The Effect of Genetic Counseling on Knowledge and Perceptions Regarding Risks for Breast Cancer

In 1994, a clinic for cancer risk counseling was opened at Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem. Most of the counselees have been women who had breast cancer and/or a relative with breast cancer. In order to evaluate the effect of this counseling on women's knowledge and perceptions regarding the risks for breast cancer, a questionnaire was given before and after the counseling session to 60 healthy women who came to the clinic because they have relatives with breast cancer. According to the genetic counselors' estimations, most of these women had a significantly increased risk (compared to the general population) of developing cancer. Before counseling, the women overestimated the population risk for breast cancer, the contribution of heredity to morbidity of cancer, and their own risks to get cancer. After counseling session, they gave reduced estimates, closer to the real ones. The subjective perceptions regarding these risks were reduced after counseling, except for the perceptions regarding their relativerisks which have not changed after the counseling. About 90% of the women who came to the clinic wanted to be tested for genetic predisposition to cancer. For most of these women, the expectations that the test can rule out a genetic predisposition to cancer became more realistic after the counseling. The option to first test an affected relative was offered to all families, and a test was actually conducted in 75% of the families.     

Psychological Interventions and Genetic Testing: Facilitating Informed Decisions About BRCA1/2 Cancer Susceptibility

Genetic testing for inherited cancer susceptibility, based on the recently identified. BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, will soon be available on a large scale. However, at present, genetic test results do not lead to clearly indicated diagnostic or preventive measures, and the nature of the psychological impact of BRCA1/2 testing is still largely unknown. This uncertainty, combined with preliminary evidence suggesting significant individual differences in reactions to genetic susceptibility feedback, constitutes a unique challenge for any individual contemplating such testing. We outline the nature of this challenge and then propose an intervention strategy designed to help individuals make deeply processed and psychologically well-informed decisions with regard to their genetic susceptibility. The intervention is guided by recent research findings and theory on the cognitive–emotional processing of cancer-risk information. Specifically, the goal is to prepare the individual for genetic testing by (1) cognitively and emotionally activating, or preliving, the individual's potential reactions to testing feedback; (2) facilitating accurate appraisal of the individual's cognitive–emotional reactions; and (3) enabling the individual to process these reactions through the use of well-established clinical techniques.     

A Draft for Unifying Controversies in Philosophy of Science

The basic (negative and positive) methodological maxims of three currents of philosophy of science (logical empiricism, falsificationism, and postpositivism) are formulated. Many of these maxims (stratagems) are controversial, e.g., the stance about the nonsense of metaphysics, and that of its indispensability. The restricted validity of these maxims allows for their unification. Within the framework of most of them there may be a relationship of (synchronic, or diachronic) subordination of the contradicting desiderata. In this vein ten stratagems are formulated. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

梁启超的学习心理学思想研究

本研究以现代教育心理学体系为框架,采用资料整理法,对梁启超的学习心理学思想进行了分析归纳。从中可以看出,梁启超重视学习兴趣,并把无所为、不息、深入研究、找朋友作为保持兴趣的方法;认为做学问的人应具备明敏、密察、别裁、通方等能力和忠实、深切、敬慎、不倦的习惯;并总结出了立志、善观、持敬、明义理、养成读书兴趣等学习方法。     

Empirical derivation of SVIB-Holland scales and conversion tables

Significant relationships between the Holland Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI) and the Strong Vocational Interest Blank (SVIB) were again empirically demonstrated in this study, and conversion equations were developed to use standard scores of SVIB scales, rather than items, to produce estimates of VPI scores. Cross validation on a limited population yielded supportive evidence that these conversion equations can provide meaningful VPI estimates from SVIB scale scores. The need for validation across a variety of populations was underscored in order to assess further generalizability of these findings.     

Women in male-dominated professions: Contrasts in their personal and vocational histories

Women in four high-status, male-dominated professions—architecture, law, medicine, and psychology—are described in terms of a variety of historical, social, and career variables. The women share common antecedents of their vocational choices and similar perceptions of their work, but the occupational groups are dissimilar on a number of dimensions. Psychologists stand in particular contrast to the other three groups of professionals, describing experiences and career patterns less in conflict with stereotypic female roles. These contrasts may reflect differences in the sex-typed characterizations of the professions even though all are male-dominated.     

Environments as reinforcer systems in the study of job satisfaction

This paper examined differences in the degree to which fifteen specific sources of job satisfaction were related to and predictive of the overall satisfaction of department chairmen in the six model environments proposed by Holland (1973). The fifteen specific sources of job satisfaction were regressed on overall satisfaction, separately for chairmen in each environment, through the use of incremental stepwise multiple regression procedures. The results indicated that the overall satisfaction of chairmen in these six environments was differentially related to unique weightings and combinations of the fifteen predictor variables. It was concluded that environments, composed of essentially similar groups of people in different organizations, serve as job satisfaction reinforcer systems in a manner similar to organizations as illustrated by Dawis.     

Effects of a coactor's prediction on latencies to predict and indentify stimuli

On each of 300 trials E's confederate (C) verbalized which of two stimuli would occur; then S made a prediction. Following each presentation, S and C pulled a trigger to identify the stimulus. Two latencies were measured: the interval between C's and S's prediction (prediction time), and the interval between stimulus presentation and S's identification response (choice RT). Prediction times were significantly shorter when S's prediction agreed rather than disagreed with C's prediction, when S's preceding prediction was correct rather than incorrect, and when S was female rather than male. Choice RT was influenced by distributions of C's stimulus predictions and C's prediction outcomes in directions supporting an expectancy model.