African‐American female adolescents living in urban environments are at risk for adverse adjustment outcomes, and thus it is imperative to identify protective factors. Religion has been found to be a significant protective resource against many types of maladaptive adjustment outcomes among adolescent samples. The present study accomplishes the following: (1) Provides a description of religiosity in a sample of African‐American female teens; (2) examines religion as a resource for these adolescents by focusing on the association between religiosity and sexual activity, self‐esteem, and general psychological functioning. Four‐hundred ninety‐two African‐American females, ages 12–19, completed measures on religiosity, sexual activity, self‐esteem, and psychological functioning. Most of the adolescents identified as Christian, reported a belief in God, and attended religious services. Greater overall religiosity was associated with greater self‐esteem and better psychological functioning. Adolescents at different levels of self‐religiosity, as well as family religiosity, evidenced significantly different self‐esteem but not psychological distress or sexual activity. Adolescents with varying levels of church attendance demonstrated differences on all three outcomes. By identifying the ways in which religion may exert a positive impact on African‐American female teens, mental health professionals can design interventions that have the potential to help improve the quality of life for these adolescents.

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Exploration of the space around us is a fundamental part of human behaviour. When it breaks down there is an important opportunity to understand its underlying mechanisms. Here we show that many right-hemisphere patients with left neglect re-explore rightward locations, failing to keep track of them during search. Importantly, such re-exploration occurred despite leftward stimuli being indistinguishable in peripheral vision, so it is unlikely to result from implicit processing of neglected targets. Revisits generally occurred after visits to other targets and are therefore not immediate perseverations. Finally, manipulating the visual salience of found targets altered the degree of neglect, but not revisit rates. Space exploration appears to be modulated both by the ability to keep track of spatial locations and by stimulus salience.

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HIV is impacting African-American women at alarming rates. Many of these women are poor and socially disadvantaged, resulting in a combination of stressors that impacts the quality of their lives. This study investigated whether coping style (i.e., problem-focused, emotion-focused) varies as a function of HIV status or stage of HIV-related illness. Secondly, we examined whether the use of a particular style is associated with three areas of functioning among HIV-infected women: general psychological distress, depressive symptomatology, and physical symptomatology. Ninety-nine HIV-infected women and 143 noninfected women completed measures assessing coping styles and functioning. No significant differences emerged in coping styles between the HIV-infected and noninfected women or for the groups when symptomatic women were examined separate from asymptomatic women. Greater emotion-focused coping was associated with less general psychological distress and depression specifically. Problem-focused coping interacted with illness stage to predict all areas of functioning. By identifying effective coping strategies among African-American women with HIV, mental health professionals can design empirical interventions that can help improve quality of life for these women.