Risk Taking in Adolescence: New Perspectives From Brain and Behavioral Science

ABSTRACT— Trying to understand why adolescents and young adults take more risks than younger or older individuals do has challenged psychologists for decades. Adolescents' inclination to engage in risky behavior does not appear to be due to irrationality, delusions of invulnerability, or ignorance. This paper presents a perspective on adolescent risk taking grounded in developmental neuroscience. According to this view, the temporal gap between puberty, which impels adolescents toward thrill seeking, and the slow maturation of the cognitive-control system, which regulates these impulses, makes adolescence a time of heightened vulnerability for risky behavior. This view of adolescent risk taking helps to explain why educational interventions designed to change adolescents' knowledge, beliefs, or attitudes have been largely ineffective, and suggests that changing the contexts in which risky behavior occurs may be more successful than changing the way adolescents think about risk.     

Career Research Interests and Training of Genetic Counseling Students

Research is important to validate clinical services, provide information on the effectiveness of practice techniques, and develop the knowledge base of a clinical profession. Genetic counseling students from American Board of Genetic Counseling (ABGC) accredited training programs were surveyed to determine their career research interests and interest in pursuing a hypothetical doctoral degree in genetic counseling. Genetic counseling program directors were surveyed to assess the emphasis on research training within their programs. A substantial number (46%, n = 92) of genetic counseling students are interested in performing research in their careers and many (40%, n = 80) would pursue a doctoral degree in genetic counseling if it was available. Students and directors from programs with a thesis requirement reported a significantly higher emphasis on career research preparation than those from programs without a thesis requirement. The results of this study indicate that future genetic counselors are interested in contributing to the research base that will advance the field. This study suggests a need to strengthen research training within ABGC accredited graduate programs and explore the development of a doctoral degree option in genetic counseling.     

Mediation and moderation of the effects of watching the angiography screen on patients

It has been reported that allowing patients to watch the coronary angiography screen during the procedure results in psychological benefits. This study aimed to investigate the roles of illness perceptions as mediators of this outcome and to examine whether individual differences in monitoring coping style moderated these effects. The experiment compared patients who were instructed to watch the monitor screen (n = 57) with those who were not (n = 51). Questionnaires were used to measure the research variables at one day and one month after the procedure. Results showed that watching the angiography screen increased patients’ personal and treatment control perceptions that mediated changes in self-assessed health, risk perceptions, negative affect, general and diet outcome expectancies, and diet and physical activity intentions. The behavior-related outcomes were moderated by monitoring coping style. These findings illustrate the significance of illness perceptions, perceived control and monitoring coping style in achieving desirable outcomes among patients undergoing coronary angiography, and reveal opportunities for interventions using medical imaging technologies.     

Johann Christian August Heinroth (1773–1843): the first professor of psychiatry as a psychotherapist

Heinroth is known as the first professor of psychiatry. His chair was established 200 years ago on the 21st of October 1811. His major importance for the history of psychotherapy has not yet been acknowledged. Heinroth regarded restriction as well as activation as fundamental remedies for mental illnesses. Restriction meant making a voluntary decision to live a life based on religious faith and to abstain from earthly satisfaction. Within his specific psychotherapeutical module—the ‘‘direct-psychic’’method—he utilized the patient’s mental powers—mood, mind and will, but also his spirituality. His therapeutic approach additionally contained elements of cognitive,behavioral and conversational therapy.     

The Effect of Rehabilitation on Positive Interpretations of Illness

Postoperative patients received one of the three, alternative pain-management treatments: patient-controlled analgesia (PCA); perceived PCA (PPCA without actual control) and continuous intravenous infusion of analgesics (CII). Pain reports, morphine consumption and satisfaction of the groups were compared, and influences of individual differences in preferences for control and trait anxiety were tested. The main findings were: (1) PCA patients consumed less morphine and reported more pain and somewhat higher satisfaction; (2) PPCA patients were intermediate between the other two groups in pain reports and morphine consumption and lowest in satisfaction and (3) individual differences did not moderate the effects of PCA. The findings were interpreted as indicating that the main effect of PCA is increased pain tolerance, and that a bio-psycho-social framework is most appropriate to explain these effects.     

The role of centrality to self-concept in moderating the associations between injury perceptions and outcomes

Abstract

Objectives: To test the centrality of injury to self-concept as a moderator of the associations between injury perceptions and outcomes.

Methods: Two concurrent studies on samples of injured individuals.

Measures: The centrality of injury to one’s self concept was measured by the degree of self-injury separation (PRISM); injury perceptions were measured by the injury perception questionnaire; and outcomes by standard scales of self-assessed health, physical, emotional and social functioning, vitality, depression, anxiety and somatisation. Regression analyses examined the significance of adding the interactions between injury centrality and injury perceptions to explained outcome variance, beyond their separate contributions.

Results: Both injury centrality and injury perceptions significantly explained variance in patients’ functioning and well-being. Injury centrality moderated the associations between various injury perceptions and outcomes, especially pronounced for emotional representations of the injury. As hypothesised, the effects of injury perceptions on outcomes were stronger among patients for whom the injury was central to their self-concept compared to patients who perceived the injury as peripheral to their self-concept.

Conclusions: ‘Centrality to the self’ is a moderator of the impact of perceptions on outcomes of injuries. The findings suggest ways to tailor interventions to sub-groups of injured patients based on injury centrality to their self-concept.     

Calculus GPA and Math Identification as Moderators of Stereotype Threat in Highly Persistent Women

The present research tested whether the effect of stereotype threat on calculus performance was moderated by calculus GPA and math identification in advanced undergraduate women majoring in science, technology, and engineering (STEM) fields. Women (n = 102) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions—stereotype threat, gender equivalence, or no mention (of gender). Confirming stereotype threat theory, at high levels of calculus GPA and math identification, women performed the worst in the stereotype threat condition, intermediate in the gender equivalence condition, and best in the no mention condition. Strategies to counter the inimical effects of stereotype threat are discussed     

Creative Interpretations of Novel Conceptual Combinations in Aging

Conceptual combinations may be interpreted by 3 main strategies: by attributing a feature of the modifying (head) noun into the modified noun (property interpretation); by establishing a relation between the 2 concepts (relational interpretation); or by combining properties of both nouns into a concept with new identity (hybridization). There exists limited evidence regarding the quality of interpretations older adults provide to novel conceptual combinations, and especially to novel metaphoric phrases. This study aimed to evaluate and compare age differences in strategies adopted for comprehending conceptual (noun noun) combinations. The aim of this study was, therefore, to examine the impact of aging on the ability to generate novel and creative semantic interpretations to unfamiliar word pairs. Participants included 41 healthy younger (mean age = 25.1) and 40 healthy older adults (mean age = 75.3). Participants were asked to write interpretations to novel metaphoric and meaningless noun-noun phrases. Relative to young adults, older participants generated more creative (hybridization) interpretations to novel metaphor and meaningless combinations. The second finding indicated that older adults generated fewer relational interpretations to the meaningless compounds. The results suggest that, relative to young adults, older adults generate more creative and highly integrative interpretations to conceptual combinations.