Addressing Relationship Health Needs in Primary Care: Adapting the Marriage Checkup for Use in Medical Settings with Military Couples

The overall objective of this study was to pilot the Marriage Checkup (MC), a brief intervention for enhancing marital resiliency tailored to a military population, for use by internal behavioral health consultants (IBHCs) working in an integrated primary care clinic. The MC was revised to fit into the fast-paced environment of primary care (e.g., streamlined to fit within three 30-min appointments), and military-relevant material was added to the content. IBHCs working in primary care were then trained to offer the intervention. Thirty participants were enrolled in the study and completed a relationship checkup and one-month follow-up questionnaires. Analysis of post-test and one-month follow-up data showed statistically significant improvements in participants’ marital health compared to pre-treatment. The MC intervention appeared to be well received by both couples and IBHCs.     

Evaluation of a DVD-based self-help program in highly socially anxious individuals--pilot study

High social anxiety is a risk factor for the incidence of social anxiety disorder (SAD). Early diagnosis and intervention may prevent more severe psychiatric courses. Self-help programs may be a convenient, accessible, and effective intervention. This study examined the efficacy of a newly developed self-help program for SAD in individuals with subthreshold social anxiety. A total of 24 highly socially anxious individuals were randomly assigned to a DVD-based self-help program or to a wait-list control group. The self-help program is based on the cognitive model according to Clark and Wells (1995; adapted to German by Stangier, Clark, & Ehlers, 2006) and comprises eight sessions. ANOVAs based on an intention-to-treat model were used for data analyses. The self-help program was well accepted; just one person withdrew during the intervention. There were significant Time × Group interactions on all primary outcome measures. For the intervention group moderate to high within-groups effect sizes up to Cohen's d = 1.05 were obtained. Between-groups effect sizes ranged from 0.24 to 0.65 in favor of the active intervention. The newly developed DVD-based self-help program seems to be a promising intervention for highly socially anxious individuals as it reduces social anxiety symptoms.     

Subjective Well-Being of China’s Off-Farm Migrants

Existing research applying the personal wellbeing index (PWI) in China is restricted to urban and rural samples. There are no studies for Chinese off-farm migrants. The specific aims of this study are: (a) ascertain whether Chinese off-farm are satisfied with their lives; (b) investigate the equivalence of the PWI in terms of its psychometric properties; and (c) examine whether the responses to the PWI from participants falls within the normative range predicted by the Theory of Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis. The PWI demonstrated good psychometric performance in terms of its reliability and validity and was consistent with previous studies for Western and non-Western samples. The data revealed a moderate level of subjective well-being (PWI score = 62.6). While Chinese off-farm migrants lead hard lives, the PWI was within the normative range predicted for Chinese societies by the Theory of Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis. A likely explanation for this finding rests with the circular nature of migration in China. When China’s off-farm migrants find it too difficult to cope in the cities, most have the fallback position that they can return to their homes in the countryside. This option provides an external buffer to minimize the inherent challenges of life which would otherwise impinge on the life satisfaction of China’s off-farm migrants.     

Sampling in research on interpersonal aggression

The aim of this study was to investigate the usefulness of convenience samples in research on interpersonal aggression among adults. It was hypothesised that convenience sampled targets of aggression differs from targets in general with regards to both demographic characteristics and degree of aggression exposed to. A convenience sample comprising support-seeking targets of workplace bullying was compared with a representative sample of Norwegian targets of bullying. The results showed that the two samples differed significantly on all demographic variables investigated, except gender. A far higher percentage of the convenience sample had blown the whistle on illegal, immoral or illegitimate practice at their workplace, whereas they also reported significantly more frequent and more intense exposure to aggression. The findings confirm that convenience samples have low external validity when generalising to the general population. Such samples should therefore mainly be used to investigate tendencies in, and the phenomenology of, interpersonal aggression, in studies where generalisability is not the principal objective.     

The Philosophy of Osman bin Bakar

This article examines the philosophy that Osman bin Bakar has published in English. Beginning with his biography and theoretical groundings, and especially the influences that Greek, Chinese, Indian, and Islamic philosophers have had on his thought, the article then turns to Bakar's philosophy of science, ‘ilm al‐tawhīd, how knowledge about the world should be classified, and especially evolutionary theory within Islamic philosophy. These developments in philosophical grounding provide Bakar with a platform to suggest how science can be used as a vehicle for inter‐civilizational dialogue.     

Valence processing bypassing the response selection bottleneck? Evidence from the psychological refractory period paradigm

The activation of semantic categories has often been claimed to occur in an attention-free, unconditionally automatic fashion (e.g., Bargh & Chartrand, 1999; Ferguson & Bargh, 2004). Using a dual-task procedure we tested whether the activation of valence categories is restricted by dual-task specific attentional limitations. For this reason we implemented a modified Eriksen-flanker task as Task 2 in a psychological refractory period paradigm. Participants were to judge the frequency of a tone in Task 1 and the valence of a target word in the presence of irrelevant flanker words in Task 2. Two different flanker categories ensured the activation of semantic categories instead of S-R based response activation. The most important result was an underadditive interaction between flanker congruency and the amount of temporal overlap between tasks that was independent of flanker type. Following the locus-of-slack logic, we interpret these findings as evidence for Task 2 processing parallel to bottleneck-stage processing in Task 1. This extends previous findings by showing that not only number categories (Fischer, Schubert, & Miller, 2007; Oriet, Tombu, & Jolicouer, 2005), but also semantic valence categories can be activated despite dual-task capacity limitations.     

Understanding Applicant Reactions to Credit Checks: Uncertainty,information effects and individual differences

Credit checks are an increasingly common selection procedure for American jobs, and they are distinct in a number of ways from the selection tests typically studied by researchers. With a credit check, applicants do not actually take a test or answer questions, and most will be uncertain about what information a credit report contains, why one is being requested, and how it will be evaluated. In two experiments we assess the effects of explanations and individual differences. Experiment 1 used a sample of 408 undergraduate business students to examine reaction dimensions relevant to credit checks, and found perceptions to be mainly negative. The type of explanation read, however, interacted with perceived credit report impact to influence reactions. Results of Experiment 2 , with a sample of students from a more non‐traditional population, were similar, but age was associated with greater skepticism of credit report accuracy. Privacy perceptions were the strongest predictor of intention to withdraw from the selection process.     

Adult modelling facilitates young children's generation of novel pretend acts

The present work investigated the effect of modelling on children's pretend play behaviour. Thirty‐seven children aged between 27 and 41 months were given 4 min of free play with a dollhouse and associated toy props (pre‐modelling phase). Using dolls, an experimenter then acted out a series of vignettes involving object substitutions, imaginary play and attribution of properties. Children were subsequently provided with an additional 4 min free play (post‐modelling phase). Consistent with past research, more pretence was exhibited after modelling than before. Furthermore, in the post‐modelling phase, children were as likely to generate their own novel pretence as they were to copy the actions demonstrated by the experimenter. They also increased the number of novel symbolic acts involving imaginary play from the pre‐ to the post‐modelling phase. This study highlights how young children will not only imitate a model's demonstration of pretend acts but also use this demonstration to catalyze the creation of their own pretence. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Accessory stimuli modulate effects of nonconscious priming

In a recent study, it was shown that subliminal priming (SP) effects are affected by the temporal predictability of a stimulus onset. If predictability is not given, SP effects are eliminated (Naccache, Blandin, & Dehaene, 2002). In two experiments, we investigated how different levels of preparation for target processing affect SP effects. For this purpose, an accessory tone stimulus was presented at different times prior to a subliminal priming task. The results demonstrate a clear modulation of the SP effects at different foreperiod intervals. Relative to conditions without an accessory stimulus, SP effects were smaller for short foreperiod intervals of the accessory stimulus, and larger for long foreperiod intervals. The results suggest that the presentation of an accessory stimulus facilitates response activation processes because of the participants' enhanced level of preparation for stimulus processing.