Camouflage-Collar Crime: An Examination of Wildlife Crime and Characteristics of Offenders in Florida

Fish and wildlife crime is an understudied area of criminology and criminal justice and when it is the focus of research, studies tend to be characterized by small samples and a lack of multivariate analyses. This study examines the nature and extent of cited fish and wildlife offenses and characteristics of offenders through quantitative analysis of 15,657 incidents of cited fish and wildlife offenses in Florida. The results indicate that a viable typology of wildlife crime is emergent and that there are important racial and ethnic differences across types of wildlife offenses.     

Reasoning in depression: Impairment on a concept discrimination learning task

Abstract

This study compared depressed and nondepressed undergraduates identified by the Beck Depression Inventory on concept discrimination learning problems. In two experiments, both groups generally performed at ceiling when solving simpler 1- and 2-dimensional problems, but the depressed subjects showed significant impairment on 4-dimensional problems. The first experiment investigated the role of storage in task performance. The second experiment was designed to focus attention at critical stages, and also manipulated storage demands. The depressed subjects in each experiment solved fewer problems correctly and made significantly more errors when listing hypotheses; there was little evidence that the experimental manipulations differentially facilitated their performance. The findings are considered in relation to current models of cognitive function in depression.     

Analogy Counterarguments: A Taxonomy for Critical Thinking

The presentation of analogical arguments in the critical thinking literature fails to reflect cognitive research on analogy. Part of the problem is that these treatments of analogy do not address counterarguments, an important aspect of the analysis of analogical argumentation. In this paper, I present a taxonomy of four counterarguments, false analogy, misanalogy, disanalogy, and counteranalogy, analyzed along two dimensions, orientation and effect. The counterarguments are treated in the framework of the multiconstraint theory of analogy (Holyoak and Thagard, 1995). This framework is also extended to account for the evidence brought to light by the consideration of counterarguments. The result is a psychologically motivated treatment of analogical arguments that will be useful both for critical and pedagogical purposes.     

Comorbidity and Risk Behaviors Among Drug Users Not in Treatment

In a sample of 700 drug users, 64% evidenced comorbidity (i.e., coexisting substance use and psychiatric disorders). Robust relationships between the presence of comorbidity and increased levels of risk behavior, such as needle sharing and trading sex for money, were revealed.     

Attachment and Family Processes in Children's Psychological Adjustment in Middle Childhood

This study examined the links between parent–child attachment, whole family interaction patterns, and child emotional adjustment and adaptability in a sample of 86 community families with children between the ages of 8 and 11 years. Family interactions were observed and coded with the System for Coding Interactions and Family Functioning (SCIFF; Lindahl, 2001). Both parents and each target child completed the appropriate form of the Behavior Assessment System for Children‐2nd Edition (BASC‐2; Reynolds & Kamphaus, 2004). Target children also completed the Children's Coping Strategies Questionnaire (CCSQ; Yunger, Corby, & Perry, 2005). Hierarchical multiple regressions indicated that Secure mother–child attachment was a robust predictor of children's emotional symptoms, but father–child attachment strategies were not significant independent predictors. Positive Affect in family interactions significantly increased the amount of variance accounted for in children's emotional symptoms. In addition, Family Cohesion and Positive Affect moderated the relationship between father–child attachment and children's emotional symptoms. When data from all BASC‐2 informants (mother, father, child) were considered simultaneously and multidimensional constructs were modeled, mother–child security directly predicted children's adjustment and adaptive skills, but the influence of father–child security was fully mediated through positive family functioning. Results of the current study support the utility of considering dyadic attachment and family interaction patterns conjointly when conceptualizing and fostering positive emotional and behavioral outcomes in children.     

Hash browns for breakfast,baked potatoes for dinner: Changes in food attitudes as a function of motivation and context

Two studies investigated whether participants' motivational state and the context in which attitude reports are made influence food attitudes. Specifically, these studies examined whether hunger and the time‐typicality of foods (i.e. match or mismatch between the time when a food is typically eaten and the time the attitude is reported) interact to influence reported attitudes. Study 1 suggests that hunger leads to more positive attitudes toward foods that are typically eaten at the time the attitude report is made (e.g. breakfast foods in morning) compared to foods not typically eaten at the time the attitude report is made (e.g. breakfast foods in evening). Study 2 replicates this time‐typical effect of hunger and suggests that time‐typical experience rather than general experience with foods is important for hunger induced attitude change. By demonstrating that food attitudes are influenced by motivational states and the match between when the attitude is reported and when it is typically encountered, the present studies extend previous attitude theory and research that has identified other contextual factors that influence attitude reports. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The “contact hypothesis”: Critical reflections and future directions

Research on intergroup contact has grown exponentially over the past decade. Such research has typically extolled the benefits of positive interaction between members of historically divided communities, particularly on outcomes related to prejudice reduction. Emerging work in the field, however, has qualified this optimistic picture by identifying three gaps in the existing literature. First, in everyday life, contact may be construed as a negative experience that increases rather than decreases responses such as prejudice, anxiety, and avoidance. Second, in real‐life settings, contact is often circumscribed by informal practices of (re)segregation that are easily overlooked if researchers rely primarily on examining structured contact and explicit processes using primarily laboratory and questionnaire methods. Third, positive contact may have “ironic” effects on the political attitudes and behaviors of the historically disadvantaged, undermining their recognition of social injustice and decreasing their willingness to engage in collective action to challenge the status quo. Although it is now a truism that intergroup contact can reduce intergroup prejudice, these developments emphasize the importance of maintaining a critical perspective on the “contact hypothesis” as a model for promoting social change in historically divided and unequal societies. They also lay the foundations for future developments in the field.     

Patients with bipolar disorder show a selective deficit in the episodic simulation of future events

A substantial body of evidence suggests that autobiographical recollection and simulation of future happenings activate a shared neural network. Many of the neural regions implicated in this network are affected in patients with bipolar disorder (BD), showing altered metabolic functioning and/or structural volume abnormalities. Studies of autobiographical recall in BD reveal overgeneralization, where autobiographical memory comprises primarily factual or repeated information as opposed to details specific in time and in place and definitive of re-experiencing. To date, no study has examined whether these deficits extend to future event simulation. We examined the ability of patients with BD and controls to imagine positive, negative and neutral future events using a modified version of the Autobiographical Interview (Levine, Svoboda, Hay, Winocur, & Moscovitch, 2002) that allowed for separation of episodic and non-episodic details. Patients were selectively impaired in imagining future positive, negative, and neutral episodic details; simulation of non-episodic details was equivalent across groups.     

The Future of Social‐Health Psychology: Prospects and Predictions

Social‐health psychology has made substantial contributions to health psychology and is poised to make many more in the future. Some new developments will come from empirical progress in theoretical and empirical social psychology that can elucidate the psychological mechanisms whereby social variables affect health. Others will come from technological advances, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging, that will uncover mechanisms that underlie effects of stress, coping, persuasive communications, and other factors on health. Progress will also come from social psychologists’ increasing comfort with biological processes and measures, including genetics and neuroendocrine mechanisms. As such, social‐health psychology will not only continue to enrich both health psychology and social psychology, but increasingly be able to speak to intervention possibilities. Moreover, by virtue of its emphasis on psychobiological mechanisms, social‐health psychology leads the way for an expanding role of social psychology in the integrative science of the future.     

Developing countertransference awareness as a therapist in training: The role of containing contexts

The psychodynamic literature suggests that countertransference is an inevitable part of therapy and a significant feature of the client-therapist relationship. However, countertransference is also considered to be a ‘double-edged sword’: when it is reflected on by the therapist, it can offer valuable insights into the therapeutic relationship, but when it remains outside of awareness and therefore unmanaged it can result in the therapist unwittingly acting out in the therapeutic relationship and responding in counter-therapeutic ways. The purpose of this research was to explore the factors involved in the development of countertransference awareness in therapists and to construct a grounded theory of the process. Fifteen qualified therapists were recruited and interviewed, either face to face or via Skype, using a semi-structured interview schedule. The grounded theory constructed from the data suggests that during training participants initially experienced countertransference as threatening and overwhelming. When this experience was contained in supervision and therapy, the organisational context and by participants’ theoretical framework, they could reflect on their countertransferential responses and make sense of their experience, which then developed their self-awareness and other insights to the benefit of the therapeutic relationship. Conversely, a lack of containment in these domains resulted in participants acting out their countertransference and becoming either over or under available in the therapeutic relationship. The findings offer a useful process model on the role containing contexts play in the development of countertransference awareness for therapists in training.