a study of emotional prosody often requires that one have a valid set of stimuli for assessing perceived emotion in vocal intonation. In this study, we created a list of sentences with both affective and neutral content, and then validated them against rater opinion. Participants read sentences with content that implied happiness, sadness, anger, fear, or neutrality and rated how well they could imagine each sentence being expressed in each emotion. Coefficients of variation and intraclass correlations were calculated to narrow the list to affective sentences that had high agreement and neutral sentences that had low agreement. We found that raters could easily identify most emotional content and did not ascribe any unique emotion to most neutral content. We also found differences between the intensity of male and female ratings. The final list of sentences is available on the Internet (www.med.upenn.edu/bbl/) and can be recorded for use as stimuli for prosodic studies.