Self-administering nicotine appears to improve depression-prone smokers' emotional response to a pleasant stimulus.

No abstract

In order to better understand why those higher in impulsivity experience more difficulties during smoking abstinence, the current study examined the possible mechanisms contributing to cigarette smoking relapse. Fifty dependent cigarette smokers completed measures designed to assess craving, tobacco withdrawal severity, and negative affect during 48 hours of nicotine abstinence. Using a series of multilevel models (SAS Proc Mixed Procedure), significant impulsivity x time analyses revealed differences in craving, F(2, 96) = 3.74, p<.05, and anxiety, F(2, 96) = 3.23, p<.05. Simple slopes analyses indicated that heightened trait-impulsivity predicted greater increases in craving and anxiety during a 48-hour abstinence period. These findings suggest that smokers with higher levels of impulsivity may lack the ability to find an accessible and comparable substitute for cigarette smoking during a cessation attempt. This study also highlights the importance of considering individual differences when treating those who wish to quit smoking.

Measurement of program climate, defmed as a sense of environmental safety amid respectful relationships and effective organizational systems, has been associated with a myriad of important outcomes in school and workplace settings. However, climate has received scant attention in the realm of graduate training, including training in psychology health service programs, despite related research suggesting that quality of mentor-mentee relationships and the research training environment influences student satisfaction and educational attainment. The current study presents the initial development of the Graduate Program Climate Scale, a brief 20-item assessment of climate derived from school and workplace climate measures, targeted at clinical psychology doctoral students in scientist-practitioner programs. The scale was found to be internally consistent and correlated with program satisfaction, satisfaction with evaluation and feedback procedures, and confidence in research skills. Importantly, more positive program climate also predicted outcomes related to peers with problems of professional competence, suggesting that program climate is associated with students' faith in faculty to handle professional competence issues. Results from the current study suggest that the Graduate Program Climate Scale may be a useful tool for examining program-level characteristics and processes associated with success in clinical psychology training programs.

Diego Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical PsychologyLimited previous literature on peers infiuenced by students with problems of professional competence has descriptively focused on rates of peer identification and actions in response to identification. Prior research has suggested that students who exhibit diminished functioning due to life Stressors or psychological distress may be qualitatively different than students who lack the capacity to ever perform the duties of a competent professional psychologist. Thus, the current study explored peer perceptions of various problems that graduate students in professional psychology might experience. A survey given to a cross-section of clinical psychology doctoral-level students found that (a) awareness of policies regarding identification of problem students is associated with degree of faith in faculty effectiveness in handling student issues, (b) students differently perceived trait problems (e.g., lack of self-awareness, immaturity) from externalizing psychopathology (e.g., drug and alcohol problems) and other indices of psychological distress (e.g., anxiety, depression, financial strain), and (c) peers who are seen as lacking capacity to achieve competence are perceived less sympathetically and are recommended for different remediation strategies compared with students with diminished functioning. Implications for program policies and the function of graduate programs as gatekeepers are discussed.