Jealousy: loss of relationship rewards, loss of self-esteem, depression, anxiety, and anger

White's (1981) theory of romantic jealousy states that the loss (or anticipated loss) of a romantic partner to a rival causes two kinds of suffering: loss (or anticipated loss) of relationship rewards and loss (or anticipated loss) of self-esteem. Elaborating this theory, we proposed that loss of relationship rewards causes depression, whereas loss of self-esteem causes anxiety and anger. General support was found for White's theory and the elaborations, but not for the hypothesis that the loss of self-esteem causes anxiety. Anxiety may be a product of both loss of self-esteem and loss of relationship rewards.     

Identity continuity and loss after death,divorce, and job loss

This paper examined the relationship of constructs identified by identity continuity and attachment theories of grief to adjustment to loss from the framework of identity theory. Connections between loss salience, identity construal, and balance of identity construal on grief intensity via their association with post-loss identity disruption were examined across three types of self-relevant losses; death of a family member, job loss, or divorce. We hypothesized that lower salience, higher endorsement of identity attributes represented by relational and individualistic self-construals, and an overall balance across identity attributes would be related to decreased grief severity across all types of loss. Results supported hypotheses with the exception that the hypothesized ameliorative effect of increases in relational self-construal was only seen in the bereaved group.     

Hair loss,personality and attitudes

Personality and attitude measurements were carried out on 204 adult males suffering from hair loss. Three groups were tested: those in the first group had had a hair weave fitted and were retaining the weave as a viable solution to their hair problem; the second had worn the weave for a trial period but had decided against its continued use; the third had had no form of treatment and seemed little concerned about their hair loss. Results showed that all three groups possessed N and P scores which were significantly higher than those shown by a normative group of males in the same age range, but that the weave-retaining group scored significantly lower on E than the normative group: other personality differences were non-significant. The group who had rejected the hair-weave treatment as a viable solution to their hair-loss problem was significantly more neurotic and possessed a significantly lower self-esteem than the group that retained the weave: this latter group had scores on these and all other variables tested which were very similar to those of the group that had had no treatment.     

Optic aphasia, optic apraxia, and loss of dreaming

A 47-year-old man with a left temporo-occipital infarct in the area of the posterior cerebral artery is presented. The neuropsychological examination did not reveal aphasia or gross mental deficits. The patient presented with alexia without agraphia, color agnosia, but few visual perceptual deficits. The main impairment was in confrontation naming; he was incapable of naming objects and pictures, not from lack of recognition (excluding visual agnosia) but from lack of access to the appropriate word (optic aphasia). The patient also exhibited a deficit in the evocation of gesture from the visual presentation of an object (optic apraxia) and a difficulty in "conjuring up" visual images of objects (impaired visual imagery) and loss of dreams. The fundamental deficit of this patient is tentatively explained in terms of visuoverbal and visuogestural disconnection and a deficit of mental imagery.     

Restraint, weight loss, and variability of body weight

Restrained and unrestrained subjects (n = 24) were weighed daily for a 6-week period and again 6 months later in order to determine whether dietary restraint or relative body weight is the better predictor of weight variability. Restraint was a significantly better predictor of naturally occurring weight fluctuations than was relative body weight. Furthermore, the 2 factors of the Restraint Scale, Concern for Dieting and Weight Fluctuations, were both significant predictors of weight variability. We propose that exaggerated weight fluctuations are not a natural concomitant of higher body weight but possibly the consequence of a cycle of dieting and overeating, which seems to preclude actual weight loss.     

Fatigue, sleep loss, and confidence in judgment

Sixty-four adults participated in a study examining the accuracy of metacognitive judgments during 28 hr of sleep deprivation (SD) and continuous cognitive work. Three tasks were studied (perceptual comparison, general knowledge, and mental addition), collectively spanning a range of cognitive abilities and levels of susceptibility to SD. Subjective and objective measures of sleepiness confirmed the expected patterns of increasing fatigue with SD. Participants displayed differing levels of metacognitive abilities across tasks, but traditional indices of the confidence-accuracy relation (i.e., calibration, resolution, over- and underconfidence), as well as the accuracy of pre- and posttask estimates of performance, remained stable over the SD period. The findings suggest that people can accurately assess their own cognitive performance when deprived of 1 night of sleep and that this ability need not be based on subjective estimates of sleepiness. The implications and limitations of the study are discussed and directions for future research are proposed.     

Regret resolution, aging, and adapting to loss

Both theory and empirical evidence suggest that people who have unresolved regrets experience lower levels of well-being than do those who resolve their regrets. In this study, the authors examined the role of regret resolution during bereavement by assessing whether (a) regret resolution would aid in adapting to the death of a loved one and (b) older adults would be more successful at resolving their bereavement-related regrets than would younger adults. Mixed models were run with longitudinal data from an age-heterogeneous sample of 147 men and women who were eventually bereaved after providing care for a loved one through a hospice. As expected, regret resolution contributed to adjustment as indicated by postloss patterns of depressive symptoms, well-being, and rumination; further, older adults were more likely to resolve their regrets than were younger adults. Implications for encouraging regret resolution early in bereavement are discussed.     

Adaptive psychophysical procedures, loss functions, and entropy

In this article, we present a new strategy for locating a point on a psychometric function (threshold determination) for yes-no procedures, called EntFirst. Our results show that it performs better than many existing strategies for estimating the 50% threshold that are commonly used in nonlaboratory settings. We also provide a review of existing algorithms for finding thresholds, with an emphasis on identifying the types of problems for which each algorithm is useful. Finally, we address a number of issues that are not adequately covered in the literature, including choosing an appropriate loss function to evaluate the performance of an algorithm for a given problem.     

Evaluations of hypothetical bereavement and grief: The influence of loss recency,loss type and gender

Individuals often hold strict and erroneous expectations for how others should grieve, yet this issue has been sparsely researched. A total of 161 undergraduates rated the appropriateness of various social and emotional behaviours of a hypothetical bereaved individual as a function of the recency of the death (1 month or 1 year ago), the nature of the loss (death of a spouse or child) and the gender of the bereaved. As expected, subjects deemed it inappropriate to show positive emotions and experiences 1 month after a hypothetical death and more inappropriate to show negative reactions 1 year later and there were generally higher expectations of socially appropriate behaviour for those who lost a child rather than a spouse. Unexpectedly, there were no significant differences regarding the gender of the bereaved. This study is among the first to show experimentally the widespread expectation that grief should be experienced early and be short‐lived.     

Affect dynamics,bereavement and resilience to loss

This investigation applied Zautra and colleagues’ Dynamic Model of Affect (DMA; Zautra: 2003, Emotions, Stress and Health (Oxford University Press, New York); Reich et al.: 2003, Review of General Psychology 7(1), pp. 66–83) to help understand resilience among a sample of middle-aged participants coping with the recent death of a spouse or child. We replicated and extended this model by examining interaffect correlations (individual correlations between negative and positive affect over time) in resilient versus symptomatic bereaved people. As predicted by the DMA, resilient bereaved had weaker (or less negative) interaffect correlations than symptomatic bereaved even when controlling for self-reported distress. These findings suggest that resilient individuals possess a capacity for a more complex affective experience and that this capacity serves a salutary function in the aftermath of aversive life events. The research described in this article was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Health, R29-MH57274 (George A. Bonanno).     

Resource loss,religiousness, health,and posttraumatic growth following Hurricane Katrina

This study examined associations among resource loss, religiousness (including general religiousness, religious comfort, and religious strain), posttraumatic growth (PTG), and physical and mental health among a sample of Mississippi university students soon after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf coast in 2005. Resource loss was negatively associated with health, but positively associated with PTG. Religious comfort was associated with positive outcomes, and religious strain was associated with negative outcomes. Religious comfort buffered the negative effects of resource loss on emotional health. Ancillary analyses indicated that associations between resource loss and health were mediated by religious strain. Implications of this research are described for mental health practitioners engaged in disaster recovery work.     

A longitudinal analysis of financial loss,anxiety, destructive conflict,and relational maintenance

This study examined how destructive conflict behavior and relational maintenance behavior are linked to financial loss in adult romantic relationships. Based on conservation of resources (COR) theory, it was hypothesized that financial loss indirectly (through anxiety) predicts increased destructive conflict behavior and decreased relational maintenance behavior. Across three waves of data, results indicated that financial loss significantly predicted passive‐destructive conflict behavior (i.e., neglect) through anxiety. Financial loss did not, however, directly or indirectly predict active‐destructive conflict behavior (i.e., exit). Financial loss negatively predicted relational maintenance behavior, but that effect was found only from Wave 1 to Wave 2 and was not mediated by anxiety. Overall, results support COR theory and identify some of the specific relational consequences of financial difficulty.     

Cheating among children: Temptation,loss framing,and previous cheating

Although early economic approaches to misbehavior merely compare the monetary utility of accessible options, self-concept maintenance models introduce moral considerations to the equation. These assume that people trade off possible gains to be made from moral transgressions with associated decreases in self-esteem. On the basis of the assumption that the development of moral values among children is weaker than in adults, we expected children's behavior to be close to that of the hypothetical homo economicus, with their decisions as to whether to cheat therefore being influenced by decision theory elements: normative elements such as temptation magnitude, and behavioral elements such as framing. As children should pay no heed to moral considerations in dynamic multiple task settings, behavior opposite to “moral cleansing” was expected, with a first lie predicting later lies. In addition to testing the above ideas, the present study adopted a novel methodology. Our hypotheses were tested in a lab-in-the-field study using a modified “roll a die” method in a naturalistic setting for children of ages 7 to 10. We modified the method to identify both true and declared values of die rolls (a novel DICE+ electronic die was used). As expected, children were sensitive to temptation and cheated more willingly for more attractive prizes. Girls (but not boys) lied more (in terms of both frequency and magnitude) to avoid losses (with loss framing) than to make gains (with gain framing). Previous lying correlated positively with lying on subsequent tasks.     

Effects of capacity limits,memory loss,and sound type in change deafness

Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics - Change deafness, the inability to notice changes to auditory scenes, has the potential to provide insights about sound perception in busy situations...