Hostile interpretation as a transdiagnostic factor for cooccurring anxiety in boys with aggressive behavior problems

Many children with aggressive behavior problems also suffer from anxiety. This cooccurrence may perhaps be explained by transdiagnostic factors. Identifying these factors seems crucial, as they may be important targets to treat these cooccurring problems effectively. This two-study paper investigates whether hostile interpretation of others’ intentions is a transdiagnostic factor for cooccurring aggression and anxiety problems, examining two samples of boys in middle childhood. We assessed boys’ aggression and anxiety using teacher-report in Study 1 (N = 84, M_age = 10.10), and parent-report in Study 2 (N = 115, M_age = 10.55). In both studies, we assessed hostile interpretation using vignettes describing ambiguous provocations by peers. Both studies revealed a strong association between aggression and anxiety problems, underscoring the necessity to examine factors that can explain this cooccurrence. However, in neither study was this association reduced when we added hostile interpretation to the model, suggesting that hostile interpretation did not function as a transdiagnostic factor in our samples. One possible explanation for these findings is that hostile interpretation predicts both aggression and anxiety problems, but in different children. We, therefore, encourage scholars to conduct more research to explain the high comorbidity of aggression and anxiety problems in children. Future research should also examine hostile interpretation as predictor or transdiagnostic factor for aggression and anxiety problems in more diverse population, including girls and other age groups.     

Personalized information and willingness to pay for non-financial risk prevention: An experiment

Journal of Risk and Uncertainty - When receiving personalized rather than population-based information, agents improve their knowledge about their probability of experiencing adverse events (e.g....     

Nonparametric prediction of spatial multivariate data

This paper investigates a nonparametric spatial predictor of a stationary multidimensional spatial process observed over a rectangular domain. The proposed predictor depends on two kernels in order to control both the distance between observations and that between spatial locations. The uniform almost complete consistency and the asymptotic normality of the kernel predictor are obtained when the sample considered is an alpha-mixing sequence. Numerical studies were carried out in order to illustrate the behaviour of our methodology both for simulated data and for an environmental data set.     

ANZJFT Symposium: What are the Core Learnings of Family Therapy?

Five experienced Australian and New Zealand family therapists and trainers seek to answer the question: ‘What key concepts and core learnings should be part of any family therapy training course?’ They debate the usefulness of making ‘shopping lists’ of core concepts, the importance of considering trainers' and trainees' contexts in the formation of their values and perspectives, and the distinctive role of Family of Origin work in training, clarifying central themes. Three experienced trainers respond to the issues raised.     

A Philosophic Stance,Ethics and Therapy An Interview with Harlene Anderson

Harlene Anderson is director of the Houston Galveston Institute. With her late colleague Harry Goolishian she challenged family therapy theory, proposing that as therapists we consider theoretical metaphors based on language and social constructionism, and in effect has moved family therapy in a new direction. The physical and conversational context of interview was the Lofoten Islands, 300 km inside the Arctic circle, Far Northern Norway on the night after Mid Summer's Night, 24th June 1993. Tom Andersen was the host for several days to a gathering called Constructed Realities; Therapy Theory and Research. The aim of the gathering was to explore the concept of Knowledge in the fields of psychiatry, psychology, teaching and social work. The focus was to provide a bridge between the ‘practical’ and the ‘theoretical’ discourses around knowledge and the creation of the knowledge. There were eight main issues around which the conversations revolved — 1) Knowledge: One or Many? 2) Multiple Realities and the Therapeutic Process 3) Human Understanding 4) Language and the Construction of Self 5) Research Alternatives 6) Qualitative Research in Clinical Work 7) Feminist Issues in Theory and Research 8) Power, Ethics and Practice. Harlene Andersen has written extensively on many of these subjects taking a constructivist position and was central to the numerous conversations. She was also one of the prime movers in putting together such a challenging and multi-disciplinary conversation. In conjunction with Harry Goolishian, Harlene Andersen has proposed that what we call ‘problems' are created in language and are dissolved in language. Her interests are in the multiple realities that come to an intersection in a therapeutic conversation and how a therapist can engage with a client to open the possibility for the client to create and find some changes in his/her life. She takes the position that in order for a therapist to be helpful to his/her client, conversational space needs to be created that makes room for the exploration of the client's beliefs and realities. An essential element in this process of creating conversational space is the therapist taking a position of not knowing, of uncertainty, of exploring and making room for the client to talk about what is important for him/her to talk about and not for the therapist to lead from a position of knowing what is best for the client. Harlene Andersen is regarded as a leading theorist and clinician in the therapeutic community who is exploring the broad concept of therapy as a collaborative process at many levels. She is one of the major presenters at the forthcoming New Voices in Human Systems conference hosted by Lynn Hoffman in Northampton, Massachusetts in October 1994.     

Housing,Demographic Change and the Private Rental Sector

Housing policy and provision in Australia are primarily oriented towards meeting the needs of the traditional nuclear family household. Households who cannot afford to buy their own home and are not eligible for public housing have no alternative but to rent in the private sector. Many of these households are single headed, groups, unemployed or on low-incomes. However, even in the private rental sector family households are favoured by landlords and estate agents and gain access to the better standard accommodation. Flexible and innovative policies in the public sector are urgently needed to meet the housing needs of the growing number of non-nuclear family households.     

French Representations of Citizenship and Immigrants: The Political Dimension of the Civic Link

Representations of, and attitudes towards, foreigners take place within the complex system of values and meaning that constitutes what we call a national identity. In the French case, different conceptions of citizenship give rise to different attitudes towards immigrants. These conceptions, even if they could be related to antagonistic theories of democracy, blend together within the citizens' representations, giving the opportunity to combine advantages from each model, namely cohesion and inclusion. But the mix of citizenship representations occurs successfully only when the political dimension of citizenship is accepted. Where this is not the case, the antagonistic potential of both understanding of citizenship and immigrants develops and endangers the coherence of the civic and political national culture.     

‘They are working every angle’. A qualitative study of Australian adults' attitudes towards,and interactions with,gambling industry marketing strategies

As gambling products have diversified so too have the ways in which the gambling industry has been able to target, reach and engage different sectors of the community. Limited research has explored the ways in which individuals conceptualize and respond to gambling marketing strategies. Semi-structured, qualitative interviews were conducted with 100 adults in Victoria, Australia, who had gambled at least once during the previous year. Participants described the multi-layered ways in which gambling was marketed and were concerned about the role of marketing in ‘normalizing’ gambling for some groups. Male participants felt ‘bombarded’ and ‘targeted’ by sports bet marketing. Most women and older men actively resisted gambling marketing strategies. Older women, younger men, moderate and high risk gamblers and those from low socio-economic backgrounds were particularly influenced by incentivization to gambling. This study highlights the complex ways in which different individuals interpret and respond to gambling industry marketing strategies.     

Risk Perception and Social Acceptability of Technologies: The French Case

The authors present results of a February 1987 survey on judged frequency of mortality causes and risk perception of technologies in a representative sample of the French population. Although the French context is very different, and the impact of public controversies have been very limited on technological choices such as the nuclear energy program, strong similarities in risk perception of technologies are observed with results from U.S. surveys. Results, which could be worthwhile for other countries, suggest that risk perception is influenced by two different types of components. The first influence is the global feeling of "security" that society procures to its members. Such feeling depends on the individual's socioeconomic status, subjective state of health, and personal discomfort in daily life, and explains individual aversion to risk independently of the mortality causes or technologies involved. The second influence is the degree of perceived social legitimization of the activities involving risks. Risks of medical and transportation activities are strongly opposed to illegitimate risky behaviors (smoking, drugs, alcohol); technologies which have been an object of public debate (nuclear plants, the chemical industry, lead in gasoline) have an intermediate position reflecting the remaining uncertainties of public opinion about their risk–benefit balancing. Tentative conclusions for risk communication are proposed.