Factors Influencing Condom Use Among African American Women: Implications for Risk Reduction Interventions

Examined factors associated with condom use in a community-based sample of 423 sexually active African American women. Measures were selected to reflect the components in prevailing models of health behavior. Condom users were higher on AIDS health priority, prevention attitudes, stage of change, behavioral intentions, reported more frequent and comfortable sexual communication with partners, perceived greater partner and peer approval for condom use, and reported that peers also used condoms. Women in exclusive relationships evidenced earlier stage of change, lower intentions to use condoms, fewer peers who engaged in preventive behaviors, perceived themselves to have lower risk, and had lower rates of condom use, higher education, and family income. Women in fluid relationships were at particularly high risk, with lower rates of condom use relative to women not in a relationship and greater sexual risk for HIV. Implications for HIV-risk reduction interventions with African American women are discussed.     

Cumulative Risk Across Family Stressors: Short- and Long-Term Effects for Adolescents

This study examined the relationship between number of family risk factors during adolescence and three areas of psychosocial adjustment (internalizing problems, externalizing problems, and academic achievement) in adolescence and 6 years later in young adulthood. Risk factors examined included parental divorce, interparental conflict, maternal physical health problems, maternal depressive mood, and mother-adolescent relationship difficulties. The findings indicated both concurrent and long-term associations between number of family risk factors and psychosocial adjustment; however, the results differed based on area of adjustment examined and whether concurrent or longitudinal data were considered. Furthermore, a steep increase in adjustment difficulties occurred when number of risk factors increased from three to four. The results are discussed in the framework of four hypotheses which were tested, and clinical implications are delineated.     

Risk factors for infant attrition and low engagement in experiments and free-play

Forty-three 2-month-old infants participated with their mothers in a laboratory study of factors associated with variations in infants' attrition and levels of attention/engagement in a cognitive-perceptual experiment, and in free-play with their mothers. Increased risk of attrition from the experiment was strongly associated with analgesic medication having been administered during labor and with more restricted maternal perceptions of infants' capacities. Attrition rates and levels of engagement varied independently, showing different patterns of association with explanatory variables. Infants' levels of engagement in the experiment and in free-play were correlated across settings and low levels were associated with a lack of maternal identification with the foetus during early pregnancy and more limited maternal perceptions of their infants' capacities, but were not associated with analgesic medication during labor.     

Niklas Luhmann's Systems Theory as a Challenge for Ethics

The author discusses Niklas Luhmann's concept of ethics and morals. Therefore he sketches the main traits of Luhmann's theory of systems (e.g. the terms autopoiesis, system and environment, code and programme). From the system-theoretical point of view, ethics are characterized as the reflexive theory of morals. Morals are described as the communication of regard or disregard. The author shows which consequences follow from this concept by discussing problems concerning several subsystems at the same time. The problems of Luhmann's theory of morals and ethics are demonstrated by analyzing the concepts of risk and responsibility. Finally, the author demands that ethics should be understood even more as social ethics which reflect upon their social foundation in a more consequent way.     

Addressing women's breast cancer risk and perceptions of control in medical settings

Many women with family histories of breast cancer deal with two distinct but related issues: their objective physical risk and the emotions this risk engenders. Studies indicate that approximately 70% of African American and white women are concerned about their chances of developing breast cancer someday and perceive themselves to be at risk. Health care providers, including psychologists, need to be aware of the special needs and psychosocial concerns of high-risk women with family histories of breast cancer, since perceptions of breast cancer risk influence screening practices. Providers need training in understanding the significance of specific family patterns of breast cancer, screening guidelines appropriate for women at risk, and the benefits and risks of available prevention options, including genetic screening. Delivering accurate information about both established risk factors known to elevate personal risk, such as age and family history, and factors which women associate with breast cancer, such as bumping and bruising a breast, smoking, and oral contraceptive use, is essential for promoting accurate risk perceptions and appropriate screening schedules.     

铁路装卸系统人力资源组合的研究

依据管理心理学的理论提出了人力资源优化组合的两阶段假设,使之形成可控制的操作程序。在铁路苏州装卸车间进行实验处理并选择情况相似的Ｎ站为比较组。实验前后苏州装卸车间和比较组之间都发生了明显的变化,运用《班组群体社会心理气氛调查表》测试职工的成就感、温暖感、舒适感等心理感受与劳动态度有关因素的认知水平等各项指标实控两组都有较其显著性差异。优化组合的企业职工的经济收入有了较大幅度地增加,企业的社会效益和经济效益明显提高。     

Occupational violence: Armed holdup—A risk management approach

Workplace violence covers a wide spectrum of incidents of aggression that may occur at work. One area of particular concern relates to holdups. This study reviewed all incidents of robbery (holdups and bag snatches) occurring in a quasi-government wagering organization throughout Queensland, Australia between 1990 and August 1993. The study covered 30 robberies, at 28 sites with 34 subjects, 22 of whom consented to complete a questionnaire related to the stressfulness and impact of the event. Most robberies occurred at opening or closing time, at sites situated on a main thoroughfare, predominantly on a Monday. Single males (n =15) or a pair (n =15) mostly carrying a gun were the perpetrators. Nineteen of the 22 victims attended critical incident debriefing and most found this valuable. Only one subject interviewed lost time for stress (and this was the fourth time she had been robbed). One subject not interviewed was hospitalized. Other subjects had minor physical injuries, but suffered emotionally for up to a year after the incident. Recommendations focused on the hierarchy of control (environmental and engineering controls in preference to people-focused change). Additionally training in the normal processes of grief and trauma was recommended.     

Assessing preference for reinforcers using demand curves, work-rate functions, and expansion paths

Much research has focused on the effects of environmental variability on foraging decisions. However, the general pattern of preference for variability in delay to reward and aversion to variability in amount of reward remains unexplained a either a mechanistic or a functional level. Starlings' preferences between a fixed and a variable option were studied in two treatments, A and D. The fixed option was the same in both treatments (20-s fixed-interval delay, five units food). In Treatment A the variable option gave two equiprobable amounts of food (20-s delay, three or seven units) and in D it gave two equiprobable delays to food (2.5-s or 60.5-s delays, five units). In both treatments the programmed ratio [amount/(intertrial interval+latency+delay)] in the fixed option equaled the arithmetic mean of the two possible ratios in the variable option (ITI = 40 s, latency = 1 s). The variable option was strongly preferred in Treatment D and was weakly avoided in Treatment A. These results are discussed in the light of two theoretical models, a form of constrained rate maximization and a version of scalar expectancy theory. The latter accommodates more of the data and is based on independently verifiable assumptions, including Weber's law.     

On the continuing utility of argument in a postmodern world

In this essay we contend that traditional theories of argument are consonant with and enrich the project of postmodernity. Reading postmodernity as a rhetoric underscores how the process of discursively resolving conflicts is occasionally threatened by politically motivated efforts to misuse the methods of argument; it alerts us to the egregious acts that are and can be performed in the name of, but not because of, rationality. Postmodernity is thus an attempt by a new generation of theorists to recast and draw attention to perennial philosophical problems in the context of contemporary political difficulties.     

Identity and influence in social interaction

Researchers studying argumentation often make the simplifying assumption that rational persuasion can be studied independently from the processes through which social identities are established and maintained. However, developments in the study of message design, particularly the groundbreaking work of Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) on politeness, suggests that in practice the multiple functions of messages are intertwined in message structure and effects. In contrast to the view that identity issues distort rational processes in communication, both the communication of identity and the use of identity-based appeals in social influence are best seen as prototypical examples of rationality in message design.