A guide to the EEOC's final regulations on the Americans with Disabilities Act

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently issued its final regulations on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Although the regulations offer some guidance for employers on how to comply with the Act, they fail to provide specific answers to the many complicated compliance questions that will surely arise. Further, the regulations are almost totally silent on certain critical issues related to insurance, workers' compensation, and potential conflicts between ADA obligations and terms of collective bargaining agreements. The EEOC has essentially left the resolution of many important ADA questions to case-by-case determination and the litigation process.     

Antisocial burnout: an exploratory study

The more flagrant aspects of Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD), particularly criminality, are thought to diminish or "burnout" after age 30. However, empirical evidence of burnout in clinically defined groups is lacking. This study explores burnout in a cohort of forensic psychiatric patients, aged 41 to 67, with clinically diagnosed DSM-III APD (N = 39). Conviction data revealed that criminality did appear to decline from age 27 onward, but not in a straightforward manner. Further, a significant portion of the cohort remained criminally active throughout most of their adult lives. Age did not appear to interact with crime class.     

Family violence and Asian drinkers

This is a study of 70 consecutive referrals to the Department of Psychological Medicine, National University Hospital, for treatment of drinking problems. There were 31 Chinese and 39 Indian drinkers, with 63 males and 7 females. Family violence with physical abuse occurred in 21 cases (30%). One of three wives of drinkers had been physically abused, but no children were victims. Drinkers with family violence were generally younger and more severely dependent on alcohol than the non-violent drinkers. There was no relationship between family violence and the ethnicity or marital status of the drinkers.     

Quantitative analysis of chlorpromazine by electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy

A simple and sensitive method is described for quantitative analysis of chlorpromazine in blood, serum, urine and tissue homogenate. The chlorpromazine cation radical produced by adding perchloric acid and 2,3-dichloro-5,6-dicyano-p-benzoquinone to the sample can be detected by the ESR method at room temperature. The sensitivity limit is 10 ng, that is, 20 μl of the solution containing 0.5 μg chlorpromazine/ml. The time needed for the measurement is within 10 min. The chlorpromazine radical thus produced is very stable; for example, 95% of the radical was observed after 24 h. The advantage of this method is discussed by comparing with the ordinary spectrophotometry which requires the purification of the sample.     

The relationship of abuse and witnessing violence on the Child Abuse Potential Inventory with black adolescents

A number of social and psychological factors present in most adolescent parents place them at high risk for abusive behavior toward their children. However, current child abuse potential measures do not include adolescent samples as part of the psychometric data base. Consequently, the purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to investigate whether a Black adolescent sample would perform differently than an adult nonabusing sample on the Child Abuse Potential Inventory (CAP), and (2) to examine the relationship between history of abuse or witnessing violence to scores on the CAP. Results revealed that Black adolescents scored significantly higher than the adult normative sample on the CAP; consequently, cutoff scores need to be empirically established for adolescents. Additional analyses indicated that a history of abuse, as well as a history of witnessing violence, are associated with a high potential for abuse.     

Relational Justice in Organizations: The Group-Value Model and Support for Change

This paper examines the psychological dynamics of the Group-Value Model for a behavioral orientation which has seldom been considered in the social justice literature: acceptance and support for change. A field study was conducted, with 176 participants members of an organization which was undergoing a change process. Participants were asked (a) to think of a specific relevant conflict situation with their supervisor; (b) to evaluate supervisor's behavior in that situation, with respect to relational and distributive justice; (c) to state the justice aspects most valued in conflict situations with their supervisor. A test of the model was conducted through a mediation analysis. According to the Group-Value Model (GVM), respect experienced within the group and pride in the group were mediating variables between justice judgements and orientation toward acceptance and support for change in the organization. Interactional and procedural aspects (relational judgements) were the only ones to predict pride, respect, and behavioral orientation, and were also the ones most valued in general conflict situations with the supervisor. The model was also tested at three different levels of analysis: organization as a whole, department, and work group. This confirmed pride and respect within the group as mediating variables between relational justice judgements and orientation toward acceptance and support for change at the department and workgroup levels.