Vieillissement, parcours de trajet et competence environnementale.

Using an environmental psychology framework, this study proposes: (1) to evaluate elderly adults' macrospatial skills when they are confronted with a wayfinding task in an unknown real environment, and (2) to determine how these skills can link with the self-assessment their environmental competence. Sixty French women aged 71 to 92 and living in the Centre of France had to perform a wayfinding task by means of a map designed for the research project, and to answer the "Wayfinding" subscale of Pedersen's Environmental Competence Scale (1999). Results showed that the people who succeeded this wayfinding task needed two types of markers to effectively find their bearings (a mostly egocentric direction marker and a landmark such as a "building"), whereas those who failed preferentially used an allocentric direction marker. All the participants were able to estimate their environmental skills, such as defined by the "Wayfinding" subscale of Pedersen's Environmental Competence Scale. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The illusion of transparency: biased assessments of others' ability to read one's emotional states

Three sets of studies provide evidence for an illusion of transparency, or a tendency for people to overestimate the extent to which others can discern their internal states. People often mistakenly believe that their internal states "leak out" more than they really do. The authors attribute this bias to a tendency for people to adjust insufficiently from the "anchor" of their own phenomenological experience when attempting to take another's perspective. Evidence for this illusion is provided by showing that liars overestimate the detectability of their lies (Studies 1a, 1b, and 1c) and that people believe their feelings of disgust are more apparent than they actually are (Studies 2a and 2b). A final pair of experiments (Studies 3a and 3b) explores the implications of the illusion of transparency for people's reluctance to intervene in emergencies. All 3 sets of studies also provide evidence consistent with the proposed anchoring and adjustment interpretation.     

Relationship between blood pressure and stress-prone temperament in dogs

As part of an assessment of stress during the training of guide dogs for the blind, blood pressures have been monitored in their main breeds. For this article a population of 227 Labradors, between 9 and 24 months of age, had indirect arterial blood pressures measured and means taken of five readings. They were ranked according to their pressures. Prior to the measurements, their character was independently assessed as "stress-prone" or "non-stress-prone" by their highly experienced and trained handlers. The pressure data distribution of stress-prone animals in the ranking was analysed; they were significantly more likely to be found at the high end of the blood pressure range for that population.     

Health sciences as an interdisciplinary challenge: the development of a new scientific field

Health sciences in Central Europe have been established in recent years as the academic complement to public health. Unlike the situation outside Europe the link between academia, administration and practical application has become a distinct characteristic of this European philosophy. In this article the two questions are posed: 1. as to which structural problems characterize research into health and illness today and 2. how far can the establishment of an interdisciplinary sphere of "health sciences" provide adequate solutions? The authors also sketch the outlines of the new health sciences as an intergrating and "trans-paradigmatical" teaching and research field and they consider the relationships of health sciences to practice in general, and their relevance to the health services in particular. The challenges in the future for public health and therefore for the health sciences will be enormous. A breakthrough in this field will probably not be achieved until the research interests of clinical specialists and researchers oriented towards social and behavioural sciences are linked over a broad front. It is also hoped that from this connection-embeded in open scientific discourse-"health sciences" will arise, not as part of medicine, and not as part of this social sciences, but with their own claims and specific conceptions as to how the problems of our health system can be resolved.     

A decrement-to-familiarity interpretation of the revelation effect from forced-choice tests of recognition memory

In the revelation effect, the probability of labeling a target or a lure as "old" on item recognition tests increases if just prior to their recognition judgment, participants first identify a disguised version of the test item. The same occurs with interpolated tasks that occur just prior to a recognition judgment if the task shares constituents with the test items. One explanation of this test bias is an increased feeling of familiarity that comes from the identification stage preceding the recognition judgment (e.g., D. C. LeCompte, 1995; C. R. Lou, 1993). This study's finding in 4 experiments that 2-alternative forced-choice recognition either yields no effects of revelation or an "antirevelation" effect, even when both items were studied or nonstudied, is incongruent with this explanation. The authors argue that revelation decrements familiarity, and this results in a more liberal criterion shift. They also argue that their theory is more consistent with previous empirical data.     

Filial therapy into the 21st century.

Discusses filial therapy (FT) which might seem new to many child and family therapists. Yet training parents to play therapeutically using this child-centered approach with their children has a long track record that demonstrates it is an effective way to work with children and their parents together. It is noted that while the method was waiting to gain broader recognition and acceptance by practicing play and family therapists, advocates in academic settings were testing its efficacy. As FT is becoming more known and widely used by practitioners, it has attained the status of an "empirically supported" or "evidence based" or "empirically validated" treatment. All of these terms mean the same thing: a treatment that rests on good research, with results that show its efficacy, one that can be replicated by practitioners who can achieve comparable positive effects using it. Such terms concern anyone familiar with issues related to health care insurance. The slow start of FT, then, has become an advantage for the therapy and its users. Only rarely does a treatment arrive already backed by empirical support of efficacy. The remainder of this article will explain how this desirable state has come about. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

American military dentists as prisoners-of-war in the Pacific theatre during World War II

Fifty-three American Military dentists were held by the Japanese as Prisoners-of-War during World War II. Throughout 40 months of captivity these men served their fellow prisoners providing dental treatment in an austere environment with "jury-rigged" equipment and supplies. A brief overview of their experiences is presented in this paper.     

Poisoning the spindle: serendipity and discovery of the anti-tumor properties of the Vinca alkaloids

In 1995, Canadian scientists Robert Noble and Charles Beer were inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame for their 1950s "discovery" of Vinblastine. Their "chance" finding of an anticancer drug in the leaves of the periwinkle plant (Vinca rosea, Linn.), is used to explore the historical issue of discovery, accidental discovery, and priority. The elements of the discovery are reconstructed through the oral testimony of key players and their published and unpublished records. Several "unsung heroes" played key roles in this project and reasons for their relative invisibility will be presented. Special attention is paid to the relationship between the small Canadian academic group working at UWO and the large pharmaceutical company (Eli Lilly) engaged in similar research at the same time.     

Some mental impediments in the collaboration of social pedagogy and adolescent psychiatry

Different mental attitudes sometimes hinder needed synergy. "Sozialp?dagigik" is based on humanities, unlike psychiatry, which is just as well due to the sciences of neuropsychology, neurology, finally biology. These "induce" their theories from empiricism, those "deduce" from principles. What might stand a good chance for completion, ever so often goes bad to merely distinguishing self-assessment. The author of this contribution is occupied in introducing students of "social-pedagogics" to the problems, and to the ways and difficulties of treatment, especially in child and adolescent psychiatry, showing them at an associate hospital. It seems to be successful and gaining more agreement.     

Perceiver self-presentational goals as moderators of expectancy influences: Ingratiation and the disconfirmation of negative expectancies.

Self-fulfilling prophecy processes enable people to confirm their negative expectancies for others. The perceiver goal of ingratiation was hypothesized to alter this behavioral dynamic and thus lead perceivers to disconfirm their negative expectancies. In an interview setting, interviewer Ss' expectancies and interaction goals were manipulated. As anticipated, "no goal" interviewers were relatively cold and challenging toward their negative-expectancy applicants; as a result, these applicants performed somewhat less favorably, consistent with interviewer expectancies. In contrast, "liking goal" interviewers were relatively warm and unthreatening toward their negative-expectancy applicants; as a result, these applicants performed favorably, disconfirming interviewer expectancies. These data support a framework in which perceiver self-presentation goals are conceptualized to moderate the expectancy-confirmation process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Metaphors in the talk of "depressed" women in psychotherapy.

Variations in how we describe, explain, and treat "depression" and in who is labeled "depressed" attest to the significance of the social-historical contexts in which our understandings and practices are based. A prevalent, modern-day (Western) conception of "depression" is as a gendered (primarily female), devalued condition characterized by a discourse of the deficient self. In an effort to learn more about the particular forms of this discourse, the metaphors used by 10 depressed women (aged 28–62 yrs) to talk to their psychotherapists about their "selves" in relation to their perceived difficulties were studied. Two broad cultural imperatives were constructed from these metaphors: (1) Don't be too mothering and (2) Don't be too child-like. At the core of these 2 imperatives were messages about the importance of autonomy, for both oneself and others. This valuing of autonomy can be clearly located at the heart of 20th-century Western ideals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Paediatric communications with the post-partum patient

Discussions with mothers during their puerperium allows the introduction of thoughts on child care and management to a captive audience at a highly receptive stage. Many mothers lack an understanding of the problems they are likely to face in the first months after delivery and are desperately afraid of "spoiling" their child. They are generally quite ignorant of the problems of feeding, "colic" and others. Discussion group counselling of the parents of babies treated in an intensive care nursery is of value for the parents and for the hospital staff. The mothers have problems of guilt and anxiety over their possible aetiological role, doubts about their ability to cope with an "abnormal" baby, and problems due to lack of contact with their baby.     

Attachment and anger in an anxiety-provoking situation.

In this study, women were told they would engage in an anxiety-provoking activity. Women then waited with their dating partner for the activity to begin. During this 5-min "stress" period, each couple's interaction was videotaped unobtrusively. Each couple was then told that the woman would not have to do the stressful activity, and each couple was unobtrusively videotaped again during a 5-min "recovery" period. The behavior of both partners was then coded during both periods. The major results revealed that more-avoidant men displayed greater anger during the stress period, especially if their partners were more anxious or distressed or sought more support from them. More-avoidant women also displayed greater anger, particularly if they were highly anxious or distressed and received little support or encountered anger from their partners. During the recovery period, highly ambivalent women behaved more negatively toward their partners if they had been more anxious in the stress period or had sought more support from their partners. These results are discussed in terms of attachment theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Feeling "holier than thou": Are self-serving assessments produced by errors in self- or social prediction?

People typically believe they are more likely to engage in selfless, kind, and generous behaviors than their peers, a result that is both logically and statistically suspect. However, this oft-documented tendency presents an important ambiguity. Do people feel "holier than thou" because they harbor overly cynical views of their peers (but accurate impressions of themselves) or overly charitable views of themselves (and accurate impressions of their peers)? Four studies suggested it was the latter. Participants consistently overestimated the likelihood that they would act in generous or selfless ways, whereas their predictions of others were considerably more accurate. Two final studies suggest this divergence in accuracy arises, in part, because people are unwilling to consult population base rates when predicting their own behavior but use this diagnostic information more readily when predicting others'. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Legal framework of postgraduate nursing education in spain

Being part of the first report of the SEEIUC Forum on the training of nurses in critical care units, this article shows the different postgraduation training paths which Spanish legislation establishes. The "Titulos Oficiales de Especialización Profesional" ("Official Degrees on Professional Specialization") settle the seven nursing specialties regulated by the Decreto 992/1987. Following a second path, "Titulos de Postgraduado no Oficiales" ("Non-official postgraduation degrees"), every University acknowledged by the LRU and creating them as their Own Degrees, may organize Master courses, University experts, University specialists and Postgraduation university degrees, according to their autonomy. So that this autonomous offer is as homogeneous as possible, there is an interuniversity agreement which encompasses 24 national universities and gathers the general criteria for the academic organization of such courses. The report is completed by an analysis of the training offer for critical care nursing, developed during the 1995/1996 course in Spain.     

Lack of permanent nigrostriatal dopamine deficit following 6-hydroxydopamine injection into the rat striatum. Short communication

OBJECTIVE: Understanding the contributors to physical disability in older adults is an important component of the national health objective of expanding disability-free life by the year 2000. The purpose of this study was to determine the frequency with which older adults attribute their difficulty performing a number of common daily tasks to "old age" and to identify specific conditions and diseases associated with this attribution. Finally we sought to determine the characteristics that might differentiate persons able to attribute their disability to specific conditions from those who cite old age as the etiology of their disability. DESIGN: A cross-sectional, observational, study. SETTING: The Johns Hopkins Functional Status Laboratory. PARTICIPANTS: Two hundred thirty community-dwelling volunteers 60 years of age and older who could stand unassisted for > or = 1 minute and who were without cognitive impairment. MEASUREMENTS: A 1-day evaluation included physical performance evaluations, both performance-based and self-reported function for 27 tasks, and self-report of physician-diagnosed diseases. Those with difficulty in a task and those who denied difficulty but had changed the method of task performance (modification) because of an underlying health or physical condition were identified and asked to name the cause of their difficulty or task modification; options were specific diseases/medical conditions or "old age." The prevalence of "old age" citation as a cause of functional limitation, as well as its associated characteristics and medical conditions, was determined. MAIN RESULTS: Twenty percent of the 230 participants cited "old age" as the cause of their disability in two or more tasks. Tasks for which difficulty was most frequently attributed to "old age" were dressing oneself (31%), walking around the home (25%), walking 1/2 mile (5-6 blocks) (25%), cutting toenails (16%), getting in or out of a bed or chair or out a car (14% each), and ascending/descending stairs (13%). Significantly higher levels of arthritis, heart disease, and hearing loss were reported in persons attributing their disability to "old age" than in those not reporting "old age" as the cause of their disability. We found no differences in age, gender, race, education, or cognitive status for the two groups. However, individuals citing "old age" as the cause of functional decrements walked more slowly than those who cited a specific disease. CONCLUSIONS: These data suggest that a significant proportion of functional decline attributed to "aging" in older adults may be associated with specific conditions. Identifying and reducing the impact of these conditions may prove to be a useful approach to preventing or minimizing functional loss.