Group cognitive-behavioral therapy for anxiety in a clinic setting: does child involvement predict outcome?

The current study examined the relationship between child involvement and treatment outcome in a group cognitive–behavioral treatment (GCBT) program for children with anxiety, using an adapted version of the Child Involvement Rating Scale (CIRS). Thirty-four children with a primary diagnosis of an anxiety disorder, referred for outpatient treatment at a hospital, and their parents participated in a manualized 12-session GCBT program. The Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children (MASC), administered at pretreatment, posttreatment, and at 4-month follow-up, served as the outcome measure. The psychometric properties of the adapted CIRS were good. Early involvement (EI) was calculated as the average score from Sessions 1 to 6 and late involvement (LI), the average score from Sessions 7 to 12. EI predicted lower MASC scores at posttreatment, after controlling for pretreatment MASC scores and for LI, B = – 1.05, t(3) = – 2.34, p < .05. EI did not predict outcomes at follow-up. Results were replicated using the original CIRS measure. Exploratory analyses suggested that the relationship between LI and treatment outcomes was moderated by medication. Involvement in therapy prior to exposures might be an important predictor of posttreatment outcomes in GCBT in a community setting.     

Well-being during the coronavirus pandemic: The effect of big five personality and COVID-19 beliefs and behaviors

This study examined the relationship between personality traits, COVID-specific beliefs and behaviors, and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. In July 2020, at the onset of a second major lockdown, Australian adults (n = 1453) completed measures of Big Five personality, COVID beliefs and behaviors (i.e., belief in a rapid recovery, perceived risk, compliance, change in exercise, and change in interpersonal conflict), subjective well-being and COVID-specific well-being. Personality correlates of COVID-specific well-being differed from those with general life satisfaction. The benefits of conscientiousness were elevated whereas the benefits of extraversion and agreeableness were reduced. Neuroticism was related to greater perceived risk from the pandemic, elevated interpersonal conflict during the pandemic, and more pessimistic views about the rate at which society would recover from the pandemic. In contrast, conscientiousness was notably related to greater compliance with directions from public health authorities. While regression models showed that general well-being was largely explained by personality, COVID factors provided incremental prediction, and this was greatest when predicting COVID-specific well-being and lowest for global evaluations of life satisfaction. The observed prediction by beliefs and behaviors on well-being beyond personality, provides potential opportunities for targeted interventions to support the management of future novel stressors.     

Introduction: Egoism,Altruism and Impartiality

The distinction between egoistic and altruistic motivation is firmly embedded in contemporary moral discourse, but harks back too to early modern attempts to found morality on an egoistic basis. Rejecting that latter premise means accepting that others’ interests have intrinsic value, but it remains far from clear what altruism demands of us and what its relationship is with the rest of morality. While informing our duties, altruism seems also to urge us to transcend them and embrace the other-regarding values and virtues constitutive of a good life. This rather wide conception of morality may strike us today as too demanding. At the same time, however, currently popular impartialist accounts of morality can disrupt much everyday altruism in their insistence that each person’s interests are weighed precisely equally. Having sketched this problematic of altruism, the second half of this Introduction outlines the arguments of the four papers and review essay in this collection, each of which, in a different way, negotiates the difficult relationships between egoism, altruism, morality and impartiality. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

What Experiences Do Expository Books on Recommended Book Lists Offer to K–2 Students?

Teachers can use expository texts to teach academic vocabulary, content knowledge, text structure, and text features. National associations' recommended book lists are often used to identify books for classrooms. Previously we identified expository texts on these lists from 2001–2002 and 2011–2012. The current study explored instructional possibilities these expository books afford. More recent books have more content, academic vocabulary, and supplementary information. However, many earlier and recent books lack text features such as page numbers, tables of contents, glossaries, and indexes. Teachers will need to supplement these books with other texts to provide experiences enabling proficiency with exposition.     

Black Males Living in an Antithetical Police Culture: Keys for Their Survival

Police killings of unarmed Black males is an all too often occurrence. Just how many have succumbed in this manner is unknown due to a lack of a comprehensive reporting method. However, an undeniable fact and reality is that the Black community, and society as a whole, suffers as a result of the loss of these individuals. The authors of this article suggest that police shootings of unarmed Black males may never cease. The authors propose simple but thoughtful ways in which Black males should be educated by the Black community (family, church, and other institutions) regarding general survival skills and more specifically survival skills in regards to police encounters. Implications for further research are also presented.     

The Validity of a Brief Risk Assessment Tool for Predicting Suicidal Behavior in Veterans Utilizing VHA Mental Health Care

Suicide risk among military veterans is an important and ongoing concern. The Veterans Administration (VA) mandates suicide risk screening of all veterans seen for mental health issues, but little is known about the effectiveness of this screening. A retrospective chart review to examine all suicide risk screens at VA San Diego between October and December 2012 (n = 3,365) was conducted to assess whether results were associated with suicidal behavior over the subsequent 12 months. Patients judged to be at increased risk for suicide were 3 to 16 times more likely to attempt suicide and 7 to 25 times more likely to engage in self‐directed violence over the next 12 months compared with others. The screening tool may be a useful addition to clinical practice.     

Guided Affective and Cognitive Imagery to Enhance Self-esteem Among Hawaiian Children

This article discusses the use of guided affective and cognitive imagery to enhance self-esteem among children of Hawaiian ancestry. Children who participated in the intervention strategy, which consisted of 10 group sessions, had significantly higher scores on some areas of self-esteem.     

Developmental differences in schema dependency for temporally ordered story events

This research project was undertaken to investigate whether temporally ordered story events would be recalled in logical sequence as opposed to presentation order by various ages and under various task conditions. A 24-hour delayed condition was used as well as immediate recall. Six-year-olds, 8-year-olds, and adults were asked to recall four narratives. Instructions given were either vague or specifically required subjects to recall events exactly as they had been presented. Following the delayed recall, a picture-sequencing task was adminstered to assess whether picture cues would enable subjects to demonstrate awareness of input order even though they had reordered events in recall. All subjects reordered more during the delayed recall than during the immediate recall. Age differences (p<0003) occurred in the ability of subjects to demonstrate verbatim memory on the picture-sequencing task. Findings suggest that in contrast to adults, once children have reordered narrative events in memory, they no longer have an alternative verbatim version available. Results also suggest a greater schema dependency in children than in adults in recall tasks.