Connecting Data to Action: How the Santa Cruz County Community Assessment Project Contributes to Better Outcomes for Youth

Community indicator projects have the potential to deliver new knowledge about the quality of life in local communities and drive actions to improve them (Phillips 2003; Holden Social Indicators Research 92:429–448, 2009; Memon and Johnstone 2008). However, the connection between the information produced by community indicator projects and the actions taken to improve conditions in communities remains under-researched (Holden Social Indicators Research 92:429–448, 2009; Hezri and Dovers Ecological Economics 60:86–99, 2006). This is because community indicator projects have mainly been conceptualized as producing information for action rather than as part of an action process (Memon and Johnstone 2008). This paper provides a case study of a community indicator project with an explicit plan to move beyond the data and into action. A review of one of the oldest community indicator projects in the United States, the Santa Cruz County Community Assessment Project (CAP) demonstrates how an action oriented community improvement cycle has contributed to measurable improvements for children and youth in one California County. The paper identifies key elements that were important for turning CAP data into local actions and concludes with lessons for community indicator practitioners and questions for future research.     

Recent Developments in the Treatment of Depression

The cognitive and behavioral interventions can be as efficacious as antidepressant medications and more enduring, but some patients will be more likely to respond to one than the other. Recent work has focused on developing sophisticated selection algorithms using machine-learning approaches that answer the question, “What works best for whom?” Moreover, the vast majority of people suffering from depression reside in low- and middle-income countries where access to either psychotherapy or medications is virtually nonexistent. Great strides have been made in training nonspecialist providers (known as task sharing) to overcome this gap. Finally, recent work growing out of evolutionary psychology suggests that antidepressant medications may suppress symptoms at the expense of prolonging the underlying episode so as to increase the risk of relapse whenever someone tries to stop. We address each of these developments and their cumulative implications.     

“Turn Now,My Vindication Is at Stake”: Military Moral Injury and Communities of Faith

Pastoral Psychology - The purpose of this article is to describe and analyze how communities of faith can overcome key barriers and fulfill their responsibility to respond to the moral injury of...     

Review of Hendrik Stoker,Conscience: phenomena and theories,Notre Dame,IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2018

Continental Philosophy Review -     

Happiness Enrichment and Sustainable Happiness

Applied Research in Quality of Life - Sustainable happiness research has recently received renewed attention. Studies present exercises intended to enhance happiness. A comprehensive process by...     

An analogue investigation of the relationships among perceived parental criticism, negative affect, and borderline personality disorder features: the role of thought suppression

The current study examined the relationships among biological predisposition, social environment, emotion regulation, and features characteristic of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Using an analogue sample, we examined whether thought suppression mediated the relationship of negative affective intensity/reactivity and perceived parental criticism with a composite of BPD features including impulsivity, interpersonal sensitivity, and aggression. Results indicated that thought suppression fully mediated the relationship between negative affect intensity/reactivity and BPD features and partially mediated the relationship between BPD features and perceived parental criticism. Clinical implications, directions for further research, and limitations of the present study are discussed.     

Negative cognitive styles, dysfunctional attitudes, and the remitted depression paradigm: a search for the elusive cognitive vulnerability to depression factor among remitted depressives

Results from studies using a behavioral high-risk design and approximations to it generally have corroborated the cognitive vulnerability hypothesis of depression, whereas results from remitted depression studies typically have not. Suspecting that design features of previously conducted remitted designs likely precluded them from detecting maladaptive cognitive patterns, the authors conducted a study featuring the remitted design that has been successful in studies of a biological vulnerability for depression. Participants' current depressive symptoms, negative cognitive styles (hopelessness theory), dysfunctional attitudes (Beck's theory), and lifetime prevalence of clinically significant depression were assessed. Participants who had remitted from an episode of clinically significant depression had more negative cognitive styles, but not greater levels of dysfunctional attitudes, than did never depressed individuals.     

Confidence and gradedness in semantic categorization: Definitely somewhat artifactual,maybe absolutely natural

Artifacts tend to be categorized in a graded (i.e., continuous) manner, whereas natural categorization tends to be absolute (i.e., discrete). This domain-specific categorization is assumed to reflect a domain difference in representation. However, another tenable but untested explanation is that graded categorization arises from uncertainty, which is greater in artifact categories than in natural categories. Confidence ratings were used as an index of certainty in two experiments that tested whether confidence in category judgments can explain the apparent gradedness of those categories. Both experiments revealed that artifact categories were more graded and were judged with greater confidence than were natural categories. Confidence and gradedness were negatively correlated within both domains. Thus, confidence did indeed predict gradedness within the artifact and natural domains but failed to predict the difference in gradedness between those domains. There is more to gradedness than just uncertainty.     

Domain differences in the structure of artifactual and natural categories

In three experiments, different methodologies, measures, and items were employed to address the question of whether, and to what extent, membership in a semantic category is all or none (i.e., absolute) or a matter of degree (i.e., graded). Resemblance theory claims that categorization is based on similarity, and because similarity is graded, category membership may also be graded. Psychological essentialism asserts that categorization is based on the presumption of the category essence. Because artifactual (e.g., FURNITURE) and natural (e.g., FRUIT) categories have different sorts of essences, artifacts and natural kinds may be categorized in qualitatively different manners. The results converged onthe finding of a robust domain difference in category structure: Artifactual categories were more graded than natural categories. Furthermore, typicality reliably predicted absolute category membership, but failed to predict graded category membership. These results suggest that resemblance theory and psychological essentialism may provide a concerted account of representation and categorization across domains.     

Similarity and attribution in concept combination: Reply to Wisniewski

Wisniewski raises several important points in his comment on our study of the (non)role of similarity in concept combination. He notes that feature diagnosticity is an important factor in property attribution. He also points out that relational interpretations of combined concepts depend on thematic role plausibility, not constituent similarity. We agree with both of these points. Wisniewski further identifies a possible item artifact that might account for our results. However, reexamination of those items fails to support this hypothesis. Wisniewski also claims that an alignment process is necessary to specify how an attributed property should be instantiated in the combined concept. We argue instead that postcomprehension elaboration processes can account for specific property instantiations. Finally, we suggest that the perceived similarity between the constituents of a combined concept is an outcome of the comprehension process, not a prior condition for, or an integral part of, that process.