Risk drinking and contraception effectiveness among college women

Risk drinking, especially binge drinking, and unprotected sex may co-occur in college women and increase the risks of STI exposure and pregnancy, but the relationships among these behaviors are incompletely understood. A survey was administered to 2012 women of ages 18–24 enrolled in a public urban university. One-quarter of the college women (23%) drank eight or more drinks per week on average, and 63% binged in the past 90 days, with 64% meeting criteria for risk drinking. Nearly all sexually active women used some form of contraception (94%), but 18% used their method ineffectively and were potentially at risk for pregnancy. Forty-four percent were potentially at risk for STIs due to ineffective or absent condom usage. Ineffective contraception odds were increased by the use of barrier methods of contraception, reliance on a partner's decision to use contraception, and risk drinking, but were decreased by the use of barrier with hormonal contraception, being White, and later age to initiate contraception. In contrast, ineffective condom use was increased by reliance on a partner's decision to use condoms, the use of condoms for STI prevention only, and by risk drinking. Thirteen percent of university women were risk drinkers and using ineffective contraception, and 31% were risk drinkers and failing to use condoms consistently. Risk drinking is related to ineffective contraception and condom use. Colleges should promote effective contraception and condom use for STI prevention and consider coordinating their programs to reduce drinking with programs for reproductive health. Emphasizing the use of condoms for both pregnancy prevention and STI prevention may maximize women's interest in using them.     

Intraindividual models of employee well-being: What have we learned and where do we go from here?

As societal concern shifts from financial survival towards quality of life issues, both in and outside of the workplace, scholarly interest in employee well-being too has risen greatly in recent years. This greater attention to the antecedents and outcomes of employee well-being, such as job satisfaction, work engagement, and job burnout amongst others, is reflected in the proliferation of theories, constructs, and studies seeking to describe and explain why employees flourish or become exhausted at work, and the effect of employee well-being on individual behaviours and the organization at large. In this article, we provide a selective review of the current state of research in employee well-being, as well as key theories that have been employed in its study, with the aim of providing a critical assessment of the current state of employee well-being research as well as suggest future directions for the field. In particular, we discuss how research adopting intraindividual perspectives in the study of employee well-being can not only add value to our understanding of well-being but also complement the findings from between-individual studies, and offer suggestions for the development of a comprehensive theoretical model that integrates the two perspectives.     

Strategy Use in Reasoning Training With Older Adults

The relationship between strategy use and cognitive training gains on reasoning ability is examined in a sample of 393 older participants in the Seattle Longitudinal Training Study. Pre- and posttest gains on the use of strategies specific to reasoning ability were compared for the elderly trained on reasoning versus spatial orientation ability. The present study involves an objective behavioral method of measuring strategy use on tests of inductive reasoning. Results showed that participants trained on reasoning significantly increased strategy use from pre- to posttest on two reasoning outcome measures compared to participants trained on spatial orientation. Higher strategy use by inductive reasoning trainees was also associated with greater training gain on reasoning outcome measures, suggesting strategy use as a possible mechanism of training gain. In addition, young–old participants and those with higher education, irrespective of training condition, exhibited greater pre- to posttest gain in strategy use.     

Aging and automaticity: Evaluation of instance-based and strength-based mechanisms

Abstract

Experiments evaluated instance-based learning as a possible sole mechanism underlying development of automaticity. Age differences in extended practice lexical decision and factors that could effect age-related performance on lexical decision tasks were also examined. the first experiment was conducted to evaluate the role of stimulus-specific and strategic, task-specific learning underlying performance improvement in a trained lexical decision task. the first experiment consisted of a training and a transfer phase. the training phase assessed age-related differences on a lexical decision task where an attention response could, in principle, be developed (Search condition) and where an attention response could not develop (Nonsearch condition). the transfer phase was conducted to evaluate the role of strategic, task-specific factors on performance improvement observed in the training phase. Age-related differences in word-nonword response time differences were eliminated with practice in the nonsearch, but not the search, version of the task. Transfer tests also implicate strategic differences as a partial source of age differences in lexical decision performance. Experiment 2 was a 10-session (two-week) extended practice study which was conducted to provide a strong test of instance-based learning as a sole mechanism for automaticity. Contrary to predictions of instance theory, the Search and Nonsearch conditions converged for the young adults. Consistent with a strength-based theory of automaticity applied to cognitive aging, the conditions did not converge for older adults. the results provide further support for age differences in automaticity-as-attention training. Based on these and other results, the importance of considering varieties of automaticity in theories of cognitive aging is discussed.     

Confirming the Factor Structure of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Symptoms in Adult, Nonclinical Samples

Three separate models have been proposed to describe the factor structure of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in the past 20 years. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-III (DSM-III, 1980) proposed 3 separate factors of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. The DSM-III-R (1987) proposed a single factor. The DSM-IV (1994) described the disorder as having 2 factors: hyperactivity/impulsivity and inattention. The following 2 studies employed confirmatory factor analysis to compare each of these models and 3 alternative models. University students completed questionnaires that assessed each of the 18 symptoms listed in the DSM-IV for ADHD. The 3-factor model fit the data significantly better than each of the other models in both studies. These findings suggest that a 3-factor model of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity describes adult ADHD symptoms better than current alternatives.     

Rehearsal and retrieval processes in free recall of categorized lists

The relationships between rehearsal and subsequent retrieval characteristics were examined in the context of free recall of categorized lists. The results indicated a direct correspondence between the frequency of rehearsal and the order and speed of retrieval within categories. The same relationship obtained for the categories themselves. It was suggested that both retrieval time and order effects can be predicted in terms of the organization of input processing and the resultant repetition frequency of categories and exemplars.     

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.     

Repeated Play Reduces Video Games’ Ability to Elicit Guilt: Evidence from a Longitudinal Experiment

Statements supported mostly by correlational and cross-sectional studies suggest that playing violent video games can cause emotional desensitization. A longitudinal experiment examined a) whether repeated violent game play leads to emotional desensitization and b) whether desensitization generalizes to other play and real-life experiences. Participants played alternative versions of the same violent game for the first four days; on these days, the character role was varied between-subjects to be moral (United Nations soldier) or immoral (terrorist soldier). On Day 5, all participants played a novel game as a terrorist. Results indicate two things. First, habituation occurs over repeated game play: Repeated exposure decreased the ability of the original game to elicit guilt. Second, the decreased ability to elicit guilt can generalize to other game-play experiences: Guilt elicited by the novel game on Day 5 was reduced for the immoral character condition compared to the moral character condition. The current study provides causal, longitudinal evidence regarding the potential for video game play to lead to emotional desensitization with regard to future video game-play experiences.