Predictors of Multiple Suicide Attempts among Suicidal Black Adolescents

Psychopathology, social support, and interpersonal orientation were studied in relation to suicide attempt status in acutely suicidal, psychiatrically hospitalized Black adolescents and a matched sample of White adolescents. In the total sample, multiple attempters were differentiated by lower perceived support. Within the Black youth subsample, social comparison and positive stimulation from others differentiated multiple attempters from single attempters/ideators. Only suicidal ideation predicted multiple attempts among White youth and only higher interpersonal orientation predicted multiple suicide attempts within Black adolescents.     

Visual enhancement of touch and the bodily self

We experience our own body through both touch and vision. We further see that others’ bodies are similar to our own body, but we have no direct experience of touch on others’ bodies. Therefore, relations between vision and touch are important for the sense of self and for mental representation of one’s own body. For example, seeing the hand improves tactile acuity on the hand, compared to seeing a non-hand object. While several studies have demonstrated this visual enhancement of touch (VET) effect, its relation to the ‘bodily self’, or mental representation of one’s own body remains unclear. We examined whether VET is an effect of seeing a hand, or of seeing my hand, using the rubber hand illusion. In this illusion, a prosthetic hand which is brushed synchronously—but not asynchronously—with one’s own hand is felt to actually be one’s hand. Thus, we manipulated whether or not participants felt like they were looking directly at their hand, while holding the actual stimulus they viewed constant. Tactile acuity was measured by having participants judge the orientation of square-wave gratings. Two characteristic effects of VET were observed: (1) cross-modal enhancement from seeing the hand was inversely related to overall tactile acuity, and (2) participants near sensory threshold showed significant improvement following synchronous stroking, compared to asynchronous stroking or no stroking at all. These results demonstrate a clear functional relation between the bodily self and basic tactile perception.     

Quantifiers and propositional attitudes: Quine revisited

Quine introduced a famous distinction between the ‘notional’ sense and the ‘relational’ sense of certain attitude verbs. The distinction is both intuitive and sound but is often conflated with another distinction Quine draws between ‘dyadic’ and ‘triadic’ (or higher degree) attitudes. I argue that this conflation is largely responsible for the mistaken view that Quine’s account of attitudes is undermined by the problem of the ‘exportation’ of singular terms within attitude contexts. Quine’s system is also supposed to suffer from the problem of ‘suspended judgement with continued belief’. I argue that this criticism fails to take account of a crucial presupposition of Quine’s about the connection between thought and language. The aim of the paper is to defend the spirit of Quine’s account of attitudes by offering solutions to these two problems. See also chapters four and five of Word and Object (Quine, 1960) and ‘Intensions Revisited’ (Quine, 1977).     

Ethical Dilemmas in Multicultural Counseling

In a random survey of counselors working with socioracial minority clients (N = 256), multicultural ethical dilemmas were rated according to frequency encountered and significance. Comparisons of counselors' ratings of multicultural ethical dilemmas determined specific dilemmas relevant to counselors in various professional settings. En una encuesta hecha al azar de consejeros/as que trabajan con clientes de minorías socioraciales (N = 256), se clasificaron dilemas éticos multiculturales de acuderdo con su frecuencia y significancia. Las comparaciones de las clasificaciones de los dilemas éticos multiculturales subrayaron aquellos dilemas específicamente importantes para consejeros/as en varios escenarios profesionales.     

Perfectionistic Concerns,Social Negativity,and Subjective Well‐Being: A Test of the Social Disconnection Model

Partner‐specific perfectionistic concerns (PC) include concern over mistakes, self‐criticism, and socially prescribed perfectionism as it pertains to one's partner. The social disconnection model proposes that PC influences well‐being indirectly through interpersonal problems. Thus, we hypothesized that social negativity (expressed anger, hostility, and rejection) would mediate the relationship between dyadic PC and subjective well‐being. Data from 203 romantic dyads (92.1% heterosexual) were collected using self‐report surveys and a four‐wave, 4‐week longitudinal design. Participants were predominantly female (53.1%), young (M = 22.69 years), and Caucasian (82.3%). Data were analyzed using an actor‐partner interdependence model with multilevel structural equation modeling. There were significant actor effects at the between‐subjects and within‐subjects levels, and significant partner effects for the relationship between PC and social negativity at the within‐subject level. Social negativity mediated the relationships between PC and both negative affect and life satisfaction. However, positive affect was more weakly related to PC and social negativity. The social disconnection model was supported. PC was positively associated with one's own social negativity and evoked hostile behaviors from one's partner. Hostile, rejecting behaviors reduced the well‐being of the actor, but not the partner. Results suggest perfectionism may be best understood within an interpersonal context.     

Are Gender Differences in Basic Human Values a Generational Phenomenon?

The Schwartz Value Survey (SVS) was administered to 979 Canadian knowledge workers to determine whether differences in value priorities between men and women differed significantly between members of the Baby Boomer generation and members of Generation X. Multivariate analysis of covariance controlling for education, income, and scale use revealed a significant gender-by-generation interaction, which signifies that the patterns of differences between men's and women's value priorities were different for Baby Boomers and Generation Xers. Four of the 10 SVS value types (i.e., power, tradition, universalism, and achievement) were associated with both gender and generation. A number of other value types were associated solely with generation. The findings suggest that both gender and generation are important variables in the study of values and should not be considered in isolation of each other.     

Multicultural Counseling Competencies: Lessons From Assessment

This article addresses multicultural counseling competencies from the perspective of quantitative assessment. A conceptual review of the current measures identifies 4 relevant issues: (a) diverse factor structures, (b) the working definition of multicultural awareness, (c) test takers' frame of reference, and (d) the implications of an inclusive definition of culture for assessment. Este artículo se dirige aconsejar las capacidades multiculturales de la perspectiva de la evaluación cuantitativa. La revisión conceptual de las medidas actuales identifica 4 asuntos pertinentes: (a) factor de estruturas diversas, (b) preparaciones de la definición del conocimiento multiculturales, (c) tomadores de examenes marco de referencia, y (d) las implicaciones de una definición inclusiva de la cultura para la evaluación.     

Flashed face distortion effect: grotesque faces from relative spaces

We describe a novel face distortion effect resulting from the fast-paced presentation of eye-aligned faces. When cycling through the faces on a computer screen, each face seems to become a caricature of itself and some faces appear highly deformed, even grotesque. The degree of distortion is greatest for faces that deviate from the others in the set on a particular dimension (eg if a person has a large forehead, it looks particularly large). This new method of image presentation, based on alignment and speed, could provide a useful tool for investigating contrastive distortion effects and face adaptation.