Utilization of Individual versus Family Therapy Among Adolescents with Severe Emotional Disturbance

Service utilization patterns among children with severe emotional and/or behavioral disturbances are described for 89 children and families, interviewed at two time points across a 6-month period. Children received a greater number of individual therapy sessions than family therapy sessions, and children significantly decreased their levels of internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Family therapy was associated with decreases in internalizing behaviors when children reported outcomes. Individual therapy was not associated with changes in either internalizing or externalizing behaviors regardless of reporter. Symptom severity did not dictate whether children were provided individual or family therapy. Recommendations for individualized treatment plans are offered.     

Ethics, Cultural Competence, and the Changing Face of America

The population in the United States is increasingly multicultural. So, too, is the U.S. physician workforce. The combination of these diversity dynamics sets up the potential for various types of cultural conflict in the nation’s examining rooms, including the relationship between religion and medicine. To address the changing patient-physician landscape, we argue for a broad scale intervention: interdisciplinary bioethics training for physicians and other health professionals. This approach seeks to promote a common procedural expectation and language which can lead to an improved, patient-centered approach resulting in better patient-physician relationships that contribute to better health outcomes across the U.S. population. The authors illustrate their thesis and solution using a well-known case of cross-cultural dynamics taken from religion and medicine—Anne Fadiman’s The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down.     

Does attention follow the motion in the “shooting line” illusion?

When a line is presented in the vicinity of a recent luminance change (peripheral cue), it is perceived to be drawn over time away from its “cued” end even though the line is actually presented all at once. This study was designed to determine whether attention, exogenously attracted to the cue, would come under the exogenous control of this illusory motion and follow the drawing motion from the cued end to its terminus. Each trial began with the display of four small squares at the corners of an imaginary square centered about fixation. On the critical trials, one of the four squares brightened briefly, after which a horizontal line was presented joining either the two upper or the two lower squares. Shortly thereafter, the distribution of attention was determined by asking the observer to indicate the nature of a change that was equally likely to occur to one of the squares. Responses to targets presented at a noncued location that was at the end of an illusorily drawn line were as fast as those to targets at the cued location and were much faster than those to targets at the remaining noncued locations. This pattern was not shown when the line preceded the cue, strongly suggesting that attention follows the motion in this illusion.     

Evaluation of the Responding in Peaceful and Positive Ways (RIPP) Seventh Grade Violence Prevention Curriculum

We evaluated the impact of RIPP-7, a seventh grade violence prevention curriculum designed to strengthen and extend the effects of the sixth grade RIPP-6 curriculum. Classes of seventh graders at two urban middle schools serving predominantly African-American youth where RIPP-6 had been implemented the preceding school year were randomized to intervention (N = 239) and control groups (N = 237). Compared to students in the control group, students who participated in RIPP-7 had fewer disciplinary code violations for violent offenses during the following school year. A limited number of main effects were found on self-report outcome measures and measures of attitudes. Although significant main effects were not found on self-report measures of physical aggression, drug use, or anxiety, analyses of interactions with pretest scores indicated that intervention effects were significantly moderated by pretest scores for several outcome measures. Students most likely to benefit from the intervention were those who reported higher pretest rates of problem behaviors including violent behavior, nonphysical aggression, and delinquent behavior.     

The Munroe-Meyer Approach: Continuous Integration of Didactic Instruction,Research, and Clinical Practice

Increased demand for applied behavior analysis (ABA) services has increased the need for additional masters-level practitioners and doctoral-level academicians and clinical directors. Based on these needs, the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s (UNMC) Munroe-Meyer Institute has developed a PhD program. The academic structure at UNMC allowed us to create our PhD program in a relatively quick and efficient manner. Our PhD program has many unique features, including (a) close integration of didactic instruction with clinical and research training provided by leading experts in ABA in which students immediately apply concepts introduced in the classroom during coordinated clinical and research practica; (b) structured grant writing training in which students learn to write and submit an NIH-level grant; (c) financial support in the form of a stipend of $23,400 per year, free health benefits, and a full-tuition waiver for up to 12 credits per semester for UNMC courses (a benefits package worth approximately $50,000 per year for an out-of-state student); and (d) encouragement and financial support to present papers at local, regional, and national behavior analysis conferences.     

Impromptu Decisions to Deceive

This research furthers understanding of the factors that induce individuals to choose deception. Its goals were to expand and test a recent account of the cognition of deception, Activation–Decision–Construction–Action Theory (ADCAT), in a mock job interview inviting impromptu deception. Decisions to lie are hypothesized to depend on the truth and other information activated from long‐term memory by the social context. Activated information then guides evaluation of the likely costs of truth telling and benefits of deception; 166 college students participated in the job interview, who learned about the position and then adopted the role of job applicants. Afterward, participants shared their thoughts when responding to five questions from the interview. The most important findings are that the negative expectations of sharing truths and the positive expectations of sharing deceptions each account for unique variance in deciding to lie. Implications for lie reduction and detection are considered. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Depressed Clients' Attributions of Responsibility for the Causes of and Solutions to Their Problems

This study examined the attributions made by depressed clients about responsibility for the causes of and solutions to their problems. A total of 160 university counseling center clients completed the Beck Depression Inventory (A. T. Beck & R. A. Steer, 1987) and instruments measuring attributions of responsibility, internality, stability, and controllability for their problems. Support was obtained for the hypothesis that depressed clients blame themselves more for causing their problems than do nondepressed clients. However, client attributions of responsibility for solving problems were not affected by level of depressive symptoms. Finally, P. Brickman et al.'s (1982) theory of responsibility attributions was found to be modestly related with B. Weiner's (1985) attribution theory.     

CHRISTIAN THOUGHT,RACE, BLUMENBACH,AND HISTORICIZING

Terence Keel's Divine Variations: How Christian Thought Became Racial Science attributes the origins of “racial science” to Christian intellectual history. This is a bold and original argument, but it is not without deep difficulties, particularly in the early sections of the book. The concept of “race” is not sufficiently historicized and the treatment of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach needs to be more firmly grounded in the world of eighteenth‐century natural history.     

Comparing public concern and support for drone regulation to the current legal framework

In this study we assess the extent to which the regulations governing the use of drones in the United States address the concerns held by the public they are meant to protect. In general, respondents were most supportive of those regulations that could be categorized as limiting one's exposure to an unwanted drone. The most popular policies were those that protected personal privacy, while the least popular were those that hampered drones used for public safety. The largest discrepancy was found to be respondents' preference for laws protecting personal privacy compared with the lack of regulatory constraints currently in place. Federal regulators have only begun to introduce regulations on how drones can be used in our national airspace, with additional regulations for other types and sizes of drones likely to be introduced in the future. The results of this study may be utilized by regulators and lawmakers to create a regulatory structure that effectively mitigates risk and supports the public interest.     

Application of Problem Solving Therapy for Late-Life Anxiety

Cognitive behavioral therapy for anxiety has demonstrated lower efficacy in older compared with younger adults. Yet, few other evidence-based options for late-life anxiety have been examined. This case series aimed to demonstrate the application of Problem Solving Therapy (PST) to older adults with anxiety disorders building on PST’s strong empirical support for treating late-life depression. PST was implemented to treat three older primary-care patients diagnosed with anxiety disorders. We present treatment outcomes and discuss the feasibility and acceptability of using PST to treat these patients. Implications and lessons learned from these patients are discussed to inform further development of PST to better meet the needs of older patients suffering from late-life anxiety.