Telephone-based guided self-help for adolescents with chronic fatigue syndrome: A non-randomised cohort study

The aim of this study was to gain preliminary evidence about the efficacy of a new telephone-based guided self-help intervention, based on cognitive-behavioural principles, which aimed to reduce fatigue and improve school attendance in adolescents with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). A non-randomised cohort design was used, with a two-month baseline period. Sixty-three 11–18 year-old participants recruited from a specialist CFS unit received the intervention. Participants received six half-hour fortnightly telephone sessions and two follow-up sessions. Fatigue and school attendance were the main outcomes and the main time point for assessing outcome was 6 months post-treatment. Using multi-level modelling, a significant decrease in fatigue was found between pre-treatment and 6 month follow-up, treatment effect estimate = – 5.68 (?7.63, ?3.72), a large effect size (Cohen's d = 0.79). The decrease in fatigue between pre and post-treatment was significantly larger than between baseline and pre-treatment. A significant increase in school attendance was found between pre-treatment and 6 month follow-up, effect estimate = 1.38 (0.76, 2.00), a medium effect size (d = ?0.48). Univariate logistic regression found baseline perfectionism to be associated with poorer school attendance at six-month follow-up. In conclusion, telephone-based guided self-help is an acceptable minimal intervention which is efficacious in reducing fatigue in adolescents with CFS.     

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wind? Origins of Severe Weather Phobia

Natural Environment phobia include fears cued by events such as severe weather. Given the limited research in this area, the present study sought to assess the prevalence and learning history origins of these fears, as well as their relation to anxiety sensitivity (AS). Study One participants included 533 (66%F) undergraduates who completed the Weather Experiences Questionnaire. Overall, 42?% reported exposure to a severe weather event (e.g., hurricanes); 16?% reported high- and 44?% low-fear about weather. Thirty-three from each group participated in Study Two, wherein one high-fear participant approximated the diagnostic criteria for severe weather phobia. High-fear participants cited direct conditioning (43?%) followed by vicarious conditioning (39?%) as the most common learning pathways. The remaining18% could not recall the source of their fear and none identified operant conditioning. One-third cited mothers (versus 8?% fathers) as sharing similar fears. Most had not witnessed parents hurt, frightened, or distressed by severe weather but claimed parents had warned them about severe weather. High- (vs. low-) fear participants revealed more AS-somatic versus AS-cognitive or AS-social concerns. The importance of such research in light of the increasing frequency of severe weather events is discussed.     

Young Adults with MSUD and Their Transition to Adulthood: Psychosocial Issues

Maple Syrup Urine Disease (MSUD) is an autosomal recessive condition with an incidence of 1 in 185,000 births worldwide. Regardless of the type of MSUD, treatment includes immediate and lifelong dietary restriction of isoleucine, leucine and valine. There is little known about the psychosocial impact of MSUD on the developmental milestones of emerging adulthood. We used a qualitative case study approach to explore the human experiences of MSUD on young adults (n?=?8) and parents (n?=?8). All participants were administered a semi-structured, qualitative interview as well as quantitative measures. Six core themes emerged: 1) lifelong strain of dietary management; 2) social isolation from peers and impact on dating; 3) impact of MSUD on academics and employment; 4) medical experiences and transition to adult care; 5) impact on family functioning; and 6) positive effects and growth. The results of this investigation highlight and expand awareness of the psychological and social needs of young adults with MSUD. This study calls for a collaborative, multidisciplinary effort in the treatment of these patients and their families.     

Police officers ability to detect deception in high stakes situations and in repeated lie detection tests

Thirty‐seven police officers, not identified in previous research as belonging to groups that are superior in lie detection, attempted to detect truths and lies told by suspects during their videotaped police interviews. In order to measure consistency in their ability, the officers each participated in four different tests, each of which was on a different day. They were asked to indicate their confidence in being able to distinguish between truths and lies prior to the first test and after completing all four tests. We predicted that accuracy rates would be higher than those typically found in research with police officers; that good or poor performances on an individual test would be partly caused by luck, and, consequently, participants' accuracy scores were likely to progress towards the mean if their performance on all four tests was to be combined; and that officers would underestimate their own performance. These hypotheses were supported. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Detecting lies in young children,adolescents and adults

The ability of teachers, social workers, police officers and laypersons (undergraduate and postgraduate students) to detect truths and lies told by 5–6 year‐olds, adolescents and adults was tested in the present experiment. Lie detectors judged the veracity of statements from 18 liars and 18 truth tellers belonging to these three age groups. Accuracy scores were around 60% for each of these three age groups, both for detecting truths and for detecting lies. No occupational differences emerged. Moreover, judgements made by teachers, social workers and police officers showed an overlap, suggesting that an erroneous decision made by a member of one group may not easily be detected by a member of the other groups. The lie detectors were inclined to judge cues of nervousness, cognitive demand and attempted behavioural control as cues to deceit, even when truth tellers were displaying these cues. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Forensic standards in the American Psychological Association's new ethics code

The 1992 revision of the American Psychological Association's ethics code includes, for the first time, a section devoted to forensic issues. This article examines the adequacy with which the Forensic Activities section addresses fundamental ethical issues inherent in forensic practices (i.e., being competent in forensic practice, dealing with requests for service, providing informed consent, providing services, and reporting findings). We conclude that the ethics code modestly addresses important forensic ethical issues and that it too often is characterized by inconsistencies, insufficient information, omissions, and the inappropriate application of the term forensic to general standards not uniquely related to forensic practice.     

Prospective factors contribute little to within-session changes in responding

Five rats pressed levers for food delivered by a multiple variable interval 1-min variable interval 1-min schedule. In theunpredictable conditions, sessions were 20, 40, 60, 80, or 100 min long, determined randomly at the beginning of each session. In thepredictable conditions, each of these session durations was presented for 15 consecutive sessions. Rate of responding changed systematically within the session even when the end of the session was unpredictable. This implies that prospective factors related to anticipation of the end of the session are not necessary for producing withinsession changes in responding. Within-session patterns of responding were also similar for the predictable and unpredictable conditions. This suggests that prospective factors contributed little to the form of the within-session patterns under the present conditions.     

Lethal Stereotypes: Hair and Eye Color as Survival Characteristics During the Holocaust1

In spite of many false negatives and false positives quite familiar to the people of Nazi‐dominated Europe, dark hair and eyes were salient among the physical stereotypes of Jews that the Nazis promulgated along with psychosocial ones. Many narratives of the Holocaust refer to someone surviving because he or she “did not look Jewish,” and others being caught and killed because they did. A quantitative test of the validity and impact of this attribution showed that a higher proportion of Holocaust survivors than of a North American Jewish control group had light‐colored hair, eyes, or both during the relevant period. The paper discusses possible reasons why these were survival characteristics under the conditions of the Holocaust, the possible short‐ and long‐term effects of such selectivity, and implications for stereotyping in other situations of ethnic persecution and genocide.     

National Threat and Political Culture: Authoritarianism, Antiauthoritarianism, and the September 11 Attacks

This paper uses published letters to the editor of major U.S. newspapers to investigate the cultural effects of a major national threat: the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It is based on a hand-coded, stratified random sample of 1,100 letters to the editor published in 17 major papers in the United States (544 pre-September 11, 556 post-September 11). The letters are drawn from a population of 8,101 published letters. Degrees of both authoritarianism and antiauthoritarianism, as well as the general salience of questions of authoritarianism, rose significantly in the post-attack period. The paper suggests that, instead of a simple threat-authoritarianism causal link, authoritarianism and antiauthoritarianism are paired elements of political culture that are invoked together in the face of a national threat.