Racial and Ethnic Differences in Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Tests Awareness in HINTS 2007: Sociodemographic and Numeracy Correlates

To examine the association of 1) race/ethnicity and 2) numeracy with awareness of DTC genetic tests. Secondary analysis of 6,754 Hispanic, black, and white adult respondents to the National Cancer Institute’s 2007 Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS). Logistic regression was used to examine sociodemographic predictors of DTC genetic tests awareness including race/ethnicity, income, education, and gender. Next, two numeracy variables were added to the model. After controlling for sociodemographic variables, black respondents were significantly less likely to have heard of DTC genetic tests compared to white respondents (OR = 0.79; CI: 0.65–0.97). When numeracy variables were added to the model, the effect of black race was no longer significant (OR = 0.84; CI: 0.69–1.04). Hispanic respondents did not significantly differ from white respondents in awareness of DTC genetic tests. Other significant correlates of DTC genetic tests awareness in the full model included education, income, age, and numeracy variables including degree to which people use medical statistics and numbers to make health decisions, and preference for words or numbers when discussing “the chance of something happening.” Although black respondents were generally less aware of DTC genetic tests than white respondents, this relationship appears to be partially mediated by numeracy.     

Children’s prayers from a Hospital Chapel

Children’s prayers, from prayer books left in the Chapel of a Children’s Hospital between 1998 and 2002, were studied for what the children’s God-talk would reveal about their perceptions of God. Of the 3893 prayers written during this period, 346 were confidently identified as being authored by children. The sample of 346 prayers, which gave rise to 558 expressions of prayer, was explored through a content analysis, used quantitatively to summarise and describe the data, and a thematic analysis, informed by methods from Grounded Theory. The psychological and spiritual significance of the prayers is drawn out, demonstrating the richness and relationality of children’s spirituality. The predominance of prayers written by female writers, suggests that the extent to which relationality is present is related to gender. Questions concerning possible gender-related differences in girls’ and boys’ spirituality are raised and implications for practice are considered.     

Group Therapy for Loss: Attachment,Intersubjectivity, and Healing

Loss is a fundamental human experience that can impact a person’s mental health in diverse ways. While this experience is potentially formative, harmful manifestations can fracture one’s sense of self and undermine relational health. In this article, we present a rationale for process-oriented group therapy focused on healing relational injuries associated with loss. We draw on attachment, self-psychology, intersubjectivity, and Yalom & Leszcz’s (2005) model of group psychotherapy to explore how group processes allow clients to work through losses and relational frustrations in the here-and-now. A case vignette and discussion offer practical insight on the ways in which loss manifests in the room and demonstrate the uniqueness of the group setting for reparative processing.     

Measuring organisational climate and employee engagement: Evidence for a 7 Ps model of work practices and outcomes

This study presents evidence supporting the psychometric properties of the Voice Climate Survey: an employee opinion survey that measures work practices and outcomes. The tool is tested across 13,729 employees from 1,279 business units representing approximately 1,000 organisations. Exploratory factor analyses, confirmatory factor analyses and internal reliability analyses support 31 lower‐order work practices and outcomes that aggregate into seven higher‐order work systems broadly covering practices and outcomes such as organisational direction, ethics, resources, involvement, recognition, development, teamwork, wellness, work/life balance, change management, customer satisfaction, job satisfaction, organisational commitment and employees' intention to stay. External validation of the tool is demonstrated by linking scores from the employee survey with independent manager reports of turnover, absenteeism, productivity, health and safety, goal attainment, financial performance, change management, innovation and customer satisfaction.     

A Comparison of Parent Judgments and Child Feelings concerning the Self Adjustment and Social Adjustment of Twelve-Year-Old Children

The purpose of this study was to consider the role of remembering in the development of the ability to plan and carry out sequences of dependent actions. A task calling for sequencing of choices was administered to 46 four-year-olds, 30 seven-year-olds, and 30 10-year-olds. Each child participated in both a remembering (control) condition and a facilitation-of-remembering condition. Performance was better in the facilitation-of-remembering condition than in the remembering (control) condition, but only for four-year-olds (p < .01), indicating that the failure to remember alternatives, rather than a lack of other cognitive abilities, may be a major obstacle in preschoolers' development of planning abilities. An apparent regression in performance of seven-year-olds (p < .01) is interpreted as an inappropriate application of transitional operative understanding of dependent events to situations involving only chance sequences.     

A Note on Strict Implication (1935)

Editor's Note: This paper was found in galley proof form from the journal Mind in the C.I. Lewis Archives in the Special Collections Department of the Stanford University Libraries, call number M174, Box 18, Folder 1. There are two copies of the proofs in this folder, one includes Lewis's corrections. The version that appears here incorporates all of Lewis's corrections. Where these corrections are substantive, the original wording is give in a footnote. The paperwas withdrawn from publication by Lewis early in 1935. The proofs were found with Lewis's other papers in his house in Menlo Park after his death in 1964.     

Masking of tones by tones and of noise by noise

Using a two-alternative temporal forced-choice technique, two binaural detection experiments were performed. In the first, the detectability of a 250-Hz 128-msec tonal signal masked by a gated 70-dB SPL tone of the same frequency and duration was measured as a function of the level of the signal, the phase angle at which the signal was added to the masker, and the interaural phase difference of the signal. In the second experiment, the signal was a wideband (100-3,000 Hz) 128-msec Gaussian noise masked by a continuous Gaussian noise of the same bandwidth and coherent with the signal. The detectability of this noise signal was measured as a function of the same variables investigated in the first experiment. In both experiments detectability was found to follow a simple energy- or power-detection model when the interaural phase difference was 0 deg. When the interaural phase difference was 180 deg, the function relating the signal level required for a constant level of performance to the signal-masker phase angle is such that neither the Webster-Jeffress hypothesis nor Durlach’s E-C model accounts for the data. The data are reasonably well fit by a model proposed by Hafter and Carrier.     

Syntactic presupposition in sentence comprehension

Two experiments investigated the role of syntactic presupposition in sentence comprehension. In Experiment I subjects verified cleft, pseudocleft and factive complement sentences with respect to preceding context paragraphs, which contradicted either the assertion or the presupposition of the target sentence. Subjects took significantly longer to verify sentences with false presuppositions than sentences with false assertions. In Experiment II subjects verified cleft and pseudocleft sentences with respect to subsequently presented pictures. Once again, verification times for sentences with false presuppositions were significantly longer than verification times for sentences with false assertions. It was argued that these findings are more adequately explained by a “structural” hypothesis, than in terms of strategies designed to locate given and new information.     

MATHEMATICAL EXPLANATION AND INDISPENSABILITY ARGUMENTS

We defend Joseph Melia's thesis that the role of mathematics in scientific theory is to 'index' quantities, and that even if mathematics is indispensable to scientific explanations of concrete phenomena, it does not explain any of those phenomena. This thesis is defended against objections by Mark Colyvan and Alan Baker.