Reentry as Experienced by Women in Jail: Advocating for Change

We conducted a phenomenological study with 35 women in a substance abuse treatment jail program about their lived experiences in preparing for reentry. The women addressed their past, the needs of their families, and education of criminal justice personnel, providers, and the whole citizenry. The women advocated for effective reentry practices.     

Scope of Semantic Activation and Innovative Thinking in College Students with ADHD

Adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) show high divergent thinking on standardized laboratory measures. This study assessed innovative thinking in adults with ADHD using a realistic task and investigated a possible cognitive mechanism for ADHD-related advantages in innovative thinking. College students with and without ADHD (n = 30 per group) completed a cell-phone feature invention task and word association task. Latent semantic analysis was used to measure semantic distance within cue-associate pairs on the word association task. Compared to non-ADHD peers, students with ADHD scored higher in originality, novelty, and flexibility on the cell phone task, and produced associates of lower semantic relatedness on the word association task. Tests of statistical mediation confirmed that the higher flexibility of the ADHD group was explained by semantic distance within cue-associate pairs on the word association task. Results support the possibility that ADHD is positively associated with specific aspects of innovative thinking, which may in part be attributable to a wide scope of semantic activation.     

The Interconnection Between Islamic Religiosity and Deviancy Among Australian Muslim Youth: A Partial Mediation Role of Life Satisfaction

The aim of the present study was to examine the extent to which life satisfaction mediates the relationship between Islamic religiosity and deviancy amongst Muslim youth. A sample of 200 Australian Muslims aged between 18 and 25 years (M_age = 21.18; SD = 1.89) participated in this study. An existing attitude toward Islam measure and Islamic religious practice measure developed for the current study purposes were used. Controlling for demographic variables and social desirability, the study findings revealed a negative association between Islamic religious practice and deviancy, and a positive association with life satisfaction. Participants’ life satisfaction was negatively associated with deviancy and partially mediated the association between participants’ Islamic religious practice and deviancy. Attitudes toward Islam scores were not associated with either deviancy or life satisfaction. Our findings suggest that strategies to encourage and support young Muslim’s life satisfaction hold the potential to protect them against deviancy.     

How do Physicians Decide to Refer Their Patients for Psychiatric Genetic Counseling? A Qualitative Study of Physicians’ Practice

Psychiatric genetic counseling (PGC) is an emerging specialty discipline within the genetic counseling profession. A specialist PGC service was founded in 2012 in Vancouver, Canada, and though patient benefits have been demonstrated, many physicians do not regularly refer patients to the service despite awareness of its availability. We conducted a qualitative study involving semi-structured telephone interviews with Vancouver-based physicians who were aware of the PGC service to explore this phenomenon. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, coded, and analysed for emergent themes. Consistent with a grounded theory approach, constant comparison was employed throughout data collection and analysis. Analyses of interviews conducted with 12 physicians revealed that referral practices were informed by perceptions about the purpose of PGC and interpretation of patient cues. Physicians perceived PGC as an information-focused intervention, and considered referral when patients explicitly expressed desire for information about recurrence risk or etiology that they felt unable to adequately address themselves. Even when physicians identified psychotherapeutic benefits of PGC, patient needs of this nature were not perceived as cues prompting referral to PGC. These data suggest that further work is necessary to position PGC in physicians’ minds as a service that could potentially benefit most individuals with psychiatric disorders and their families, and that it encompasses more than information provision. It is important to increase physicians’ awareness of the complementary role that genetic counselors can play to that of the physician in providing psychotherapeutically oriented counselling about illness etiology.     

What would Batman do? Self‐distancing improves executive function in young children

This experimental research assessed the influence of graded levels of self‐distancing – psychological distancing from one's egocentric perspective – on executive function (EF) in young children. Three‐ (n = 48) and 5‐year‐old (n = 48) children were randomly assigned to one of four manipulations of distance from the self (from proximal to distal: self‐immersed, control, third person, and exemplar) on a comprehensive measure of EF. Performance increased as a function of self‐distancing across age groups. Follow‐up analyses indicated that 5‐year‐olds were driving this effect. They showed significant improvements in EF with increased distance from the self, outperforming controls both when taking a third person perspective on the self and when taking the perspective of an exemplar other (e.g., Batman) through role play. Three‐year‐olds, however, did not show increased EF performance as a function of greater distance from the self. Preliminary results suggest that developments in theory of mind might contribute to these age‐related differences in efficacy. These findings speak to the importance of psychological distancing in the expression of conscious control over thought and action from a young age and suggest a promising new avenue for early EF intervention.     

Relation of infant motor development with nonverbal intelligence,language comprehension and neuropsychological functioning in childhood: a population‐based study

Within a population‐based study of 3356 children, we investigated whether infant neuromotor development was associated with cognition in early childhood. Neuromotor development was examined with an adapted version of Touwen's Neurodevelopmental Examination between 9 and 20 weeks. Parents rated their children's executive functioning at 4 years. At age 6 years, children performed intelligence and language comprehension tests, using Dutch test batteries. At age 6–9 years, neuropsychological functioning was assessed in 486 children using the validated NEPSY‐II–NL test battery. We showed that less optimal neurodevelopment in infancy may predict poor mental rotation, immediate memory, shifting, and planning; but not nonverbal intelligence or language comprehension.     

The State of Dyadic Methodology: An Analysis of the Literature on Interventions for Military Couples

ABSTRACT

Military members and their spouses experience unique stressors compared with civilian couples, making them distinctively vulnerable to a number of marital and mental health concerns. However, the amount and quality of intervention research to guide treatment for military couples are unknown. Therefore, a systematic literature search of interventions for military couples was completed resulting in 10 articles that met the study's inclusion and exclusion criteria. Further, a rubric to assess dyadic methodology was created and utilized to determine the dyadic quality of the methodology of the sampled articles. The results of the systematic literature review revealed that (a) there are few evidence-based interventions for military couples in which both members of the dyad are included and (b) the methodology by which treatments are evaluated largely do not employ systemic or dyadic measures. Recommendations for future research with military couples includes the need for couple-focused interventions using experimental methodology, systemic theories to guide intervention and research, and appropriate dyadic assessment and analysis tools to determine the effectiveness of couple's interventions for military, reserve, and veteran populations.     

It's more than skin‐deep: The relationship between social victimization and telomere length in adolescence

This study examined the relationship between peer victimization and telomere length (TL), an indicator of biological aging that is associated with stressors (Epel, 2009). It was predicted that social victimization would have a greater impact upon TL, as well as the frequency and severity of health complaints than physical victimization. Adolescents (M_age = 15.91 years, SD_age = 1.65) and their parents completed measures of peer victimization and physical health problems; adolescents also submitted a DNA sample for telomere analysis. Greater instances of being socially, but not physically, victimized were associated with shorter telomeres, as well as more frequent and severe health complaints. TL was also negatively related to both the frequency and severity of health problems, even after controlling for BMI, age, and sex of participant. The relationship between social victimization and health complaints via TL held only at higher levels of social victimization. These findings are the first to find an association between peer victimization and shortened telomeres.

     

Laboratory and questionnaire measures of aggression among female parolees with violent or nonviolent histories

Female parolees were recruited into a laboratory study to determine the relationship between their previous aggression history, questionnaire measures of aggression, and behavioral measures of aggressive responding using a laboratory methodology: the Point Subtraction Aggression Paradigm (PSAP). Subjects were assigned to a violent or nonviolent group based on their criminal history. Subjects participated in sessions in which they were given three response options: (1) nonaggressive responding that earned money, (2) aggressive responding that ostensibly subtracted money from another fictitious person and was defined as aggressive since it resulted in the ostensible delivery of an aversive stimulus (subtraction of money) to another person, and (3) escape responding that protected the subject's earnings from periodic subtractions initiated by the fictitious other person. Results indicated that the violent female parolees emitted significantly more aggressive responses than subjects in the nonviolent group. This study provides additional external validity as well as evidence for convergent and discriminant validity for PSAP laboratory measurement of human aggressive responding and extends these findings to female parolees. Comparisons to previously published data with male parolees showed that gender differences were found among violent but not nonviolent parolees. Aggr. Behav. 26:291–307, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.