Media manipulation of adolescents' personal level judgements regarding consequences of smokeless tobacco use

Videotapes were developed to try to impact on personal level judgements of concern and risk in the context of smokeless tobacco use, a growing substance use problem in adolescents. In a within-and-between-subjects design, convincingness (i.e., dramatic portrayal) of the videotaped message (high and low) and perceived probability of consequences portrayed in the message (high and low) were manipulated.     

Acclimation Effects on the Supreme Court of Canada: A Cross‐Cultural Examination of Judicial Folklore*

Objective. Few public law theories developed to understand the decision making of U.S. courts have been examined in different cultural settings. This study examines the applicability of the “freshman effects” theory in the context of the Canadian Supreme Court. Methods. The article uses analysis of variance tests to examine changes in the voting and authorship patterns of 15 Canadian Supreme Court Justices during the Laskin, Dickson, and Lamer Court periods (1973–1999). Results. We find very little evidence of acclimation effects on the Canadian Supreme Court. However, through the Chief Justice's power to compose decision panels, Canadian justices in their first full year of service are assigned significantly fewer cases than in subsequent years of their career. Thus, Canadian justices are given time to acclimate to the high court through a lower workload, a luxury not afforded to U.S. justices. Conclusions. Theories of public law adopted to understand U.S. courts may be limited in their generalizability beyond the U.S. setting because of the institutional and political forces that shape judicial decision making in other courts.     

23rd Family Therapy Conference; A Student's Perspective

Greetings! I am a family worker in regional Victoria, and a post grad student in Family Centred Practice. Being relatively new to the field I was pleasantly surprised to be asked to review the 23rd Family Therapy Conference, Hobart 2002. This was my first Family Therapy conference, and these are my impressions.     

Adolescent mourning: The sudden death of a peer

This paper examines adolescents who are mourning the traumatic death of peers. A psychodynamic model is employed in offering crisis intervention to individuals and groups of grieving adolescents within a school setting. Case vignettes highlight the psychological impact of the death of a peer on an adolescent's functioning and ego development.     

Posttraumatic stress disorder symptomatology and comorbid depressive symptoms among abused women referred from emergency department care

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is common among victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) as is comorbid depression. Comorbid depression may exacerbate PTSD severity and chronicity. This study sampled female IPV victims from an urban emergency department to assess the relationship between PTSD symptomatology in the previous 12 months and current depressive symptomatology and to evaluate independent predictors of PTSD symptomatology. Half of respondents had symptoms consistent with PTSD. Those with PTSD symptomatology had significantly higher mean total depression scores and mean scores on 3 of 4 depression subscales than those without PTSD. Depressive symptomatology, being married, sexual IPV, severity of physical IPV, and partner's consumption of 5 or more alcoholic drinks per occasion at least once a month independently predicted PTSD symptomatology. Our findings underscore the important roles these factors play in IPV-related PTSD and the need for prompt identification and intervention of those at risk.     

Unidirectional and bidirectional intimate partner violence among White, Black, and Hispanic couples in the United States

This article describes the rates and risk factors of unidirectional and bidirectional intimate partner violence (IPV) among White, Black and Hispanic couples in the US. Subjects constitute a multistage area probability sample representative of married and cohabiting couples from the 48 contiguous United States. Results indicate that most couples reporting violence engage in bidirectional IPV. Blacks are more likely than Whites to report bidirectional IPV. In addition, severe unidirectional and bidirectional IPV are more common among Blacks and Hispanics. The results also indicate that predictors of IPV vary depending on whether it is unidirectional or bidirectional. Unidirectional female-to-male IPV and bidirectional IPV are more associated with the characteristics of the female. In contrast, the occurrence of unidirectional male-to-female IPV is associated with a single risk factor, male childhood physical abuse. These findings highlight the importance of distinguishing different types of IPV and have important epidemiological and prevention implications.