Does distraction reduce pain-produced distress among college students?

College students in four experiments placed their hands in ice water (the cold-pressor task) and reported their distress. They simultaneously engaged in different reaction-time (RT) tasks that varied in the amount of attention required for successful performance. In each experiment, which differed in numerous procedural details, RT, error-rate, and self-report measures all demonstrated that the distraction tasks differed in the degree of attention required. Greater distraction, however, failed to reduce physiological, self-report, or behavioral responses to the cold-pressor task. These data call into question the hypothesis that attention mediates the process whereby distraction tasks reduce pain-produced distress.     

Are college students adults? Their conceptions of the transition to adulthood

College students (N=346) were surveyed on their conceptions of the transition to adulthood and their own status as adults. Only 23% indicated that they considered themselves to have reached adulthood, while nearly two-thirds indicated that they considered themselves to be adults in some respects but not in others. The most important criteria for marking the transition to adulthood were indicated to be individualistic and intangible criteria, particularly accept responsibility for the consequences of your actions, decide on beliefs and values independently of parents or other influences, and establish a relationship with parents as an equal adult, each of which was endorsed by more than 70% of the sample. In contrast, role transitions such as completing education, marriage, and becoming a parent were endorsed by less than 20%. It is suggested that the transition from adolescence to adulthood in Western societies is a process that may last many years, during which individualistic and intangible markers of adulthood (such as those specified here) are gradually and incrementally pursued.     

Is there a monotonic criterion for measures of vocational maturity in college students?

Career development has been expected to proceed in a continuous fashion. Tests of vocational maturity, then, are expected to show higher scores with increases in grade level or meet a monotonic criterion (Crites, J. O. Psychological Monographs, 1965, 79, 25–41). Data collected with the Career Development Inventory (Super, D. E., et al. Career Development Inventory Preliminary Manual. Unpublished test manual, 1972.) by its authors showed systematic increases in scores for eighth-, tenth-, and twelfth-grade-level students. For this study, college-level students were partitioned into two groups, career-specific and social sciences and humanities based on the findings of A. S. Bisconti and I. L. Gomberg (The Hard to Place Majority. Bethlehem, Pa.: College Placement Council, 1975.) and they were administered the college version of the CDI. Scores failed to show systematic increases with college-grade level for either group. Both the findings and related theoretical positions of Ginzberg and Super provide evidence that the process of career development may be discontinuous in the post high school years. Data gathered for this study may help advance the notion that career development in college students is discontinuous and call into question the application of the monotonic criterion to tests of vocational maturity at the college level.     

Is marriage/cohabitation beneficial for young people? Some evidence on psychological distress among Norwegian college students

Although a large number of studies have examined the association between marital status or cohabitation on the one hand and psychological distress on the other, few have looked specifically at young people. Theoretically, the effects of marriage may be expected to vary with age, and differential selection into or out of marriage/cohabitation may also have different implications at different age levels. This paper uses cross‐sectional data on about 2300 Norwegian college students aged from 19 to 30; for nearly 1000 of these two‐wave panel data are also used. Psychological distress is measured by the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), and linear regression analysis is used. Cross‐sectional analyses show that among female students marriage/cohabitation is associated with less distress. For male students the association changes with age; in the youngest group, married/cohabiting men are more distressed than those living alone, this is reversed beyond about 23 years of age. The longitudinal analyses show that termination of marriage/cohabitation is associated with increased distress. Going from single living to marriage/cohabitation does not seem to have any effect, however. These results are interpreted as providing some tentative support for social selection effects, and for the stressfulness of terminating a marriage or relationship of cohabitation. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Optimism–pessimism and adjustment in college students: Is there support for the utility of a domain-specific approach to studying outcome expectancies?

Over the past 30 years, researchers have increasingly focused on the study of general optimism–pessimism. In this research, we examined the validity and usefulness of a domain-specific model of optimism–pessimism. We examined whether the addition of domain-specific measures of optimism–pessimism would add to the prediction of self-reported GPA, health status, family life satisfaction, financial satisfaction, and general life satisfaction. Results of regression analyses indicated that domain-specific optimism–pessimism added significantly, beyond general optimism–pessimism, in predicting each of these outcomes. Some implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Do college students drink more than their non-college-attending peers? Evidence from a population-based longitudinal female twin study

The association of college attendance with alcohol use and alcohol use disorders was examined in a population-based young adult female twin sample identified from a systematic search of birth records. College-attending women consumed a larger overall volume of alcohol than did their non-college-attending peers, but they were not more likely to be diagnosed with an alcohol use disorder. Significant associations between college attendance and alcohol involvement were probed using 3 different complementary research designs: multivariate cross-sectional analyses, longitudinal analyses of the precollege and college years, and cotwin-control analyses of twin pairs discordant for attending college. Although demographic and lifestyle characteristics accounted for most or all of the association between college attendance and alcohol involvement, there was 1 aspect of drinking behavior, occasionally consuming large quantities of alcohol, that remained significantly associated with college attendance even after controlling for these characteristics or for genetic and family background factors. These results are consistent with the conclusion that some aspect of the college experience may be an important environmental risk factor for this pattern of drinking among young adults.     

Increasing similarity in the values and life plans of male and female college students? Evidence and implications

A time-series analysis of college freshmen indicates that from 1969 to 1984 there has been a dramatic increase in the value women place on status-attainment goals, but not a comparable decrease in the value placed on domestic-nurturant goals—a pattern that reflects an amalgamation rather than a masculinization of the feminine value constellation. As the value placed on status-attainment goals has not increased as significantly for males, there has been a narrowing of the difference in the value constellations of the sexes over this time period. Further, there has been a greater increase in the percentage of women than men aspiring to graduate degrees and to the highest status professional and executive occupations, resulting in increased congruence in the educational and high-status career goals of women and men. The limitations and implications of these data are discussed.The research for this paper was funded by a grant from the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation. I thank Andrea Tyree and Norman Goodman for reading and commenting on earlier drafts of this paper. I particularly thank Stephen Cole for his incisive comments.     

Distance education: Has technology become a threat to the academy?

Recent discussions regarding technology-assisted distance education have given rise both to enthusiastic predictions about how this form of instruction will transform higher educational institutions and to widespread fears about the threats that this technology poses to the student-teacher relationship and to the profession of university teacher in general. A review of opinions regarding distance education and computer technology in academia suggests a continuum of positions, ranging from the expectation that dramatic and even cataclysmic changes will lead to the eventual dissolution of the university to an envisioning of only minor changes in the academy’s objectives and methods. In the present paper, this continuum is used as an organizing scheme to present the positions of several well-known advocates for and against the use of distance education and information technology. It is argued that the accreditation process will ultimately determine the degree to which distance education replaces traditional classroom instruction and that this process can be influenced by faculty involvement in decisions about the use of technology in the classroom.     

Goals of male and female college students: Do traditional sex differences still exist?

Importance ratings of reasons for attending college were obtained from male and female undergraduates. Responses were compared for sex differences and were compared to the responses of subjects in the Constantinople (1967) study. The picture of college students that emerged is very different from those of previous studies. Current females did not emphasize career goals less, nor social goals more, than males. Current males were more interested in social aspects of college than were their male predecessors. Male and female concepts of success seemed to differ. To females challenge and accomplishment were most important; to males, complying with parental pressures and economic success were most important.The authors thank Phillip Shaver for his helpful comments on an earlier version of this article.     

Body image or body images?: Comparative, multidimensional assessment among college students

A major criticism of research on body image concerns the dubious assumptions of the unidimensionality of the construct and the equivalence of body-image measures. Our study of 125 male and female college students compared multiple measurement methods within each of two modalities of body image: (a) perceptual (body-size estimation) and (b) attitudinal (body-image affect and cognition). Clinically relevant indices of psychological adjustment and eating disturbance were included. Results clearly supported the distinction between attitudinal and perceptual modalities of body image and indicated more convergent and discriminant validity for the former than for the latter. Whereas one method of assessing size-estimation accuracy and most body-image attitudes produced relationships with maladjustment, only attitudinal body image and perceptual, self-ideal discrepancy measures were significantly linked to eating disturbance. Relationships were generally more consistent for women than for men. Implications are discussed in the context of extant and future research on body image with clinical and nonclinical populations.     

Is a closed mind better for students?

A commentary is given on the seven articles in this special issue. Ordered in terms of interest and importance this readers preference list begins with the broad review articles by Boekaerts, De Raad and Schouwenburg, and Messick, in this order. Next comes the curious article by Eysenck. It is curious because it so clearly reveals his continuing refusal to accept Conscientiousness or W as an independent factor of personality. How to open a closed mind? The three research articles left this reader in a state of depression, mostly because of the negative correlations found in two of the three studies between students self-ratings on Openness and their grades obtained in the early years of University schooling.     

Do research assessments make college students more reactive to alcohol events?

This study examines possible synergistic effects of alcohol-related events and postevent assessments on changes in college student readiness to change alcohol use, frequency of alcohol use, and negative consequences. Students were participants in a longitudinal study of drinking behavior. A portion of those reporting negative alcohol events/consequences (e.g., injury, vomiting, memory loss) during the parent study were randomly selected to participate in the present study (n = 492) and randomized to a postevent assessment (n = 296) or a no-assessment control (n = 196). Participants in the postevent assessment group were interviewed soon after their event, and participants in both conditions were interviewed three months after their event. Linear regression models showed higher 3-month readiness to change alcohol use in participants who received a postevent assessment than those who did not. There were reductions in drinking days, heavy drinking days, and further consequences postevent, but no differences by assessment group. However, female participants showed greater reductions in drinking days and heavy drinking days if they were assigned to assessment compared to control. There also was greater postevent reduction in drinking days among assessment group participants with high precollege alcohol severity compared to low precollege alcohol severity. Conversely, participants who reported high aversiveness of their event and were in the control group showed greater reduction in heavy drinking days than those assigned to the assessment group. Findings suggest that college student heavy drinking is reactive to alcohol events, whereas reactivity to postevent assessments may depend on gender, alcohol severity, and event aversiveness. This work highlights the importance of considering possible interactions among extratherapeutic factors in clinical outcome research.     

Is teaching Jung within university possible?: a response to David Tacey

Until recently, Jungian psychology has been suspicious of academia and remained almost exclusively connected with analytical practice. Attempts by analytical psychologists towards a rapprochement have, by and large, failed because they were based either on inappropriate efforts to fit Jung within an unsuitable paradigm of science or on omnipotent expectations that academics accept the Jungian 'wisdom' unquestionably. By distinguishing two different Jungian epistemologies (an open and closed one) it is argued that the emergence of the new paradigm in social and human sciences (based on constructivist and non-essentialist ideas) offers now a unique opportunity to connect the epistemologically open Jung with these new developments in the academy. Thus, Jungians should now face the challenge of open dialogue with academics which can result in mutual benefit.     

Is the threat simulation theory threatened by recurrent dreams?

Zadra, Desjardins, and Marcotte (2006) tested several predictions derived from the Threat Simulation Theory of dreaming (Revonsuo, 2000a) in a large sample of recurrent dreams. In response to these findings, Valli and Revonsuo (2006) presented a commentary outlining alternate conceptualizations and explanations for the results obtained. We argue that many points raised by Valli and Revonsuo do not accurately reflect our main findings and at times present a biased assessment of the data. In this article, we provide necessary clarifications and responses to each one of their main points of discussion.     

Is there a disposition to avoid the fundamental attribution error?

Two studies investigated the possibility that personality variables might relate to the magnitude of the cognitive attributional error. In the first, participants received either a pronuclear or anti-nuclear weapons essay, and were asked to rate the writer's personal beliefs (attitude attribution). As expected, certain Myers-Briggs Type Indicator indices of cognitive processing preferences did not predict variations in attribution in the Choice condition, but did so in the Constraint condition. In the Constraint condition, subjects expressing the Intuitive Thinking preference showed no significant attributional error (i.e., no tendency to rate in line with essay content). Other subjects in this condition showed the usual attributional error. These findings were generally replicated in the second study, which used the Constraint condition only. The Self-Monitoring scale was added as a predictor; it did not relate to the attributional error. It was suggested that measures of cognitive processing style may be more relevant to attribution than the various measures of sensitivity to environmental variation.     

Is the Counselor a Woman?

The 16 PF was administered to 75 male and 43 female high school counselors to determine whether they manifested the femininity (loving receptivity) and the masculinity (potency) that have been said to be important to the counseling role. The men differed significantly from male norms in the feminine direction on warmth, tender-mindedness, and trust. They deviated significantly in the direction of potency on brightness, ego strength, adequacy, and tranquility, but away from potency on caution and group-dependency. The women differed significantly from female norms in the feminine direction only on trust, but in the masculine direction on assertiveness, venturesomeness, and practicality. They deviated significantly in the direction of personal strength on brightness, ego strength, superego strength, adequacy, experimentation, and tranquility.     

Study strategies of college students: Are self-testing and scheduling related to achievement?

Previous studies, such as those by Kornell and Bjork (Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14:219–224, 2007) and Karpicke, Butler, and Roediger (Memory, 17:471–479, 2009), have surveyed college students’ use of various study strategies, including self-testing and rereading. These studies have documented that some students do use self-testing (but largely for monitoring memory) and rereading, but the researchers did not assess whether individual differences in strategy use were related to student achievement. Thus, we surveyed 324 undergraduates about their study habits as well as their college grade point average (GPA). Importantly, the survey included questions about self-testing, scheduling one’s study, and a checklist of strategies commonly used by students or recommended by cognitive research. Use of self-testing and rereading were both positively associated with GPA. Scheduling of study time was also an important factor: Low performers were more likely to engage in late-night studying than were high performers; massing (vs. spacing) of study was associated with the use of fewer study strategies overall; and all students—but especially low performers—were driven by impending deadlines. Thus, self-testing, rereading, and scheduling of study play important roles in real-world student achievement.     

Is Bradburn's measure of psychological well-being fair to introverts? A study among 16- to 18-yr.-old students

The relationship between dimensions of personality characteristics and the perceived rearing attitude of parents in the Japanese population were investigated. The scores on a measure of perceived parental attitude of 153 normal female students, measured on the Parker Parental Bonding Instrument, were correlated with personality features from the Japanese version of the Cloninger Temperament and Character Inventory. Self-directedness, especially the subclasses of Responsibility vs Blaming and Congruent Second Nature vs Incongruent Habits, was significantly related to high scores on Maternal Care and low scores on Maternal Overprotection. The subscale of Self-acceptance vs Self-striving correlated only with low scores on Maternal Overprotection. Paternal Care was only related to the total scale scores on Self-directedness. Results suggest that some personality traits may be related to the perceived attitudes of parents, especially of the mother, during childhood.     

Dispositional optimism among American and Jordanian college students: Are Westerners really more upbeat than Easterners?

The present study aimed at assessing some previous research conclusions, based primarily on comparisons of North Americans and East Asians, that Westerners tend to be optimistic while Easterners tend to be pessimistic. Two samples of European American and Jordanian college students were administered a questionnaire consisting of items measuring dispositional optimism along with items pertaining to risk and self‐protective behaviors (e.g., seatbelt use, vehicular speeding, smoking) and social and demographic factors (e.g., sex, socioeconomic status, religiosity). The findings uncovered dispositional optimism to be stronger for American compared to Jordanian participants. Separate analyses of optimism versus pessimism revealed that Jordanian participants were more pessimistic, but not less optimistic than their American counterparts. No significant correlations were found between dispositional optimism and sex, socioeconomic status, or religiosity. The levels of optimism displayed by Jordanians in this study are inconsistent with previous claims of an optimistic West and a pessimistic East, and suggest that self‐enhancing processes may not be confined to Western or highly individualistic groups. The findings did not uncover an association between dispositional optimism and risk or self‐protective behaviors. Multiple regression analyses showed cultural background and sex to be the best predictors of these behaviors. The implications of these findings are discussed.