Decreasing household television time: a pilot study of a combined behavioral and environmental intervention

Excessive TV viewing is associated with weight gain across the lifespan; thus developing strategies to decrease household viewing time may be an effective obesity prevention approach. This pilot study (n = 6 families) examined the feasibility and short‐term impact of a 2‐pronged environmental plus behavioral approach designed to reduce TV time in the entire family. The environmental manipulation involved placing TV Allowances (programmed to turn off power after family members had watched 75% of their baseline hours) on all TVs in the home. A kit with behavioral strategies for reducing TV time was also sent to the home each week and family members self‐monitored viewing time. Viewing was objectively assessed with the TV Allowances at baseline and at 8 weeks. A significant decrease in objectively measured TV viewing hours was observed, t(5) = 3.1, p = 0.03, 29.8 ± 10.3 versus 14.9 ± 6.0 h (equivalent of decreasing from 7.5 to 3.7 h per day). Fifty percent of families reduced their viewing time by ≥50%. The acceptability of the intervention was high, with 100% of families reporting they would recommend the TV Allowances to others. Further research is needed to test the long‐term efficacy of the program and its impact on weight. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Old Testament Turning Points: The Narratives That Shaped a Nation – Victor H. Matthews

Book reviewed:
Old Testament Turning Points: The Narratives That Shaped a Nation , Victor H. Matthews, Baker Academic 2005 (0-8010-2774-8), 208 pp., pb $18.99     

Essential theory, processes, and procedures for successful group psychotherapy: Group cohesion as exemplar

With few exceptions or at the very least cautions (cf. Burlingame, MacKenzie & Strauss, 2003) group psychotherapy has proven to be an effective and efficient treatment for a number of psychological disorders (Burlingame, Kapetanovic, & Ross, 2005). This article will briefly describe a theory that underlies successful group therapies. In addition, certain group processes—those elements that occur during the group itself that appear to be necessary conditions for improved patient outcomes—will also be addressed, although unfortunately, the sufficient conditions tying moment-to-moment process to actual outcome (improved patient functioning by the end of therapy, and at 6-month follow-up, for instance) are not quite as easily delineated. A closer study of the group therapeutic factor cohesion will be utilized as an example of these practice and research dilemmas. Finally, suggestions for future directions, which might more clearly uncover important connections between process and outcome, are addressed.     

Do secondary school students make use of effective study strategies when they study on their own?

Although there is a large body of evidence for the utility of particular study strategies such as retrieval practice and distributed practice as memory‐enhancing instruments, they are seldom used by learners in educational practice. Thus far, the research on the use of these study strategies has focused only on undergraduate university students, oftentimes only investigating a set of predefined strategies. The question, thus, remains whether these results are generalisable to secondary school students. The present study is the first to explore the use of different study strategies by secondary school students. With the use of an open question, 316 secondary school students from three different secondary school levels were asked how they prepare for an exam when they are studying by themselves. The results show that secondary school students use study strategies considered to be suboptimal. In the discussion, we compare our findings with results of previous studies among undergraduate university students.     

Evolution of the wealth gap in child development and mediating pathways: Evidence from a longitudinal study in Bogota,Colombia

Large gaps in cognition and language on the Bayley‐III between the top and bottom household wealth quartiles in 1,330 children aged 6–42 months in a representative sample of low‐ and middle‐income families in Bogota were previously shown. Maternal education and the home environment mediated these wealth effects, whereas height‐for‐age mediated a small amount of the language deficit only. At ages 6–8 years, we relocated 72% of the children and assessed their IQ on the WISC‐V, school achievement, and behavior to investigate the evolution of the wealth gaps and potential mediators. The wealth gap in IQ at 6–8 years was significantly larger than that in a factor combining Bayley‐III language and cognition at 6–42 months; whereas the gap in achievement was larger but not significantly. Moreover, in cross‐sectional analysis, the IQ gap increased from 6 to 8 years reaching over 1 SD. In contrast, the gap in behavior was not significant in either childhood stage. Parental education and early home environment remained major mediators of the wealth gap in IQ and achievement at 6–8 years; later home environment and attending private education also had an effect; and early height‐for‐age was no longer significant. The home environment partly mediated the effect of parental education on wealth. All mediators combined explained most of the variance in the wealth gap; the remaining gaps being not significant. Results highlight the importance of the early home environment and suggest that interventions focusing on that should have long‐term benefits. Also, continued intervention through to 8 years may be desirable. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://youtu.be/_U53iXNww3I .     

Henk ten Have: Global bioethics: an introduction

Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics -     

Utilizing Staff Incentives to Increase School-Wide Praise

The authors evaluated whether an incentive raffle increased teachers' use of written praise and appropriate student behavior. Participants included 93 staff members and 755 students at an elementary school in Central Illinois. School staff received didactic instruction for the importance of using praise, and praise notes were measured on a weekly basis by praise type, staff member type, and student type. Results indicated that the faculty incentive produced medium effects for praise for students, but did not impact the number of office discipline referrals. Staff members reported praise notes to be an acceptable school-wide system for managing student behavior, but had mixed feelings regarding faculty receiving incentives for writing praise notes. Implications as well as future research are discussed.     

Perceived emotion suppression and culture: Effects on psychological well‐being

Whether the negative effects of emotion suppression on psychological well‐being are applicable cross‐culturally is a long‐debated topic. The present study attempted to shed light on this debate, focusing on the effects of perceived emotion suppression and examining the psychological processes leading from perceived emotion suppression to lower psychological well‐being. We used a scale manipulation to lead 196 American and 213 Chinese participants to perceive themselves as having suppressed their emotions to a greater or lesser extent and then measured their life satisfaction. As expected, both the American and Chinese participants reported lower life satisfaction in the high‐suppression condition than in the low‐suppression condition; this negative effect was mediated by positive affect and moderated by self‐esteem. Specifically, perceived high emotion suppression decreased positive affect, which in turn led to lower well‐being. This effect was observed only for those with low self‐esteem, but the patterns and mechanisms were consistent cross‐culturally.     

Further examination of video‐based preference assessments without contingent access

The first purpose of this study was to attempt to replicate previous findings that video‐based preference assessments without access to selected stimuli may accurately predict relative reinforcing efficacy of stimuli. To do this, we conducted a concurrent operant reinforcer assessment in which we evaluated the relative reinforcing value of highly preferred and less preferred items identified in a video‐based preference assessment. The second purpose of this study was to begin to evaluate the potential behavioral mechanisms responsible for the validity of this assessment. To conduct this analysis, we evaluated the relative reinforcing value of those same stimuli depicted in video format and then compared results to results obtained during the reinforcer assessment for tangible stimuli. For all five participants, stimuli identified as highly preferred functioned as reinforcers, and four of five participants, responding during the reinforcer assessment was similar in the presence of tangible stimuli and videos depicting those stimuli.