Attachment Style and Family Functioning as Discriminating Factors in Eating Disorders

This study sought to examine the extent to which family environment and attachment styles are concurrently related to eating disorders. The Adult Attachment Scale and the Family Environment Scale were administered to 25 anorexic and 33 bulimic female patients at intake in an eating disorder clinic, and 37 age-matched female controls. Eating disorder patients were found to be less secure, more avoidant, and more anxious than controls. The families of eating disorder patients were found to be less cohesive, expressive, and encouraging of personal growth than were controls. Low encouragement of personal growth and uncertain attachment styles may be manifestations of family difficulties in supporting the child during the process of separation individuation, and exploration of the outside world.     

Measured Gene–Environment Interactions and Mechanisms Promoting Resilient Development

ABSTRACT— Childhood maltreatment elevates risk for antisocial behavior, depression, and other problems over the life span, but a subset of maltreated individuals avoids maladaptive development and shows resilience. Resilience reflects a dynamic confluence of factors that promotes positive adaptation despite exposure to adverse experiences. Recent replicated findings of gene–environment interactions (abbreviated G × E) involving maltreatment have identified two genes, monoamine oxidase A ( MAOA ) and serotonin transporter ( 5-HTT ), that moderate the association between childhood maltreatment and psychopathology. Accordingly, G × E raise new questions about potential biological mechanisms by which some individuals are able to cope adaptively and function relatively well despite experiencing early adversity. We summarize advances toward greater specification of G × E mechanisms, including genetic and environmental moderation of G × E effects and imaging genomics that provide clues regarding resilience processes in development.     

Genes in Context: Gene–Environment Interplay and the Origins of Individual Differences in Behavior

ABSTRACT— Interactions between genes and the environment are a critical feature of development. Insights into the dynamic interplay between these factors have come from laboratory studies exploring experience-dependent changes in gene function, which illustrate the importance of environmental factors in determining activity of the genome. These studies have implications for our understanding of the origins of individual differences in behavior and may provide new ways of thinking about the transmission of traits across generations. Here we will highlight how these new findings illustrate the importance of putting genes in context.     

Psychosocial environment and affective outcomes in technology-rich classrooms: testing a causal model

Research investigated classroom environment antecedent variables and student affective outcomes in Australian high schools. The Technology-Rich Outcomes-Focused Learning Environment Inventory (TROFLEI) was used to assess 10 classroom environment dimensions: student cohesiveness, teacher support, involvement, investigation, task orientation, cooperation, equity, differentiation, computer usage and young adult ethos. A sample of 4,146 high school students from Western Australia and Tasmania responded to the TROFLEI and three student outcome measures: attitude to the subject, attitude to computer use and academic efficacy. Confirmatory factor analysis using LISREL supported the 10 scale a priori structure of the instrument. Structural equation modeling using LISREL was used to test a postulated model involving antecedent variables, classroom environment and outcomes. The modeling indicated that: improving classroom environment has the potential to improve student outcomes, antecedents did not have any significant direct effect on outcomes, and academic efficacy mediated the effect of several classroom environment dimensions on attitude to subject and attitude to computer use.

Evidence against integration of spatial maps in humans: generality across real and virtual environments

A real-world open-field search task was implemented with humans as an analogue of Blaisdell and Cook’s (Anim Cogn 8:7–16, 2005) pigeon foraging task and Sturz, Bodily, and Katz’s (Anim Cogn 9:207–217, 2006) human virtual foraging task to 1) determine whether humans were capable of integrating independently learned spatial maps and 2) make explicit comparisons of mechanisms used by humans to navigate real and virtual environments. Participants searched for a hidden goal located in one of 16 bins arranged in a 4 × 4 grid. In Phase 1, the goal was hidden between two landmarks (blue T and red L). In Phase 2, the goal was hidden to the left and in front of a single landmark (blue T). Following training, goal-absent trials were conducted in which the red L from Phase 1 was presented alone. Bin choices during goal-absent trials assessed participants’ strategies: association (from Phase 1), generalization (from Phase 2), or integration (combination of Phase 1 and 2). Results were inconsistent with those obtained with pigeons but were consistent with those obtained with humans in a virtual environment. Specifically, during testing, participants did not integrate independently learned spatial maps but used a generalization strategy followed by a shift in search behavior away from the test landmark. These results were confirmed by a control condition in which a novel landmark was presented during testing. Results are consistent with the bulk of recent findings suggesting the use of alternative navigational strategies to cognitive mapping. Results also add to a growing body of literature suggesting that virtual environment approaches to the study of spatial learning and memory have external validity and that spatial mechanisms used by human participants in navigating virtual environments are similar to those used in navigating real-world environments.     

Responsible engineering: Gilbane Gold revisited

This paper addresses several concerns in teaching engineering ethics. First, there is the problem of finding space within already crowded engineering curricula for meaningful discussions of ethical dimensions in engineering. Some engineering programs may offer entire courses on engineering ethics; however, most do not at present and may not in the foreseeable future. A promising possibility is to weave ethics into already existing courses using case studies, but most current case studies are not well integrated with engineering technical analysis. There is a danger that case studies will be viewed by both instructors and students as departures from “business as usual”—interesting perhaps, but not essentially connected with “real” engineering. We offer a case study, inspired by the National Society of Professional Engineer’s popular video Gilbane Gold, that can be used to make the connection. It requires students to engage in technical analysis, but in a context that makes apparent the ethical responsibility of engineers. Further, the case we present marks a significant departure from more typical cases that primarily focus on wrongdoing and its prevention. We concentrate more positively on what responsible engineering requires. There is a need for more such cases, regardless of whether they are to be used in standard engineering courses or in separate courses in engineering ethics. This article is the product of the NSF/Bovay Endowment “Workshop to Develop Numerical Problems Associated With Ethics Cases for use in Required Undergraduate Engineering Courses” (NSF Grant DUE-9455141) held at Texas A&M University in August 1995. For further information about this project, contact Michael J. Rabins, Director of the Ethics and Professionalism Program in the Look College of Engineering at Texas A&M University. Additional case studies from this workshop are available on the Internet site http://ethics.tamu.edu. The writing of this article was supported in part by “Engineering Ethics: Good Works” (NSF/EVS Grant SBR-930257). Michael Pritchard teaches ethics and is co-author of Engineering Ethics: Concepts and Cases (1995) with C.E. Harris and Michael Rabins (Wadsworth, Belmont CA). Mark Holtzapple teaches chemical engineering and is author of Foundations of Engineering (McGraw-Hill) which includes an ethics chapter suitable for freshman engineering students.     

Audiences,relevance, and cognitive environments

This paper discusses the fundamental sense in which the components of an argument should be relevant to the intended audience. In particular, the evidence advanced should be relevant to the facts and assumptions that are manifest in the cognitive environment of the audience. A version of Sperber and Wilson's concept of the cognitive environment is applied to argumentative concerns, and from this certain features of audience-relevance are explored: that the relevance of a premise can vary with the audience; that irrelevant premises can be made relevant; that evidence can be relevant by degrees; and that this notion of relevance will assist the argumentation analyst in the identification and assessment of hidden premises.     

PREVENTING SCHOOL VANDALISM AND IMPROVING DISCIPLINE: A THREE-YEAR STUDY

Vandalism is a major problem facing educators and taxpayers alike. The present investigation analyzed how vandalism costs and student disruption were related to the implementation of a training and consultation package designed to increase the reinforcing ambience of the school. A positive environment, it was posited, would displace previous events that may have set the occasion for vandalism, with cues to promote productive school performance. Eighteen elementary and junior high schools were involved over a 3-year period. Using a delayed treatment control design, treatment was delivered following either 4 or 13 months of baseline. During treatment, teams of school personnel attended training workshops in behavioral strategies for reducing vandalism and disruption by students in school. Each team also met regularly on its campus to plan and implement programs on a schoolwide basis. To demonstrate that reinforcing procedures were actually implemented and accompanied by change in student performance, these variables were periodically probed throughout the study. Project staff also provided consultation. Vandalism costs decreased significantly (p < .05) more in treatment than control schools, with an average reduction of 78.5% for all project schools. Rates of praise delivered by project teachers and other randomly selected teachers in the school increased significantly (p < .05), and rates of off-task behavior by students decreased significantly (p < .05) following treatment. The staff development model used in this study appeared to be both feasible and economical.     

Behavioral assessment of psychiatric inpatients and normal controls across different environmental contexts

Objectively defined, publicly observable behaviors were time sampled for hospitalized psychiatric patients and normal controls in three distinct environmental contexts: lunch time, free time, and gym time. The behaviors sampled included body activity, extremity activity, proximity, social interactions, participation, visual scanning, laughing/smiling, and idiosyncratic behavior. Patient behaviors were recorded during both a drug-free baseline period and a subsequent medication period. The data suggest that consistent and reliable differences between patients and normals in most behaviors can be observed and that environmental context is an important determinant of these differences. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for assessment procedures and treatment decisions.These investigations were supported in part by State of Illinois Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Grants RD836-13 and RD622-02 to the first author. The cooperation of the Illinois State Psychiatric Institute staff is gratefully acknowledged.