Victimization and delinquency among Canadian youth.

This study examined the extent of victimization and delinquency in the past year among 962 junior and senior high school students in a large Canadian city. The incidence of having a weapon at school was also investigated. Further, relationships between victimization, delinquency, and weapon possession were explored. The prevalence of self-reported victimization was found to be high, both while the youths were at school and while not at school. Except for victimization of a sexual nature, males reported higher rates of victimization, in and out of school, than did females. In general, younger students reported higher rates of victimization at school than did older students. In addition, over half of the students reported engaging in some form of delinquent behavior within the past year. Males, as compared with females, were more likely to report engaging in a variety of delinquent behaviors. Interestingly, students in grade 9 were more likely to report delinquent behaviors than were students in other grades. Students who reported moderate/high levels of delinquency were more likely to report moderate/high levels of victimization, and students who reported no delinquency were more likely to report no victimization.

The relationship between peer, social, and school factors, and delinquency among youth.

This article examines the relationships between self-reported delinquency and peer, social, and school factors among junior and senior high school students in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, using both cross-tabulation and multiple-regression analyses. A greater number of ninth grade students were delinquent compared to students in the other grades studied. Predictably, peers' level of delinquency correlated strongly and positively with students' level of delinquency. Strong, positive correlations with delinquency also were found for students reporting high levels of involvement in sports, and high levels of involvement in commercial/entertainment activities. Multivariate analyses indicated the strongest predictor of delinquent behavior within the group of peer and social variables was peer delinquency. Within the group of school variables, the strongest predictors of delinquent behavior were how often classes were skipped and the number of times students were suspended from school. However, students' grades in school did not significantly increase the accuracy of the regression equation.

Predicting cigarette smoking among adolescents using cross-sectional and longitudinal approaches.

The ability to identify groups of children at risk of initiating a smoking habit may prove useful in developing effective smoking prevention programs. This report includes data collected over a three-year period, and attempts to predict adolescents' smoking behavior using both cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses. In addition, predictor variables reflecting both interpersonal and intrapersonal domains were included. Results indicated the highest rates of accurate classification into smoking categories were achieved with cross-sectional analyses. In addition, interpersonal variables emerged as most important in all analyses. Implications for smoking prevention programming are discussed.

The Carleton Skills Training Package for modifying hypnotic susceptibility--a replication and extension: a brief communication.

This study employed the Carleton Skills Training Package (CSTP) to attempt to enhance both objective and subjective components of hypnotic susceptibility. In addition, changes in susceptibility were compared for subjects administered a standard hypnotic induction procedure and for subjects given brief "place yourself in hypnosis" instructions. Results indicated that subjects who were administered the CSTP exhibited significant gains in both objective and subjective susceptibility scores that were maintained at two separate posttests with different scales. No differences were observed between the groups administered the standard induction and those administered the self-induction instructions.

Preventing cigarette smoking among children: results of a four-year evaluation of the PAL program.

The issue of prevention of tobacco use has received a great deal of attention in recent years. As an outgrowth of this interest, several smoking prevention programs based on a social influence approach have been developed. One example of these types of programs is the Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) prevention program which was produced by Health and Welfare Canada. We discuss the preliminary results of a prospective cohort evaluation of the PAL program. This evaluation suggests that the program has some utility in preventing the uptake of tobacco use among young males; however, its efficacy with females has been negligible. It is clear that prevention programming will have to consider targeting males and females in different ways.

The prevalence of smokeless tobacco and cigarette use among sixth, seventh and eighth grade students: a longitudinal investigation.

Few studies have reported on the prevalence of smokeless tobacco use among young children in Canada, although research conducted in the United States indicates a rising trend in smokeless tobacco use among school-aged children. We report on rates of smokeless tobacco experimentation and current use and its relationship to cigarette smoking in a large sample of students followed from Grade 6 through Grade 8 in Calgary, Canada. The rates of smokeless tobacco experimentation and use reported are low in comparison to the corresponding prevalence reported in the American findings. In accordance with the American findings, however, both experimentation and current use of smokeless tobacco were more prevalent among males. Also, a high correspondence between smokeless tobacco and cigarette use was observed.

Hypnotic interview and age regression procedures in the elicitation of multiple personality symptoms: a simulation study.

Patients diagnosed as suffering from multiple personality (i.e., multiples) behave as though they possess two or more distinct personal identities. When behaving as one identity, these patients often display signs of amnesia for events that occurred while they were behaving as a different identity (Sutcliffe and Jones 1962; Taylor and Martin 1944). In most theoretical accounts multiples are conceptualized as the passive victims of unconscious psychological processes that are beyond their sphere of control. For instance, patients' secondary identities are typically described as "dissociated" mental entities, as "taking over" behavioral control, as behaving independently of (and often in opposition to) patients' wishes and intentions, and so on (Allison and Schwarz 1980; Gruenewald 1984; Prince 1930; Watkins and Johnson 1982). Our paper criticizes this traditional account and suggests instead that multiple personality may be more usefully conceptualized as a social role enactment. Along these lines we present a study using college student role players as subjects to test the hypothesis that the kinds of clinical interview procedures employed routinely to diagnose multiple personality may instead encourage and legitimate enactments of this syndrome.

Hypnotic amnesia as a strategic enactment: breaching amnesia in highly susceptible subjects.

Hypnotically amnesic subjects frequently maintain their amnesia in the face of strong and repeated exhortations to recall honestly and to try their best to recall. Some investigators have argued that these subjects lose control over memory processes and, consequently, are unable to recall the material for which amnesia had been suggested. We propose instead that amnesic subjects maintain control over their memory processes. They often fail to breach amnesia because to do so would conflict with their self-presentation as deeply hypnotized. In two interrelated experiments we demonstrated that highly susceptible hypnotically amnesic subjects could be easily induced to recall all of the "forgotten" target items by defining successful recall as supportive of rather than as inconsistent with a self-presentation as deeply hypnotized. In the first part of Experiment 1, all subjects showed amnesia despite repeated demands to recall honestly. In the second part of this experiment, subjects were led to believe that they possessed a "hidden part" to their mind that remained aware of the target items covered by the amnesia suggestion. Each subject recalled all of the forgotten items when the experimenter contacted their hidden part. In Experiment 2 we replicated this effect and also demonstrated that the characteristics of subjects' hidden reports were a function of the instructions they received and did not reflect the operation of a dissociated cognitive subsystem that subconsciously held the forgotten items. These findings are inconsistent with traditional theorizing about hypnosis, but offer strong support for the hypothesis that hypnotic amnesia is a strategic enactment under the subject's voluntary control.