African-American clergy's perceptions of the leading health problems in their communities and their role in supporting parishioners' health

This article is a report on a survey of Southern California pastors to learn of their perceptions of the leading health problems in their congregations. Participants (N=41) identified stress, overweight, and obesity as the top three health indicators that effect the health of their congregations. Tobacco use and substance abuse were listed among the top five. From a list of health problems, pastors felt that from the pulpit they could impact parishioners responsible sexual behavior most. Pastors expressed their opinions about the reasons for certain maladies and addictions. The findings indicate room for improvement in building clergy's understanding of the nature of illness and addiction and in empowering them in their role of supporting healthy behaviors in the African-American community.     

Spatial and temporal frequency in figure-ground organization

Figure-ground organization of an ambiguous pattern can be manipulated by the spatial and temporal frequency content of the two regions of the pattern. Controlling for space-averaged luminance and perceived contrast, we tested patterns in which the two regions of the ambiguous pattern contained sine-wave gratings of 8, 4, 1, or 0.5 cycles per degree (cpd) undergoing on:off flicker at the rates of 0, 3.75, 7.5, or 15 Hz. For a full set of combinations of temporal frequency differences, with each spatial frequency the higher temporal frequency was seen as background for more of the viewing time. For two spatial frequency combinations, 1 and 4 cpd, and 1 and 8 cpd, tested under each of the four temporal frequencies, the lower spatial frequency region was seen as the background for more of the viewing time. When the effects of spatial and temporal frequency were set in opposition, neither was predominant in determining perceptual organization. It is suggested that figure-ground organization may parallel the sustained-transient response characteristics of the visual system.     

Intended Sex With Fewer Partners: An Empirical Test of the AIDS Risk Reduction Model Among Injection Drug Users1

The AIDS risk reduction model (ARRM) is a theory-based representation of psychosocial processes by which people may attempt to change their HIV risk behavior. This study tests the degree to which hypothesized relationships among ARRM factors are consistent with cross-sectional data collected from a sample of HIV-negative injection drug users in Los Angeles, California. The data pertain to users' intentions to reduce HIV transmission risk incurred through sex with multiple partners. Findings conform to ARRM hypotheses in some important respects. In particular, findings suggest that perceived self-efficacy for sexual risk reduction may be a crucial factor leading to the formation of intentions to change sex-related HIV risk behavior.     

Moral Desert, Fairness and Legitimate Expectations in the Market

Do people morally deserve what they earn in the market? More specifically, can people legitimately claim to deserve what they earn in the market in a way that counts against redistributing those earnings? As most liberal political philosophers do, I argue that the answer is no. Unlike many of these philosophers, however, I do not focus on whether or not people can be deserving. Instead, I focus on the relationship between social institutions and moral desert, and advance two claims. First, in the market, desert claims are undermined by the very nature of the market even if people can be deserving in general. Second, part of the intuition that motivates accounts of moral desert may be explained instead with reference to a principle of fairness that demands the fulfillment of people's legitimate expectations as to what they will receive, and this principle places much weaker restrictions on redistributive policies than do claims of moral desert.     

COMPARISON OF DATA‐COLLECTION METHODS IN A BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION PROGRAM FOR CHILDREN WITH PERVASIVE DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS: A REPLICATION

Cummings and Carr (2009) compared two methods of data collection in a behavioral intervention program for children with pervasive developmental disorders: collecting data on all trials versus only the first trial in a session. Results showed that basing a child's progress on first‐trial data resulted in identifying mastery‐level responding slightly sooner, whereas determining mastery based on all trials resulted in slightly better skill maintenance. In the current replication, no such differences in indication of mastery or maintenance were observed when data were collected on all trials or the first trial.     

Using Prayer as an Intervention With Clients Who Are Substance Abusing and Addicted and Who Self‐Identify Personal Faith in God and Prayer as Recovery Resources

This article describes how the authors use prayer with clients who self‐identify their personal faith in God and who have used prayer as a helpful recovery agent or who believe prayer would be helpful to their personal recovery.     

Search Strategies in Practice: Movement Variability Affords Perception of Task Dynamics

Practice has been conceptualized in terms of a search process through an evolving perceptual-motor workspace. The experiment was set up to examine whether the inherent variability of the system would influence perception of the relevant properties of the task space. We reanalyzed the data from Hsieh, Liu, Mayer-Kress, and Newell (2013) in which participants performed a speed-accuracy aiming task and feedback emphasized either temporal or spatial accuracy in different conditions. The maximum variability in spatial error during practice differentiated individual's best performance in the fast speed-accuracy conditions. Additionally, we found that a threshold of variability predicted discontinuities during practice within individuals. The findings support the proposition that inherent variability affords perception of the relevant dimension of the task. The search motion through the perceptual-motor workspace was continuous or discontinuous depending on the constraints of the movement speed-accuracy condition.     

Stopping ability in younger and older adults: Behavioral and event-related potential

This study examines age-related differences in inhibitory control as measured by stop-signal performance. The participants were 24 adults aged 20–30 years and 24 older adults aged 61–76 years. The task blocks were pure choice reaction-time blocks, global stop-signal blocks (with an auditory stop signal), and selective stop-signal blocks (with valid and invalid stop signals). There was a decline in reactive inhibitory control for the older group reflected by greater stop-signal reaction times and reduced P3 peak amplitudes in both global and selective stop-signal task blocks. The decreased reactive inhibitory control might result from speed-accuracy tradeoffs. Conversely, no age-related decline in proactive inhibitory control was observed. This was reflected by slower response times (RTs) and reduced P3 peak amplitudes during GO trials in blocks with stop-signals relative to those in blocks of pure choice reaction-time tasks, and in which the RT and amplitude differences were similar between groups. The results further show age-related compensation responses associated with proactive inhibition, such as increased activation at the frontal site among older participants, resulting in no differences in P3 peak amplitudes between electrode sites, and smaller differences at the Fz site than other sites compared with younger adults. For older adults, the P3 peak amplitude at the Fz site was significantly correlated with the RT of proactive inhibitory control. This shows that larger RT differences were associated with larger reductions in P3 peak amplitudes in the stop-signal blocks relative to the pure choice blocks. These results appear to support age-related compensation hypotheses.     

Core Self-Evaluations and Job and Life Satisfaction: The Mediating and Moderated Mediating Role of Job Insecurity

This study examined the mediating role of job insecurity in the relationship between core self-evaluations (CSE) and job satisfaction, while also investigating the moderating role of job insecurity in the mediated relationship between CSE and life satisfaction via job satisfaction. Survey data were collected from a sample of 346 full-time employees in Taiwan. We found that job insecurity partially mediated the CSE-job satisfaction relationship. Moreover, we found that job insecurity moderated not only the relationship between CSE and job satisfaction but also the mediated relationship between CSE and life satisfaction via job satisfaction. Specifically, both the CSE-job satisfaction relationship and the CSE-job satisfaction-life satisfaction relationship became stronger when job insecurity was low. Our results emphasize the importance of raising employees' CSE, which is beneficial not only for diminishing their perceptions of job insecurity, but also for boosting their job and life satisfaction. Practical implications and directions for future research are discussed.