Moderation and Mediation of HIV-Prevention Interventions: Relationship Status,Intentions, and Condom Use Among College Students1

This study examined the effects of 2 HIV prevention interventions on condom use and mediators of condom use. College students were randomly assigned to a control condition or an intervention (communication skills or technical skills). Those who received either intervention had greater condom use self-efficacy, more positive condom use attitudes, and stronger intentions to use condoms than did controls. Furthermore, 3-month follow-up data revealed that students in either intervention who were not in a steady dating relationship reported more consistent condom use than did those in the control condition, whereas students who were in either intervention and in a relationship reported somewhat less consistent condom use than did those in the control condition. Analyses suggested that effects of the interventions on condom use were mediated by increased intentions to use condoms.     

Prepared movements are elicited early by startle

A startle stimulus has been shown to elicit a ballistic response in a reaction time (RT) task at very short latencies without involvement of the cerebral cortex (J. Valls-Sole, J. C. Rothwell, F. Gooulard, G. Cossu, & E. Munoz, 1999). The present authors examined the nature of the startle response. A simple RT task was used in which 8 participants performed arm extension movements to 3 target distances (20 degrees, 40 degrees, and 60 degrees ) in a blocked design. An unpredictable startling acoustic stimulus (124 dB) replaced the imperative stimulus in certain trials. The authors verified the presence of a startle response independent from the prepared response by observing electromyographic (EMG) activity in sternocleidomastoid and orbicularis oculi muscles. Findings indicated that when the participant was startled, the intended voluntary response was produced at significantly shorter response latencies. Furthermore, the kinematic variables of the observed response during startle trials for all 3 target distances were mostly unchanged. The EMG characteristics of the responses were not modified, indicating that the response produced was indeed the prepared and intended response.     

Personal Strategies for HIV Prevention: The Development and Validation of a Strategy-Coding Instrument1

This paper describes the development of a coding instrument to classify college students' strategies for preventing HIV infection, and examines the association of distinct strategies with social cognitive and behavioral measures related to safer sexual behavior. This instrument classifies each strategy into both a content domain (e.g., using condoms, remaining abstinent, limiting sexual partners), and 3 distinct dimensions: commitment, specificity, and effectiveness. We examine the reliability and validity of this instrument by showing the discriminative associations of each dimension with social cognitive and behavioral measures, and demonstrate the differential importance of distinct dimensions in predicting behavior in different content domains. Discussion focuses on the importance of tailoring HIV prevention messages to change strategy dimensions in order to maximize behavior change.     

Who Reads Outcome Research?

To explore patterns of outcome research consumption, we conducted a national survey of 313 family therapists currently practicing in the United States. Participants were asked about their reading practices, as well as about attitudes toward and barriers to reading marriage/couple and family therapy (M/CFT) outcome research. Results suggest that most therapists perceive outcome research as at least somewhat important. However, they spend relatively little time reading it: The average is 1.7?h per month. Therapist-identified barriers to reading outcome research articles include access, applicability, quality of writing, and quality of research. Recommendations for addressing some of these barriers are offered.     

Color charts, esthetics, and subjective randomness

Color charts, or grids of evenly spaced multicolored dots or squares, appear in the work of modern artists and designers. Often the artist/designer distributes the many colors in a way that could be described as "random," that is, without an obvious pattern. We conduct a statistical analysis of 125 "random-looking" art and design color charts and show that they differ significantly from truly random color charts in the average distance between adjacent colors. We argue that this attribute generalizes results in subjective randomness in a black/white setting and gives further evidence supporting a connection between subjective randomness and what is esthetically pleasing.     

Dynamic Visual Acuity

Forty subjects took part in a one-handed catching task in which the period for which the mechanically projected tennis ball was illuminated in flight was varied systematically. Additionally, they were tested for (a) static visual acuity and (b) dynamic visual acuity, in which angular velocity was varied. As expected, both viewing period in the catching task and angular velocity in the acuity task were significant variables in performance. Correlation and principal-components analyses confirmed the findings of a previous experiment in that the correlated static visual acuity tasks were unrelated to both dynamic visual acuity (even when angular velocity was only 75°/sec) and catching performance. Further, dynamic acuity and catching were related under the majority of the combinations, and most frequently at the highest angular velocity, a fact which suggested that the dynamic element in both tasks is the common factor.     

Frustration and disappointment

The paper describes research on children’s responses to failures of gratification. Although this has always been an important area of consideration in psychoanalytic thinking, arguments are put forward for the child’s actual feelings of disappointment being significant in ways that have yet to be fully realised theoretically and clinically within Kleinian object relations. Since Freud first used the term ‘frustration’, it has been applied in psychoanalysis as a means by which to describe in an undifferentiated way all those responses to failures of gratification that have an aggressive content. It will be argued that, in a context of the historical shift in thinking from drive to relational models, there is now perhaps scope to posit the existence instead of two discrete object relational positions towards such failures of aim – that frustrated responses can be differentiated in important structural and developmental ways from disappointed ones, by suggesting that the former are schizoid, whilst the latter are depressive in quality. To try and begin to test the hypothesis that there might be an object relational distinction between feelings of frustration and feelings of disappointment, selected process notes from two training cases became the subject of a combined piece of clinical and theoretical research. I will outline how this research was undertaken and present the findings that arose from the clinical part of it. With the use of a content analysis, a method for gathering interesting quantitative data about the children’s various responses to the failures of gratification was arrived at.     

Factors Associated with Perceived Paternal Involvement in Childrearing

Interest in paternal involvement in child care has increased as the demands on the time and resources of maternal caretakers have increased. The purpose of the present study was to examine variables associated with perceived paternal involvement in child care. Participants were 137 (90 European American and 47 African American) fathers of children between the ages of 2 and 6. Hierarchical multiple regression and analyses of variance indicated that ethnicity, gender role orientation, and perceived skill at child care were associated with higher levels of perceived paternal engagement in and responsibility for child care. Partners' work status was associated with perceived paternal responsibility for, but not engagement in child care. Data suggest that fathers' perceptions of their abilities, gender role, and family requirements may combine to influence child care involvement.     

Who Benefits From What? Drive for Thinness as a Moderator of Responsiveness to Different Eating Disorder Prevention Messages1

This research examined how women respond to different types of messages regarding eat ing disorders, and specifically whether women's degree of drive for thinness moderated their responsiveness to particular messages. In this study, 112 undergraduate women were randomly assigned to receive a condition focusing on either healthy eating or disordered eating. First, and as hypothesized, findings at an immediate posttest revealed that women found the healthy eating condition more enjoyable, personally relevant, and interesting, whereas they found the disordered eating condition more anxiety‐provoking and fear‐inducing. Second, and contrary to predictions, findings at the 3‐month follow‐up indicated that those who were high on drive for thinness were hurt by participation in the disordered eating condition, whereas those who were low on drive for thinness were helped by participation in this condition. Discussion focuses on the theoretical and applied implications of these findings.