White Counselor Self-Awareness: A Prerequisite for Developing Multicultural Competence

This review of the literature examines White counselor self-awareness as an important variable in developing multicultural competence. The self-dimension discussed in this article includes worldview, cultural values, and racial identity. It is suggested that counselor self-awareness is a prerequisite to developing multicultural competence and that an in-depth understanding of these factors may improve the delivery of mental health services to culturally diverse client populations.     

Felicitometric hermeneutics: interpreting quality of life measurements

The use of quality of life (QOL) outcomes in clinical trials is increasing as a number of practical, ethical, methodological, and regulatory reasons for their use have become apparent. It is important, then, that QOL measurements and differences between QOL scores be readily interpretable. We study interpretation in two contexts: when determining QOL and when basing decisions on QOL differences. We consider both clinical situations involving individual patients and research contexts, e.g., randomized clinical trials, involving groups of patients. We note the ethical importance of such understanding: proper interpretation and communication facilitate health care decision making. Communication that facilitates interpretation is of moral significance since better communication can attenuate ethical problems and inform choices. Much of what is communication worthy about QOL assessments is determined by the particular QOL instrument used in the assessment and how it is administered. In practice, these choices will be driven by the purpose of the assessment, but, it is argued, to maximize understanding, we should combine the information garnered from traditional standardized QOL instruments, from individualized QOL assessments, and from a recently proposed dialogic paradigm, where QOL is determined by shared conversation regarding the interpretation of texts. And, while some studies can surely succeed using abbreviated methods of administration (e.g., postal surveys may suffice for certain purposes), we will focus on methods of administration involving interviewer?Crespondent interaction. We suggest that during the QOL elicitation process, interviewer and respondent should engage in a two-way conversation in order to achieve a shared understanding of the ??answers?? to QOL ??questions?? and, finally, to reach a shared interpretation of the individual??s QOL.     

Attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help among Chinese students at a UK university

Aim: In this study we aimed to investigate whether Chinese international and British home students at a university in the United Kingdom differed in their attitudes towards seeking psychological help. Method: The total sample comprised 323 participants. Participants completed measures to assess their attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help (recognition of need for psychological help, stigma tolerance, interpersonal openness, confidence in mental health practitioners). Results: Chinese students reported significantly less interpersonal openness than that reported by British students. Contrary to prediction, however, no significant group differences were found on any of the other mental health attitudes (i.e. recognition of need for psychological help, confidence in mental health practitioners or stigma tolerance). Within‐group contrasts also showed that Chinese students reported lower scores on interpersonal openness than on stigma tolerance and confidence in mental health practitioners. In contrast, British participants reported less confidence in mental health practitioners and recognition of the need for psychological help than reported for stigma tolerance and interpersonal openness. Conclusion: The findings highlight the need for a greater understanding of students' cultural inclinations toward mental health issues and cultural attitudes that may hinder and/or facilitate students' access and engagement with psychological services in higher education institutions.     

Assessing the associative deficit of older adults in long-term and short-term/working memory

Older adults exhibit a deficit in associative long-term memory relative to younger adults. However, the literature is inconclusive regarding whether this deficit is attenuated in short-term/working memory. To elucidate the issue, three experiments assessed younger and older adults' item and interitem associative memory and the effects of several variables that might potentially contribute to the inconsistent pattern of results in previous studies. In Experiment 1, participants were tested on item and associative recognition memory with both long-term and short-term retention intervals in a single, continuous recognition paradigm. There was an associative deficit for older adults in the short-term and long-term intervals. Using only short-term intervals, Experiment 2 utilized mixed and blocked test designs to examine the effect of test event salience. Blocking the test did not attenuate the age-related associative deficit seen in the mixed test blocks. Finally, an age-related associative deficit was found in Experiment 3, under both sequential and simultaneous presentation conditions. Even while accounting for some methodological issues, the associative deficit of older adults is evident in short-term/working memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Experiences of a Course on the Culture of Whiteness in Counselor Education

This study examined counseling students' experiences of a group course on the culture of Whiteness. The students reported changes in their White racial identities that included a new awareness of personal race, racial privileges, and a commitment to antiracism. Course tenets cited by students as promoting learning are included. Este estudio examinó las experiencias de un grupo de estudiantes de consejería de un curso sobre la cultura de la Blancura. Los estudiantes informaron de un cambio en su identidad racial Blanca que incluía una renovada conciencia personal sobre la raza, los privilegios raciales y un compromiso con el antirracismo. Se incluyen los principios del curso que los estudiantes citaron como promotores del aprendizaje.     

Same same but different!? The differential influence of smilies and emoticons on person perception

Emoticons (ASCII-based character strings) and smilies (pictograms) are widely used in computer-mediated communication as substitutes to compensate for the absence of nonverbal cues. Although their usage has been investigated in numerous studies, it remains open whether they provoke differential effects and whether they lead to person perception patterns similar to what is known from face-to-face interactions. Based on findings from research about person perception and nonverbal communication, we investigated the differential effects of smilies and emoticons with regard to recipients' mood, message evaluation, and person perception in an experimental online study (n=127) with a 2(smiley/emoticon) by 2(positive/negative) between-subjects design (with an additional control condition). Results generally support earlier findings, indicating that the valence of the cue (smiley or emoticon) affects the corresponding impression formation. Further, findings concerning the differential influence of both forms of cues show that there are no differences with regard to message interpretation, whereas smiling smilies have a stronger impact on personal mood than smiling emoticons. The perception of a writer's commitment was only altered by smilies, suggesting that they elicit a stronger impact than emoticons.     

Training Staff to Create Equivalence-Based Instruction Materials in Qualtrics

The Psychological Record - Staff training is an important line of research to ensure that clinicians in the field of applied behavior analysis provide quality services. One approach to providing...     

Motor resources in peripersonal space are intrinsic to spatial encoding: Evidence from motor interference

The aim of this study was to explore the role of motor resources in peripersonal space encoding: are they intrinsic to spatial processes or due to action potentiality of objects? To answer this question, we disentangled the effects of motor resources on object manipulability and spatial processing in peripersonal and extrapersonal spaces. Participants had to localize manipulable and non-manipulable 3-D stimuli presented within peripersonal or extrapersonal spaces of an immersive virtual reality scenario. To assess the contribution of motor resources to the spatial task a motor interference paradigm was used. In Experiment 1, localization judgments were provided with the left hand while the right dominant arm could be free or blocked. Results showed that participants were faster and more accurate in localizing both manipulable and non-manipulable stimuli in peripersonal space with their arms free. On the other hand, in extrapersonal space there was no significant effect of motor interference. Experiment 2 replicated these results by using alternatively both hands to give the response and controlling the possible effect of the orientation of object handles. Overall, the pattern of results suggests that the encoding of peripersonal space involves motor processes per se, and not because of the presence of manipulable stimuli. It is argued that this motor grounding reflects the adaptive need of anticipating what may happen near the body and preparing to react in time.     

The Relationship Between Religious Service Attendance and Coronary Heart Disease and Related Risk Factors in Saskatchewan, Canada

Research suggests that attending religious services could provide small yet important protective benefits against coronary heart disease (CHD) and CHD risk factors (e.g., diabetes, hypertension). The extent to which these benefits apply to Canada deserves study because approximately one-third of adult Canadians attend religious services at least monthly. Therefore, the objective of this study is to examine the association between frequency of religious service attendance and prevalence of (1) CHD, (2) diabetes, and (3) hypertension in Canada. We used the Saskatchewan sample (n = 5,442) of the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS-4.1) and built multivariable logistic regression models to evaluate associations between religious service attendance and self-reported CHD, diabetes, and hypertension. After controlling for demographic, socioeconomic and health behavior variables, the association between religious service attendance and prevalence of CHD was not significant (OR = 0.82; 95 % CI 0.61–1.11). However, persons who attended religious services more than once a week exhibited lower prevalence odds of diabetes (OR = 0.60; 95 % CI 0.45–0.80) and hypertension (OR = 0.82; 95 % CI 0.68–0.99) compared to persons who attended less than once a year. The findings of this study are the first to suggest religious service attendance may be associated with a lower prevalence of CHD risk factors in Canada.     

Attention biases and habituation of attention biases are associated with 5-HTTLPR and COMTval158met

Fundamental biases in affective information processing are modulated by individual differences in the emotional response to environmental stimuli that may be partly based on the individual’s genetic make-up. To extend prior dot probe studies on attention genetics, we used a visual-search paradigm (VSP) with pictures of angry and happy faces of both sexes as targets, neutral faces as distractors, and a varying set size. Participants were selected a priori depending on their 5-HTTLPR (s/s, s/l, l/l; on a constant rs25531 A-allele background) and COMTval158met (val/val, valmet, met/met) genotypes and were matched for sex and age. We demonstrate a bias towards angry male faces (as opposed to happy male faces) irrespective of 5-HTTLPR genotype in the first experimental block that was maintained during the second experimental block only in carriers of the s-allele, which implies differential habituation processes. While a bias towards angry male faces was observed irrespective of COMTval158met genotype, only individuals with the val/val genotype exhibited a bias towards a happy female face (as opposed to an angry female face). In sum, our results both replicate and extend prior findings in the field of attention genetics and add important pieces of information to the research on attentional biases in emotion processing.