Movies and juvenile delinquency: an overview

Film viewing may affect the juvenile delinquent through the processes known as social learning and instigation. Identification with the movie and its characters by the delinquent viewer is common, and studies have consistently demonstrated that films can affect delinquents, although in some cases the effects are small. Numerous examples of how films may serve as either the initiator or the final common pathway of delinquent acts are presented. However, prosocial aspects of films dealing with delinquency may exert a positive influence on the juvenile delinquent. Treatment implications of these observations are discussed from social learning and other perspectives.     

Direct comparison of episodic encoding and retrieval of words: an event-related fMRI study

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to compare directly episodic encoding and retrieval. During encoding, subjects studied visually presented words and reported via keypress whether each word represented a pleasant or unpleasant concept (intentional, deep encoding). During the retrieval phase, subjects indicated (via keypress) whether visually presented words had previously been studied. No reliable differences were found during the recognition phase for words that had been previously studied and those that had not been studied. Areas preferentially active during encoding (relative to retrieval) included left superior frontal cortex, medial frontal cortex, left superior temporal cortex, posterior cingulate, left parahippocampal gyrus, and left inferior frontal gyrus. Regions more active in retrieval than encoding included bilateral inferior parietal cortex, bilateral precuneus, right frontal polar cortex, right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and right inferior frontal/insular cortex.     

Attributions and affective reactions of family members and course of schizophrenia.

The authors tested an attribution-affect model of schizophrenic relapse attending to the role of families' positive affect (warmth) and negative affect (criticism). Coders listened to interviews of 40 family members taken from C. E. Vaughn, K. S. Synder, S. Jones, W. B. Freeman, and I. R. Falloon (1984) and rated their attributions of controllability for the symptoms and behaviors of their relatives with schizophrenia. For family members not designated as emotionally overinvolved, perceptions that their ill relatives' symptoms and behaviors were under the patients' control were related to family members' warmth and criticism and to patients' clinical outcomes. Of the affective reactions, only criticism predicted outcome. In addition, patients' use of street drugs was related to attributions, criticism, and outcome. Together these findings suggest that families' attributions and criticism are important in understanding the relationship between family factors and course of illness.     

Developing an informational tool for ethical engagement in medical tourism

Background

Medical tourism, the practice of persons intentionally travelling across international boundaries to access medical care, has drawn increasing attention from researchers, particularly in relation to potential ethical concerns of this practice. Researchers have expressed concern for potential negative impacts to individual safety, public health within both countries of origin for medical tourists and destination countries, and global health equity. However, these ethical concerns are not discussed within the sources of information commonly provided to medical tourists, and as such, medical tourists may not be aware of these concerns when engaging in medical tourism. This paper describes the methodology utilized to develop an information sheet intended to be disseminated to Canadian medical tourists to encourage contemplation and further public discussion of the ethical concerns in medical tourism.

Methods

The methodology for developing the information sheet drew on an iterative process to consider stakeholder feedback on the content and use of the information sheet as it might inform prospective medical tourists’ decision making. This methodology includes a literature review as well as formative research with Canadian public health professionals and former medical tourists.

Results

The final information sheet underwent numerous revisions throughout the formative research process according to feedback from medical tourism stakeholders. These revisions focused primarily on making the information sheet concise with points that encourage individuals considering travelling for medical tourism to do further research regarding their safety both within the destination country, while travelling, and once returning to Canada, and the potential impacts of their trip on third parties. This methodology may be replicated for the development of information sheets intending to communicate ethical concerns of other practices to providers or consumers of a certain service.

     

Inhibition of return and visual search: how many separate loci are inhibited?

Using a novel sequential visual search paradigm Danziger, Kingstone, and Snyder (1998) demonstrated that inhibition of return (IOR) can reside at three spatial locations. In the present study, we extended the work of Danziger et al. by investigating whether there is a limit to the number of locations that can be inhibited in a sequential visual search task. Our study revealed that IOR can be measured at a minimum of five locations. The magnitude of the IOR effect was largest at the most recently searched location and declined from there in an approximately linear fashion. Two models that can account for our data are presented.     

Working and long-term memory deficits in schizophrenia: is there a common prefrontal mechanism?

This study tested the hypothesis that dorsolateral prefrontal cortex deficits contribute to both working memory and long-term memory disturbances in schizophrenia. It also examined whether such deficits were more severe for verbal than nonverbal stimuli. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to assess cortical activation during performance of verbal and nonverbal versions of a working memory task and both encoding and recognition tasks in 38 individuals with schizophrenia and 48 healthy controls. Performance of both working memory and long-term memory tasks revealed disturbed dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activation in schizophrenia, although medial temporal deficits were also present. Some evidence was found for more severe cognitive and functional deficits with verbal than nonverbal stimuli, although these results were mixed.     

Targets' Awareness of Expectations and Behavioral Confirmation in Ongoing Interactions

Participants engaged in a getting-acquainted interaction over an intercom after one participant (the perceiver) was provided with a positive (extraverted) or relatively negative (introverted) expectation about the other participant (the target). After completing evaluations of each other and the interaction, participants interacted for a second time. Prior to this second interaction, however, targets were made aware of the perceivers' initial expectation, told that it had been confirmed by their own behavior, and given a randomly assigned attribution (either dispositional or situational) about the perceived cause of their confirmatory behavior. Results demonstrated that targets made aware of dispositionally attributed and relatively negative expectations were more likely to increase in expectation-disconfirming behavior, compared to targets made aware of situationally attributed and relatively negative expectations, who were themselves more likely to continue to confirm the expectations. Implications for the study of behavioral confirmation of expectations and other interpersonal processes are discussed.     

Computer-assisted judgment: defining strengths and liabilities

Clinicians often fail to recognize limitations in their own subjective judgments, make use of well-developed mechanical-prediction methods, or carefully evaluate which computer-based aids warrant their consideration. This article addresses issues regarding computer-based test interpretations (CBTIs) and computer-based decision making. Comments highlight conclusions reached by other contributors to this Special Section, additional literature bearing on these observations, and implications for consumers of computer-assisted techniques and researchers developing or evaluating these methods. The future of computer-assisted assessment depends on educating clinicians and researchers to be better consumers of existing as well as emerging technologies in this domain.     

Power in stereotypically masculine domains: a Social Influence Strategy X Stereotype Match model

This work examines the hypothesis that stereotypes of groups to which low-power people belong should influence the perceptions and behavior of powerful people only when those stereotypes are both contextually relevant (e.g., women in masculine domains) and provide information of relevance given powerful people's beliefs about the relation between subordinates and goal attainment. Findings across two studies supported predictions. In a masculine domain, when high-power men were attentive to subordinate weaknesses that may produce thwarts to goal attainment, stereotypes of women defined the contextually relevant shortcomings of women, and stereotype-consistent high-power behaviors ensued. In contrast, when powerful men were attentive to subordinate strengths that may enhance goal strivings, stereotypes of women were uninformative (i.e., did not contain information about relevant strengths); female and male employees were responded to and, in turn, performed and reacted similarly. The implications of these findings for theorizing on the relation between power and stereotyping are discussed.