Faculty Bibliography

OBJECTIVE: Cardiovascular reactivity to laboratory stressors was investigated as (a) a moderator of associations of partner aggression with affective functioning, alcohol problems, and parenting; and (b) a consequence of partner aggression. METHOD: Cohabiting adult couples (N = 453) with 3- to 7-year-old children were recruited by random digit dialing and completed questionnaires assessing couple physical aggression, discipline practices, anger, stress, depressive symptoms, and problem alcohol use. Heart rate and blood pressure were measured at rest and in response to laboratory stressors (mental arithmetic and video presentations of family conflict). RESULTS: Males' physical aggression more strongly predicted women's affective functioning and alcohol problems when the women had greater cardiovascular reactivity. This pattern did not extend to men. Physical victimization was associated with lower cardiovascular reactivity. CONCLUSIONS: The present results provide partial support for the biological sensitivity to context model of Boyce and Ellis (2005) and suggest that incorporating the moderating influence of biological reactivity may improve the precision of models of the effects of aggression on adult adjustment.

Dental fear affects over 20% of those presenting for treatment, leading to unnecessary pain and suffering, health and quality of life degradation, and increased financial and societal costs. In contrast to the broad dissemination of highly effective non-pharmaceutical treatment of other anxiety disorders, effective treatment of dental fear is anything but ubiquitous. Although this reflects the common-place problems for disseminating evidence based practices, it is also reflects that (a) dentists have neither the training in behavioral health treatment, nor the time, nor the reimbursement incentives to perform such treatment; (b) exceedingly few patients present to a mental health (MH) provider for dental fear; (c) there is no training or tradition placing MH providers in dental practices; and (d) all of the approximately 21 randomized, controlled trials of behavioral dental fear treatment were conducted by researchers at specialized university dental fear clinics, using participants who saw advertisements or were referred by health professionals for dental fear treatment. In this paper, we call for research (a) placing MH providers in the dental home - not just in dental fear specialty clinics - treating patients who present for dental treatment and within the confines of standard dental operations; (b) testing the acceptability and effectiveness of the intervention as administered by integrated MH professionals or by dental hygienists (a more af-fordable dissemination vector in the U.S. than dentists); (c) patient moderators of effectiveness; (d) anxiety facet and provider moderators of effectiveness; and (e) cost-effectiveness of placing dental fear treatment within the dental home

Lack of compliance has both short- and long-term costs and is a leading reason why parents seek mental health services for children. What parents do to help children comply with directives or rules is an important part of child socialization. The current review examines the relationship between a variety of parenting discipline behaviors (i.e., praise, positive nonverbal response, reprimand, negative nonverbal response) and child compliance. Forty-one studies of children ranging in age from 1(1/2) to 11 years were reviewed. Reprimand and negative nonverbal responses consistently resulted in greater compliance. Praise and positive nonverbal responses resulted in mixed child outcomes. The findings are discussed based on theory and populations studied. The authors propose a mechanism that may increase children's sensitivity to both positive and negative behavioral contingencies.

Hazardous alcohol use is a well-established risk factor for men's intimate partner violence (IPV), with dozens of studies demonstrating the association. The current study extends understanding of the hazardous alcohol use-IPV link by examining what factors moderate this association in a more systematic and broader way that has been done in past studies. Individual, family, workplace, community, and developmental factors were tested as moderators of the hazardous alcohol use and IPV link in a large, representative sample of active duty service members (the 2006 Community Assessment), and the results were tested for replicability in a hold-out sample. Two family variables (relationship satisfaction and parent-child satisfaction), 1 community variable (community safety), and 3 developmental variables (years in the military, marital length, and family income/pay grade) cross-validated as significant moderators of the association between men's hazardous alcohol use and IPV. Across the significant moderators, the association between hazardous alcohol use and men's IPV was weakened by maturation/development, improved community safety, and better relationship functioning. No individual or workplace variables were significant moderators for men, and there were no significant moderators found for women. The results support the importance of a developmental and relational perspective to understanding the hazardous alcohol use-IPV link, rather than solely an individual coping perspective.