Work site group meetings and the effectiveness of a televised smoking cessation intervention

At the work site, smoking accounts for increased health care expenses and worker absenteeism due to smoking-related illness and reduced productivity and lost wages. Developing comprehensive and accessible smoking cessation programs at the work site is an important objective for health care professionals. In this study, employees of 43 corporations participated in a televised smoking cessation program accompanied by self-help manuals. The media component involved presenting a smoking cessation program on a network television affiliate station during the 4:30 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. news for 20 days. Employees at half the corporations also had access to semiweekly self-help group meetings. Adding self-help support groups to a program involving self-help manuals and the media reports was found to significantly increase abstinence and its maintenance over time. The implications of using the media, self-help groups, and work site locations in large-scale community-based interventions are discussed.     

Controlled comparison of aversive therapy and covert sensitization in compulsive homosexuality

Ethical objections to the use of behaviour therapy in homosexuality are discussed. It is pointed out that these objections were often based on a limited view of the aims of the therapy. The need for evaluating such therapy, as it is currently used, is elaborated.Twenty subjects requesting behaviour therapy to reduce compulsive homosexual urges were randomly allocated, half to receive aversive therapy using electric shocks and half to receive covert sensitization. Both groups were studied for one year. There was no consistent trend for one therapy to be more effective than the other in reducing the strength of compulsive homosexual urges, and the response to both was similar to that reported in previous studies. It was considered that aversive therapies in homosexuality do not act by establishing a conditioned aversion, nor by altering the subjects' sexual orientation. They reduce aversive arousal produced by behaviour completion mechanisms when subjects attempt to refrain from homosexual behaviour in response to stimuli which have repeatedly provoked such behaviour in the past.     

The role of esteem and coping in response to a threat communication

Two experiments examined the relations among self-esteem, perceived competency to cope, and actual coping behaviors following a threat communication. Leventhal's “parallel response model” (in Advances in experimental social psychology, L. Berkowitz (Ed.), New York: Academic Press, 1970, Vol. 5) predicts that low-esteem subjects will show deficits in both competency and coping behaviors. Experiment 1 manipulated threat level of a tetanus communication. Low-esteem subjects showed coping deficits on measures of free associations, free recall, fatalism, and coping. Threat groups differed only on fear and danger measures. Experiment 2 manipulated the fear level of an antismoking film and used false feedback to alter perceived competency. Positive feedback increased perceived competency to quit smoking among low-esteem subjects only. Without feedback, low-esteem subjects reduced smoking less than high-esteem subjects; positive feedback reversed the pattern. The discussion argued that, consistent with Leventhal's model, the low-esteem coping deficit has two independent causes: (1) excessive concern with fear, and (2) inadequate perceived competency.     

The Poisoning of Nostalgia: Commentary

The present paper explores elements of traumatic separation associated with involuntary migration by individuals and groups. Loss of home, one's sense of security, familiarity, and historical continuity—without physical threat or actual injury—is examined within a cultural and historical context. The author addresses the complex implications of traumatic separation by conscious human choice, rather than natural processes, such as the poisoning of nostalgia, the process by which normal mourning of loss is undermined by a potentially transgenerationally enduring sense of betrayal of trust.     

Putting the brakes on aggression toward a romantic partner: the inhibitory influence of relationship commitment

Why do people behave aggressively toward romantic partners, and what can put the brakes on this aggression? Provocation robustly predicts aggression in both intimate and nonintimate relationships. Four methodologically diverse studies tested the hypothesis that provocation severity and relationship commitment interact to predict aggression toward one's romantic partner, with the aggression-promoting effects of provocation diminishing as relationship commitment increases. Across all four studies, commitment to one's romantic relationship inhibited aggression toward one's partner when individuals were severely (but not mildly) provoked. Study 4 tested the hypothesis that this Partner Provocation × Commitment interaction effect would be strong among individuals high in dispositional tendencies toward retaliation but weak (perhaps even nonexistent) among individuals low in such tendencies. Discussion emphasizes the importance of understanding instigating, impelling, and inhibiting processes in the perpetration of aggression toward intimate partners.     

Gratitude and depressive symptoms: the role of positive reframing and positive emotion

Eight studies (N=2,973) tested the theory that gratitude is related to fewer depressive symptoms through positive reframing and positive emotion. Study 1 found a direct path between gratitude and depressive symptoms. Studies 2-5 demonstrated that positive reframing mediated the relationship between gratitude and depressive symptoms. Studies 6-7 showed that positive emotion mediated the relationship between gratitude and depressive symptoms. Study 8 found that positive reframing and positive emotion simultaneously mediated the relationship between gratitude and depressive symptoms. In sum, these eight studies demonstrate that gratitude is related to fewer depressive symptoms, with positive reframing and positive emotion serving as mechanisms that account for this relationship.     

Psychopathic traits associated with abnormal hemodynamic activity in salience and default mode networks during auditory oddball task

Psychopathy is a personality disorder accompanied by abnormalities in emotional processing and attention. Recent theoretical applications of network-based models of cognition have been used to explain the diverse range of abnormalities apparent in psychopathy. Still, the physiological basis for these abnormalities is not well understood. A significant body of work has examined psychopathy-related abnormalities in simple attention-based tasks, but these studies have largely been performed using electrocortical measures, such as event-related potentials (ERPs), and they often have been carried out among individuals with low levels of psychopathic traits. In this study, we examined neural activity during an auditory oddball task using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during a simple auditory target detection (oddball) task among 168 incarcerated adult males, with psychopathic traits assessed via the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R). Event-related contrasts demonstrated that the largest psychopathy-related effects were apparent between the frequent standard stimulus condition and a task-off, implicit baseline. Negative correlations with interpersonal-affective dimensions (Factor 1) of the PCL-R were apparent in regions comprising default mode and salience networks. These findings support models of psychopathy describing impaired integration across functional networks. They additionally corroborate reports which have implicated failures of efficient transition between default mode and task-positive networks. Finally, they demonstrate a neurophysiological basis for abnormal mobilization of attention and reduced engagement with stimuli that have little motivational significance among those with high psychopathic traits.     

Brief Counseling for Alcohol Misuse Among Trauma Patients: Two Interventions and Influence of Baseline Use

This study examined whether baseline trauma patient characteristics and randomized participation in 1 of 2 brief interventions predicted changes in alcohol use at 6 months postintervention. Higher total Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) scores predicted greater changes, and specific AUDIT items were significant predictors.