The need for cross-cultural communication skills arises whenever people from different languages and cultures come into contact. With increased tourism, international business, students studying overseas, and increasing awareness of indigenous minority cultures there is concern to foster better communication among different cultural groups. In the present paper, examples of cultural differences in communication in Australia and New Zealand are presented. Two approaches to the training of cross-cultural communication skills are described: the cultural assimilator developed by Brislin, and McCaffery's “learning how to learn” orientation.

The global digital communications network, colloquially known as the “internet”, has received much attention in recent years from business, media, cultural, and government interests. This paper looks behind the hype and sales-pitches, at the essential features of the medium which have made it (and will continue to make it) the central technology for the dissemination of information in the next century. It is a particularly important technology for remote communities, since all information resources (educational, commercial, and recreational) can be transmitted using a standard set of protocols (Hypertext Transfer Protocol, File Transfer Protocol, Network News Transfer Protocol), over any physical medium (packet radio, satellite, phone-line, and optic fibre), in any data format that can be digitised (radio, television, text, graphics, and sound). The implications of this non-coercive technology are explored in the context of the impact on development in the physically distant communities of the South Pacific.

There is increasing worldwide recognition of the social and economic burden of psychotic illness. Substance use disorders frequently complicate the treatment of psychosis and are associated with increased readmission rates, decreased compliance, and increased violence and suicide risk. The Northern Territory of Australia has a scattered remote population – 25% of whom are Indigenous people. There are increasing rates of drug use across the Territory, and hospital admission rates have been gradually increasing. Psychotic disorders are the most frequent cause of hospital admissions, and substance abuse complicates the majority of these admissions. It is imperative that comprehensive treatment programs are established, integrating services, and utilising culturally appropriate cost-effective strategies.

Objective: To examine birth cohort trends in the prevalence, age of initiation and durability of the use of psycho-stimulant and psycho-depressant drugs in Australia between 1988 and 1998.

Method: Nine synthetic birth cohorts were constructed from a pooled dataset of the three National Drug Strategy Household Surveys (1988, 1993, 1998). The design-effect adjusted weighted lifetime and recent prevalence, age of initiation and durability of use, of three popular psycho-stimulants (amphetamine, cocaine and ecstasy) and three popular psycho-depressants (cannabis, heroin and inhalants) were estimated. Significance tests of difference use chi-square statistics and the sociodemographic predictors of trends were tested using logistic regression techniques.

Results: Lifetime and recent prevalence and durability of use increased and ages of initiation decreased, with each successive cohort. Psycho-stimulants were predictors for psycho-depressant use and vice versa. Being male, aged under 35 years, Australian born, employed or in fulltime education, and a tobacco smoker were significant predictors of increased risk of using both classes of drugs. Being married or having no post-secondary education qualifications were significant predictors of lower risk of using either class of drugs.

Conclusions: Younger cohorts are more likely to use both classes of psychoactive drugs, to have commenced using the drugs earlier and to have maintained their drug habits longer, compared to older cohorts. While increased availability is an important factor in the likelihood of exposure to illicit drugs, interventions implemented since the National Drug Strategy began in 1985 do not appear to have reduced the probability that young people will initiate and maintain illicit psychoactive drug use, exposing them to associated health and legal consequences.

The purpose of this study was to identify the perceptions and consequences associated with the closing of a sugar plantation company for a group of Japanese American plantation workers who were born and raised on the plantation. These workers were the children of Japanese immigrants who had come to Hawaii at the turn of century to plant and harvest sugar. The participants were thirty nisei (second generation) Japanese-American male residents of a rural plantation community in Hawaii. Using the techniques of participant observation, interviewing, and record research, the study explored the worker's (1) perceptions of change, (2) evaluations of perceived change, (3) stresses resulting from change, (4) coping strategies, and (5) future expectations. These subjective dimensions of change were examined across eight major areas of community life (i.e., employment, housing, community relations, community services, family life, education, physical environment, and crime). The data were analyzed to determine perceptions, evaluations, and stresses resulting from community change and to identify strategies used to cope with community change. The impact of change on resident attitudes and lifestyle patterns are discussed and summarized under three major themes: (1) communal versus individualistic lifestyles, (2) association versus dissociation of employment and the community, and (3) continuity versus discontinuity of life in the plantation.

Personal comments of workers are presented to demonstrate the utility and significance of the present research approach in assessing individual experiences in response to social changes. An understanding of the impact of change on resident attitudes, beliefs, and lifestyle patterns provides the basis for devising change programs that are sensitive to the social and psychological needs of individuals affected by the changes.

This study investigated the social ecology of substance use among 162 tertiary students studying at Northern Territory University in April 2000. The sample was predominantly female (69.6%), Australian born (70%), non-Indigenous (77.2%), not active in the labour market (58.8%) and intending to complete an undergraduate degree (62.7%). Substance use was prevalent, and 77.6% of students were current drinkers, 59.4% currently smoked tobacco and 28.5% used other drugs. Polydrug use was evident, with 24.8% of students using more than one substance on the same occasion in the previous month. Substance use tended to be associated with relaxing, socialising and wanting to feel good. Most students were not concerned about their alcohol use and their perceptions of normal drinking behaviour highlight the challenges in addressing substance misuse patterns in this population.

All else being equal, the Weighted Averaging Model of person perception (Anderson, 1981) predicts that the number of achievements listed on a job application will not influence the impression formed, whereas the concept of Motivational Gravity suggests (Carr, 1994) that there will be an inverted ’U’ function in work cultures that are egalitarian. In egalitarian Australia, a sample of 312 undergraduates rated their overall impression of an imaginary job candidate who had listed from 5 to 20 randomly generated, but job related and positive personality traits, or achievements, in a job application. Impressions first rose and then fell significantly, especially for female candidates and among raters who were anti-achievement. These findings support the Motivational Gravity model, as well as indicating a possible selection bias in Australian and other centripetal work cultures in the South Pacific region.

In a recent article published in this journal, Lea (1991) argues against psychological theory which proposes access to mental states through empirical investigation. His argument depends upon demonstrating certain logical flaws in the arguments of proponents of this kind of empiricism, thereby ruling their conclusions out of court. In response to Lea, I will show that empirical investigation of mental states is possible only when undertaken as a reflexive theoretical practice. Unlike Lea's argument which remains within the Cartesian/Kantian paradigm of a priori structures and categories, an argument based on reflexive theoretical practice takes account of the grounded conditions under which knowledge becomes validated in social settings, involving close attention to the status of language in context of use. I will show that certain elisions in Lea's argument, particularly in his invocation of Wittgenstein's work on language use, eliminates for him the possibility of dealing with language in this manner. Furthermore, I will also show in the course of undertaking the above tasks, that Lea's mode of augment is itself perfectly consistent with the form of apriori theorizing he wishes to reject.

With the advent of global warming, psychological tests are increasingly administered under high levels of environmental humidity, which may combine with test anxiety to disadvantage millions students worldwide. With temperature held constant, 42 Northern Territory (Australian) undergraduates took basic Digit Span and Stroop tests, under conditions of high/low humidity and high/low test rapport (which operationally defined test anxiety). Digit Span performance was significantly depressed both by anxiety and humidity, while Stroop performance was depressed by test anxiety, and marginally affected by an interaction between anxiety and humidity (the latter attenuating negative impact from the former). In the Tropics, the impact of test environment may vary substantially depending on the type of cognitive demands made by the particular assessment task.

Hauora Pacific (HP), a research group for Māori and Pacific nursing students, explored the adaptation of a behaviour modification programme as a health promotion strategy and smoking cessation resource for Māori and Pacific people. Each of seven HP members, supported by a mentor from their family or church, conducted a focus group with about six participants of their own ethnicity. The focus groups met twice. Data were collected on smoking beliefs, and what might aid smoking cessation. In the second meeting, themes common to the seven focus groups from the first meetings were validated, and a draft behaviour modification workbook for “quitting in groups” was discussed and edited. The initial surprise for HP members was that their participants did not share the dominant discourse on health risks from smoking; nor did they want to be told they should quit. Participants framed smoking as a positive activity. Discussion highlighted the common belief that “quitting in groups” would not be a preferred way to stop smoking, linked to personal shame from an inability to stop smoking; and the potential for a group to be too judgmental or pressuring. Although some work on the adaptation of a behaviour modification resource for “quitting in groups” did occur, participants felt that much more Māori or Pacific input would be required to shift an essentially western approach to behaviour change, into something another culture could feel ownership of. Addiction was seen as the issue that had been least well addressed in the past, and participants believed that having more trained-and-available people would be their preferred health resource.

This paper surveys the literature regarding the linguistic subgrouping and historical affiliations of languages within the Oceanic subgroup of the Austronesian language family. It provides an overview of the evidence for the Oceanic subgroup and its external affiliations, as well as an overview of the internal relationships between languages of the family. It explores questions that have been settled to the satisfaction of most people working within the field, and identifies outstanding issues still of importance to practitioners in the area. A final section discusses a range of literature which surveys aspects of Oceanic linguistics apart from its subgrouping.

Choosing a response format is a problem when designing computerised tests. Programmers often solve this problem by highlighting a response option and allowing the user to select this option or choose another by using the cursor keys. It is possible that such well-meaning attempts to make computers more user-friendly may heighten response style tendencies. The two experiments to be reported in this study were designed to test the effect of cursor positioning in personality and ability tests. In the first experiment, sixty two Participants were randomly assigned to two groups and asked to complete computerised versions of Forms A and B of the Eysenck Personality Inventory. The position of the highlight was manipulated to produce a two-by-two factorial design with repeated measures on one factor. Results showed that there was evidence of a cursor effect but that it was confined to one of the conditions in the design. Experiment two employed the same sort of manipulation in a computerised version of the ACER Word Knowledge Test with another sample of 36 Participants. Here, no evidence was found for any effect of cursor positioning. Overall, it was concluded that the highlighting technique itself is unlikely to have any effect on measures of cognitive ability but that it may have some effect in the more subjective personality testing domain.

Parkinson's Disease (PD) is a neurological disorder which appears to be increasing in prevalence in the Asia-Pacific region among the elderly. Although PD is considered by many as a motor syndrome, its physiological basis in dopaminergic pathways has recently been associated with cognitive and neurolinguistic changes. This paper attempts to synthesise the common threads running through clinical and empirical work which has supported a specific cognitive word-finding deficit in PD. Recent computational accounts of the observed deficits are also reviewed as one way of testing theories of PD-like lexical-semantic errors, and generating empirically-testable hypotheses.

Employee responses to being placed in workplace “teams” range from free-riding (shirking, social loafing) to working harder than ever before, and feelings of identity (or in-group) with the team may play a key role in facilitating the working harder response. Fifty-two Australian future managers worked on a workplace simulation task, either (a) alone (Control), (b) among a simulated unidentified aggregate of other students (team setting, no social identity), (c) with simulated other students from the same faculty competing against the Faculty of Law (in-group, social identity condition), or (d) amid a simulated out-group of students from Law, competing against the participant's own faculty (out-group condition, pre-existing conflicting loyalty condition). As predicted, compared to (a) working alone, aggregation (b) resulted in free-riding, which was reversed by merely invoking (c) a social (faculty) identity, but then reappeared under (d) an out-group condition. Tentative though the current data may be, “flip-over” effects like these may depend on a worker's pluralistic mix of individualistic and collectivistic repertoires. To the extent that such pluralism is found throughout Australia and elsewhere in the South Pacific (Taylor & S. Yavalanavanua, 1997), our findings may apply to ‘thinking through’ workplace team development elsewhere in the region.