Increasing the societal contribution of organized psychology.

Encourages greater political involvement by psychologists and offers commentary on the experiences of 25 psychologists who have recently served on Capitol Hill. The current and potential contribution of psychology to a selected series of policy areas, including child health issues, care for the elderly, functional illiteracy, and criminal justice, is discussed. Also examined are the role and associated responsibilities of psychologists with regard to the health care field. (12 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ethical analysis of health care reform: implications for diverse communities

The values driving nursing's political actions and the ethics underlying proposed health system change have not yet been thoroughly examined. This article attempts to (a) clarify ethical issues surrounding the health care debate in the United States, (b) describe the conflicts surrounding proposed reform especially the effects on disadvantaged communities and (c) earnestly entreat a critical discussion of nursing's humanistic position on health care reform. The interaction between the nursing literature and the various proposals on health care reform suggest various themes that reflect ethical issues due to conflicts in values. Our analysis is based on the belief that, in addition to political action and lobbying, the nursing community must confront critical questions about the values driving its policy making.     

Problematic issues for Blacks in doctoral psychology programs.

Presents various aspects of the involvement of Black students and faculty in doctoral programs in psychology. Recruitment procedures, admissions criteria, financial aid, Black faculty rank, and retention strategies are examined. A focal concern of the article is the "marginal" Black students, that is, those who are admitted under some affirmative action mandate but who do not meet the traditional admissions criteria. This problem involves issues such as how to retain these students until program completion without simultaneously lowering academic standards. Although Black faculty could probably contribute greatly to addressing these matters, they are sorely underrepresented in doctoral programs throughout the country. There is great institutional variability in terms of admission and retention policies. Recommendations are made for actions that institutions can take to increase the involvement of Blacks in their doctoral psychology programs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Experimental psychology and social responsibility.

Argues that (1) the roles of scientist and human being are to some extent inseparable, (2) the scientist cannot escape responsibility for the uses made of his knowledge, and (3) basic research must be defended in terms of its potential social value, however remote. It is argued that experimental psychologists have a series of obligations which can be met through formal organizations. They include: (1) the responsibility to interpret its basic research to society as a whole; (2) the responsibility to encourage its own social support through social action; (3) the need to step up its attack on pressing social problems; and (4) the responsibility to oppose political climates that would inhibit the progress of free psychological inquiry and to encourage political climates that permit and encourage such progress. A few illustrative examples are cited of the involvement of psychological associations in social action and of instances in which they might have been involved and were not. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

All together now: why social deprivation matters to everyone

Inequalities in health in the United Kingdom are widening as a result of economic policy. By focusing on specific diseases, health policy fails to address why less prosperous groups die earlier from most major categories of death. By concentrating on actions which can be taken by individuals and local communities health policy ignores actions which require the support and involvement of society as a whole. Clinicians see the consequences of health and economic policy in their everyday practice and could contribute more effectively to public debate.     

Pathobiological significance of colony morphology in Mycobacterium avium complex

There have been considerable political and organizational moves to involve 'consumers' (patients, carers, service users, potential users, local communities and the public at large) in the provision, planning and monitoring of health services. Such developments beg the question 'what constitutes good practice in user involvement?'. Taking user views into account relates not only to obtaining feedback on 'hotel' aspects of care (issues such as food and cleanliness) but also to the potential for patient input to clinical audit and the standards by which care itself is measured. Recent policy statements specifically advocate involving users in the process and product of clinical audit. In practice, 'involvement' has meant anything from passing on information to full and active participation in partnership with professionals. This paper outlines some of the issues raised in the published literature on user involvement in clinical audit. Suggesting that real involvement refers to users as active participants, not passive recipients, the paper documents the increasing policy commitment to user involvement and considers issues that influence how the rhetoric is put into practice.     

Creating tobacco control policy at the local level: implementation of a direct action organizing approach

This article describes the community activation and policy change process in seven Minnesota communities involved in the Tobacco Policy Options for Prevention (TPOP) study. The study's intervention employed a direct action organizing model, which relies on mobilizing large numbers of people to alter decision making and leverage the power of elites. As part of the organizing process, TPOP organizers and teams made 1,319 personal contacts with community members, generated 309 media stories, and initiated 445 public events related to tobacco use. These actions resulted in the establishment of comprehensive tobacco ordinances in all seven communities. The authors discuss the goals, training, activities and political factors relevant to four phases of the TPOP intervention: information gathering and team recruitment, community awareness building and ordinance development, preparing for city council, and ordinance establishment and enforcement. Included are suggestions for practitioners interested in using policy change and community-based advocacy to resolve public health problems.     

Review of Enemies of freedom: Understanding right-wing authoritarianism.

Reviews the book, Enemies of freedom: Understanding right-wing authoritarianism by Bob Altemeyer (see record 1988-98419-000). This book is the second of a projected three volume series by Altemeyer on the right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) construct. In this volume, Altemeyer (1988) reports the results of further research conducted since the first volume using his RWA scale. Specifically, three issues are dealt with: (1) how RWA develops in the individual, (2) why RWA is organized the way it is, and (3) how RWA can be controlled in a democratic society. Altemeyer's underlying assumption in this and the preceding volume is that a considerable potential for RWA exists in countries like Canada and the United States and that it is therefore a potentially serious problem requiring vigilance and perhaps ultimately preventive measures. Are his fears in this regard justified? It depends on how seriously one takes the respondents' self-reports. Altemeyer repeatedly shows that individuals (usually college students) who score high on the RWA scale are reportedly willing to punish others and to endorse actions that would curtail the civil rights of others, especially those with left-wing political leanings, who threaten the established order. However, in most instances, the measures are attitudinal ones dealing with respondents' reactions to hypothetical incidents and situations as to what they might do or would endorse having others do. Thus, Altemeyer's fears of the high RWA scorers and the seriousness of their threat to North American and other societies depend on knowing how willing they would be to act on their personal inclinations. Be that as it may, from a number of angles Altemeyer's current book on RWA deserves close and thoughtful reading by social, personality, and developmental psychologists. Those interested in political psychology, a relatively new area attracting social and personality psychologists and political scientists, will find it especially valuable and insightful. As noted earlier in the review, both of Altemeyer's RWA volumes should be required reading for would-be constructors of personality and attitude scales. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perspectives on intelligence testing, affirmative action, and educational policy.

The often-vitriolic debate on intelligence testing, affirmative action, and educational policy encompasses issues of deep social, political, economical, and emotional significance to all Americans. This special theme issue focuses on the current thinking of leading scholars in the areas of intelligence testing, affirmative action, and educational policy. This introduction to the theme issue begins with an overview of key data and observations that place the debate into sharper focus. Next, the major areas of scholarly work relevant to the debate are reviewed. Finally, the contributors and their major points of view are introduced to orient the reader for the journey through the 21 articles and commentary that comprise this volume. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Explaining radical group behavior: Developing emotion and efficacy routes to normative and nonnormative collective action.

A recent model of collective action distinguishes 2 distinct pathways: an emotional pathway whereby anger in response to injustice motivates action and an efficacy pathway where the belief that issues can be solved collectively increases the likelihood that group members take action (van Zomeren, Spears, Fischer, & Leach, 2004). Research supporting this model has, however, focused entirely on relatively normative actions such as participating in demonstrations. We argue that the relations between emotions, efficacy, and action differ for more extreme, nonnormative actions and propose (a) that nonnormative actions are often driven by a sense of low efficacy and (b) that contempt, which, unlike anger, entails psychological distancing and a lack of reconciliatory intentions, predicts nonnormative action. These ideas were tested in 3 survey studies examining student protests against tuition fees in Germany (N = 332), Indian Muslims' action support in relation to ingroup disadvantage (N = 156), and British Muslims' responses to British foreign policy (N = 466). Results were generally supportive of predictions and indicated that (a) anger was strongly related to normative action but overall unrelated or less strongly related to nonnormative action, (b) contempt was either unrelated or negatively related to normative action but significantly positively predicted nonnormative action, and (c) efficacy was positively related to normative action and negatively related to nonnormative action. The implications of these findings for understanding and dealing with extreme intergroup phenomena such as terrorism are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Ethics and advocacy": Rejoinder.

Responds to D. N. Robinson's (see record 1985-12952-001) criticism of the American Psychological Association's (APA's) role in social advocacy. The present author describes the bylaws that govern APA involvement in such issues, stresses the problems of human justice involved in public policy issues on which the APA has taken a stand, and argues that psychologists cannot meet their social responsibilities simply by impartially "brokering the evidence." (5 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Deciding how to act is not achieved by watching mental movies.

In the early days of research on visual imagery, it was believed that visual images are like pictures in one’s head. Only as the field matured did it come to be appreciated that visual images do not bear a first-order isomorphic relation to visual percepts. Now that the early days of research on motor imagery are coming to an end, it is important to ask whether motor images bear a first-order isomorphic relation to movements. We asked whether they do by focusing on internal simulations for motor planning. Our participants indicated which of two possible actions they preferred either by performing the preferred action or by indicating which action they would prefer to perform. We reasoned that if internal simulations of physical actions bear a first-order isomorphic relation to actual physical actions, the choices would be the same in the two conditions. They were not. We discuss the reasons for this outcome, including the adaptive advantage of a representational system for action which, like the representational system for vision, does not bear a first-order isomorphic relation to its external analog. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychology in the public interest: What have we done? What can we do?

The contributions of the American Psychological Association (APA) to the public interest are assessed. APA has taken an effective leadership role on issues involving justice to the disadvantaged categories of its own membership. On other issues, which have been more controversial, APA has been less effective, partly because APA participates in our culture of self-interest and individualism, and partly because identifying the public interest is inherently political. Psychologists are urged to look beyond self and group interests toward the urgent issues of our time concerning survival and justice. All the same, how APA pursues the guild interests of psychology as a science and as a profession impinges strongly on the public interest in any plausible sense and requires close scrutiny. Because the public interest can only be determined by a political process, open advocacy on public interest issues within APA governance structure is appropriate. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effective state-level advocacy: A model for action.

Argues that current political and economic pressures present a threat to psychology's continued viability as an independent profession. In response to such issues, it becomes the responsibility of state psychological associations to develop effective methods for legislative and policy advocacy. The development of a model for advocacy by the Legislative Committee of the Massachusetts Psychological Association illustrates such efforts. The model includes a means for responding to a developing legislation, the involvement of large numbers of psychologists throughout the state in advocacy activities, and informing and educating psychologists and other relevant groups to make future legislative and policy advocacy interventions more successful. Principles for the development of such models and their implications for the future of psychology are discussed. (2 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reexamination of the gill withdrawal reflex of Aplysia californica cooper (Gastropoda; Opisthobranchia).

The gill withdrawal reflex (GWR), an important model system for neural mechanisms of learning, varies in form and amplitude within as well as between preparations and is therefore a heterogeneous collection of action patterns, not a reflex. At least 4 action patterns occur in response to mechanical stimulation of the siphon. It is often impossible to categorize a particular movement unambiguously. All may occur spontaneously. Gill movements may be described as combinations of 10 actions; 4 involving vein movements are described here. All actions and action patterns can occur in preparations lacking the central nervous system (CNS). Some vein movements may generate considerable force without markedly altering gill area. It is suggested that this explains why some early studies failed to identify the important role of the peripheral nervous system in the GWR. Studies based on the assumption that the GWR involves a single type of movement controlled by cells of the parietovisceral ganglion require reevaluation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Coordinating actions

The motor system composes complex actions by combining simpler submovements. This presumably involves sharing information about the progress of one submovement with the centres controlling another submovement, to ensure that the second happens in an appropriate relation to the first. This process is called coordination. In this paper I discuss evidence that coordinating actions indeed involves an active process of sharing information about the current state of movements. Coordination appears to be qualitatively different from the process of reacting to external stimuli. This may reflect the importance of predictive representations in coordination. Finally, the processes underlying coordination appear to be organized in a response-specific fashion, as a number of relatively independent circuits. The development and tuning of these circuits may, in part, be what makes an action "skilled".     

Cognitive style and political belief systems in the British House of Commons.

Used the integrative complexity coding system to analyze confidential interviews with 89 members of the British House of Commons. The primary goal was to explore the interrelation between cognitive style and political ideology in this elite political sample. Results indicate that moderate socialists interpreted policy issues in more integratively complex or multidimensional terms than did moderate conservatives who, in turn, interpreted issues in more complex terms than extreme conservatives and extreme socialists. The latter 2 groups did not differ significantly from each other. These relations between integrative complexity and political ideology remained significant after controlling for a variety of belief and attitudinal variables. Results are interpreted in terms of a value pluralism model that draws on M. Rokeach's (1973, 1979) 2-value analysis of political ideology and basic principles of cognitive consistency theory. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Continuous use of standard process audit filters has limited value in an established trauma system

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the ability of five quality assurance/ quality improvement audit filters to identify opportunities for improvement in patient care in a mature trauma system. DESIGN: Retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Total patient population at risk and audit filter fallouts were evaluated for the following audit filters: patients with (1) Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score < 14 who did not receive a CT scan within 2 hours of admission; (2) subdural/ epidural hematomas who did not undergo craniotomy within 4 hours; (3) open tibial fractures who did not undergo debridement within 8 hours; (4) abdominal gunshot wounds who did not undergo laparotomy within 4 hours; and (5) all deaths where a quality assurance action was taken. The filters were used for 1 year. Mortality was compared between fallouts and nonfallouts in each category and the frequency of corrective actions for each category were determined. RESULTS: Corrective actions were taken in 97 of the 418 fallouts from 3,787 patients at risk. The majority (77%) of these actions were for patients in the death audit filter group. There were 343 nondeath fallouts, representing 13% of the 2,719 nondeath patients at risk. Of these, 22 corrective actions were taken, representing 6.4% of the fallouts and less than 1% of the patients at risk. CONCLUSION: The non-death process based audit filters that we evaluated in our trauma system documented adherence to care process standards but found few opportunities for quality improvement, suggesting that audit filters should be periodically evaluated and changed when their goals have been accomplished.     

Psychology and inferences about public policy.

The research literature of psychology may be brought to bear on public policy issues in three ways. First, psychology may be useful in establishing procedures for determining public policy. Second, psychology may be useful in formulating the structure for policy and its implementation. Third, the literature of psychology may be reflected in the actual content of public policy. There are many issues involved in making inferences about public policy from the psychological literature. Among these issues are the generalizability of findings from basic science and problems of overadvocacy on the part of policy consultants. Researchers expect that inferences from the psychological literature would lead to innovations in the policy, but the innovations themselves must be evaluated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)