Beneficial and adverse effects of pets

The beneficial and adverse effects of pets on people with special mental and physical conditions merit inclusion in psychological evaluations and treatments.     

Educational attainment as a proxy for cognitive ability in selection: effects on levels of cognitive ability and adverse impact

The authors examined the differences in mean level of cognitive ability and adverse impact that can be expected when selecting employees solely on educational attainment as a proxy for cognitive ability versus selecting employees directly on cognitive ability. Selection using cognitive ability worked as a more efficient cognitive screen. Imposing an educational attainment standard of at least 1 year of college, though, did result in noticeably higher levels of cognitive ability in potential applicant pools than did random selection, meaning that educational attainment does work as a cognitive screen. These results held not only in a nationally representative sample but also within and across 6 different occupational groups. Finally, adverse impact is examined for selection using educational attainment, compared with selection on the basis of cognitive ability.     

Antagonistic pleiotropy at the human IL6 promoter confers genetic resilience to the pro-inflammatory effects of adverse social conditions in adolescence

The authors tested the evolutionary genetic hypothesis that the functional form of an asymmetrically risky Gene × Environment interaction will differ as a function of age-related antagonistic pleiotropy (i.e., show opposite effects in young vs. old individuals). Previous studies have identified a polymorphism in the human IL6 promoter (rs1800795; IL6-74 G/C) that interacts with adverse socioenvironmental conditions to promote chronic inflammation in older adults (elevated C-reactive protein). This study identifies a protective effect of the same polymorphism in 17- to 19-year-old adolescents confronting socioeconomic adversity. Over 60% of the environmental risk contribution to the IL6 × Socioeconomic Status interaction could be accounted for by interpersonal stress and adult role burden. Thus, the IL6-174G allele does not represent an undifferentiated risk factor but instead sensitizes inflammatory biology to socioenvironmental conditions, conferring either genetic vulnerability or resilience depending on the developmental "somatic environment" that interacts with social conditions to influence gene expression.     

A cholesterol-lowering diet does not produce adverse psychological effects in children: three-year results from the dietary intervention study in children.

The Dietary Intervention Study in Children (DISC), a 2-arm, multicenter intervention study, examined the efficacy and safety of a diet lower in total fat, saturated fatty acids, and cholesterol than the typical American child's diet. A total of 663 8- to 10-year-old children with elevated low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels were randomly assigned to either an intervention or a usual-care group. Intervention included group and individual counseling sessions to assist participants in adopting a dietary pattern containing 28% or less of calories from total fat (<8% as saturated fat, up to 9% as polyunsaturated fat, and 11% as monounsaturated fat) and dietary cholesterol intake of less than 75 mg/1,000 kcal. The dietary intervention reduced low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, and 3-year results showed no adverse effects for children in the intervention group in terms of academic functioning, psychological symptoms, or family functioning.     

Severity of homelessness and adverse birth outcomes.

Predictors and the prevalence of adverse birth outcomes among 237 homeless women interviewed at 78 shelters and meal programs in Los Angeles in 1997 were assessed. It was hypothesized that they would report worse outcomes than national norms, that African Americans would report the worst outcomes because of their greater risk in the general population, and that homelessness severity would independently predict poorer outcomes beyond its association with other adverse conditions. Other predictors included reproductive history, behavioral and health-related variables, psychological trauma and distress, ethnicity, and income. African Americans and Hispanics reported worse outcomes than are found nationally, and African Americans reported the worst outcomes. In a predictive structural equation model, severity of homelessness significantly predicted low birth weight and preterm births beyond its relationship with prenatal care and other risk factors.     

Testing for adverse impact when sample size is small

Adverse impact evaluations often call for evidence that the disparity between groups in selection rates is statistically significant, and practitioners must choose which test statistic to apply in this situation. To identify the most effective testing procedure, the authors compared several alternate test statistics in terms of Type I error rates and power, focusing on situations with small samples. Significance testing was found to be of limited value because of low power for all tests. Among the alternate test statistics, the widely-used Z-test on the difference between two proportions performed reasonably well, except when sample size was extremely small. A test suggested by G. J. G. Upton (1982) provided slightly better control of Type I error under some conditions but generally produced results similar to the Z-test. Use of the Fisher Exact Test and Yates's continuity-corrected chi-square test are not recommended because of overly conservative Type I error rates and substantially lower power than the Z-test.     

Ego functioning and acute adverse reactions to psychoactive drugs.

The relationship between ego functioning and acute adverse reactions to psychoactive drugs was examined using retrospective data. The data were consistent with a causal model in which characteristic use of regression (and to a lesser extent repression) was associated with acute adverse reactions to marijuana and to LSD. Regression also had an indirect effect through increased usage of LSD. Subjects characterized by the use of intellectualization and denial were less likely to report developing acute adverse reactions. A higher score on a general measure of coping was related to avoiding acute adverse reactions to LSD, but not to marijuana. Projection, regression in the service of the ego, and tolerance of ambiguity has no effect on acute adverse reactions.     

Sequelae of prospective versus retrospective reports of adverse childhood experiences

Retrospective assessment of adverse childhood experiences is widely used in research, although there are concerns about its validity. In particular, recall bias is assumed to produce significant artifacts. Data from a longitudinal cohort (the British National Child Development Study; N=7710) and the retrospective Mainz Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (N=1062, Germany) were compared on 10 adverse childhood experiences and psychological adjustment at age 42 yr. Between the two methods, no significant differences in risk effects were detected. Results held for bivariate analyses on all 10 childhood adversities and a multivariate model; the latter comprises the childhood adversities which show significant long-term sequelae (not always with natural parent, chronically ill parent, financial hardship, and being firstborn) and three covariates. In conclusion, the present data did not show any bias in the retrospective assessment.     

Predicting adverse impact and mean criterion performance in multistage selection

The authors present an analytical method to assess the average criterion performance of the selected candidates as well as the adverse impact and the cost of general multistage selection decisions. The method extends previous work on the analytical estimation of multistage selection outcomes to the case in which the applicant pool is a mixture of applicant populations that differ in their average performance on the selection predictors. Next, the method was used to conduct 3 studies of important issues practitioners and researchers have with multistage selection processes. Finally, the authors indicate how the method can be integrated into a broader analytical framework to design multistage selection decisions that achieve intended levels of selection cost, workforce quality, and workforce diversity.     

Universal newborn screening and adverse medical outcomes: a historical note

Universal newborn screening programs for metabolic disorders are typically described as a triumph of medicine and public policy in the US over the last 50 years. Advances in science and technology, including the Human Genome Project, offer the opportunity to expand universal newborn screening programs to include many additional metabolic and genetic conditions. Although the benefits of such screening programs appear to outweigh their costs, some critics have claimed that historical examples of inadvertent harm ensuing from false-positive screening results and subsequent inappropriate medical treatment should make us wary of expanding universal newborn screening. In this essay, we report the results of a review of the published literature to assess whether the extension of screening from at risk populations to all newborns led to substantial morbidity and mortality from misguided medical treatment. We provide a historical overview of universal newborn screening programs in the United States, and then focus on six early NBS programs: congenital hypothyroidism, phenylketonuria, congenital adrenal hyperplasia, galactosemia, sickle cell disease, and maple syrup urine disease. Our comprehensive search of published sources did not reveal a widespread problem of harm ensuing from medical treatment of children with false positive screening test results.     

Individuals high in neuroticism are not more reactive to adverse events

Numerous studies have related neuroticism to negative emotional outcomes of adverse life events, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. However, the nature of the relationship between neuroticism and post-trauma symptoms is unclear. The purpose of this study was to prospectively examine whether individuals high in neuroticism, relative to low neuroticism individuals, show a larger increase in symptoms after an adverse event. A sample of infantry troops completed questionnaires before deployment to Iraq (n = 214) and about five months (n = 170; 76%) thereafter. The findings showed that, after controlling for an indicator of trauma severity, (a) higher neuroticism individuals reported more PTSD symptoms, depression symptoms, and somatic problems after negative events, and (b) these relationships disappeared after controlling for pre-trauma symptoms. There were no significant differences between individuals high and low in neuroticism in the increase in symptoms from pre to post-trauma. This suggests that individuals high in neuroticism are not more reactive to adverse events.     

Reducing adverse reaction to stress in the workplace. Psychology's expanding role

This section draws attention to occupational stress and suggests ways in which psychologists can apply their knowledge of research methods and treatment to this issue. In this article, the past and present role of psychologists in occupational stress is examined and ways in which psychologists might play a more central role are proposed. Although industrial/organizational and health psychology are most obviously applicable to the study of workplace wellness, more focused attention and wider application of knowledge from other subspecialities are also examined. The need for increased attention to work and family; race, class, and gender; and training and public policy issues are also discussed.     

Tied to expectations: Predicting features speeds processing even under adverse circumstances

When participants predict the upcoming stimulus in a randomized choice reaction task, a match between prediction and stimulus increases processing speed at a level similar to that observed in cueing studies with highly valid cues. This might be taken to suggest that people cannot help but fully use their self-generated, verbalized predictions for preparing task processing. Thus, we tested how flexibly participants can control formation and implementation of predictions. In Experiment 1, we varied validity and response-relevance of predictions. We observed that prediction effects on RT can be boosted by increasing validity, but prevail under adverse circumstances. This was not the case in a control group who read rather than predicted the feature words, suggesting that the effect was specific to predictions as such. Experiment 2 provided further evidence for limited control of participants over implementing and forming predictions. Participants were provided with practice on stimuli occurring with varying frequency, but neither learned to strategically choose predictions to maximize the number of match trials, nor did they reduce the amount of prediction-based preparation when predicting an infrequent stimulus. As sequential aftereffects of prediction match did not vary with validity, they were identified as an independent effect of verbalizing a response-relevant stimulus feature. The results are consistent with the view that the predicted stimulus feature is represented in the focus of attention in working memory and that the amount of implementation can be subject to weighting.     

Combining predictors to achieve optimal trade-offs between selection quality and adverse impact

The authors propose a procedure to determine (a) predictor composites that result in a Pareto-optimal trade-off between the often competing goals in personnel selection of quality and adverse impact and (b) the relative importance of the quality and impact objectives that correspond to each of these trade-offs. They also investigated whether the obtained Pareto-optimal composites continue to perform well under variability of the selection parameters that characterize the intended selection decision. The results of this investigation indicate that this is indeed the case. The authors suggest that the procedure be used as one of a number of potential strategies for addressing the quality-adverse impact problem in settings where estimates of the selection parameters (e.g., validity estimates, predictor intercorrelations, subgroup mean differences on the predictors and criteria) are available from either a local validation study or meta-analytic research.     

Using Lancaster's mid-P correction to the Fisher's exact test for adverse impact analyses

Adverse impact is often assessed by evaluating whether the success rates for 2 groups on a selection procedure are significantly different. Although various statistical methods have been used to analyze adverse impact data, Fisher's exact test (FET) has been widely adopted, especially when sample sizes are small. In recent years, however, the statistical field has expressed concern regarding the default use of the FET and has proposed several alternative tests. This article reviews Lancaster's mid-P (LMP) test (Lancaster, 1961), an adjustment to the FET that tends to have increased power while maintaining a Type I error rate close to the nominal level. On the basis of Monte Carlo simulation results, the LMP test was found to outperform the FET across a wide range of conditions typical of adverse impact analyses. The LMP test was also found to provide better control over Type I errors than the large-sample Z-test when sample size was very small, but it tended to have slightly lower power than the Z-test under some conditions.     

Adult shyness: the interaction of temperamental sensitivity and an adverse childhood environment

This article examines the relation between adult shyness and sensory-processing sensitivity and posits a new model in which the interaction of sensitivity and adverse childhood environment leads to negative affectivity (with the highly sensitive being more impacted), which in turn leads to shyness. Consistent with this model, two questionnaire studies (Ns = 96 and 213) supported three hypotheses: (a) sensory-processing sensitivity interacts with recalled quality of childhood parental environment to predict shyness, (b) sensory-processing sensitivity interacts in the same way with childhood environment to predict negative affectivity, and (c) the interaction effect on negative affectivity mediates the effect on shyness. Hypothesis 2 was tested and supported in an additional questionnaire study (N = 393) and also in an experiment (N = 160) that manipulated negative contemporaneous experience as an analog for adverse childhood environment.