Transgender Attitudes and Beliefs Scale (TABS): Validation with a Sample of Self-Identified Christians

Transgender people suffer from a variety of consequences as victims of anti-transgender prejudice. Christians have been frequently identified as holding negative attitudes toward transgender people; however, there is evidence that these attitudes may be changing. Accurate measurement of attitudes is important in understanding currently held beliefs and to assess potential changes over time. This study tested the validity of the Transgender Attitudes and Beliefs Scale (TABS) for use with the Christian population with a sample of 207 self-identified Christians in the United States. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) confirmed the factor structure of TABS: χ² (374, N = 207) = 821.46, p < 0.001 (normed χ² = 2.20 < 4); RMSEA = .076 (90%CI = .069; .083), CFI = .926, SRMR = .053. Overall, results suggest that TABS is an appropriate instrument to utilize with the Christian population in the United states.

Examining genetic counselors' implicit attitudes toward disability

Genetic counselors have a unique role in healthcare that requires a balance between being a patient educator and patient advocate when discussing disability. This study aimed to determine genetic counselors' implicit attitudes toward disability, and identify what factors affect these implicit attitudes. Case scenarios involving disability were used to examine hypothetical estimates of time spent on different topics within a genetic counseling session. Implicit attitudes were measured using the validated Disability Attitudes Implicit Association Test (DA-IAT), and personal/professional experiences with disability were assessed. Analysis of 382 respondents of the electronic survey revealed that personal experience with individuals with disabilities was not significantly associated with implicit attitudes scores. In addition, results demonstrated that genetic counselors have a stronger bias toward ability (D_mean  = 0.62, D_std  = ±0.45) compared to previous participants of the DA-IAT (p < .005). Practice specialty, length of time in the genetic counseling field, or whether the participant was a practicing counselor or genetic counseling student were not associated with implicit attitudes scores. The bias toward ability observed across practice specialties may be due to shared factors that influence interest in this field, but may also potentially reflect the inability of the DA-IAT to capture the complexity of genetic counselors' relationship to individuals with disability. This study emphasizes the importance of incorporating patients' individual definitions of disability into genetic counseling sessions and building an environment of patient advocacy and education around their personal perspectives and needs.

Educators’ Perceptions of Clinical Judgment Skill Competencies in Rehabilitation Counseling

Purpose:

To address a significant gap in the clinical judgment competency research by adding new knowledge of important clinical judgment skill competencies in rehabilitation counseling.

Method:

This Internet-based survey design is a follow-up inquiry to Austin and Leahy’s (2015) instrument validation study; this same sample of rehabilitation counselor educators (n = 126) rated the importance and student preparedness in using clinical judgment skill competencies (i.e., scientific attitude, cultural bias, cognitive complexity, memory bias, confirmatory bias, negative bias, evidence-based practice [EBP]).

Results:

Clinical judgment skills were perceived to be highly important. Students were rated as least prepared in scientific attitude and evidence-based practice. Ten skills of high importance/limited student preparation across four clinical judgment skill areas were identified.

Conclusions:

This study’s findings provide initial empirical support of important clinical judgment skill competencies for effective rehabilitation counseling practice. Identified student preparation gaps may be used to help prioritize potential clinical training needs for rehabilitation counseling programs to prepare students in the use of clinical judgment skill competencies that address cultural bias, cognitive complexity, confirmatory bias, and evidence-based practice. Most importantly, data generated from this study can be used when preparing students to effectively address their biases and improve their clinical judgments when applying EBP.

The Actual Versus Idealized Self: Exploring Responses to Feedback About Implicit Bias in Health Professionals

PURPOSE

Implicit bias can adversely affect health disparities. The implicit association test (IAT) is a prompt to stimulate reflection; however, feedback about bias may trigger emotions that reduce the effectiveness of feedback interventions. Exploring how individuals process feedback about implicit bias may inform bias recognition and management curricula. The authors sought to explore how health professionals perceive the influence of the experience of taking the IAT and receiving their results.

METHOD

Using constructivist grounded theory methodology, the authors conducted semistructured interviews with 21 pediatric physicians and nurses at the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, Western University, Ontario, Canada, from September 2015 to November 2016 after they completed the mental illness IAT and received their result. Data were analyzed using constant comparative procedures to work toward axial coding and development of an explanatory theory.

RESULTS

When provided feedback about their implicit attitudes, participants described tensions between acceptance and justification, and between how IAT results relate to idealized and actual personal and professional identity. Participants acknowledged desire for change while accepting that change is difficult. Most participants described the experience of taking the IAT and receiving their result as positive, neutral, or interesting.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings contribute to emerging understandings of the relationship between emotions and feedback and may offer potential mediators to reconcile feedback that reveals discrepancies between an individual's actual and idealized identities. These results suggest that reflection informed by tensions between actual and aspirational aspects of professional identity may hold potential for implicit bias recognition and management curricula.

Stigma, sexual risks, and the war on drugs: Examining drug policy and HIV/AIDS inequities among African Americans using the Drug War HIV/AIDS Inequities Model

The relationship between drug policy and HIV vulnerability is well documented. However, little research examines the links between racial/ethnic HIV disparities via the Drug War, sexual risk, and stigma. The Drug War HIV/AIDS Inequities Model has been developed to address this dearth. This model contends that inequitable policing and sentencing promotes sexual risks, resource deprivation, and ultimately greater HIV risk for African-Americans. The Drug War also socially marginalizes African Americans and compounds stigma for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated persons living with HIV/AIDS. This marginalization has implications for sexual risk-taking, access to health-promoting resources, and continuum of care participation. The Drug War HIV/AIDS Inequities Model may help illuminate mechanisms that promote increased HIV vulnerability as well as inform structural intervention development and targeting to address racial/ethnic disparities.

Affective and developmental transitions: qualitative themes in multicultural counseling journals

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to examine how multicultural counseling students expressed their understandings about themselves and others in relation to diversity. The authors wanted to know how cognitive development, affective development, and sense of self-evolved during a multicultural counseling class to examine all aspects of growth.

Design/methodology/approach

– Themes from a phenomenological qualitative analysis of journals from a multicultural counseling class suggest that students struggle with cognitive challenges (dealing with ambiguity, internalizing multicultural concepts, and self- and other-acceptance) and affective challenges (anger, guilt, and fear) in attaining multicultural growth.

Findings

– This expanded view of multicultural growth that includes affective challenges can fill a prior gap in understanding how multicultural learning occurs.

Research limitations/implications

– Implications are explored for counselor educators and supervisors.

Originality/value

– Recent use of journals to provide empirical insights into student growth include a study by Cohenet al.(2015), who used qualitative analyses of journal contents to examine growth in student attitudes toward geriatric clients, death, and dying. Knowing that student journals can provide insights into changing multicultural attitudes, and that qualitative methodology can provide tools for analysis, the authors decided that it might be possible to better understand multicultural growth by studying the journals written in a multicultural counseling class.

Moving Counseling Forward on LGB and Transgender Issues

Using a case example, the authors explore how the counseling field’s participation in the discourse of heterosexist dominance fosters microaggressions toward sexual and gender-transgressive minorities. Specifically, the authors deconstruct four linguistic assumptions of the discourse of heterosexist dominance: (a) the sex/gender binary, (b) decontextualized disposition language of homophobia, (c) hierarchical disposition language of affirmation, and (d) gendered pronouns. The authors will also examine how these assumptions influence egalitarian, well-intended counselors and counseling psychologists to engage in microinvalidations of LGB and transgender clients. Implications regarding more effective practice, training, and research will be discussed.