Correlates of physical activity in a national sample of girls and boys in grades 4 through 12.

Psychological, biological, social, and physical environmental variables were examined for their association with physical activity of young people. A national sample of 1,504 parents and children in Grades 4-12 were interviewed by telephone. Twenty-two potential determinants were assessed along with an 11-item child physical activity index (alpha = .76). Hierarchical multiple regressions were conducted separately for 6 age-sex subgroups. Percentage of variance explained ranged from 18% for boys in Grades 4-6 to 59% for girls in Grades 10-12. Three variables had strong and consistent associations with the child physical activity index that generalized across subgroups: use of afternoon time for sports and physical activity, enjoyment of physical education, and family support for physical activity. These 3 variables should be targeted for change to promote physical activity in all groups of young people.     

Whatever happened to vocational guidance?

In the 1950s, vocational guidance was dominated by the aim of helping clients to find fulfilment through their work. Since then this 'vocational aim' has been diluted by a flood of developments in vocational theory and research, in counselling practices, and particularly in the nature of work and the patterns of careers. The impact of these various changes on vocational guidance over a period of nearly 40 years is assessed; and the author asks whether it is now feasible, or desirable, to retain the vocational aim.     

Mental health and well-being of black women: Toward strategies of empowerment

This review of the literature on Black women's mental health has three goals: 1) to describe the mental health issues, needs, and adaptive behaviors of Black women; 2) to discuss the research, intervention, and public policy efforts of mental health professionals and Black women's groups to address the multiple needs of this population; and 3) to identify effective strategies by which community psychologists can improve the mental health status of Black women through efforts to reduce their environmental stressors, to increase their resources and access to services, and to facilitate their empowerment in American society. The authors propose a number of recommendations to improve Black women's mental health, including changes in research paradigms, changes in education and training programs, and the development of culturally competent service delivery systems.     

A follow-up of a media-based,worksite smoking cessation program

Described an examination of data collected 2 years following the onset of a media-based, worksite smoking cessation intervention. Thirty-eight companies in Chicago were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions. In the inital 3-week phase, all participants in both conditions received self-help manuals and were instructed to watch a 20-day televised series designed to accompany the manual. In addition, participants in the group (G) condition received six sessions emphasizing quitting techniques and social support. In the second phase, which continued for 12 months, employees in G participated in monthly peer-led support groups and received incentives, while participants in the nongroup (NG) condition received no further treatment. Twenty-four months after pretest, 30% of employees in G were abstinent compared to only 19.5% in NG. This study is one of the few experimentally controlled worksite smoking cessation interventions to demonstrate significant program differences 2 years following the initial intervention. Our thanks to Lori Klett and Libby Yeager-Turner for their help in data collection. Work on the project was supported in part by National Institute on Drug Abuse grant DA-04406-01 and a grant from the Chicago Lung Association to the second author.     

University of Alberta norms of relative meaning frequency for 566 homographs

For many models of lexical ambiguity resolution, relative frequency of the different meanings of homographs (words with more than one meaning) is crucial. Although several homograph association norms have been published in the past, none has involved a large number of subjects responding to a large number of homographs, and most homograph norming studies are now at least a decade old. In Experiment l, associations to 566 homographs were collected from an average of 192 subjects per homograph. Frequency of occurrence for the three most common meanings is reported, along with the corresponding associates, and a measure of the overall ambiguity of each homograph. Homographs whose meanings differed in part of speech were more ambiguous overall than homographs whose different meanings belonged to a single grammatical class. Homographs whose pronunciation depended on meaning (heterophones) were no more ambiguous than nonheterophones, and word frequency was unrelated to overall ambiguity. Estimates of homograph balance across different norming studies were compared, and homographs with two meanings of approximately equal relative meaning frequency (balanced homographs) and homographs with one clearly dominant meaning (polarized homographs) were identified. In Experiment 2, reliability of meaning categorizations was measured for a subset of the homographs in the first experiment. Meaning categorizations were shown to be highly reliable across raters.