Combating Homophobia in AIDS Education

Homophobia is a central theme in response to the AIDS epidemic. In this article we review literature explicating the connection between homophobia and AIDS and then call for the integration of antihomophobia elements into AIDS education. We discuss negative messages in portrayals of gay and bisexual men and in discussions of safer sexual practices, as well as materials and educational strategies that explicitly contradict such homophobic messages. We then discuss the emerging trend to exclude lesbian women and gay men in education and programs, suggest guidelines for countering such exclusion, and give examples of creative approaches to inclusion.     

HEARING IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE: THE INFLUENCE OF SOURCE, LEADER-RELATIONS, AND LEGITIMACY ON SURVIVORS' FAIRNESS PERCEPTIONS

This study developed and tested a model of survivors' fairness perceptions. Data on leader-member relations and affective commitment was collected from 217 R&D professionals approximately 15 months prior to a major layoff. A second wave of data assessed source of layoff announcement, legitimacy of the organizational account, and procedural and distributive fairness 1 month after the layoff occurred. Results of path analysis confirmed hypothesized relationships, and the variance accounted for in distributive and procedural fairness was 24% and 48%, respectively. Procedural fairness was higher for survivors who were informed of impending layoffs by their managers. However, this effect was stronger for high than for low leader-member exchange (LMX) employees. Legitimacy of the account was positively related to procedural fairness. Distributive fairness was indirectly related to the independent variables through procedural fairness. Affective commitment of 78 of the original respondents was assessed approximately 24 months after the layoff. Post-layoff affective commitment was significantly related to procedural but not to distributive fairness perceptions. The findings underscore the critical role of direct supervisors in layoff announcements as well as providing evidence of the long-term effects of procedural fairness on survivor commitment.     

Dark-adaptation of the human rod system: A new hypothesis

Following a long, full bleach, rod dark-adaptation curves from two normal trichromats were obtained with test fields of various size, exposure time and retinal eccentricity. The results show that there is a substantial region of threshold recovery with an approximately constant, linear slope of about 0.27 log per minute of dark-adaptation, which is independent of the test variables. It is suggested that the increase in sensitivity during this constant, linear slope is completely determined by changes in the concentration of bleached rhodopsin. The relationship between change of relative threshold (T) and fraction of bleached rhodopsin ( B ) is given by T=B ^3,7. This exponential law is well described by the displacement of the equilibrium between the active and inactive states of an allosteric enzyme built as a tetrarner.     

On some sources of metacomprehension

Metacomprehension is defined as readers' evaluations of their performance on a task, involving inferences derived from a text. In two studies metacomprehension was related to characteristics of the inferences required, in terms of 1) amount of information to be kept in long-term memory (Study 1), 2) amount of information to be kept in short-term memory (Study 2) and 3) existence of negatives (Study 2). In the first study, 41 psychology students read a text and afterwards judged 1) the correctness of a set of pragmatic inference statements, and 2) their confidence in being correct or the difficulty of judging each statement. In the second study, 81 high-school students read a text and simultaneously judged 1) the correctness of a set of logical inference statements and 2) their confidence in being correct and the difficulty of judging each statement. In both studies, metacomprehension was not significantly correlated with actual performance. The results indicate that one important source of metacomprehension consists in information processing load. In Study 1, long-term memory requirements represent this load, in Study 2, the existence of negatives.     

Retracted: A comparison of impulsivity and sensation seeking in pathological gamblers and skydivers

The following article from Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, “A comparison of impulsivity and sensation seeking in pathological gamblers and skydivers” by Helga Myrseth, Renate Tverå, Susanne Hagatun and Camilla Lindgren, published online on 19th September 2011 in Wiley Online Library ( http://www.wileyonlinelibrary.com ), has been retracted by agreement between the authors, the journal Editor in Chief, Professor Jerker Rönnberg, and Blackwell Publishing Ltd. The retraction has been agreed due to the inclusion of certain data within the published work that has been used without confirming with Dr. Helge Molde that the data could be utilized in the study as it had been used in previous studies.     

PSYCHOANALYTICAL PSYCHOTHERAPY: Death in the afternoon

One afternoon, a patient who had been in three-times-weekly psychoanalytic psychotherapy for over fi ve years with the author left the offi ce after her session, drove down to the train tracks half a mile away, and sat down facing an oncoming train. Her suicide occurred a little over a year after 19 hijackers took over four passenger airplanes and fl ew two of them into the World Trade Center, and during the period of the massive buildup for a pre-emptive war with Iraq. This paper explores the very personal impact of these interlocking events of personal, political, and state-sponsored terrorism on the author. Interweaving the patient's and the author's personal struggle with the patient's overwhelming destructiveness-and how it ultimately failed-with the inability to stop the war despite the unprecedented mobilization of voices for peace across the world, it is a journey through the shattering impact of violence into the tentative discovery of a sustaining vision of hope. It explores the theme of terrorism, both personal and political, as a theater of violence designed to create maximum impact, and how fantasies of redemption, fueled and blinded by righteous certainty, can transmute into acts of breathtaking violence, and fi nd justifi cation in their own mad logic. Through the elaboration of the patient's story and its impact on the author, she offers a very personal attempt to understand and reckon with violence and destructiveness as manifested in these different forms, to grasp how openings of hope and new creative possibility are often followed by a violent regressive backlash, and to fi nd a way to survive them without losing heart for the work.     

ACTION TRAINING FOR CHARISMATIC LEADERSHIP: TWO EVALUATIONS OF STUDIES OF A COMMERCIAL TRAINING MODULE ON INSPIRATIONAL COMMUNICATION OF A VISION

An action training program that teaches inspirational communication of a vision as part of a training of charismatic leadership for managers is presented (1½ days) and evaluated in 2 studies ( N = 25 and N = 22). We used the research design "nonequivalent dependent variable design" (Cook & Campbell, 1979, p, 118) or "internal referencing strategy" (Haccoun & Hamtieux, 1994), which compared the trained behaviors (charismatic inspirational communication) with behaviors that were not trained (public speech) to control for testing and Hawthorne effects. The training had specific positive effects on those behaviors that were trained but not on those variables that were not trained. Good to excellent effect sizes appeared as a result of the training. We suggest that this research design is useful for evaluation of training effects within the constraints of commercial settings and, moreover, we argue that this design is in many ways superior to a nonequivalent nontraining control group design because it controls for testing effects and for effects that otherwise would need a pseudo-training control group.     

Sex role concepts in eight- and twelve-year olds

Abstract.— Children's perception of sex roles was sought, taking Piaget's cognitive developmental theory and the role theory of Sarbin as points of departure. It was proposed that sex role perception could be described on two levels. The first level entailed a sex role enactment based upon superficial understanding, whereas the second level involved a sex role taking based upon a deeper understanding.
The measuring device consisted of a standardized interview of 20 narratives, 10 covering the first level 10 the second level. Each narrative described the objectively observable behavior (level 1) or the supposedly constant personality characteristics (level 2) of a typical boy or girl. The subjects, 8- and 12-year olds, listened to each story and then were asked whether a typical boy, girl, or both would have performed the behavior or expressed the personality quality. The results suggest that both 8-and 12-year-old children understand the superficial as well as the deep aspects of sex roles. However, the younger children accept the sex role differences, whereas the older children are starting to question them. There was also evidence of a developmental difference in experiencing sex roles between boys and girls. The 8-year-old girls in the study most strongly recognized the sex role differences and therefore were the most rigid in their sex role conceptions. The 12-year-old girls were the most liberal group in their approach to sex roles. The boys fell in-between, with small developmental differences.     

Dissociation and self-awareness in directed daydreaming

Self-awareness, as the ability to be the observer of one's own cognitive. affective, and volitional states, was explored in directed daydreaming. Self-awareness of varying complexity and depth was found in the dissociated ego states, which were experienced as relatively discontinuous with each other in space and time, and discontinuous with the subjects' usual experience of a cohesive self. An extreme expression of shallow self-awareness was found for a few subjects who reported a fantasy with no experience of a self. The most elaborate form of self-awareness, coconsciousness , was found for the majority of subjects in the two-ego state group, where both of their ego states were associated with an identity feeling, and where one ego state evidenced full awareness of the thoughts and feelings of the other state. Coconsciousness was found to be a prerequisite for deep self-awareness in directed daydreaming.