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.     

The Personal/Group Discrimination Discrepancy: Women Talk About Their Experiences1

Participants in research on discrimination consistently rate discrimination directed at their group higher than at themselves personally as a member of that group. In order to examine this personal/group discrimination discrepancy, women were asked to spontaneously verbalize their thoughts as they made ratings for personal and group discrimination on 11-point scales. In Study 1, university women who raised a greater number of life domains for group discrimination than for personal discrimination showed a larger personal/group discrimination discrepancy because of lower ratings for personal discrimination. An analysis of participants' protocols revealed that many attended to different domains when rating personal and group discrimination, and that these participants showed a larger personal/group discrimination discrepancy because of lower ratings for personal discrimination. Participants' ratings for group discrimination did not differ as a function of the number or content of the domains. The findings were replicated in Study 2 with working women, and are identified as two contributing factors to the personal/group discrimination discrepancy. The societal implications of the results are discussed in terms of the tendency for disadvantaged group members to downplay their personal experience with discrimination because it does not fit the stereotype of what is being experienced by the group.     

The Reluctance to Expose Dangerous Lies1

Three studies examined a hypothesized inhibition against exposing a lie. In Experiment 1, 21 men and 27 women were placed in conditions in which their nonexposure of another's lie resulted either in the risk of an experimenter's data being contaminated (impersonal consequence), or in the risk of the subject contracting pinkeye (personal consequence). Each person was given the opportunity to expose the lie, first in a group setting, and later in a private setting. Eighty-three percent of the subjects in the impersonal condition and 77% of the subjects in the personal condition failed to expose the lie. Experiment 2 explored the phenomenon further by assessing whether subjects not in the presence of individuals other than the liar would be more likely to confront the lie. As in Experiment 1, it was found that most subjects did not reveal the lie, regardless of consequence condition of setting. In Experiment 3, it was anticipated that objective self-awareness would interact with consequence information to produce more exposing behavior in the personal-consequence condition, but not in the impersonal condition. Results generally confirmed the hypothesis; a significant interaction of Consequence x Self-Awareness Condition was found.     

Perspectives on supervision in cognitive therapy

Supervision is often a neglected clinical area. Frequently, supervisors view supervision as an epiphenomenon of clinical work rather than a central feature. This article emphasizes the importance of supervision in cognitive therapy. Teaching novice professionals to skillfully apply cognitive conceptualizations and interventions is a challenging and difficult task. It is argued that fostering a learning alliance in supervision forms the basis for acquisition of pivotal cognitive therapy competencies. Various impediments to productive learning alliances are discussed and ways to obviate these obstacles are suggested. Further, issues related to technical interventions, relationship processes, and case conceptualizations are discussed. Finally, ways to augment trainees' skills in these fundamental areas are delineated. He is also Co-director of the Pre-Doctoral Psychology Residency Training Program.     

Preference organization in anxiety/phobia counselling: Preserving social solidarity

In this study attention is focused on how participants construct their talk in ways which maintain social solidarity: thereby maximizing the likelihood of affiliative actions and minimizing the likelihood of disaffiliative actions in the context of anxiety/phobia counselling. The first part of the study considers previous work and concludes that although such analysis is important, relatively few studies have directed attention to the actual structure of counselling interactions. The study concludes by suggesting that analyses which begin with detailed attention to the intricacies of data and then broaden out to focus on wider issues can be both analytically and practically impressive.     

Marital Status and Outcome in Patients with Coronary Heart Disease

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of marital status to health outcomes in 818 post-MI, coronary artery bypass surgery, and angioplasty patients (651 males, 157 females) from seven Northern California hospitals who completed 12 months of a nurse-managed, home-based multifactorial risk reduction program. Compared to married patients, nonmarried patients were significantly less likely to complete the program than married patients, more likely to smoke at baseline, and drank significantly less alcohol at baseline. At 12 months there were no significant differences between married and nonmarried groups on smoking cessation rates, HDL, LDL, triglycerides, or exercise treadmill test results. When patients were categorized as married, divorced, separated, widowed, or single, similar results were found for the analyses using two groups (married versus nonmarried), with the following exceptions. Separated patients were significantly less likely to quit smoking. In addition, separated patients showed significantly higher rates of starting (and continuing) to smoke during the time following their MI. Mortality was not significantly different between married and unmarried patients. Implications for intervention with separated patients and the importance of assessing both marital status and marital quality are discussed.     

Communication Differences Between Physicians and Their Patients in an Oncology Setting

The physician-patient relationship has critical importance in the quality of medical care, especially in the oncology setting. Of particular interest over the past two decades has been the communication between physicians and their patients. It is understood that communication is related to patient and physician satisfaction as well as other medical outcomes. However, despite this interest and attention, investigators have only recently begun to assess the communication between physicians and patients from the patient's point of view. Additionally, previous investigations have primarily relied upon retrospective reports of the interaction from patients or physicians. The current investigation assessed physician–patient communication in an oncology setting, both as it was occurring and following the interaction. The units of analysis included participant ratings as well as those of trained observers. Findings revealed that physicians and patients disagree as to the valence of the messages which transpired. Additionally, results suggest that it is the patients who distort the messages in the positive direction. Research and clinical implications of this disagreement and positivity bias are discussed.