Forgetting of prior remembering in persons reporting recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse

Case studies of individuals reporting recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse suggest that some overestimate their prior forgetting of the abuse. People reporting recovered or continuous memories of childhood sexual abuse and control subjects reporting no history of abuse participated in two experiments examining this "forgot it all along" phenomenon. Participants in Experiment 1 were more likely to forget that they had previously recalled a studied item if they were cued to think of it differently on two recall tests than if they were cued to think of it in the same way on the two tests. This effect was stronger for recovered-memory participants than for continuous-memory and control participants. In Experiment 2, participants recalled autobiographical events three times over a period of 4 months. Much as in Experiment 1, they underestimated prior remembering when the events had been recalled in a different emotional frame (positive vs. negative) on the previous occasion. This underestimation was more pronounced for recovered-memory participants than for continuous-memory and control participants.     

Brain network dysfunction in bipolar disorder

Bipolar disorder is a common psychiatric condition with significant associated morbidity and mortality. Despite its significance, the neurophysiology and neuropathology of this illness is incompletely understood. Recent advances in neuroimaging techniques have helped to begin clarifying these areas. Specifically, bipolar disorder appears to arise from abnormalities within discrete brain networks (eg, the anterior limbic network). The expression of the symptoms of bipolar disorder does not appear to result from single, localized brain lesions, but rather are emergent properties of dysfunction of these brain networks. As neuroimaging techniques continue to improve, the underlying neural basis of bipolar disorder will be clarified.     

Recognizing Racit Knowledge in Medical Epistemology

The evidence-based medicine movement advocates basing all medical decisions on certain types of quantitative research data and has stimulated protracted controversy and debate since its inception. Evidence-based medicine presupposes an inaccurate and deficient view of medical knowledge. Michael Polanyi’s theory of tacit knowledge both explains this deficiency and suggests remedies for it. Polanyi shows how all explicit human knowledge depends on a wealth of tacit knowledge which accrues from experience and is essential for problem solving. Edmund Pellegrino’s classic treatment of clinical judgment is examined, and a Polanyian critique of this position demonstrates that tacit knowledge is necessary for understanding how clinical judgment and medical decisions involve persons. An adequate medical epistemology requires much more qualitative research relevant to the clinical encounter and medical decision making than is currently being done. This research is necessary for preventing an uncritical application of evidence-based medicine by health care managers that erodes good clinical practice. Polanyi’s epistemology shows the need for this work and provides the structural core for building an adequate and robust medical epistemology that moves beyond evidence-based medicine.An erratum to this article can be found at     

A model for outpatient care

Chaplains have seriously discussed outpatient care for a number of years. This article describes a model of thorough and intentional outpatient care that is practiced in conjunction with an inpatient care to cancer populations. Rationales, values, institutional dynamics, and clinical care are discussed. Although the focus is on outpatient care where slightly more than 50% of personnel resources are invested, the care also occurs in the context of both inpatient care and follow-up care after discharge to home. A general model of spiritual and religious care and more specific models pertinent to hematopoietic stem cell transplant populations and general oncology populations are described. The models attend times of distress and times of "ordinary" and celebratory experiences, attend care of patient, caregiver, and staff.     

An investigation of appearance motives for tanning: The development and evaluation of the Physical Appearance Reasons For Tanning Scale (PARTS) and its relation to sunbathing and indoor tanning intentions

Motives for UV exposure have been shown to be related to appearance concerns, yet little research has examined specific tan appearance attitudes. Given this lacuna, Study 1 involved the identification of six factors among college female tanners: general attractiveness, media influence, family/friends influence, physical fitness appearance, acne reasons, and skin aging concerns. In Study 2, a separate sample of college female tanners were used to validate a higher order factor model, which demonstrated acceptable fit. Additionally, the factors converged in the expected directions, with the general attractiveness and skin aging concerns being the best correlate of UV exposure and sun-protection intentions. The relevance of these findings to skin cancer prevention is discussed.     

Examining the effects of differential item (functioning and differential) test functioning on selection decisions: when are statistically significant effects practically important?

Item response theory differential test functioning (DTP) methods are often used to address issues in personnel selection, but the results are frequently difficult to interpret because statistically significant findings may have little practical importance. In this article, the authors proposed 2 effect size measures for DTP. One related DTP to mean raw score differences across groups: the other related DTP to the 4/5th rule for adverse impact at successive cut scores. The effects of DTP were examined in the context of personality assessment, professional licensure, and college admissions. Overall, the result indicated that although many items exhibited bias in analyses of the large samples, the net magnitudes of effect on potential selection decisions were nugatory.     

Understanding customer reactions to brokered ultimatums: applying negotiation and justice theory

There has been little research examining customer reactions to brokered ultimatum game (BUG) contexts (i.e. exchanges in which 1 party offers an ultimatum price for a resource through an intermediary, and the ultimatum offer is accepted or rejected by the other party). In this study, the authors incorporated rational decision-making theory and justice theory to examine how customers' bids, recommendations, and repatronage behavior are affected by characteristics of BUG contexts (changing from an ultimatum to negotiation transaction, response timeliness, and offer acceptance or rejection). Results indicated that customers attempt to be economically efficient with their bidding behavior. However, negotiation structures, long waits for a response, and rejected bids create injustice perceptions (particularly informational and distributive injustice), negatively influencing customers' recommendations to others and their repatronage. The authors then discuss the practical and theoretical implications of their results.     

Do we know how we cope? Relating daily coping reports to global and time-limited retrospective assessments

The current study examined the concordance among daily, trait (global retrospective), and time-limited retrospective reports of coping. A sample of 93 adults completed the COPE (C. S. Carver, M. F. Scheier, & J. K. Weintraub, 1989) prior to recording coping with the day's most negative event for 30 consecutive days. At the end of daily data collection, participants recalled to what extent they used each of 16 coping strategies over the past 30 days. Whereas findings indicate generally good concordance between daily and time-limited retrospective reports, concordance between global and daily reports was weak. Only limited evidence was found for systematic individual differences in concordance. Time-limited reports appear to be an adequate, though not ideal, method of determining usual patterns of coping with stress.     

Gun availability and use of guns for suicide, homicide, and murder in Canada

A reliability check of Lester's (2000b) 1970-1995 time series that examined associations between the availability of firearms and their use for homicide and suicide in Canada. For the period 1974 to 1999, the relative availability of firearms as measured by the rate of accidental death from firearms and the average of the percentages of suicides + homicides using firearms was positively associated with the rate of homicide by firearms but not negatively associated with the rate of homicide by all other methods, and positively associated with the rate of suicide by firearms and negatively associated with the rate of suicide by all other methods. Correlations for the homicide versus murder rates, homicide rate using guns versus murder rate using guns, and homicide rate by all other methods versus murder rate by all other methods were very similar. There was a decrease over time of total suicide and homicide rates and firearm suicide and homicide rates, and with a slight indication of substitution of other methods for suicide.