Building reciprocity: From safety‐net to social transformation programmes

Topics of societal concern such as mental health and poverty reduction increasingly require action programmes that operate within broad psychosocial and social justice perspectives. Models of practice centred in individual needs, although important, are not powerful enough to bring about social change when they operate in isolation. In this article, we present the findings resulting from the observation of programmes engaged in collaborating with socio‐economically disadvantaged individuals, families, and communities. The programmes selected for study were nationally or internationally recognized for the quality and innovation of their methodologies or for having been subjected to scientific attention; some met both criteria. Altogether, 15 programmes were visited, in North and South America and Europe. Through a grounded theory methodology, the processes of data collection and analysis led to the development of a theoretical framework that identifies a continuum of programmes aimed at supporting the development of individuals, families, and communities and that has at its core the central process of building reciprocity. This article presents and describes the continuum of programmes and how each type relates to the process of building reciprocity and establishes links with other relevant and significant concepts in the framework. Finally, implications for further research are explored.     

A comparison of job performance and disciplinary records of smokers and nonsmokers

The authors compared job performance and receipt of disciplinary action among smoking and nonsmoking hotel employees using organizational records and observation. Although smokers and nonsmokers did not differ on 3 measures of discipline, there were significant differences on a guest relations performance dimension and a summated overall job performance measure. Smokers received higher ratings than did nonsmokers. Implications of these findings for the management of smoking behavior in the workplace are discussed.     

Multisensory exploration and object individuation in infancy

Recent research indicates that by 4.5 months, infants use shape and size information as the basis for individuating objects but that it is not until 11.5 months that they use color information for this purpose. The present experiments investigated the extent to which infants' sensitivity to color information could be increased through select experiences. Five experiments were conducted with 10.5- and 9.5-month-olds. The results revealed that multimodal (visual and tactile), but not unimodal (visual only), exploration of the objects prior to the individuation task increased 10.5-month-olds' sensitivity to color differences. These results suggest that multisensory experience with objects facilitates infants' use of color information when individuating objects. In contrast, 9.5-month-olds did not benefit from the multisensory procedure; possible explanations for this finding are explored. Together, these results reveal how an everyday experience--combined visual and tactile exploration of objects--can promote infants' use of color information as the basis for individuating objects. More broadly, these results shed light on the nature of infants' object representations and the cognitive mechanisms that support infants' changing sensitivity to color differences.     

Direct gaze modulates face recognition in young infants

From birth, infants prefer to look at faces that engage them in direct eye contact. In adults, direct gaze is known to modulate the processing of faces, including the recognition of individuals. In the present study, we investigate whether direction of gaze has any effect on face recognition in four-month-old infants. Four-month infants were shown faces with both direct and averted gaze, and subsequently given a preference test involving the same face and a novel one. A novelty preference during test was only found following initial exposure to a face with direct gaze. Further, face recognition was also generally enhanced for faces with both direct and with averted gaze when the infants started the task with the direct gaze condition. Together, these results indicate that the direction of the gaze modulates face recognition in early infancy.     

The Shedler-Westen Assessment Procedure-200 as a basis for modifying DSM personality disorder categories

The Shedler-Westen Assessment Procedure-200 (SWAP) is a Q-sort instrument designed to assess personality pathology on the basis of clinician ratings. On the basis of research with the SWAP, its creators have proposed a group of 12 personality disorder (PD) diagnoses that can be used to replace or modify current Axis II categories of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The authors discuss conceptual and empirical issues that require clarification before this proposal can be properly evaluated. They identify problematic psychometric features of the SWAP, including its unrepresentative normative sample, its reliance on a fixed skewed distribution, and anomalies in its T-score approach to diagnoses. In addition, a review of research on SWAP-based PD categories indicates that important information regarding diagnostic coverage, validity, and temporal stability is presently lacking. The authors conclude that research evidence is currently insufficient to justify the use of SWAP-based PD categories to guide revision of the DSM.     

A microcomputer-based technique for measuring response times in written protocols

We describe a computer system that can be used to collect response times simultaneously with written protocols. It is applicable to tasks in which written protocols and associated response times are of interest.     

Youth’s Responses to Peer Provocation: Links to Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression

Youth experiencing anxiety and depression are more likely to be targeted aggressively by peers, making it critical that we understand how they respond to these challenging interpersonal situations. We addressed this issue by recruiting a school-based sample of lower-income youth (N?=?327) in grades 6, 7, and 8 (M age =13.10, SD =0.99) to complete a multiple-choice measure asking them to select responses to 11 scenarios describing physical, relational, and verbal provocation by a peer. We found that increasing anxiety was negatively associated with endorsement of aggressive behaviors, whereas greater levels of depressive symptoms were linked to higher rates of aggressive responding, and, for girls, decreased endorsement of assertive strategies. Implications for understanding and intervening on social competence and psychopathology are discussed.