Susceptibility to prosocial and antisocial influence in adolescence following mindfulness training

Mindfulness training programmes have shown to encourage prosocial behaviours and reduce antisocial tendencies in adolescents. However, less is known about whether training affects susceptibility to prosocial and antisocial influence. The current study investigated the effect of mindfulness training (compared with an active control) on self-reported prosocial and antisocial tendencies and susceptibility to prosocial and antisocial influence. 465 adolescents aged 11–16 years were randomly allocated to one of two training programmes. Pre- and post-training, participants completed a social influence task. Self-reported likelihood of engaging in prosocial and antisocial behaviours did not change post-training, and regardless of training group, participants showed a higher propensity for prosocial influence than for antisocial influence. Finally, participants were less influenced by antisocial ratings following both training programmes.     

Rehabilitation Counselling: The Development of a New Course Specialism in British Counselling

The introduction of rehabilitation counselling to the UK in 1990-initially as a diploma and now as an MSc—is described. The worldwide development of rehabilitation counselling from its beginnings in America in the 1950s is outlined, highlighting key areas of debate. Evidence of the need for rehabilitation counselling in the UK is presented, and the current course is described with reference to its integrative counselling approach and specialist areas of enquiry. The future development of rehabilitation counselling in the UK is considered, emphasising the need for this specialism as we move towards more holistic models of care.     

Correction processes in early reaching: Reaches by infants to prismatically displaced targets

Summary A comparison was made between trajectories of reaches to visual targets by 6-months-old infants, with and without lateral prismatic displacement. In the No Prism condition, the major element of the movement veered towards the target, confirming the results of Mathew and Cook (1990). In the Prism condition, the prism did not affect hand position or movement direction at the beginning of the major element, but a lateral displacement was evident by the end of the element. This is taken as evidence that shifts in trajectory during the element were not due to visual guidance. It is suggested instead that these shifts may reflect correction based upon somatic feedback about position in relation to the visually specified goal of the movement. Evidence that the hand approached the virtual target supports the suggestion that any visual guidance was confined to the approach phase of the reach. Nevertheless, it appears that visual guidance was operating at this stage, since movement direction was displaced away from the virtual target and towards the real target.     

The observational study of adolescent gambling in UK amusement arcades

In the UK, excessive fruit machine playing is the most documented form of pathological gambling amongst adolescents. Although there have been a few retrospective questionnaire studies in adolescent fruit machine gambling, there has been very little systematic observational fieldwork into the behaviour. The studies reported explore the social world of fruit machine playing using data collected via the monitoring of 33 UK amusement arcades employing participant and non-participant observation methodologies. The basic aims were to observe the arcade clientele and their behavioural characteristics, and to examine motivations for machine playing. Results suggest that level of adolescent gambling depends upon both time of day and time of year, and regular players conform to rules of etiquette and display stereotypical behaviours when playing fruit machines. The results also suggest that adolescents play fruit machines for a wide range of reasons including fun, to win money, to socialize, to escape and for excitement, and that inland and coastal arcades are frequented by different clienteles, probably as a function of the amusement machine available.     

A preparation for the experimental analysis of human cigarette smoking behavior

A preparation for the experimental analysis of cigarette smoking is described in detail. The preparation permits the intensive study of cigarette smoking in individual subjects under controlled laboratory conditions. A variety of behavioral and physiological measures used include rate and pattern of puffing, duration of each puff, time spent smoking cigarettes, expired air carbon monoxide levels, cigarette butt weights, and subjective rating scales of various aspects of smoking. The preparation is reliable and permits relatively unobtrusive monitoring of smoking performance. Cigarette smoking occurs in orderly patterns, within subjects; it varies as a function of number of cigarettes provided and hours of smoking deprivation.     

Active school travel is associated with fewer suicide attempts among adolescents from low-and middle-income countries

Background/Objective: This study explored the association between active school travel (AST) and suicide attempts among adolescents in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Method: We used the data from the Global School-based Health Survey, including 127,097 adolescents aged 13-17 years from 34 LMICs. A self-reported survey was used to collect data on AST and suicide attempts as well as some variables. Multivariable logistic regression was performed to assess the association between AST and suicide attempts. A meta-analysis with random effects was undertaken to identify the difference in the association between AST and suicide attempts. Results: Across all the adolescents, the prevalence of AST was 37% and the prevalence of suicide attempts was 11.60%. Adolescents who engaged in AST were less likely to have suicide attempts irrespective of gender. The country-wise analysis indicated a large inconsistency in the association between AST and suicide attempt across the countries. Conclusions: AST would appear to be a protective factor for reducing suicide attempts among adolescents. However, the association between AST and suicide attempts varied greatly across the countries. Future studies should confirm the association between AST and suicide attempts.