SHORES: A Practical Mnemonic for Suicide Protective Factors

Guidelines for addressing and managing client suicide risk include discussing and conceptualizing protective factors. Counselors should be able to recall and discuss suicide protective factors that are applicable across client populations. SHORES, a suicide protective factors mnemonic that is supported by the literature, has applications for risk assessment and crisis intervention across settings, preventative care, strengths‐based management, and counselor training. A case example and discussion serve to illustrate the wide‐ranging application of SHORES in counseling practice.     

Explorations of participants’ experiences of a Personal Development Group held as part of a counselling psychology training group: Is it safe in here?

This paper aims to extend understanding of student counsellors’ perceptions of participation in personal development (PD) groups during training. PD participants were invited to record their experiences in relation to these groups over a three month period. The accounts were then subjected to thematic analysis. Safety was found to be a dominant theme–both in the sense of how the group felt safe for them and also how the safety was threatened. These concepts are discussed and lessons the data has offered in terms of good practice in facilitating PD groups during counsellor training programmes are elucidated.     

Contextual contrast and perceived knowledge: Exploring the implications for persuasion

The present research tested the notion that perceived target knowledge can be affected by the amount of information one has about other recently encountered stimuli—whether that information is relevant or not. Furthermore, the present research tested the implications of this effect for persuasion. In 4 experiments, participants were presented with a persuasive message promoting a fictitious department store, but first received another message containing more or less information about something else (e.g., another store, a car, or a person). Regardless of the type or valence of initial information received, the initial message had a contrast effect on perceived target knowledge, which influenced target attitudes. The less information the initial message contained, the more persuasive knowledge participants thought they received from the target message, and the more their attitudes agreed with that message. These findings suggest that the perceived amount of persuasive information one has about a target stimulus can be manipulated to increase persuasion, even when the actual amount of information about the target stimulus does not vary.     

Impact of a comprehensive safety program on bicycle helmet use among middle-school children

A bicycle helmet program was evaluated in three middle schools using a multiple baseline across schools design. Two of the three schools had histories of enforcement of helmet use. During baseline many students riding their bikes to and from school did not wear their helmets or wore them incorrectly. A program that consisted of peer data collection of correct helmet use, education on how to wear a bicycle helmet correctly, peer goal setting, public posting of the percentage of correct helmet use, and shared reinforcers, all of which were implemented by the school resource officer, increased afternoon helmet use and afternoon correct helmet use in all three schools. Probe data collected a distance from all three schools indicated that students did not remove their helmets once they were no longer in close proximity to the school, and probe data collected in the morning at two of the schools showed that the behavior change transferred to the morning.     

Finding a safe place to cross the road: the effect of distractors and the role of attention in children's identification of safe and dangerous road‐crossing sites

Negotiating traffic requires the ability to focus attention on the traffic environment and ignore distracting stimuli. The aims of this study were (1) to examine the effect of distractors on children's ability to identify safe and dangerous road‐crossing sites and (2) to examine the relationship between identification of safe/dangerous sites and attention (selective attention, attention switching, sustained attention and divided attention). Participants were 88 children (aged between 6 and 11 years) and 29 adults. Ability to identify safe and dangerous road‐crossing sites was assessed using computer presentations of sites with and without visual and auditory distractions. Measures of attention were examined using the Test of Everyday Attention (child and adult versions). The ability to identify safe and dangerous road‐crossing sites and performance on the attention tests were found to improve with increasing age. Correct identification of safe/dangerous road‐crossing sites was related to selective attention and divided attention for children but not for adults. Road safety training should take into account the development of these skills. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Faulty assumptions: A comment on Blanton, Jaccard, Gonzales, and Christie (2006)

Blanton, Jaccard, Gonzales, and Christie [Blanton, H., Jaccard, J., Gonzales, P., Christie, C. (2006). Decoding the Implicit Association Test: implications for criterion prediction. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42, 192-212.] assert that the Implicit Association Test (IAT) imposes a model that portrays relative preferences as the additive difference between single attitudes. This assertion is misplaced because relative preferences do not necessarily reduce to component attitudes. BJGC also assume that the IAT conditions represent two indicators of the same construct. This assumption is incorrect, and is the cause of their poor-fitting models. The IAT, like other experimental paradigms, contrasts performance between interdependent conditions, and cannot be reduced to component parts. This is true whether calculating a simple difference between conditions, or using the IAT D score. D—an individual effect size that is monotonically related to Cohen’s d—codifies the interdependency between IAT conditions. When their unjustified psychometric assumptions are replaced with plausible assumptions, the models fit their data very well, and basis for their poor-fitting models becomes clear.     

Temporal distance and ease of retrieval

Construal Level Theory (CLT; Trope & Liberman, 2003) proposes that pro-arguments (pros) constitute high-level construals and counter-arguments (cons) low-level construals. Therefore, pros are more salient for distant-future actions than are cons and the reverse holds for near-future actions (Eyal, Liberman, Trope, & Walther, 2004). We further predicted and results from one experiment show that participants found it easier to generate pros if an action pertained to the distant rather than the near future. For cons the effect was reversed: participants found it more difficult to generate cons if the action pertained to the distant rather than the near future. Consequently, people were more in favor of the action if it pertained to the distant rather than the near future. Ease of retrieval mediated the effect of temporal distance on attitudes. The mutual relevance of the CLT framework and research on ease of retrieval is discussed.     

Indecent Exposure: Self-objectification and Young Women’s Attitudes Toward Breastfeeding

The sexualization of the breast may lead women who internalize the sexual objectification of their bodies to have more negative attitudes toward breastfeeding. The purpose of the present study was to examine self-objectification in relation to young women’s attitudes toward and concerns about breastfeeding. Two hundred and seventy-five female undergraduates completed a survey with questions that assessed their plans for infant feeding, attitudes toward breastfeeding, concerns about breastfeeding, and self-objectification. Women who scored higher on measures of self-objectification were more likely to view public breastfeeding as indecent and to be concerned that breastfeeding would be embarrassing and would negatively impact their bodies and sexuality. Self-objectification was not related to general attitudes toward breastfeeding or to young women’s future infant feeding plans. Implications for theory and future research are discussed. An earlier version of this study was presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Washington, DC (August, 2005).     

虚拟团队学习效能研究:社会认知因素的影响

本研究采用现场研究的方法,对21个虚拟团队学习的效能进行了实证研究。研究对社会认知因素中的效能感和目标取向对虚拟团队学习效能(技能改变、工作任务和团队健康水平)的影响进行了研究,并探讨了对虚拟团队的态度在中间所起的作用。研究发现,虚拟团队效能感和学习取向对虚拟团队的学习效能产生作用,而对虚拟团队学习的态度、团队信任对虚拟团队学习的效能起着中介或直接的作用。