A growing body of literature suggests that Virtual Reality is a successful tool for exposure therapy for anxiety disorders. Virtual Reality (VR) researchers posit the construct of presence, interpreting an artificial stimulus as if it were real, as the mechanism that enables anxiety to be felt during virtual reality exposure therapy (VRE). However, empirical studies on the relation between presence and anxiety in VRE have yielded mixed findings. The current study tested the following hypotheses 1) Presence is related to in session anxiety and treatment outcome; 2) Presence mediates the extent that pre-existing (pre-treatment) anxiety is experienced during exposure with VR; 3) Presence is positively related to the amount of phobic elements included within the virtual environment. Results supported presence as the mechanism by which anxiety is experienced in the virtual environment as well as a relation between presence and the phobic elements, but did not support a relation between presence and treatment outcome

This study examined contextual influences on the relationship between peer norms for condom use and risky sexual behavior among African-American men who have sex with men. Analyses assessed the moderating effects of socio-demographic, socio-contextual, and health-related variables. One thousand forty African-American men, who have sex with men, ages 17 to 25 years, were surveyed as part of the Community Intervention Trial for Youth (CITY) from 1999 to 2002 in Atlanta, Georgia. Findings supported the hypothesis that participants who engaged in unprotected insertive anal intercourse, socio-contextual variables moderated the relationship between peer norms and risky sexual behavior. Findings also supported the hypothesis that participants who engaged in unprotected receptive anal intercourse, both socio-demographic variables and a health variable moderated the relationship between peer norms and risky sexual behavior. Findings have implications for intervention, policy, and research, including a need for interventions that recognize the contexts of influence that shape African-American MSM sexual behavior and that support norms for consistent condom use in both steady and casual sexual relationships.

The acquisition of relational concepts plays an integral role and is assumed to be a prerequisite for analogical reasoning. Language and token-trained apes (e.g. Premack, 1976; Thompson, Oden, and Boysen, 1997) are the only nonhuman animals to succeed in solving and completing analogies, thus implicating language as the mechanism enabling the phenomenon. In the present study, I examine the role of meaning in the analogical reasoning abilities of three different primate species. Humans, chimpanzees, and rhesus monkeys completed relational match-to-sample (RMTS) tasks with either meaningful or nonmeaningful stimuli. For human participants, meaningfulness facilitated the acquisition of analogical rules. Individual differences were evident amongst the chimpanzees suggesting that meaning can either enable or hinder their ability to complete analogies. Rhesus monkeys did not succeed in either condition, suggesting that their ability to reason analogically, if present at all, may be dependent upon a dimension other than the representational value of stimuli.

Street harassment, the sexual harassment by strangers in public places, is a common experience shared by many women and has been linked with other forms of sexual victimization. The negative impact of street harassment, such as fear and behavior to avoid being harassed, points to the need for preventing the behavior. This study sought to determine whether the documentary-style film War Zone may be effective in impacting men’s attitudes toward street harassment, and whether the effectiveness of the film would depend on men’s hostility toward women and level of peer acceptance for street harassment. Findings do not support the effectiveness of War Zone as a component of street harassment prevention. However, the data does suggest that endorsement of hostile attitudes toward women predicts a lack of empathy, and that endorsement of hostile attitudes toward women, a lack of empathy, and peer acceptance of street harassment predict acceptance of street harassment.

To date, no studies have established the relationship between early communication characteristics for young children with significant disabilities and later language development. This study characterized communication for toddlers (n = 60) fitting this profile and their parents prior to a language intervention utilizing an observational coding scheme and tested whether child and parent communication characteristics were predictive of performance on oral language measures. Language transcripts were coded for child mode and pragmatic function and parent response to the utterance child utterances. Results indicated that children used contact gestures, answering and commenting at the highest rates relative to other communication characteristics. Parents utilized a related response type for 52% of child utterances. Hierarchical regressions revealed that sophisticated gesture usage, word usage, and sophisticated function rate were predictive of expressive oral language performance. Sophisticated gesture usage, sophisticated function rate, and parent MLU were predictive of receptive oral language performance.

As pediatric brain tumor survival rates increase, research has begun to further explore the influence of brain tumors and their treatment on functioning. The current study explored the ability of attention, learning, and memory abilities as measured by the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test and receptive language abilities as measured by the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test to predict adaptive functioning on the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales. Children with tumors of the cerebellar region were hypothesized to display relative impairments in attention, whereas children with tumors of the third ventricle region were hypothesized to display relative impairments in learning and memory. The cognitive measures also were hypothesized to be differentially predictive of adaptive functioning performance. No significant differences were found between the groups on cognitive performance, but attention was the best predictor of adaptive functioning in the cerebellar group, whereas receptive verbal knowledge was the best predictor for the third ventricle group.

No description available.

Vaccinations provide protection against deadly diseases and children are scheduled to receive many immunization injections before the age of six. However, painful procedures, such as immunizations cause negative short- and long-term consequences for children. The Gate Control Theory of Pain suggests that physical interventions may be helpful, but they have not yet been validated as an effective intervention to manage children’s acute pain. This randomized trial examined the effectiveness of the ShotBlocker®, a physical intervention designed to decrease children’s injection pain, in a sample of 89 4- to 12- year-old children receiving immunizations at a pediatric practice. An ANOVA revealed no significant effect of treatment group (Typical Care Control, Placebo, and ShotBlocker®) on any measure of child distress. Clinical and theoretical implications are discussed.

Asian Americans are believed to be immune to social barriers and challenges, because of their successes in the U.S. society. This belief, also known as the model minority myth, has caused Americans including Asian Americans themselves to believe that they are not faced with social challenges such as racism. The goal of this study was to examine the relationship among acculturation, racial identity, social context and sociopolitical awareness. Series of multiple regressions were conducted to examine the predictive model. The findings suggested three plausible models of perceived racism among Asian Americans. First two models suggested that racism should be distinguished from stereotypes. Third possible model suggested that racial identity and social context may mediate the relationship between assimilation and perceived racism. The study’s psychological and societal implications are discussed.

Interest in youth civic engagement continues to increase and a small but growing group of organizations are seeking to get young people involved in political activism. At the same time, researchers are giving more attention to the features of adolescent settings and how they relate to the overall development of young people. What remains to be absent is a contextual understanding of how the characteristics of adolescent settings contribute specifically to political development. The purpose of this study is to identify organizational level characteristics of youth organizations that promote the political development of adolescents. Semi-structured interviews and grounded theory analysis with 15 young activists revealed a “Big Six” of organizational characteristics and properties that influence participation in societal involvement behaviors. Post hoc analyses also revealed potential relationships between political development and the Big Six. Implications for both theory and practice are discussed and directions for future research are delineated.