“Brother Where Art Thou?” African American Male Instructors' Perceptions of the Counselor Education Profession

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of African American male counselor educators regarding the limited number of African American male faculty members in counselor education. Implications and suggestions on how universities can recruit and retain African American male faculty members are provided. El propósito de este estudio fue investigar las percepciones de educadores en consejería afroamericanos con respecto al limitado número de miembros afroamericanos entre el profesorado para la educación de consejeros. Se proporcionan implicaciones y sugerencias sobre cómo las universidades pueden contratar y retener profesores varones afroamericanos.     

Preservation of long-term memory and synaptic plasticity despite short-term impairments in the Tc1 mouse model of Down syndrome

Down syndrome (DS) is a genetic disorder arising from the presence of a third copy of the human chromosome 21 (Hsa21). Recently, O’Doherty and colleagues in an earlier study generated a new genetic mouse model of DS (Tc1) that carries an almost complete Hsa21. Since DS is the most common genetic cause of mental retardation, we have undertaken a detailed analysis of cognitive function and synaptic plasticity in Tc1 mice. Here we show that Tc1 mice have impaired spatial working memory (WM) but spared long-term spatial reference memory (RM) in the Morris watermaze. Similarly, Tc1 mice are selectively impaired in short-term memory (STM) but have intact long-term memory (LTM) in the novel object recognition task. The pattern of impaired STM and normal LTM is paralleled by a corresponding phenotype in long-term potentiation (LTP). Freely-moving Tc1 mice exhibit reduced LTP 1 h after induction but normal maintenance over days in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampal formation. Biochemical analysis revealed a reduction in membrane surface expression of the AMPAR (α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-propionic acid receptor) subunit GluR1 in the hippocampus of Tc1 mice, suggesting a potential mechanism for the impairment in early LTP. Our observations also provide further evidence that STM and LTM for hippocampus-dependent tasks are subserved by parallel processing streams.     

Clarifying the paradigm for the ethics of donation and transplantation: Was 'dead' really so clear before organ donation?

Recent commentaries by Verheijde et al, Evans and Potts suggesting that donation after cardiac death practices routinely violate the dead donor rule are based on flawed presumptions. Cell biology, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, critical care life support technologies, donation and transplantation continue to inform concepts of life and death. The impact of oxygen deprivation to cells, organs and the brain is discussed in relation to death as a biological transition. In the face of advancing organ support and replacement technologies, the reversibility of cardiac arrest is now purely related to the context in which it occurs, in association to the availability and application of support systems to maintain oxygenated circulation. The 'complete and irreversible' lexicon commonly used in death discussions and legal statutes are ambiguous, indefinable and should be replaced by accurate terms. Criticism of controlled DCD on the basis of violating the dead donor rule, where autoresuscitation has not been described beyond 2 minutes, in which life support is withdrawn and CPR is not provided, is not valid. However, any post mortem intervention that re-establishes brain blood flow should be prohibited. In comparison to traditional practice, organ donation has forced the clarification of the diagnostic criteria for death and improved the rigour of the determinations.     

Revisiting the Stanford prison experiment: could participant self-selection have led to the cruelty?

The authors investigated whether students who selectively volunteer for a study of prison life possess dispositions associated with behaving abusively. Students were recruited for a psychological study of prison life using a virtually identical newspaper ad as used in the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE; Haney, Banks & Zimbardo, 1973) or for a psychological study, an identical ad minus the words of prison life. Volunteers for the prison study scored significantly higher on measures of the abuse-related dispositions of aggressiveness, authoritarianism, Machiavellianism, narcissism, and social dominance and lower on empathy and altruism, two qualities inversely related to aggressive abuse. Although implications for the SPE remain a matter of conjecture, an interpretation in terms of person-situation interactionism rather than a strict situationist account is indicated by these findings. Implications for interpreting the abusiveness of American military guards at Abu Ghraib Prison also are discussed.     

Tolerant (In)civility? A Longitudinal Analysis of White Conservative Protestants’ Willingness to Grant Civil Liberties

Past research has found conservative Protestants to be less willing than most Americans to grant civil liberties to unpopular groups. In light of evidence of high and growing civility by Smith (2000) and Hunter (1984), there is good reason to believe that conservative Protestants are becoming less distinctive with regard to granting civil freedoms. We update and expand previous research on conservative Protestants and civil liberties by examining the civil liberties measures in the General Social Survey over a 26-year period, with special attention to explaining conservative Protestantism's rejection of civil liberties. In comparison to mainline Protestants and Catholics, we find that conservative Protestants are still less willing to grant civil liberties to unpopular groups, though important qualifications apply. Various explanations are examined.     

Protection and loss: working with learning-disabled adults and their families

This paper describes a method of working with learning-disabled adults and their families when they encounter entrenched difficulties. Two significant themes are identified: the patterning of life-cycle transitions and the recurrence of grief. Therapy consists of joining the family members to evolve and develop hypotheses about what is preventing them moving to the next family life-cycle stage.     

A balance theory explanation of challenges confronting cross-sex friendships

This study was part of an ongoing investigation into four of the potential challenges confronting women and men in cross-sex fiendships (O’Meara, 1989). Unlike previous research, which explored the perspective of only one member of each cross-sex fnendship, this study examined the perspectives of both individuals in cross-sex fienhhips. The levels of actual and perceived agreement and understanding were investigated through utilization of a variation of Heiderian Balance Theory and Laing’s Interpersonal Perception Method. Seventy three pairs of cross-sex fiends completed a survey examining direct perspectives, metaperspectives, and meta-metaperspectives, on the four challenges. Over 92% of the participants were heterosexual, 68% were Caucasian, 10% were Afican American, 10% were Hispanic, 3% were Asian, 4% were Native American, and 5% indicated “other.” Results indicate that cross-sex fiends generally agree that O’Meara’s four challenges present only minimal problems in their individual relationships, and that balance theory provides a viable explanation of how perceived agreement and understanding concerning challenges are arrived at within cross-sex fnendships. Additionally, results illustrating disagreements and misunderstandings within cross-sex friendships highlight the importance of looking at the perspectives of both individuals within a dyad.     

Tolerance of pain as a measure of fear

Fear thresholds were measured in four experiments by exposing rats to electric shock in order to determine the maximal intensity rats would tolerate rather than enter a fear-arousing box and/or stop freezing. Increasing fear raised these thresholds. They were greater for rats having to escape shock to a fear-arousing box than for rats having to escape shock and fear to a neutral box. The forgetting functions for the latter two groups differed: the first group yielded a monotonic decay function, whereas the second group yielded an inverted U-shaped function. These thresholds decreased as a function of an avoidance learning procedure. Rats that had to escape shock to a fear arousing box did not do so immediately, although they had stopped freezing. An avoidance-avoidance conflict explanation for immobility was not found to be valid. A theoretical formulation based on the following two hypotheses was suggested to explain these results: the fear-aroused freezing (immobility) is an unlearned response; finding a way to escape the source of fear starts another unlearned response, withdrawal.