Psychosocial mediation of fruit and vegetable consumption in the body and soul effectiveness trial.

In this study the authors examined psychosocial variables as mediators for fruit and vegetable (FV) intake in a clustered, randomized effectiveness trial conducted in African American churches. The study sample included 14 churches (8 intervention and 6 control) with 470 participants from the intervention churches and 285 participants from the control churches. The outcome of FV intake and the proposed mediators were measured at baseline and at 6-month follow-up. Structural equation modeling indicated that the intervention had direct effects on social support, self-efficacy, and autonomous motivation; these variables also had direct effects on FV intake. Applying the M. E. Sobel (1982) formula to test significant mediated effects, the authors confirmed that social support and self-efficacy were significant mediators but that autonomous motivation was not. Social support and self-efficacy partially mediated 20.9% of the total effect of the intervention on changes in FV intake. The results support the use of strategies to increase social support and self-efficacy in dietary intervention programs.     

God Attachment: Resource or Complication in Women’s and Their Partners’ Adjustment to the Threat of Breast Cancer

Journal of Religion and Health - This study explored the role of adult attachment and God attachment in women’s and their partners’ adjustment to the threat of breast cancer. Women and...     

Effects of pre-operant running and sucrose concentration on operant wheel running on a fixed interval schedule of reinforcement

Prior research proposed that temporal control over the pattern of operant wheel running on a fixed interval (FI) schedule of sucrose reinforcement is a function of automatic reinforcement generated by wheel running and the experimentally arranged sucrose reinforcement. Two experiments were conducted to assess this prediction. In the first experiment, rats ran for different durations (0, 30, 60, and 180 min) prior to a session of operant wheel running on a FI 120-s schedule. In the second experiment, the concentration of sucrose reinforcement on a FI 180-s schedule was varied across values of 0, 5, 15, and 25%. In Experiment 1, as the duration of pre-operant running increased, the postreinforcement pause before initiation of running lengthened while wheel revolutions in the latter part of the FI interval increased. In Experiment 2, wheel revolutions markedly increased then decreased to a plateau early in the FI interval. Neither manipulation increased temporal control of the pattern of wheel running. Instead, results indicate that operant wheel running is regulated by automatic reinforcement generated by wheel activity and an adjunctive pattern of running induced by the temporal presentation of sucrose. Furthermore, the findings question whether the sucrose contingency regulates wheel running as a reinforcing consequence.     

Housing First and Photovoice: Transforming Lives,Communities, and Systems

This article presents findings from a community‐based participatory evaluation of a Housing First program on the Island of O'ahu. In this study, clients in a Housing First program used Photovoice to evaluate the program and to advocate for progressive housing policies. Written together by members of the Housing First Photovoice group, this collaborative article describes the outcomes from both the Housing First program and the Photovoice project and demonstrates the ways in which participatory program evaluations can interact with client‐driven programs like Housing First to produce a cumulative, transformative impact. Findings suggest that community psychologists hoping to re‐engage with community mental health systems through enacting transformative change should consider taking a community‐based participatory approach to program evaluation because increased client voice in community mental health programs and their evaluations can have far‐reaching, transformative impacts for research, practice, and policy.     

Complex Reaction Time and General Intelligence: A Refinement

College students (N = 28) completed a reaction-time task that yielded decision times for simple and complex conditions. Each student was also administered the revised edition of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scales (WAIS-R). Decision-time parameters generally correlated negatively with WAIS subscales. These correlations reached significance, however, mainly with timed performance subscales. The results were consistent with Vernon's (1983) results.