Every year thousands of returning military, state, and local police officers and civilians of every description suffer from the intrusive symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Current treatments rooted largely in extinction protocols require extensive commitments of time and money and are often ineffective. This study reviews several theories of PTSD and two important mechanisms that explain when treatment does and doesn't work: extinction and reconsolidation. It then reviews the research about and suggests an explanatory mechanism for the visual-kinesthetic dissociation protocol (V/ KD), also known as the rewind technique. The technique is notable for its lack of discomfort to the client, the possibility of being executed as a content-free intervention, its speed of operation, and its long-term, if largely anecdotal, efficacy. A case study, specific diagnostics for extinction, and reconsolidative mechanisms and suggestions for future research are provided.

Passive smoking has been shown to be hazardous to the health of nonsmokers. Given this documented link between exposure to smoke-filled environments and deleterious health consequences, there is a need to develop effective procedures that establish and maintain no-smoking areas in various public settings. The present study focused on decreasing cigarette smoking in a section of a university cafeteria. Posting of no-smoking signs was found to decrease levels of smoking only minimally. However, when smokers were verbally prompted not to smoke, in the presence of the signs, marked decreases in smoking occurred in the target area.

Each year, thousands of pedestrians are killed or injured while crossing streets in the United States. Pedestrians who jaywalk across busy intersections increase their risk of being injured by an automobile. The present series of studies investigated pedestrian jaywalking behaviors under temporal conditions which appeared to control noncompliance and compliance with pedestrian walk signs. An intersection involving three major streets was the target site of the studies. The timing of walk and no-walk light sequences was different in the clockwise and counterclockwise direction and produced differential delays. In three separate studies, significantly more pedestrians jaywalked when walking in the long-delay as opposed to short-delay direction. Traffic planners might use these findings to establish safer pedestrian signal systems.

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