Crisis Intervention With Survivors of Natural Disaster: Lessons From Hurricane Andrew

Crisis intervention has typically been conceptualized as seeking a return of clients to a state of equilibrium. Our work with Hurricane Andrew survivors in south Florida, as part of the Disaster Mental Health Services team of the American Red Cross, has led us to appreciate the importance of several further considerations. In our work, we developed a proactive approach, attempting to recognize and extend clients' preexisting strengths. We offer a number of pragmatic interventions, focusing particularly on children's issues and we draw attention to sensitive multicultural issues.     

Sex-selective abortion: a relational approach

A critical application of Ruddick's model of maternal thinking is the best way to grapple with the ethical dilemmas posed by sex-selective abortion which I view as a "moral mistake." Chief among these is the need to be sensitive to local cultural practices in countries where sex-selective abortion is prevalent, while simultaneously developing consistent international standards to deal with the dangers posed by the use of sex-selective abortion to eliminate female fetuses.     

Telling stories: metaphors of the Human Genome Project

Scientists of the Human Genome Project tend to rely on three metaphors to describe their work, each of which implicitly tells much the same story. Whether they claim to interpret the ultimate “book,” to fix a flawed “machine,” or to map a mysterious “wilderness,” they invariably cast the researcher as one who dominates and exploits the Other. This essay, which explores the ways such a story conflicts with feminist values, proposes an alternative.     

Life Satisfaction of Single Middle-Aged Professional Women

This study examined 10 factors and their relation to the life satisfaction of single middle-aged professional women. The proposed regression model, which included job satisfaction, gender identity, locus of control, social support, health, financial resources, leisure-time activities, sexual satisfaction, and regrets regarding life circumstances, was explored through a questionnaire. Questionnaires were administered to single professional women in higher education institutions. Responses were received from 152 women. Performance on life satisfaction was significantly explained by recourse to the variables of job satisfaction, internal locus of control, regrets regarding life circumstances, sexual satisfaction, and leisure-time activities.     

WHO IS HAPPY?

A flood of new studies explores people's subjective well-being (SWB) Frequent positive affect, infrequent negative affect and a global sense of satisfaction with life define high SWB These studies reveal that happiness and life satisfaction are similarly available to the young and the old, women and men, blacks and whites, the rich and the working-class. Better clues to well-being come from knowing about a person's traits, close relationships, work experiences, culture, and religiosity. We present the elements of an appraisal-based theory of happiness that recognizes the importance of adaptation, cultural world view, and personal goals     

A DEVELOPMENTAL DEFICIT IN LOCALIZING OBJECTS FROM VISION

Abstract— We describe a college student, A. H., with a developmental deficit in determining the location of objects from vision. The deficit is selective in that (a) localization from auditory or tactile information is intact, (b) A H reports the identity of mislocalized objects accurately, (c) visual localization errors preserve certain parameters of the target location, and (d) visual localization is severely impaired under certain stimulus conditions, but nearly intact under other conditions. These results bear on the representation and processing of location information in the visual system, and also have implications for understanding developmental dyslexia.     

How learning contexts facilitate strategy transfer

The present study assessed the role of context in the acquisition and transfer of a mathematical strategy. One hundred and six children were assigned to four conditions: direct strategy instruction, guided discovery, direct teaching plus discovery, or a control condition. The intervention consisted of fourteen sessions during which the number-family strategy, useful for addition and subtraction, was taught. Third grade students in the guided discovery condition performed better than those in the direct instruction condition on far transfer problems that measured deep conceptual understanding. Students who had total or partial exposure to guided discovery held stronger beliefs and adopted more positive goals about the importance of mathematical understanding and peer collaboration, attributed less importance to task extrinsic reasons for success, and reported greater use of deep processing strategies than students exposed to direct, explicit instructions. Finally, students in the discovery conditions were able to communicate more effectively during problem solving than students in the direct instructions condition.     

An investigation of the relationship between self-efficacy and the communication effectiveness of product manual formats

Product manuals have been virtually ignored in published research despite their relevance to consumer satisfaction and marketplace safety. This study examines self-efficacy (perceptions of capabilities related to operating a product) and how it influences the effectiveness of and is also influenced by three safety message formats commonly used in product manuals (i.e., 1. safety messages presented in list format at the front of the manual; 2; safety messages presented by semantic similarity interspersed throughout the manual—chunked format, and 3. safety messages presented in a combined format—both list and chunked). As anticipated, pre-exposure self-efficacy was a significant covariate which was found to be positively related to post-exposure self-efficacy and negatively related to information evaluation. Further, controlling for pre-exposure self-efficacy, post-exposure self-efficacy was significantly lower in the combined (list plus chunked) condition. Findings of this research have important implications for the practice of repeating safety warnings and future research in the consumer information domain.Authors are listed in alphabetical order. This study was supported by an Illinois State University Research Grant.