Differences in Beliefs About Psychological Services in the Relationship Between Sociorace and One's Social Network

The roles of previous psychological service use and social network variables in beliefs about psychological services were examined with 184 college students. Having friends and family members who used psychological services, being female, and having used psychological services positively related with beliefs about psychological services. Socioracial differences in the effects of previous use of psychological services and social network variables on students’ beliefs about psychological services were found. Suggestions for ways counselors can provide support to students are discussed.     

Multi‐Criteria Evaluation for Collaborative Circulating Farming with Collective Operations Between Arable and Cattle Farmers

Tokachi sub‐prefecture in Hokkaido is one of the most famous dairy and crop farming regions in Japan. It is known that Tokachi is faced with various difficult problems such as soil degradation, water contamination and unpleasant odours because of the excessive use of chemical fertilizers and inappropriate treatment of livestock excretion. In this paper, we focus on Shihoro town where agricultural outputs are relatively large in Tokachi, and propose collaborative circulating farming with collective operations between arable and cattle farmers. Under the assumption that the decision‐maker in this problem is a representative of a farming organization who hopes for sustainable agricultural development and values the intentions of local residents including arable and cattle farmers in this region, we employ multi‐attribute utility theory in order to evaluate multiple alternatives of the farming management problem. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Self-Esteem as a Predictor of Attitudes Toward Wife Abuse Among Muslim Women and Men in Canada

Abstract

This study was designed (a) to assess attitudes toward wife abuse in a sample of Muslim women and men in Canada and (b) to assess whether those attitudes were influenced by self-esteem. Results suggested that, as in general North American samples, the Muslim women and men did not differ from each other on levels of self-esteem. Also consistent with general North American samples, the Muslim women's and men's attitudes toward wife abuse were related to their self-esteem, with higher self-esteem scores predicting stronger attitudes against wife abuse, independent of gender. However, the results also revealed that the Muslim men had significantly more lenient attitudes toward wife abuse compared with the Muslim women and with North American norms.     

The Effect of Social and Situational Factors on the Intended Response to Aggression Among Adolescents

ABSTRACT

In this study, I explored intended response to aggression among adolescents. I drew hypotheses from social identity theory, cost/benefit considerations, and social information processing model. I asked 217 Jewish and Muslim male adolescents in this study to assess their intended use of aggression in 12 hypothetical conflict situations (vignettes), in which I manipulated the opponent's religion, gender, acquaintance, and severity of aggression. I mainly found that male adolescents respond to aggression by same-religion opponents more moderately than to cross-religion aggression; their response is more moderate to cross-gender aggression than to same-gender aggression; response is more moderate to the aggression of familiar opponents than to that of unfamiliar ones; and response is less severe toward moderate than toward severe aggression.     

Effects of Offenders' Age and Health on Sentencing Decisions

ABSTRACT

Two experiments investigated the effects of age and health on mock judges' sentencing decisions. The effects of these variables on length of prison sentence were examined in the context of offense severity and prior convictions. Experiment 1 involved a violent crime. Main effects were observed for age, health, offense severity and prior convictions. There was also an age by offense severity interaction. Experiment 2 involved a child sexual abuse case. Main effects were observed for health, offense severity, and prior convictions. In addition, an age by offense severity by prior convictions interaction effect was found. Thus, across both experiments, the age leniency effect was moderated by legal factors, suggesting that extra-legal factors affect sentencing in the context of legal factors. Further, for both offenses, offenders in poor health received shorter sentences than offenders in good health, suggesting that health deserves further research attention as an extra-legal variable.     

Spinoza on essence and ideal individuation

My project in this paper is to fill a gap in Spinoza's theory of metaphysical individuation. In a few brief passages of the Ethics, Spinoza manages to explain his views on the nature of composition and the part-whole relation, the metaphysical facts which ground the individuation of simple bodies and the extended individuals they compose, and the persistence of one and the same individual through time and mereological change. Yet Spinoza nowhere presents a corresponding account of the individuation of simple ideas, or the minds such ideas compose. While it is initially tempting to locate the details of such an account in Spinoza's views on the relation between the mental and physical domains, I argue here that such approaches fail, in conflicting with Spinoza's insistence that the mental and the physical are conceptually and explanatorily independent. By contrast, I show that for Spinoza, each idea essentially possesses the property of affirming the existence of its object, and that such properties are well-suited to serve as the principle of ideal individuation Spinoza never explicitly provided.     

Dispositional pessimism but not optimism is related to sickness absence caused by musculoskeletal symptoms

Musculoskeletal disorders account for a higher proportion of sickness absence from work in the European Union than any other health condition. The present study examined the associations between work environment, dispositional optimism/pessimism and medically certified sickness absence caused by musculoskeletal complaints in a sample of employees from the Norwegian Armed Forces (N = 1190, 77.5% men). Dispositional pessimism, but not optimism, predicted the amount of absence also when taking into account the effects of age and the work environment. Overall, our results support previous studies suggesting that pessimism is a more salient predictor of physical health than optimism. Our results also suggest that it may be beneficial for employers to combine medical treatment of musculoskeletal symptoms with psychological treatment targeting pessimistic outcome expectancies in order to reduce the amount of sickness absence.     

Cumulative estrogen exposure and prospective memory in older women

This study looked at cumulative lifetime estrogen exposure, as estimated with a mathematical index (Index of Cumulative Estrogen Exposure (ICEE)) that included variables (length of time on estrogen therapy, age at menarche and menopause, postmenopausal body mass index, time since menopause, nulliparity and duration of breastfeeding) known to influence estrogen levels across the life span, and performance on prospective and retrospective memory measures in a group of 50 postmenopausal women (mean age=69.3years) who, if they were current or former users of estrogen therapy, had started therapy within 5years of menopause. The ICEE was found to be a significant predictor of performance on the Prospective Memory task (F(1)=4.21, p=.046, η(p)(2)=.084). No significant relationship was noted between the ICEE and performance on measures of retrospective memory. The results suggest that the level of cumulative lifetime exposure to estrogen a woman has influences her prospective memory performance later in life and that the influence of reproductive and biological markers of endogenous estrogen exposure are relevant factors to consider when studying the effect of estrogen therapy on cognitive functioning in postmenopausal women. In addition, the finding that performance on a measure of prospective memory, but not performance on measures of retrospective memory, was associated with the ICEE adds further support to the theory that the frontal cortex may be especially sensitive to estrogen.     

Intentions to participate in counselling among front-line,at-risk Irish government employees: an application of the theory of planned behaviour

ABSTRACT

The study set out to examine intentions to engage in counselling among at-risk Irish government employees and the differential utility of two alternative theory of planned behaviour (TPB) models of behaviour to explain intentions to participate in counselling. Individuals (N=259) employed in a front-line, at-risk occupation for the Irish government completed a TPB-based questionnaire. Quantitative analyses revealed that participants held positive to neutral intentions to participate in counselling, irrespective of gender. The original TPB model explained 49.9% of variance in intentions whereas an alternative TPB model, splitting the perceived behavioural control (PBC) construct between its internal and external control components, explained a further 8.9% of variance. Furthermore, self-efficacy was found to be the strongest predictor of intentions. This study therefore supports the use of the TPB in understanding counselling-seeking behaviour.     

Reducing the barriers to accessing psychological therapies for Bengali,Urdu, Tamil and Somali communities in the UK: some implications for training,policy and practice

The aim of this research was to investigate the feasibility of achieving Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) for people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities living in the UK, with specific reference to Bengali, Urdu, Tamil and Somali speaking communities. Focus groups were carried out with each of the communities to investigate how they conceptualise and experience ‘mental health issues’ and what they do when faced with what they regard as these issues. A thematic analysis of the data suggested that participants did not fully understand common conceptualisations about mental health issues, nor did they know how to seek mental health support. Implications of cultural barriers and recommendations for IAPT outcomes for the four communities are discussed.