Stalking and related behaviors experienced by counseling center staff members from current or former clients.

The incidence of stalking and stalking-related harassment experienced by university counseling center staff members was assessed by surveying a random sample of counseling centers in the United States that were accredited by the International Association of Counseling Services. Responses from 178 counseling center staff members showed that 5.6% of the sample had been stalked by a current or former client, 8% had had a family member stalked, and 10% had had a supervisee stalked. The survey also found that 64% of the sample had experienced some type of harassing behavior from a current or former client. The results are discussed in terms of implications for practice and training in university counseling centers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ischemia-induced object-recognition deficits in rats are attenuated by hippocampal ablation before or soon after ischemia.

The literature on the role of the hippocampus in object-recognition contains a paradox: Transient forebrain ischemia (ISC) produces hippocampal damage and severe deficits on the delayed nonmatching-to-sample (DNMS) task, yet hippocampal ablation (ABL) produces milder deficits. Experiment 1 confirmed that pretrained rats display severe DNMS deficits following ISC, but not ABL. Ischemia produced loss of CA1 neurons. but no obvious extrahippocampal damage. In Experiments 2 and 3, ISC rats from Experiment 1 received ABL. and ABL rats received ISC: neither treatment affected DNMS performance. In Experiment 4, rats that received ISC followed 1 hr later by ABL displayed only mild deficits. It is hypothesized that ISC-induced DNMS deficits are due to extrahippocampal damage produced by pathogenic processes that involve the hippocampus. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Malingering as a categorical or dimensional construct: The latent structure of feigned psychopathology as measured by the SIRS and MMPI-2.

The 6 nonoverlapping primary scales of the Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms (SIRS) were subjected to taxometric analysis in a group of 1,211 criminal and civil examinees in order to investigate the latent structure of feigned psychopathology. Both taxometric procedures used in this study, mean above minus below a cut (MAMBAC) and maximum covariance (MAXCOV), produced dimensional results. A subgroup of participants (n = 711) with valid Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) protocols were included in a second round of analyses in which the 6 nonoverlapping primary scales of the SIRS and the Infrequency (F), Infrequency-Psychopathology (Fp), and Dissimulation (Ds) scales of the MMPI-2 served as indicators. Again, the results were more consistent with dimensional latent structure than with taxonic latent structure. On the basis of these findings, it is concluded that feigned psychopathology forms a dimension (levels of fabrication or exaggeration) rather than a taxon (malingering-honest dichotomy) and that malingering is a quantitative distinction rather than a qualitative one. The theoretical and clinical practice implications of these findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Two, three, or four heads are better than one: Modification of college performance by peer monitoring.

Two studies with a total of 621 undergraduates assessed the effects of a peer-monitoring procedure on student performance in a college course. In the 1st study, Ss were assigned a learning partner and informed that their final grade would be determined by the average of their individual performances. A class with traditional grading served as the control group. In the 2nd study, grade averaging was again employed for experimental peer-monitoring groups of 2, 3, or 4 Ss. Here, experimental and control Ss were students in the same course. Both studies indicated the superiority of the peer-monitoring method over the typical individual performance contingency. Peer-monitoring procedures can be implemented in college courses with no added expense and minimal increases in bookkeeping. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)