Edwin P. Willems

Subjective Responses to Architectural Displays: A Question of Validity.

SCOTT DAN FO R D is Assistant Professor of Environmental Psychology at the School of Architecture and Environmental Design, State University of New York at Buffalo. A 1974 graduate of the doctoral program in Industrial and Organizational Psychology at the University of Houston, Dr. Danford is currently directing his research efforts toward the specification of behavioral performance standards for health

Shift toward risk and heterogeneity of groups

Abstract Groups that were homogeneous and heterogeneous in terms of risk preferences were varied orthogonally across conditions of information exchange and discussion. The shift toward risk for heterogeneous group members was significantly larger than for homogeneous group members, who did not differ from a control condition. Further analyses showed that two possible alternative hypotheses, time differentials for discussion and regression toward the mean, were not tenable. The data support (a) the “at least as willing” interpretation of Browns risk-as-value hypothesis, and (b) the necessity of constituting groups for heterogeneity and homogeneity with great care.

Behavioral Ecology, Health Status, and Health Care: Applications to the Rehabilitation Setting

This paper is about a view of behavior-environment relations called behavioral ecology, about health status and health care for persons hospitalized with spinal cord injuries, and about some relationships between these two areas. One major purpose is to communicate some of the essential flavor of behavioral ecology. This will be done by presenting some background comments in the next section and presenting some key aspects or guiding assumptions of behavioral ecology in a later section.

Negative Stress and the Outcome of Treatment for Binge Eating

This study investigated the ability of negatively versus positively perceived stress to predict outcome of treatment for binge eating disorder (BED). Participants were 62 obese women satisfying the DSMIV research criteria for BED. Stress was measured using an instrument based on the Recent Life Change Questionnaire (RLCQ). Participants experiencing high negative stress during the study period reported a binge eating frequency three times greater than that reported by subjects experiencing low negative stress (2.14 vs. 0.65 binge-days/week). Negative stress predicted how fast an individual would reduce binge eating and demonstrated more predictive power than positive stress.

One Path Through the Cafeteria

a kaleidoscope of concepts and variables of such variety that we feel like two hungry boys in a cafeteria. We have been taught by our intellectual parents to look, weigh, and choose carefully so as to end up with a sound and nutritious meal. The first step is to survey the offerings and make some preliminary assessments of them. This we will do here by first making some summary comments about each of the papers. The more important step is to translate our specific hunger and our views on what is nutritious (i.e., our biases) into a sequence of selections-one path-through the array of offerings. We will offer one such path in this paper. In the process, we will indicate that, just as is true of all cafeterias, the present one has left out some items that are important for overall intellectual nutrition and viability.

The predictive validity of the Diet Readiness Test in a clinical population.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the psychometric properties, including the factorial and predictive validity, of the Diet Readiness Test (DRT) in a clinical population. METHOD The DRT was administered to 132 women who participated in an obesity and binge eating treatment study. RESULTS The DRT demonstrated adequate internal consistency. The DRTs proposed factor structure was not supported. Neither the DRT subscales nor the derived factors predicted changes in weight, binge eating, or exercise. DISCUSSION The DRT did not demonstrate factorial or predictive validity in this study. Based on the DRTs cutoff criteria, 100% of the sample was considered not ready to begin a weight loss program, suggesting that the DRT may have limited utility with clinical populations.

Spinal Cord Injury: The Relationship Between Time Out of Bed and Significant Events

&NA; This study evaluated time out of bed as (a) a means of documenting spinal cord patients’ physical and psychological status and (b) a predictor of complications. Sixty spinal cord injured patients admitted to a physical rehabilitation hospital for comprehensive rehabilitation were subjects. An electronic device, the Rest Time Monitor (RTM), measured time spent out of bed. Medical records provided information on significant events. Patterns of time out of bed quantitatively documented the occurrence of several medical complications and emotional upsets. Patients who experienced infections spent less time out of bed prior to onset than did control patients. Time out of bed can be used by clinical staff and researchers to document the physical and psychological status of the patients and potentially to predict the onset of some complications.

Behavioral Indicators of Client Progress after Spinal Cord Injury

During each day and throughout the life span of the individual, various processes of adaptation lead to the development of a repertoire of behavioral performances in the everyday environment. This repertoire is part of the substance of everyday life and is critical to survival, but it is usually overlooked by the healthy person because it is taken for granted. Onset of a severe physical disability such as spinal cord injury eliminates or alters this repertoire; the person’s major means of coming to terms with the everyday environment are impaired, often drastically.