Ian Lubek

Social and behavioural factors associated with condom use among direct sex workers in Siem Reap, Cambodia

Objectives: To determine the social and behavioural factors associated with condom use among direct sex workers in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Methods: Using a structured behavioural questionnaire, interviews were conducted with 140 direct sex workers attending a health centre in Siem Reap for HIV screening. Results: Consistent condom use with their clients was reported by 78% of sex workers compared to only 20% with their non-paying partners. Consistent condom use with clients was significantly higher among higher income than lower income sex workers (adjusted prevalence ratio: 1.91, 95% CI: 1.15 to 3.18) and those with good rather than poor negotiation skills (adjusted prevalence ratio: 1.51, 95% CI: 1.01 to 2.26), after adjustment for age, educational level, marital status, number of sexual encounters per week, and knowledge of AIDS/HIV and sexually transmitted infections. The most frequently reported reason for not using condoms with clients was not being able to persuade them (66.7%), while for non-paying partners, the reason was that they loved them (60.0%). Conclusion: To complement the government’s current programme of client education, 100% condom policy and brothel administrative measures, additional strategies to increase condom use among clients and non-paying partners should be directed at (i) the social policy and community levels to address sex workers’ economic and cultural barriers to condom use, and (ii) personal level empowerment through developing sex workers’ condom negotiation skills.

Histoire de psychologies sociales perdues. Le cas de Gabriel Tarde

Ian Lubek : Geschichte der verlorenen Sozialpsychologien : der Fall Gabriel Tarde. Mit der Untersuchung der verlorenen Sozialpsychologien von Gabriel Tarde werden eine Betrachtungsweise und Hypothesen den Historikem, Soziologen, und Soziopsychologen der Wissenschaften vorgeschlagen, die Tarde oder andere Psychosoziologen studieren wollen, oder ganz allgemein jeden Zweig einer Disziplin der in ihrer Geschichte verschwunden ist. Nach einem kurzen Ueberblick tiber das Werk von Tarde, und die Entwicklungsweise seiner Thesen, werden vier spezifische Versuche zur Definition einer Sozialpsychologie Tardes untersucht. Die tiefgrundigste These, die Interpsychologie, fand ein nur schwaches Echo in Frankreich und in Nord-Amerika. Zu Erklarung dieses Misserfolges werden 5 Hypothesen aufgestellt, die historische und institutionelle Faktoren berucksichtigen : 1) der Streit Tarde/Durkheim als Konflikt der beispiel naften Paradigmen, 2) das Nichtvorhandensein von einem Paradigma/Gemeinschaft um Tarde, das die Promotion und die institutionelle Verwurzelung seiner Ideen gefordert hatte, 3) die Nichtvereinbarkeit zwischen dem soziopolitischen Klima und der Perspektive Tardes, 4) die sprachliche und kulturelle Sperre, die die Verbreitung in Amerika erschwerte, 5) der ungenaue Charakter des epistemologischen Status der interaktionistischen Theorien innerhalb der positivistischen Sozialwissenschaften.

Creating new career pathways to reduce poverty, illiteracy and health risks, while transforming and empowering Cambodian women's lives.

Community health psychology provides a framework for local citizens themselves to systematically affect change in health and social inequalities, particularly through Participatory Action Research (PAR). The Cambodian NGO SiRCHESI launched a 24-month Hotel Apprenticeship Program (HAP) in 2006 to provide literacy, English, social skills, health education, hotel skills-training, work experience and a living wage to women formerly selling beer in restaurants; there they had faced workplace risks including HIV/AIDS, alcohol overuse, violence and sexual coercion. Quantitative and qualitative analyses indicate changes in health-related knowledge, behaviour, self-image and empowerment, as HAP trainees were monitored and evaluated within their new career trajectories.

Resolution Versus Revolution

Scientists often engage in interdisciplinary research on important problems facing society. In the 1950s, social psychologists worked on the problem of conflict; in the 1970s, other scientists tackled “environmental pollution.” Although the present chapter covers only the area of conflict research, this prologue will digress briefly to examine a fictional pollution problem—the analogy, if any, to the discussion of conflicts that follow must be left for the reader to draw.

Notes on the development of health psychology and behavioral medicine in the United States

A “standard” historiographical overview of the development of health psychology in the United States, alongside behavioral medicine, first summarizes previous disciplinary and professional histories. A “historicist” approach follows, focussing on a collective biographical summary of accumulated contributions of one cohort (1967–1971) at State University of New York at Stony Brook. Foundational developments of the two areas are highlighted, contextualized within their socio-political context, as are innovative cross-boundary collaboration on “precursor” studies from the 1960s and 1970s, before the official disciplines emerged. Research pathways are traced from social psychology to health psychology and from clinical psychology to behavioral medicine.

HIV/AIDS, beersellers and critical community health psychology in Cambodia: A case study

This case study illustrates a participatory framework for confronting critical community health issues using ‘grass-roots’ research-guided community-defined interventions. Ongoing work in Cambodia has culturally adapted research, theory and practice for particular, local health-promotion responses to HIV/AIDS, alcohol abuse and other challenges in the community of Siem Reap. For resource-poor communities in Cambodia, we recycle such ‘older’ concepts as ‘empowerment’ and ‘action research’. We re-imagine community health psychology, when confronted with ‘critical’, life-and-death issues, as adjusting its research and practices to local, particular ontological and epistemological urgencies of trauma, morbidity and mortality.

Faculty genealogies in five Canadian Universities: Historic‐graphical and pedagogical concerns

For those who are both scholars and teachers of the history of psychology, a dilemma arises concerning the historiographic versus pedagogic value of institutional genealogies. As part of the undergraduate History of Psychology course, faculty genealogies were constructed at five Canadian psychology departments (Calgary, Guelph, Toronto, Western Ontario and York); an operational definition of “Ph.D. supervisor” represented mentor-student “institutional” linkages. Seventy-five per cent of the 212 faculty were traceable to nine pioneer figures such as Wilhelm Wundt or William James. In contrasting historiographic pitfalls with pedagogic merits, we suggest that integrating a reflexive and critical examination of histriographic problems may tip the scales in favour of pedagogic reasons for conducting such genealogical research.

Antiretrovirals for employees of large companies in Cambodia

100 000 new HIV infections per year, an equal number of AIDS-related deaths, and 2·7 million years of life lost. Programmes aimed at improving blood safety and eradicating the use of non-sterile injections in developing countries should be considered as global priorities in the fi ght against HIV/AIDS. These interventions would also limit the spread of the other two major bloodborne diseases, hepatitis B and hepatitis C.

The View From “Social Psychology of Science”

Van Strien’s argument that theory construction be treated as historical practice is intellectually quite appetizing — it is served up in a complex but elegant contextual setting, the wine list spans a broad historical range, and the epistemological menu offers not just one specialized cuisine but an extensive, trans-disciplinary diversity, freed from the constraints of “antipole” theoretical choices. By the time the dessert cart arrives, we have thoroughly savoured and digested this gourmet analysis and conclude that we can, in fact, simultaneously have our cake and eat it too: regulated, synchronic, universalist, stable “theory” being nibbled away through ephemeral, diachronic, shifting, evolving, relativistic, historical transformations. For such a feast of ideas, reservations, however, are suggested (and I shall offer a few in Sections 4 and 5).

Health psychology in autobiography: Three Canadian critical narratives

Three Canadian colleagues in health psychology recount their careers in a field of research and practice whose birth they witnessed and whose developments they have critiqued. By placing the development of health psychology in Canada in a context that is both institutional and personal, Stam, Murray, and Lubek raise a series of questions about health psychology and its propagation. While uniquely Canadian their professional careers were affected by international colleagues as well as others—patients and community members—whose views shaped their perspectives. This article is a plea for the continuing development of critical voices in health psychology.