The health needs of the majority versus the health needs of the individual: The reorganization of medical education in Colombia

The challenge of excellence in community health services has been taken up by medical educators in Colombia. Confronted with a nation where the primary indicators of disease mortality and morbidity (cardiovascular disease and infant mortality) were characteristic of First and Third World patterns, respectively, the Ministry of Health and La Asociacion Colombiana de Facultades de Medicina (ASCOFAME), representatives of institutions of medical education, have collaborated to conduct a needs assessment of the country's health needs and devised an implementation plan designed to better address the needs of the majority of that nation's people.As a model, the Colombian reorganization of medical education is an example which could be emulated by the U.S. where policy makers are struggling with troublesome questions of cost, equity and quality.     

Using focus groups to facilitate culturally anchored research

Scholars have acknowledged the need to anchor scientific knowledge about social and psychological processes in the norms, values, and experiences of the partticular population under study. This article describes how focus groups can be incorporated into the planning stages of a research pogram to facilitate these goals. After a brief overview of teh central components of focus group research, and example from a program of research involving dual-earner African American families is used to as an illustration. The article describes how (a) the identification of cultural knowledge and (b)access to the language participants use to think and talk about a topic can help researchers formulate a conceptual framework, identify important constructs, and develop appropriate instruments for assessing constructs. Some strengths and limitations of focus group research are discussed.     

Group Wrongs and Guilt Feelings

Can it ever be appropriate to feel guilt just because one's group has acted badly? Some say no, citing supposed features of guilt feelings as such. If one understands group action according to my plural subject account of groups, however, one can argue for the appropriateness of feeling guilt just because one's group has acted badly - a feeling that often occurs. In so arguing I sketch the plural subject account of groups, group intentions and group actions: for a group to intend (in the relevant sense) is for its members to be jointly committed to intend that such-and-such as a body. Individual group members need not be directly involved in the formation of the intention in order to participate in such a joint commitment. The core concept of joint commitment is in an important way holistic, not being reducible to a set of personal commitments over which each party holds sway. Parties to a group intention so understood can reasonably see the resulting action as "ours" as opposed to "theirs" and thus appropriately respond to the action's badness with a feeling of guilt, even when they themselves are morally innocent in the matter. I label the feeling in question a feeling of "membership guilt." A number of standard philosophical claims about the nature of guilt feelings are thrown into question by my argument.     

Relative sensitivity of the mutual exclusivity and novel-name-nameless category assumptions

The mutual exclusivity (ME) assumption states that children affix a novel label to only one unfamiliar object, while the novel-name-nameless category (N3C) assumption states that children affix a novel label to multiple unfamiliar objects. To compare the relative sensitivity of the two assumptions, two types of tasks, with two trials in each, were given to 5-year-olds. In the first trial of each task, all children selected only the unfamiliar object for a novel label, which was consistent with the ME assumption. For the task which did not have the same unfamiliar object in the two trials, 94% of the children selected the object with the same shape but black-white reversed image in the second trial, which was consistent with the N3C assumption. For the task which had the same unfamiliar object in the two trials, 43% of the children selected the same object in the second trial, which was consistent with the ME assumption, and 48% of them selected the object with the same shape but reversed image, which was consistent with the N3C assumption. The findings suggest that the ME and N3C assumptions can be flexibly applied to children's word learning.     

Self- and cross-citations in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis and the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior: 1983-1992

We examined self- and cross-citation practices in JABA and JEAB from 1983 through 1992. Mean levels of self-citation for JABA and for JEAB were 22.6% and 36.1%, respectively. Overall, 2.4% of JABA citations were JEAB articles, and 0.6% of JEAB citations were JABA articles, which suggests limited integration of basic and applied research.     

Socialization for the democratic personality in modern society

A comprehensive analysis of socialization requires a complex model that both explicates and synthesizes the various subprocesses involved in this phenomenon. Traditional concerns with socialization that have focused almost exclusively on its objective functions, that is, on those which serve society and its institutions, need to be complemented by an equal emphasis on subjective functions in terms of the sociological and psychological development of the individual. Chiefly relevant in this latter respect is the production of basic human needs and the consequences that result from their inadequate gratification in unauthentic and/or unresponsive societies. One such outcome that is particularly crucial to both personal and societal function is that of alienation, which can be assessed specifically in terms of its significance for civic participation. Our model recognizes the limits of both human systems and social systems; and, in terms of the principles of authenticity and responsivity, it articulates the linkage among these systems constituting the essence of socialization. Our model also provides an implicit clarification of the nature and meaning of citizenship in a democracy, which by definition should be a responsive society, and delineates the required sociopsychological images for maximizing the role of political participation.     

Developing the matrix representation grid (MRG): A method for observing group processes. Findings from time-limited group psychotherapy for alcohol-dependent patients

The MRG was published 1988 in order to support developments in group psychotherapy methods as one of the all too few process observation research methods for studying group-as-a-whole. After 9 years of what pilot studies have labeled successful clinical trials, this study aims at validating the MRG against the established SAVI: Structural Analysis of Verbal Interaction (Agazarian & Simon 1989). Videotaped group sessions from short-term groups for alcohol dependent patients conducted along two therapy methods, one behaviorally oriented and the other group analytic, are used as material. The MRG is validated in the study, confirmed to be clinically valuable, and some interesting comparisons between the two treatment modalities are also made.     

错失恐惧对亲社会行为的影响

网络信息的纷繁复杂,让人们担忧因错失信息而导致自身的利益受损,本研究探讨这种现象的加剧对个体的亲社会行为的影响。本研究分别使用问卷法（研究1）和实验法（研究2）,探究错失恐惧对亲社会行为的影响以及在其过程中人际安全感的中介作用和基本心理需要满足的调节作用。结果发现：（1）个体的错失恐惧程度负向预测了其亲社会行为;（2）人际安全感在错失恐惧对亲社会行为的影响中起中介作用,高的错失恐惧水平会降低个体的人际安全感,从而减少个体的亲社会行为;（3）基本心理需要满足在错失恐惧对亲社会行为的负向预测作用中起调节作用,当个体的基本心理需要满足程度低的时候,错失恐惧对亲社会行为的消极影响显著增强。