Context As a Critical Dimension of Multicultural Counseling: Articulating Personal,Professional, and Institutional Competence

Multicultural counseling standards and competencies (D. W. Sue, P. Arredondo, & R. J. McDavis, 1992) were established to provide consistency and ethical guidelines for practitioners, educators, and organizations. Although there has been general acceptance of this model, the current conceptualization risks superficial interpretation and limited implementation. This article describes a model that addresses the complexity of multicultural competence. The Multicultural Counseling Competency Assessment and Planning Model (MCCAP) enhances the D. W. Sue et al. model by integrating personal, professional, and institutional contexts as critical elements in multicultural competence. The MCCAP model suggests that the complexity of change includes three domains: affective, cognitive, and behavioral learning and competence. The resulting framework integrates self‐assessment and strategic planning to assist counselors, psychologists, and educators in a more complete application of multicultural counseling standards. Las normas de competencia multicultural en la consejería (D. W. Sue, P. Arredondo, & R. J. McDavis, 1992) fueron establecidas para proveer consistencia y guías éticas para consejeros, educadores, y organizaciones. Aunque ha habido aceptación de este modelo por lo general, la conceptualización presente corre el riesgo de ser interpretada superficialmente y de ser implementada incompletamente. Este artículo describe un modelo que trata la complexidad de la competencia multicultural. El Modelo de Evaluación y Planeación de Competencia de Consejería Multicultural (Multicultural Counseling Competency Assessment and Planning Model ‐MCCAP) aumenta sobre el modelo de D. W. Sue et al., al integrar los contextos personales, e institucionales como elementos críticos en la competencia multicultural. Además, el modelo (MCCAP) sugiere que el cambio es complejo y ocurre en très dominios: el afectivo, cognitivo, y de comportamiento, en el aprendizaje de las competencias. El resultato es una estructura que intégra la evaluación personal, planes y estrategias para ayudar a consejeros, psicólogos y educadores en una aplicación mas completa de las normas de consejería multicultural.     

INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE PERPETRATED BY COLLEGE WOMEN WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF A HISTORY OF VICTIMIZATION

Using a longitudinal design, the current study explored intimate partner violence perpetration among 1,300 college women within the context of one's history of physical and sexual victimization across 4 years of college. Structural equation modeling indicated that sexual victimization does not predict concurrent use of women's intimate partner violence but does predict subsequent use of women's intimate partner violence during the later years of college. In contrast, physical victimization is associated positively with concurrent use of women's intimate partner violence but is negatively associated with subsequent use of women's intimate partner violence for women. Furthermore, the negative relationship of victimization to subsequent perpetration primarily is due to those with high levels of victimization histories. The present study provides the first model of intimate partner violence within the context of victimization history using longitudinal data. The findings indicate that women's intimate partner violence perpetration is not context-free, but rather is influenced by their own physical and sexual victimization histories.     

Loci of signal probability effects and of the attentional blink bottleneck

To investigate the locus of signal probability effects and the influence of stimulus quality on this locus, the authors manipulated probability in Task 2 of a psychological refractory period (PRP) paradigm. The effect was additive with stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) when the target was not masked but underadditive with decreasing SOA when the target was masked. Even with masking, however, a range of probabilities had effects additive with SOA. The results suggest loci of stimulus probability before the PRP bottleneck as well as at or after the bottleneck. A second issue addressed was the locus of interference in the attentional blink (AB). The AB was larger when the probability of the first of 2 targets was lower. The results lead to the conclusion that one cause of the AB effect is a locus at least as late as the PRP bottleneck.     

The testing effect: The role of feedback and collaboration in a tertiary classroom setting

Successful retrieval on a test compared to just re‐studying material improves long‐term retention—a phenomenon called the ‘testing effect’. This study investigated the role of feedback and collaborative testing on the retention of course material in a tertiary educational setting. Tested material was better retained relative to non‐tested material (testing effect), and feedback facilitated correction of errors. Group testing produced higher performance on the initial, but not final test performance, compared to individual testing. This set of findings suggests that to encourage long‐term retention, educators should utilise individual formative testing with feedback; theoretical implications are also discussed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Prevalence and correlates of suicidal behavior among adult female victims of intimate partner violence

The prevalence and correlates of suicidal threats and attempts among 662 racially and ethnically diverse adult female victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) were studied. One in five women had threatened or attempted suicide during her lifetime. They observed that multiple logistic regression results indicated that women at greater risk of severe or potentially lethal assaults as measured by the Danger Assessment and those who reported having a chronic or disabling illness were more likely to have threatened or attempted suicide. A linear association was found between age and suicide threats/attempts, with younger women having increased odds. Finally, African American IPV victims were less likely to have threatened or attempted suicide as compared to Latina victims. Study implications are discussed.     

CHRM2, parental monitoring, and adolescent externalizing behavior: evidence for gene-environment interaction

Psychologists, with their long-standing tradition of studying mechanistic processes, can make important contributions to further characterizing the risk associated with genes identified as influencing risk for psychiatric disorders. We report one such effort with respect to CHRM2, which codes for the cholinergic muscarinic 2 receptor and was of interest originally for its association with alcohol dependence. We tested for association between CHRM2 and prospectively measured externalizing behavior in a longitudinal, community-based sample of adolescents, as well as for moderation of this association by parental monitoring. We found evidence for an interaction in which the association between the genotype and externalizing behavior was stronger in environments with lower parental monitoring. There was also suggestion of a crossover effect, in which the genotype associated with the highest levels of externalizing behavior under low parental monitoring had the lowest levels of externalizing behavior at the extreme high end of parental monitoring. The difficulties involved in distinguishing mechanisms of gene-environment interaction are discussed.     

White Men’s Fears, White Women’s Tears: Examining Gender Differences in Racial Affect Types

This investigation extends research on White students’ affective costs of racism. Consistent with previous research that identified distinct costs of racism (or racial affect) types, the authors used cluster analysis to examine unique patterns in White empathy, guilt, and fear among White undergraduate women (n?=?227) and men (n?=?175) from a large university in the Midwestern United States. Extending prior research and building on conceptual scholarship concerned with intersections of race and gender, the authors separated the sample by gender to determine whether different affective costs of racism types emerged for women and men. The authors found the same five cluster solution for both women and men in the present study, and these solutions were consistent with previous research conducted among combined samples of women and men. Findings suggested that women were significantly more likely than men to be in the most desirable, Antiracist type, compared to the least desirable, Insensitive and Afraid type. Additionally, the authors examined whether support for affirmation action differed by racial affect type for women and men. Partially supporting their hypothesis, the authors found that racial affect types with different levels of White empathy distinguished levels of support for affirmative action among White women. Among White men, the authors found that racial affect types with different levels of White fear explained differing levels of affirmative action support. Implications for future research and diversity education interventions are discussed.     

Event‐based prospective memory and obsessive–compulsive disorder intrusive obsessional thoughts

Recent studies have found poorer prospective remembering among students selected for elevated obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) checking and washing. However, as prospective memory performance also requires retrospective remembering, it is not clear from earlier work whether deficits in prospective memory in samples with OCD symptomatology are due to problems with prospective remembering, or to retrospective memory failures that result in poorer performance on prospective memory tasks. The present study examines performance on matched prospective and retrospective memory tasks among students selected for high (n = 48) and low (n = 44) scores on the Obsessive–Compulsive Inventory‐Revised Obsession subscale. Significant differences between the groups were found in prospective memory (regardless of whether the word was neutral or harm/danger‐related), but not retrospective memory. The findings are consistent with the prediction that obsessional thoughts that occupy working memory capacity would have a deleterious effect on a resource‐demanding prospective memory task. An additional finding was that there were no group differences in self‐reported complaints of problems with prospective memory.     

Inhibitory control gains from higher-order cognitive strategy training

The present study examined the transfer of higher-order cognitive strategy training to inhibitory control. Middle school students enrolled in a comprehension- and reasoning-focused cognitive strategy training program and passive controls participated. The training program taught students a set of steps for inferring essential gist or themes from materials. Both before and after training or a comparable duration in the case of the passive controls, participants completed a semantically cued Go/No-Go task that was designed to assess the effects of depth of semantic processing on response inhibition and components of event-related potentials (ERP) related to response inhibition. Depth of semantic processing was manipulated by varying the level of semantic categorization required for response selection and inhibition. The SMART-trained group showed inhibitory control gains and changes in fronto-central P3 ERP amplitudes on inhibition trials; whereas, the control group did not. The results provide evidence of the transfer of higher-order cognitive strategy training to inhibitory control and modulation of ERPs associated with semantically cued inhibitory control. The findings are discussed in terms of implications for cognitive strategy training, models of cognitive abilities, and education.     

Ethnic Minority Women’s Experiences with Intimate Partner Violence: Using Community-Based Participatory Research to Ask the Right Questions

Current definitions, instruments, and processes for measuring intimate partner violence, including sexual assault, are insufficient to detect the nature and scope of violence against all women. To remedy this problem, we recommend the use of community-based participatory research (CBPR) principles to develop culturally informed quantitative instruments that measure ethnic minority women’s experiences of intimate partner violence (IPV). CBPR requires community members and researchers to work equitably together throughout the research process, sharing decision-making and ownership. This paper identifies problems with current measurement approaches and describes the strengths and challenges of the CBPR approach. We argue that this research orientation offers the potential for “flexible standardization” that can provide better estimates of the extent of IPV and sexual assault, and provide communities with the knowledge they need to address these problems in a culturally sensitive manner.