Personality, stress, smoking, and genetic predisposition as synergistic risk factors for cancer and coronary heart disease.

Risk factors for cancer have been found in the past to act synergistically in a number of studies. However, these studies were not always designed to test the hypothesis of synergism, and have sometimes failed to equate for important variables, which might influence the results. The present study tests the hypothesis that psychosocial variables and physical ones (personality/stress, smoking, and genetic predisposition) interact in a synergistic fashion in the causation of lung cancer and coronary heart disease (CHD).     

The Relationship Between Perceived Parenting,Negative Core Beliefs,and Dysfunctional Attitudes Among Young Adults

Previous studies have found that perceived parenting is associated with dysfunctional attitudes that predict depression. However, few studies have empirically investigated processes by which perceived parenting is associated with dysfunctional attitudes. To fill this gap, this study tested the hypothesis that perceived low parental care would be associated with negative core beliefs, which, in turn, would be associated with dysfunctional attitudes. To strictly test the hypothesis, this study controlled for current depressive symptoms that could affect the relationships between study variables. The participants were 305 college students (141 females). The results differed by sex: for female students, the hypothesis was supported; for male students, negative core beliefs were associated with dysfunctional attitudes; however, perceived low care was not associated with negative core beliefs. The findings suggest that targeting low parental care and negative core beliefs for females and negative core beliefs for males may help prevent their dysfunctional attitudes and the resultant depression.     

Association of country, sex, social class, and life cycle to locus of control in western European countries

Relatively few studies have focused on causal factors in the development of locus of control. Here nine western European countries are studied to assess the hypothesis that the society in which one lives is important in the scores on locus of control. The data indicate greater variation resulting from country of residence on locus of control than that from the variables of life cycle, sex, and social class. Findings regarding these latter variables are congruent with previous research. In addition, being single was related to having an external locus of control.     

Indirect pathways between depressive symptoms and marital distress: the role of conflict communication, attributions, and attachment style

Previous studies have focused on concomitants of depression and marital distress in order to help explain the relationship between the two, suggesting that several variables, such as conflict communication, attributions, and attachment style, are associated with depression, marital distress, or both. Our contention is that the selected variables may be important mediators (hypothesis 1) or moderators (hypothesis 2) of the concomitance between depression and marital adjustment, exploring the direct and indirect ways in which depressive symptoms and marital adjustment are related. In total, 415 heterosexual couples were recruited, and a series of regression analyses was conducted to test our hypotheses separately for men and women. Results indicated that demand-withdrawal, avoidance, causal attributions, and secure, ambivalent, and avoidant attachment mediated the relation between depressive symptoms and marital adjustment in the female sample, whereas constructive communication and causal and responsible attributions were significant mediators of men's levels of depressive symptoms and marital adjustment. In addition, avoidance and secure attachment moderated the association between depressive symptoms and marital adjustment in the female sample, and causal attributions were significant moderators of the association between depressive symptoms and marital adjustment for men. Several conclusions and implications for theory and future research are discussed.     

On the (mis)categorization of unattractive brides and attractive prostitutes: extending evaluative congruency effects to social category activation

Numerous studies have shown that social categorization is a flexible process that partly depends on contextual variables. However, little is known about the role of affect in people's access to categorical dimensions. We investigated the hypothesis that social category activation is facilitated on evaluatively congruent dimensions. Two studies provide support for this evaluative-matching hypothesis, in which social categorization was found to be faster and more accurate for evaluatively congruent categories (i.e., unattractive foreigners, unattractive prostitutes, attractive fellow-citizens and attractive brides) than for evaluatively incongruent categories (i.e., attractive foreigners, attractive prostitutes, unattractive fellow-citizens and unattractive brides). We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.     

The joint analysis of direct ratings,pairwise preferences,and dissimilarities

In studies involving judgments of similarity or dissimilarity, a variety of other variables may also be measured. Examples might be direct ratings of the stimuli, pairwise preference judgments, and physical measurements of the stimuli with respect to various properties. In such cases, there are important advantages to joint analyses of the dissimilarity and collateral variables. A variety of models are described for relating these and algorithms described for fitting these to data. A number of hypothesis tests are developed and an example offered.The research reported here was supported by grant number APA 320 to the author by the National Research Council of Canada.     

Consequences of person-environment incongruence: absenteeism, frustration, and stress

Two correlational studies using English nurses and working adults are reported that examined the relationship between the three measures of person-environment (P-E) fit as derived from Holland's (1973) theory and three dependent work-related variables. In the first study, the P-E fit measures of congruence, consistency, and differentiation were correlated with two measures of absenteeism, frustration, and various demographic variables. Contrary to predictions, two measures of absenteeism were positively correlated with congruence and consistency. In accordance with the hypothesis, however, frustration was highly negatively correlated with congruence and consistency. In the second study, consistency, but not congruence or differentiation, was significantly negatively correlated with stress, as predicted. These studies provide some support for Holland's theses, although not all hypotheses were supported, both for methodological and theoretical reasons. It is argued that P-E fit measures are useful predictors of occupational behavior in conjunction with other major determinants.     

CODIMENSIONALITY WITHOUT HIGH CORRELATION

The product moment correlation of discrete variables is depressed by differences in the variables' distributions which are consistent with their variables are actually codimensional and so to bias convergent validation studies toward rejectring a true hypothesis of (sufficient) convergence. 3 being codimensional. This makes it prone to indicate multidimensionality when variables are actually codimensional and so to bias convergent validation studies toward rejectring a true hypothesis of (sufficient) convergence.     

Attention,mindwandering, and mood

We tested the hypothesis that mindwandering and external distraction are both manifestations of a common state of reduced attention focus, and examined how both relate to reported level of happiness. We conducted real-time sampling of people’s experience of mindwandering, irrelevant distraction (e.g. by music, phone, etc.), and happiness levels, in two studies with 524 people undertaking common daily-life activities. All irrelevant external distractions were positively correlated with mindwandering. Indeed mindwandering duration could be predicted from the reported duration of external distraction, when controlling for a range of background variables. An exploratory factor analysis of mindwandering and distraction reports suggested a single underlying construct. In addition, duration of irrelevant distraction by both mobile phones and mindwandering was significantly associated with reduced reported levels of happiness. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that that a state of reduced attention focus underlies both mindwandering and distractibility and clarify the link with happiness.     

动机性视角与认知加工视角下三重自我的层级关系

自我并非是一个单一的、整体的认知结构,至少包含3个基本的自我表征形式:个体自我、关系自我与集体自我。从动机性视角出发,3种自我的层级关系存在4种可能的假设:(1)个体自我首要性假设;(2)关系自我首要性假设;(3)集体自我首要性假设;(4)情境性假设。以往动机性视角出发的研究偏向于支持个体自我首要性假设,但其结论仍需通过进一步考察其他可能变量的作用而加以验证。从认知视角考虑三重自我的层级关系时,以往的研究结果并不统一,缺乏同时比较个体自我、关系自我、集体自我的层级关系的整合性研究。今后需要重点探索将三重自我整合起来的新的实验范式,从而有助于对三重自我层级关系的分析与探究。     

Burden, depression, and anxiety in caregivers of people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive and fatal neurodegenerative disease caused by the degeneration of motor neurons. The burden for ALS caregivers is quite high. There are still few studies that have investigated the emotional impact of ALS care. We conducted a cross-sectional study among 40 ALS caregivers, assessing general worries, burden of care, depression, anxiety, perception of social support, and patients' severity of disease. Caregiver burden, depression, and anxiety were positively related with each other, and all these variables had a negative relation with social support. Patient's loss of physical functions was positively related with caregiver burden, anxiety, and somatic expression of depression. Caregivers expressed worries for their own health conditions. Given these results, we consider the hypothesis of an emotional-somatic impact of ALS care. The implications and limitations are discussed.     

Arousal,valence, and memory for detail

A common finding in the emotion‐memory literature is that memory is enhanced for positively arousing stimuli and negatively arousing stimuli relative to neutral stimuli. We tested the notion that post‐stimulus elaboration is responsible for these effects. Post‐stimulus elaboration refers to the process of thinking about an event (after its offset) more frequently or more in‐depth. We tested the hypothesis by presenting participants with 36 slides depicting events that varied in arousal (low and high) and valence (positive and negative). The opportunity for elaboration was manipulated by requiring participants, during the inter‐slide interval, to complete addition problems, simply view the addition problems, or view a blank slide. Cued recall memory was tested for central and background details. Based on the post‐stimulus elaboration hypothesis it was expected that the greatest memory decline would occur for the central details of negatively and positively arousing slides when participants were required to complete addition problems (i.e., a distractor task × arousal × detail interaction). Contrary to the hypothesis, we found that filling the inter‐slide interval with a distractor task decreased memory for negative stimuli compared to positive stimuli. This effect was independent of arousal. We also found that arousal increased central detail memory for positive and negative stimuli and background detail memory for positive stimuli but not for negative stimuli. This interaction was explained on the basis of pre‐attentive encoding and cue utilisation. It was concluded that in order to understand the complex relationship between emotion and memory, future studies should include, as a minimum, the variables of valence, arousal, and detail.     

Arousal, valence, and memory for detail

A common finding in the emotion-memory literature is that memory is enhanced for positively arousing stimuli and negatively arousing stimuli relative to neutral stimuli. We tested the notion that post-stimulus elaboration is responsible for these effects. Post-stimulus elaboration refers to the process of thinking about an event (after its offset) more frequently or more in-depth. We tested the hypothesis by presenting participants with 36 slides depicting events that varied in arousal (low and high) and valence (positive and negative). The opportunity for elaboration was manipulated by requiring participants, during the interslide interval, to complete addition problems, simply view the addition problems, or view a blank slide. Cued recall memory was tested for central and background details. Based on the post-stimulus elaboration hypothesis it was expected that the greatest memory decline would occur for the central details of negatively and positively arousing slides when participants were required to complete addition problems (i.e., a distractor task x arousal x detail interaction). Contrary to the hypothesis, we found that filling the inter-slide interval with a distractor task decreased memory for negative stimuli compared to positive stimuli. This effect was independent of arousal. We also found that arousal increased central detail memory for positive and negative stimuli and background detail memory for positive stimuli but not for negative stimuli. This interaction was explained on the basis of pre-attentive encoding and cue utilisation. It was concluded that in order to understand the complex relationship between emotion and memory, future studies should include, as a minimum, the variables of valence, arousal, and detail.     

The Impact of Cancer on Psychological and Social Outcomes

Cancer is now the biggest cause of mortality worldwide. Although the debilitating physical symptoms of cancer have long been known, the psychological and social impacts of cancer have become the subject of examination only relatively recently. The psychological outcomes that have been examined are primarily negative emotional variables, e.g., anxiety, but emerging research has focused on positive emotional variables, e.g., post‐traumatic growth, or cognitive outcomes. In this article, we provide a synthesis of reviews that have addressed the psychosocial impact of cancer. The framework for this synthesis is provided by a conceptualisation in which the presence of cancer impacts on psychosocial outcomes either directly or via mediating variables, including physical symptoms and treatment, and that this effect may be moderated by several variables, some characteristic of the person with cancer (demographic or personality‐related variables) and some characteristic of their environment (social support and medical variables). We also briefly examine the impact of cancer on the broader family unit following cancer diagnosis, treatment, survivorship and bereavement. We conclude that the heterogeneity of the cancer experience highlights the need for theoretically driven research and consistency in measurement approaches to determine mechanisms by which cancer exerts influence on psychosocial outcomes. This would allow development and delivery of targeted psychological interventions and a clearer delineation of the roles of the various parties, including clinical psychologists, family members and policymakers.     

Predicting depression from temperament, personality, and patterns of social relations

The present study used a levels-of-analysis perspective (McAdams, 1995) to link temperament to depression. We hypothesized a mediational role for three personality variables (Agreeableness, Extraversion, Neuroticism) and two interpersonal variables (social support and negative social exchange) in channeling the effects of temperament. A structural equation modeling approach supported the hypothesis that these three personality variables were mediators of the link between temperament and depression. The patterns of mediation differed for Agreeableness, Extraversion, and Neuroticism. In addition to the three personality variables, social support and negative social exchange were also found to mediate the effects of temperament. There was no evidence that patterns of relations among the variables differed between males and females. Results are discussed in terms of a levels-of-analysis approach to the examination of the effects of temperament and personality on adaptation outcomes.     

Motives, values and moral judgments

This study examined McClelland's (1981) hypothesis that operant and respondent measures of personality are orthogonal and assess different dimensions of personality structure. An operant measure of motives, a sentence completion test, and two respondent measures of cognitive schema variables, the Rokeach Value Survey and the Defining issues Test, were administered to 311 subjects. As predicted and in support of McClelland's hypothesis, 69% of the correlations between the respondent measures were significant at the alpha .05 level of probability versus 14% of the correlations between the operant and respondent measures. Further, within the domain of cognitive schema variables, it was theoretically possible to predict which values would correlate with different levels of moral judgment. The findings were discussed in terms. of their implications for person x situation models of social interaction and the prediction of criterion variables from typologies of personality.     

信任对创造力的影响:激发、抑制以及倒U假设

信任和创造力都是心理学的重要研究对象。近年来,心理学、教育学以及管理学的研究者主要在团体情景中,围绕信任如何影响创造力的问题展开了一系列的理论和实证研究。从总体上看,当前学术界存在信任对创造力影响的激发、抑制和倒U三种假设。激发假设代表信任对创造力存在普遍的积极促进作用;抑制假设则意味信任对创造力存在消极抑制作用;而倒U假设表明信任在冲突等其它变量的影响下可能对创造力产生"甜点效应"。3种假设各有其理论基础和实证支持,但也都存在一些问题。未来该领域研究还应沿着妥善选择测量方法,厘清信任对创造力的影响,深化信任对创造力影响的机制问题等研究角度进一步拓展和深入。     

Stress, Coping and Cognitive Deficits in Women After Surgery for Breast Cancer

Research on neuropsychological difficulties among cancer patients has focused on chemotherapy as a primary cause, yet several studies have now shown that some patients evidence cognitive weaknesses prior to chemotherapy. As an alternative to the ‘chemo–brain’ theory, this study examined the hypothesis that stress and coping style may be associated with observed neuropsychological difficulties among female cancer patients. Thirty-six women completed neuropsychological testing and psychological questionnaires following surgery for breast cancer and prior to any subsequent treatments. Twenty-seven percent of participants evidenced deficits on at least one measure of verbal fluency, and 14% of participants were impaired on at least one memory measure. Self-reported stress was correlated with deficits in memory, verbal fluency, and attention. Subsequent mediational analyses indicated that use of passive coping styles may underlie this relationship between stress and neuropsychological deficits. These findings highlight the potential relevance of psychological mechanisms, such as coping style, in cancer patients’ experience of neuropsychological deficits.     

Risk Perception and Psychological Distress in Genetic Counselling for Hereditary Breast and/or Ovarian Cancer

Oncological Genetic Counselling (CGO) allows the identification of a genetic component that increases the risk of developing a cancer. Individuals’ psychological reactions are influenced by both the content of the received information and the subjective perception of their own risk of becoming ill or being a carrier of a genetic mutation. This study included 120 participants who underwent genetic counselling for breast and/or ovarian cancer. The aim of the study was to examine the relation between their cancer risk perception and the genetic risk during CGO before receiving genetic test results, considering the influence of some psychological variables, in particular distress, anxiety and depression. Participants completed the following tools during a psychological interview: a socio-demographic form, Cancer Risk Perception (CRP) and Genetic Risk Perception (GRP), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and Distress Thermometer (DT). The data seem to confirm our hypothesis. Positive and significant correlations were found between the observed variables. Moreover, genetic risk perception determined an increase in depressive symptomatology and cancer risk perception led to an increase in anxious symptomatology, specifically in participants during cancer treatment. The present results suggest the importance of assessing genetic and cancer risk perception in individuals who undergo CGO, to identify those who are at risk of a decrease in psychological well-being and of developing greater psychological distress.     

Dissociation,Physical Pain,and Suicide: A Hypothesis

The hypothesis of this paper states that at least some suicidal individuals are characterized by a disposition toward dissociation manifested in relative insensitivity to physical pain and indifference to their bodies. Three main topics are discussed: dissociation and suicide, psychological aspects of pain, and pain and suicide. Various theoretical and experimental studies suggest that certain stress conditions lead to the development of dissociative tendencies, and that once these tendencies are established, they become an integral part of suicidal behavior. Psychological variables that affect pain tolerance are presented and they include perception, motivation, emotions, and behavioral and cognitive strategies of pain control. These can increase tolerance of pain in suicidal individuals, making the suicidal act possible. The specific relationships of pain and suicide are then introduced through an examination of pain analgesia in the phenomenon of self-harm. The integration of the material suggests that early and continuous stress lead to the simultaneous development of dissociative tendencies (including indifference to the body and pain) and heightened vulnerability to stress. These dispositions may facilitate suicidal behavior in the face of mounting intolerable stress, helplessness, and hopelessness. Preliminary empirical support for the present hypothesis is cited. This hypothesis shifts the focus of attention from the question of what causes suicide to what facilitates suicide, and in so doing suggests new directions for research and therapy.