Psychological,physical, and interpersonal correlates of emotional expressiveness,conflict, and control

This article examines the relations between emotional expression, conflict over expression, and emotional control and psychological and physical distress. Fifty married couples completed two mail-in surveys containing the Emotional Expressiveness Questionnaire (EEQ), the Ambivalence Over Emotional Expression Questionnaire (AEQ), and the Emotional Control Questionnaire (ECQ), as well as measures of psychological and physical well-being. They also made expressiveness and well-being ratings of their spouses. AEQ and ECQ scores were significantly positively correlated with measures of psychological distress and questionnaire measures of physical discomfort. In addition, AEQ scores for items dealing explicitly with anger predicted visits to health-care provider for illness. EEQ scores did not predict either psychological distress or physical symptoms. AEQ scores were also positively correlated with spouse's symptoms and alcohol use. Wives' expressiveness ratings for their husbands were negatively correlated with a number of indices of psychological distress, while husbands' ratings of wives' expressiveness were positively correlated with measures of distress. Generally, expressiveness, inhibition, and conflict over expression in one spouse did not consistently predict well-being of the other. Implications of these findings for future research in the area of emotion and illness as well as in relationship satisfaction are discussed.     

Attitudes, perceptions, and risk-taking behaviors of smokers, ex-smokers, and nonsmokers.

A sample of American adults completed questionnaires relevant to cigarette smoking. The questions were related to three areas: risk, perceptions of their or others' smoking, and satisfaction with life and health. The results revealed that smokers were greater risk-takers, that they perceived their smoking to be due to both physical and psychological addictions, and that they expressed less satisfaction and control. Results also indicated that smokers who saw their smoking as being addictive tended to be less satisfied with their health and felt less control over their lives. On the other hand, those smokers who were more likely to deny the health risks did not differ from either non- or ex-smokers on any of the satisfaction or control questions.     

Fat,Four-Eyed,and Female: Stereotypes of Obesity,Glasses, and Gender1

In a between-subjects design, 46 male and 101 female Australian university students rated a target person described as male or female, overweight or average weight, and wearing glasses or not, on twelve 7-point rating scales. As predicted, a negative stereotype of the overweight person and a complex one of the person with glasses were found. However, there was no significant effect of sex of target except on the ratings of masculine and feminine and no interaction of sex of target with either the glasses or obesity variables. Nor did sex of subject influence the ratings. The results suggest that, although stereotypes of obesity and glasses do exist, they may be as severe for men as for women.     

Assessment of Childhood Depression,Anxiety, and Aggression: Convergent and Discriminant Validity of Self-, Parent-, Teacher-, and Peer-Report Measures

Childhood depression; anxiety, and aggression assessment instruments were examined in a sample of 8- to 11-year-old elementary school children. A multitrate-multimethod design was used to evaluate seIf-, parent-, teacher-, and peer-report on each of the three traits. Results found the measures exhibited significant convergent and discriminant validity for both boys and girls. However, different patterns in convergence among the information sources emerged between boys and girls. Both the intercorrelations and the analyses of variance documented significant method variance. The implications of the high method variance or source bias in the assessment process are discussed. It is argued that investigators employ confirmatory factor analyses in evaluation of multitrait-multimethod data.     

Age,sex, education,religion, and perception of tattoos

Tattooing has become more acceptable in the mainstream American culture in recent years. Based on a survey with face-to-face interviews of 335 nontattooed adults randomly selected from a city with a population of 444,000, this study explored the relationship of individuals' demographic variables, attitudes toward religion, and their perceptions of tattoos. The hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed that age and attitude toward religion were associated with individuals' perception of tattoos.     

Comparing the Attributes,Activities, and Performance of Divergent,Convergent, and Combination Thinkers

Studies about the nature of the creative problem solving (CPS) process and about the cognitive and personality attributes and performance of persons who do CPS have focused primarily on the divergent thinking aspects of CPS and the attributes of persons who are inclined to divergent thinking. However, a matching theory proposes that tasks vary widely in the degree to which they require differing kinds of thought and prior knowledge, and problem solvers vary widely in their inclinations and resources; hence, different persons, groups, and organizations can most effectively and efficiently solve different kinds of problems. To begin identifying good matches of tasks and workers, this study measured several cognitive and personality attributes and the CPS activities and performance of persons inclined to divergent or convergent thought. Most predicted differences in the attributes, activities, and performance of the 3 types of thinkers were found. A content analysis of group attempts to creatively solve a multifaceted problem demonstrated the need for frequent convergent thought as well as divergent thought by persons so engaged. Implications and needed extensions of this research are discussed with the aim of using the matching theory to enhance real-world CPS efforts.     

Agreement among teacher,peer, and self-ratings of children's aggression,withdrawal, and likability

This study examined the relationship among teacher, peer, and self-ratings of children's social behavior. The Pupil Evaluation Inventory was completed by 172 first-graders, 346 fourth-graders, 283 seventh-graders, and 30 teachers. Groups of deviant responders and controls were also selected from the total sample on the basis of peer-rated aggression and withdrawal scores. Interrater agreement was consistently greater between peer and teacher ratings than between self-ratings and either peer or teacher ratings. Discrepancies between raters were greatest for children with more deviant scores, with peer ratings providing the highest estimates of deviant behavior, and self ratings yielding the lowest. Self ratings were lower than teacher or peer ratings on aggression and withdrawal, and higher on likability. Aggression produced greatest agreement between raters. Agreement was uninfluenced by the cognitive maturity of peer evaluators. The results suggest that the selection of raters should be influenced by the class of behaviors to be evaluated and the context in which they occur.This research was funded by Québec Ministry of Social Affairs Grant RS 281 to Jane Ledingham and Alex Schwartzman. The authors wish to thank Lisa Serbin for her helpful comments on this article, and Claude Senneville, Geoff Selig, and Denise Morin for their assistance in the data collection and analysis.     

Pain, aggression, fantasy, and concepts of sadomasochism

Traumatized infants and children may exhibit syndromes of aggressive, pain-seeking, and self-destructive behavior resembling the so-called sadomasochism seen in adults. Three hypotheses are offered to account for the repetition of sadomasochistic phenomena in childhood and later character disorders: 1) pain and painful affects are sources of aggression; 2) the need to control aggression plays an important role in the development of psychic structure; 3) child abuse and trauma impair the ability to use fantasy for the mastery of impulses. Difficulty in expression and control of aggression are central issues in character disorders.     

Arguments,Meta-arguments,and Metadialogues: A Reconstruction of Krabbe,Govier, and Woods

Krabbe (2003, in F.H. van Eemeren, J.A. Blair, C.A. Willard and A.F. Snoeck Henkemans (eds.), Proceedings of the Fifth Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation, Sic Sat, Amsterdam, pp. 641–644) defined a metadialogue as a dialogue about one or more dialogues, and a ground-level dialogue as a dialogue that is not a metadialogue. Similarly, I define a meta-argument as an argument about one or more arguments, and a ground-level argument as one which is not a meta-argument. Krabbe (1995, in F.H van Eemeren, R. Grootendorst, J.A. Blair, C.A. Willard and A.F. Snoeck Henkemans (eds.), Proceedings of the Third ISSA Conference on Argumentation, Sic Sat, Amsterdam, pp. 333–344) showed that formal-fallacy criticism (and more generally, fallacy criticism) consists of metadialogues, and that such metadialogues can be profiled in ways that lead to their proper termination or resolution. I reconstruct Krabbe’s metadialogical account into monolectical, meta-argumentative terminology by describing three-types of meta-arguments corresponding to the three ways of proving formal invalidity he studied: the trivial logic-indifferent method; the method of counterexample situation; and the method of formal paraphrase. A fourth type of meta-argument corresponds to what Oliver (1967, Mind 76, 463–478), Govier (1985, Informal Logic 7, 27–33), and Copi (1986) call refutation by logical analogy. A fifth type of meta-argument represents my reconstruction of arguments by parity of reasoning studied by Woods and Hudak (1989, Informal Logic 11, 125–139). Other particular meta-arguments deserving future study are Hume’s critique of the argument from design in the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, and Mill’s initial argument in The Subjection of Women about the importance of established custom and general feeling vis-à-vis argumentation.     

Hegel,Danto, Adorno,and the end and after of art

In this paper, I consider Adorno's claim that art is at, or is coming to, an ‘end’. I consider Adorno's account in relation to the work of Arthur Danto and G. W. F. Hegel. I employ Danto's account, together with two distinct interpretive glosses of Hegel's account, as heuristic devices in order to clarify both Adorno's own arguments, and the context within which they are being advanced. I argue that while Danto and Hegel see art as coming to an end autonomously, owing to art's successful realization of its governing principle, Adorno by contrast sees art as coming to an end heteronomously. Art's narrative is forcibly broken off, rather than completed. Adorno's account, indebted to Hegel, of art's commitment both to autonomy and the realization of ‘spiritual needs’ is explored in order to clarify how, on Adorno's view, this has happened to art; and why, precisely, he believes art is coming to an end.     

Culture, trauma, and wellness: a comparison of heterosexual and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and two-spirit native americans

In a community-based sample of urban American Indian and Alaska Native adults, 25 lesbian, gay, bisexual, and two-spirit participants were compared with 154 heterosexual participants with respect to sociodemographic characteristics, Native, cultural participation, trauma, physical and mental health, and substance use. Compared with their heterosexual counterparts, two-spirit participants reported higher rates of childhood physical abuse and more historical trauma in their families, higher levels of psychological symptoms, and more mental health service utilization. Two-spirit participants reported differences in patterns of alcohol use and were more likely to have used illicit drugs other than marijuana. Discussion and recommendations for health promotion interventions and future research are presented in consideration of an "indigenist" health model and the multiple minority status of two-spirit people.     

Love and Power,and the Development of the Brain,Mind, and Agency

In drawing on my own research and collaborative work with Karl Pribram, I show that love (affective attachment) and power (social control) play a central role in psychosocial evolution. When these relations are coupled in a self-regulating system of cooperative interactions, brain growth is stimulated, mind and agency develop, and stable forms of collective social organization are generated. Focusing on the endogenous dynamics of social collectives, the article is organized in four parts. (A "social collective" is defined as a durable arrangement of relations among two or more individuals that is distinguished by shared membership and collaboration in relation to a common function or goal.) Part I summarizes evidence from developmental neuropsychology and social science to show that stable psychosocial organization, across the human life span, is associated with social interaction organized along two dimensions. One dimension involves love, positive affective attachment, and the second involves power, social regulation of the aroused affective energy. Part II draws on Piaget's theory of cooperation and Bradley and Pribrams' theory of communication to describe how mind and agency are generated, and how stable organization is produced, respectively, from the relations involved in the arousal and regulation of affective energy. Combining elements of the two theories, Part III presents a sketch of a holographic model of collective organization in which goal-directed behavior is generated by a feed-forward process involving imaging and information processing of interaction along the two dimensions. Part IV shows how the model accounts for the emergence of human agency within the context of a more general evolutionary theory, such as Laszlo's. The article concludes with a discussion of my approach for building a "fully human theory of evolution."