Evaluating a primary prevention program for children of divorce

The effectiveness of a primary prevention program for children of divorce is evaluated. Subjects included 82 mother-child pairs. Mothers had been separated for 33 months or less and did not have prior histories of using mental health services. Subjects were assigned to one of four conditions: (a) the Children's Support Group alone (CSG), (b) the CSG and the Single Parents' Support Group (SPSG), (c) the SPSG alone, or (d) a no-treatment control group. Data collected before, after, and 5 months following intervention, were analyzed using analyses of covariance with preintervention scores as covariates and pre-post and post-follow-up difference scores as dependent measures. Children in the CSG-alone condition improved most in self-concept and parents in the SPSG-alone condition improved the most in adjustment. Improvements were either maintained or did not change differentially across groups at follow up. Adaptive social skills of CSG-alone children compared to children in the CSG/SPSG groups showed significant post-to-follow-up improvements.     

Disentangling the effects of depression symptoms and adult attachment on emotional disclosure

Individuals with high levels of depression symptoms and individuals with insecure attachment orientations have been shown to limit their use of emotional disclosure as a means of emotion regulation. However, little is known about how depression symptoms and insecure attachment orientations might jointly predict whether individuals engage in emotional disclosure. The authors addressed this question using both inter- and intraindividual approaches. College students (N = 121) completed measures of depression symptoms, adult attachment orientation, and generalized disclosure tendencies. To obtain an intraindividual measure of emotional disclosure, participants also completed an online daily diary in which they rated the intensity of the day's most unpleasant event and their disclosure of that event for 7 days. Results indicated that depression symptoms were negatively related to generalized disclosure tendencies and to intraindividual daily intensity-disclosure slopes. Attachment avoidance was negatively related to both generalized disclosure tendencies and to daily disclosure, and attachment anxiety moderated the relation between daily event intensity and disclosure. The authors discuss the implications for theory and counseling psychology practice.     

More than just a pretty face and a hot body: multiple cues in mate-choice

Mate preferences have been well studied in social and evolutionary psychology. In two studies (N = 490), using two different measurement techniques, we examined mate preferences for the body and the face in the context of other traits. Results replicated prior research on mate preferences across the sex of the participant and mating duration but clarified the nature of preferences for physical attractiveness. Generally, physical attractiveness was a necessity in short-term mating and for men and traits like kindness were a necessity in long-term mating and for women. Men wanted a short-term mate who had a good body, likely because that body advertises fertility whereas both sexes wanted a mate with a nice face for a long-term mate, which is likely because the face is a cue based on structural properties related to health. Sex and mating-duration differences on preferences for attractive faces and bodies were robust to differences in measurement technique.     

Motivational interviewing and smoking behaviors: a critical appraisal and literature review of selected cessation initiatives

The present paper systematically reviewed and critically appraised three different dimensions of motivational interviewing currently utilized in smoking cessation initiatives: social support, motivation, and tailored interventions. A review of four databases generated 57 primary articles, 17 of which met the inclusion criteria of an intervention study utilizing at least one dimension of motivational interviewing, adults between 18 and 64 years, no comorbidities, and a follow-up period of at least 6 weeks. More than 11,600 participants are represented in this review. The implementation of social support, motivation, and tailored interventions yielded mixed results. Furthermore, threats to validity emerged, including self-report, follow-up period, sample sizes, a priori differences in groups, and web-based and text-based interventions. Further research must ascertain the efficacy of the three dimensions of motivational interviewing indicated by the mixed results reported in terms of statistical significance of cessation rates. More empirically rigorous designs with evaluations based on stringent replicable criteria are needed.     

Acute Stress Disorder: Conceptual Issues and Treatment Outcomes

Acute stress disorder (ASD) was included as a diagnosis to the 4th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (American Psychiatric Association, 1994) as a way of describing pathological reactions in the first month following a trauma. Since that time, ASD has been the focus of some controversy, particularly regarding the theoretical basis and practical utility of the disorder. Despite this controversy, ASD has demonstrated usefulness in identifying individuals experiencing a high level of distress in the acute aftermath of a trauma as well as those at risk for developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This paper reviews the clinical application of ASD, the current controversy surrounding its conceptual basis, and then discusses the dilemmas regarding this diagnosis that might occur in clinical practice. A review of the randomized control trial treatment outcome literature for ASD is also included in an effort to assist clinicians selecting interventions for clients recently exposed to traumatic events. Throughout this paper, the relationship between research and applied clinical practice is highlighted.     

Providers' voices on telebehavioral health: Survey of an outpatient counseling agency in Alaska

Hope Counseling Center sought to expand behavioral health services to underserved populations in Alaska by offering telebehavioral health services. Providers completed a questionnaire addressing their experiences, opinions, and training needs as they relate to telebehavioral health. Open conversations about the training needs, limitations, and benefits of telebehavioral health supported program development and led to training on new equipment, rapport building, and telebehavioral health outcome studies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

A prelinguistic gestural universal of human communication

Several cognitive accounts of human communication argue for a language-independent, prelinguistic basis of human communication and language. The current study provides evidence for the universality of a prelinguistic gestural basis for human communication. We used a standardized, semi-natural elicitation procedure in seven very different cultures around the world to test for the existence of preverbal pointing in infants and their caregivers. Results were that by 10-14 months of age, infants and their caregivers pointed in all cultures in the same basic situation with similar frequencies and the same proto-typical morphology of the extended index finger. Infants' pointing was best predicted by age and caregiver pointing, but not by cultural group. Further analyses revealed a strong relation between the temporal unfolding of caregivers' and infants' pointing events, uncovering a structure of early prelinguistic gestural conversation. Findings support the existence of a gestural, language-independent universal of human communication that forms a culturally shared, prelinguistic basis for diversified linguistic communication.     

To deliberate or not to deliberate: Interactions between age,task characteristics,and cognitive activity on decision making

The effects of aging and deliberative activities on decision making were examined. In two separate tasks, young, middle‐aged, and older adults were presented with four alternatives and given instructions to choose the best one. Following study, participants were either given additional time to think about their decision or were prevented from doing so. Decision quality did not benefit from additional deliberative activity when the structure of the stimuli facilitated fluent online processing. In contrast, deliberation promoted performance when such processing was more difficult. In addition, those individuals who focused on attribute information relevant to the decision context performed better than those who did not. Age differences in performance were minimal, but older adults with lower levels of education or cognitive ability tended to perform worse than the rest of the sample under conditions where deliberative skills were required to promote performance. The results are inconsistent with recent proposals regarding the benefits of passive deliberation. In addition, the results support the general assertion that the age effects in decision making will be most evident in situations dependent upon deliberative skills. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Remembering the past and imagining the future: examining the consequences of mental time travel on memory

Cognitive, neuropsychological, and neuroimaging evidence suggests that remembering the past and imagining the future rely on overlapping processes in episodic memory. The three experiments reported here examine the consequences of remembering the past and imagining the future on the accessibility of other information in memory. Participants first studied events associated with a specific context and then either (a) retrieved past autobiographical events associated with that same context or (b) imagined future autobiographical events associated with that same context. Replicating and extending evidence of retrieval-induced forgetting, remembering autobiographical events from the past caused participants to forget the related studied events. However, imagining future autobiographical events failed to cause participants to forget the related studied events. These results suggest an important difference in the memorial consequences of remembering and imagining.