Barriers and Bridges to Intimacy and Mutuality: A Critical Review of Sexual Advice Found in Self-Help Bestsellers

Sexuality in a committed relationship is based ideally on both intimacy and mutuality. Gender socialization may limit women's and men's capacities in these two important areas of sexual relationships. This article describes the results of a content analysis of nine best-selling popular press books on the New York Times Bestseller List between 1988 and 1998 according to their advice related to sexual intimacy and mutuality. Books were analyzed to determine the degree to which they built barriers or bridges to the development of intimacy and mutuality. Results indicate that while most authors offered advice that built bridges to intimacy, several built barriers to the development of mutuality. Implications for therapists are discussed.     

A comparison of depressed patients with and without borderline personality disorder: implications for interpreting studies of the validity of the bipolar spectrum

The nosological status of borderline personality disorder as it relates to the bipolar disorder spectrum has been controversial. Studies have supported, in part, the validity of the bipolar spectrum by demonstrating that these patients, compared to patients with nonbipolar depression, are characterized by earlier age of onset of depression, recurrent depressive episodes, comorbid anxiety and substance use disorders and increased suicidality. However, all of these factors have likewise been found to distinguish depressed patients with and without borderline personality disorder. A family history of bipolar disorder is one of the few disorder specific validators. In the present study from the Rhode Island Methods to Improve Diagnostic Assessment and Services (MIDAS) project, we compared the demographic and clinical characteristics of depressed patients with and without borderline personality disorder. We hypothesized that many of the factors used to validate the bipolar spectrum will also distinguish depressed patients with and without borderline personality disorder except, however, a family history of bipolar disorder. Two thousand nine hundred psychiatric outpatients at Rhode Island Hospital were evaluated with the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID) and Structured Interview for DSM-IV Personality Disorders (SIDP-IV). Family history information regarding first-degree relatives was obtained from the patient using the Family History Research Diagnostic Criteria. One hundred and one patients with borderline personality disorder plus major depressive disorder were compared to 947 patients with major depressive disorder alone on the prevalence of bipolar disorder validators. Compared to depressed patients without borderline personality disorder, depressed patients with borderline personality disorder had a younger age of onset, more depressive episodes, a greater likelihood of experiencing atypical symptoms and had a higher prevalence of comorbid anxiety disorders, substance use disorders, and number of previous suicide attempts. The depressed patients with borderline personality disorder did not significantly differ from the patients without borderline personality disorder on morbid risk for bipolar disorder in first degree relatives. In addition, patients with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder had a significantly higher morbid risk of bipolar disorder in first degree relatives than the borderline personality disorder group. The findings indicate that many factors used to validate the bipolar spectrum are not disorder specific. These results raise questions about studies of the validity of the broad bipolar spectrum that do not assess borderline personality disorder. Our results do not support inclusion of borderline personality disorder as part of the bipolar spectrum.     

The relation of student behavior, peer status, race, and gender to decisions about school discipline using CHAID decision trees and regression modeling

Peer nominations and demographic information were collected from a diverse sample of 1493 elementary school participants to examine behavior (overt and relational aggression, impulsivity, and prosociality), context (peer status), and demographic characteristics (race and gender) as predictors of teacher and administrator decisions about discipline. Exploratory results using classification tree analyses indicated students nominated as average or highly overtly aggressive were more likely to be disciplined than others. Among these students, race was the most significant predictor, with African American students more likely to be disciplined than Caucasians, Hispanics, or Others. Among the students nominated as low in overt aggression, a lack of prosocial behavior was the most significant predictor. Confirmatory analysis using hierarchical logistic regression supported the exploratory results. Similarities with other biased referral patterns, proactive classroom management strategies, and culturally sensitive recommendations are discussed.     

With a Spirit that Understands: Reflections on a Long‐term Community Science Initiative to End Suicide in Alaska

This retrospective analysis of a long‐term community‐based participatory research (CBPR) process spans over two decades of work with Alaska Native communities. A call to action from Alaska Native leadership to create more effective strategies to prevent and treat youth suicide and alcohol misuse risk initiated a response from university researchers. This CBPR process transformed into a collaborative effort to indigenously drive and develop solutions through research. The People Awakening project started our team on this translational and transformational pathway through community intervention science in the Central Yup'ik region of Alaska. We examine more deeply the major episodes and their successes and struggles in maintaining a long‐term research relationship between university researchers and members of Yup'ik Alaska Native communities. We explore ways that our CBPR relationship has involved negotiation and engagement with power and praxis, to deepen and focus attention to knowledge systems and relational elements. This paper examines these deeper, transformative elements of our CBPR relationship that spans histories, cultures, and systems. Our discussion shares vignettes from academic and community perspectives to describe process in a unique collaboration, reaching to sometimes touch upon rare ground in emotions, tensions, and triumphs over the course of a dozen grants and twice as many years. We conclude by noting how there are points where, in a long‐term CBPR relationship, transition out of emergence into coalescing and transformation can occur.     

Enhancing Outcomes for Struggling Readers: Empirical Analysis of The Fluency Development Lesson

This study investigated the efficacy of the Fluency Development Lesson (FDL) in improving reading achievement in primary grade struggling readers. 30 readers, enrolled in a summer reading clinic, participated in daily 40-min mini-reading lessons across 5 weeks. During the fluency lessons, readers practiced and developed their literacy skills through participation in repeated readings, word work, rehearsal, and performance. Assessments measured comprehension, reading fluency, including word recognition accuracy, reading speed, and prosody. Control students also took the pre- and post-intervention tests; their performance did not change with repeated testing. The Fluency Development Lesson students showed significant gains on all measures.     

Determining the influence of tangible items on screaming and handmouthing following an inconclusive functional analysis

A brief experimental analysis was used to compare the effects of the presence of tangible objects in an alone condition following an inconclusive functional analysis of screaming and handmouthing behavior of an 8‐year‐old boy. The alone condition with tangibles involved having toys available throughout the session with no interaction from the therapist and produced a higher percentage of intervals with screaming and handmouthing. The study demonstrates the importance of evaluating the effects of the presence of tangible items during a functional analysis. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Community engagement,greening, and violent crime: A test of the greening hypothesis and Busy Streets

Researchers have documented that vacant lot greening can reduce community-level crime and violence. Busy Streets Theory (BST) suggests that residents who are involved in the greening process can help to improve physical environments and build social connections that deter crime and violence. Yet few researchers have explored how community engagement in the greening process may affect crime and violence outcomes. We applied BST to test the effects of community-engaged vacant lot greening compared to vacant lots that received either professional mowing or no treatment, on the density of violent crime around study lots. Using mixed effects regression models, we analyzed trends in violent crime density over the summer months from 2016 to 2018 at 2102 street segments in Youngstown, OH. These street segments fell within 150 meters of an intervention parcel that was classified as one of three conditions: community-engaged maintenance, professional mowing, or no treatment (control). We found that street segments in areas receiving community-engaged maintenance or professional mowing experienced greater declines in violent crime density than street segments in areas receiving no treatment, and more decline occurred in the community-engaged condition compared to the professional mow condition. Our findings support BST and suggest that community-engaged greening of vacant lots in postindustrial cities with a concentrated vacancy can reduce crime and violence.     

Deep-level and surface-level individual differences and applicant attraction to organizations: A meta-analysis

Given the importance of individual differences in the study of applicant attraction to organizations, we conducted a meta-analysis to assess the relationship between both applicant deep-level characteristics (e.g., applicant ability, personality, and experience) and surface-level characteristics (e.g., race, gender, and age) with applicant attraction. Results of our review of over 1700 articles (of which, 85 provided relevant data for our analysis) indicated that several relevant applicant individual differences are related to applicant attraction, independent of organizational influences. Stronger effect sizes were found for applicant deep-level characteristics (versus surface level) as well as field studies (versus lab studies). Extraversion and conscientiousness had the strongest positive relationships with applicant attraction, while applicant grade point average, as an indicator of ability, had the strongest negative relationship. The significance of these findings, including implications for applicants and organizations, is discussed.     

Resilience in Community: A Social Ecological Development Model for Young Adult Sexual Minority Women

Family support and rejection are associated with health outcomes among sexual minority women (SMW). We examined a social ecological development model among young adult SMW, testing whether identity risk factors or outness to family interacted with family rejection to predict community connectedness and collective self‐esteem. Lesbian and bisexual women (N = 843; 57 % bisexual) between the ages of 18–25 (M = 21.4; SD = 2.1) completed baseline and 12‐month online surveys. The sample identified as White (54.2 %), multiple racial backgrounds (16.6 %), African American (9.6 %) and Asian/Asian American (3.1 %); 10.2 % endorsed a Hispanic/Latina ethnicity. Rejection ranged from 18 to 41 % across family relationships. Longitudinal regression indicated that when outness to family increased, SMW in highly rejecting families demonstrated resilience by finding connections and esteem in sexual minority communities to a greater extent than did non‐rejected peers. But, when stigma concerns, concealment motivation, and other identity risk factors increased over the year, high family rejection did not impact community connectedness and SMW reported lower collective self‐esteem. Racial minority SMW reported lower community connectedness, but not lower collective self‐esteem. Families likely buffer or exacerbate societal risks for ill health. Findings highlight the protective role of LGBTQ communities and normative resilience among SMW and their families.