Sociodemographic Differences in Humility: The Role of Social Relations

This study examines whether humility is associated with gender, education, and racial/ethnic group. We also investigate how social relations mediate these links across the life course. Data are from the Detroit Community Study, which focused on three prominent groups in the area: Arab Americans, African Americans, and White Americans (N=907). Findings indicate that Arab Americans and African Americans report greater humility than Whites. Further, social relations partially mediate this association, but only among older Arab Americans. Findings are discussed within a developmental science perspective to consider the relational aspects of the individual and context over the life course.     

Short-Term Assessment of Risk and Treatability (START): The case for a new structured professional judgment scheme

The Short-Term Assessment of Risk and Treatability (START) is a new structured professional judgment scheme intended to inform multiple risk domains relevant to everyday psychiatric clinical practice (e.g. risk to others, suicide, self-harm, self-neglect, substance abuse, unauthorized leave, and victimization). The article describes the processes involved in establishing an interdisciplinary approach to risk assessment and management. The authors present a review of the rationale for START, including the value of dynamic variables, the importance of strengths, and the extent to which clinicians must be attentive to multiple risk domains, reflecting theoretical and scientific evidence of the overlap among risks. Using the development, validation, and implementation of START as an example, the authors describe the processes by which other researchers, clinicians, and administrators could adapt existing assessment schemes or create new ones to bridge some remaining gaps in the risk assessment and management continuum.     

The big, the bad, and the boozed-up: Weight moderates the effect of alcohol on aggression

Most people avoid the “big, drunk guy” in bars because they do not want to get assaulted. Is this stereotype supported by empirical evidence? Unfortunately, no scientific work has investigated this topic. Based on the recalibrational theory of anger and embodied cognition theory, we predicted that heavier men would behave the most aggressively when intoxicated. In two independent experiments (Ns = 553 and 327, respectively), participants consumed either alcohol or placebo beverages and then completed an aggression task in which they could administer painful electric shocks to a fictitious opponent. Both experiments showed that weight interacted with alcohol and gender to predict the highest amount of aggression among intoxicated heavy men. The results suggest that an embodied cognition approach is useful in understanding intoxicated aggression. Apparently there is a kernel of truth in the stereotype of the “big, drunk, aggressive guy.”     

Effects of a Peer Engagement Program on Socially Withdrawn Children with a History of Maltreatment

Children with a history of child maltreatment often have limited social interactions with other children and adults. This study examined the effects of a Peer Engagement Program, consisting of peer mentoring and social skills training with positive reinforcement, in three children with low levels of oral and social interaction. A multiple baseline, single-subject research design was used to test whether introduction of the intervention was associated with increased, directly observed oral interaction and engagement in social activities with peers and adults. The Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and the Social Skills Rating Scale (SSRS) were administered before and after intervention. All children showed increased levels of oral and social interaction and improved scores on the SSRS and the CBCL.     

Teaching Oppressive Texts

Scholars have identified the many stories in the Bible that are oppressive to women or other minoritized groups. It is remarkable how common it is that North American undergraduate students remain blind to the oppression that is depicted and that is too often the result of commonly accepted interpretations of these texts. Three brief essays collected here, originally presented as part of a panel at the Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting (Atlanta, 2010), present various teaching strategies for exposing the oppressive elements in the biblical text and showing how the oppression operates (an aspect of ideological criticism). What are good strategies for communicating these hard points to students in a way they can hear them and work with them? Why is this important to do?     

How to blow the Whistle and still have a career afterwards

Filing charges of scientific misconduct can be a risky and dangerous endeavor. This article presents rules of conduct to follow when considering whether to report perceived misconduct, and a set of step-by-step procedures for responsible whistleblowing that describe how to do so once the decision to report misconduct has been made. This advice is framed within the university setting, and may not apply fully in industrial settings. Ms. Gunsalus, an attorney, has been responsible for a wide range of compliance issues and academic policy matters at her university including responding to allegations of scientific misconduct. She served on the United States Commission on Research Integrity and spent six years on the AAAS Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility, four of them as chair. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the symposium entitled “Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t: What the Scientific Community Can Do About Whistleblowing” held during the Annual Meeting of the AAAS, Seattle, Washington, 15 February, 1997.     

Source Monitoring: ERP Evidence for Greater Reactivity to Nontarget Information in Older Adults

Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) were collected concurrently with stimulus presentation during a source monitoring task. Younger adults were less likely than older adults to make source monitoring errors and their ERP records showed far greater discrimination between target stimuli and familiar but nontarget foils. Older adults not only made more source errors but produced high amplitude late positivities to the nontarget foils even when these foils were correctly rejected. Under divided attention conditions, younger adults performance was similar to that of the older adults both behaviorally and electrophysiologically. These data illustrate the role that attentional resources play in the ability to inhibit response tendencies and suggest that age differences in source monitoring may be more related to attentional control than inefficiencies in the encoding of contextual information. As well, they suggest that the ERP late positivity may represent a more general response to item salience rather than serve as an index of recollection as is the current view.