Teachers on the margins: How low-income public schools burden our teachers.

Background: Teachers experience high work-related stress, which can lead to missed workdays and lower quality of life.

Objective: The objective of this exploratory pilot study was to assess occupational and environmental stressors in public school districts by income level to examine the influence these stressors have on teachers perceived stress and biological stress response.

Methods: Fifty-nine teachers were recruited from four school districts in Michigan (three low-income and one high-income).

Alcoholism gender differences in brain responsivity to emotional stimuli.

Men and women may use alcohol to regulate emotions differently, with corresponding differences in neural responses. We explored how the viewing of different types of emotionally salient stimuli impacted brain activity observed through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) from 42 long-term abstinent alcoholic (25 women) and 46 nonalcoholic (24 women) participants. Analyses revealed blunted brain responsivity in alcoholic compared to nonalcoholic groups, as well as gender differences in those activation patterns.

Cigarette quitlines, taxes, and other tobacco control policies: a state-level analysis.

This paper estimates monthly quitline calls using panel data at the state level from January 2005 to June 2010. Calls to state quitline numbers (or 1-800-QUITNOW) were measured per million adult smokers in each state. The policies considered include excise taxes, workplace and public smoking bans, and a Peter Jennings television-based program warning of the health risks of smoking.

Have PhD, will travel.

This autobiography contains some of the clinical and research highlights of my career in the context of my personal odyssey and my appreciation of science as a potential check on political and economic forces in psychology. Typically, my research arose from clinical problems encountered at work and from my disinclination to rely on methods that lacked prior demonstrated validity for the type of problem and client in question. Otherwise, I feared my recommendations were no better than those based on common prejudices and biases, which I encountered throughout my work life as a dark-skinned, outspoken, non-Christian from the Bronx.

Psychological and physiological assessments on American hostages freed from captivity in Iran.

Medical evaluations of 52 Americans held hostage in Iran for 444 days included psychological testing and physiological measurements. Psychological testing utilized the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and the 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire (16-PF) and focused on the stress management capabilities of the group upon their arrival at Wiesbaden, West Germany. Physiological testing utilized plasma and urinary cortisol along with plasma and urinary catecholamine levels to help document former hostages' stress responses following their release from captivity.

A new automated interpretation system for the 16PF.

A new computerized interpretation system for the 16PF is described. This system is based on the novel concept of attempting to simulate directly the diagnostic report-writing capabilities of a single clinician. Certain considerations regarding the problem of validity in respect to this area are brought up, and the general operation of the system is outlined.