Death anxiety and counseling skill in the suicide interventionist

In light of recent evidence that suicide intervention workers may experience greater fear of death than the general population, the present study examined the death anxiety of interventionists and its relation to skill in responding to suicidal clients. A sample of 109 suicide prevention workers from three independent crisis centers were administered the Death Anxiety Scale (Templer, 1970) and the Suicide Intervention Response Inventory (Neimeyer & MacInnes, 1981). Compared to 109 matched controls, the interventionists were found to have significantly lower death anxiety, thereby reversing the earlier finding. Moreover, no linear or curvilinear relationship between death anxiety and suicide counseling skill could be identified. Together, these results give some justification to the traditional neglect of death concern as a factor in screening or training crisis intervention personnel.     

Test anxiety in elementary school and junior high school students in japan

This study describes the sex difference, developmental trends of a modified Japanese version of the Test Anxiety Scale for Children (TASC, Sarason, Davidson, Frederick, & Waite, 1960) and presents evidence of negative effects of test anxiety on academic achievement. It was found that (a) the mean TASC scores for girls were found to be higher than boys across grades; (b) the developmental trends of anxiety scores showed the inversed V curves with the peak of 4th grades in elementary school, but in junior high school the curves were V shaped. Those results were explained in reference with selfdefensiveness, learning of anxiety, resistance to anxiety, and acquisition of self-concept; (c) the test anxiety was shown to have a negative effect on both academic achievement and intelligence test scores. Furthermore, it was to be also found in teacher-made tests that higher test anxiety students were inferior to lower in all the school subjects.     

Japanese body image: Structure and esteem scores in a cross‐cultural perspective

Culture appears to affect body image in general and body esteem in particular, yet do cultural differences in these constructs concern with factorial structure or merely the magnitude of their manifestation? This study examined what body parts and functions the body esteem of young Japanese adults consists of, and assessed its relation with several other construals of the self. A secondary goal was to compare scores of body esteem in Japan with data previously obtained for people of similar age and background in diverse cultures, such as the USA, Hong Kong, and Israel. The primary contention of this study was that body image might vary notably across different cultures. Because of cultural differences in the self, and indirectly also due to physiognomic variation, members of various cultures may differ in the way they conceive their own body, have divergent body ideals, and ultimately experience different feelings toward their body. The subjects were 569 Japanese undergraduates who filled in the Body Esteem Scale (BES) as well as measures of self‐esteem, body consciousness, and social anxiety. Findings show fairly similar structure of body esteem to that found in the USA, but lower ratings of body esteem among Japanese than among their American, Chinese, and Israeli counterparts. In addition, findings indicate a large gender difference on the total BES score: Men expressed higher body esteem than women. Among both genders, however, body esteem correlated positively with self‐esteem and body consciousness, but negatively with social anxiety. It is suggested that the structure similarity between Japanese and American body esteem is the result of universal human mating patterns as well as similar personality structure. The reason for the lower Japanese body esteem may involve general tendency for self‐effacement and social anxiety. Further causes for the lower scores, which may concern broader cultural and historical perspectives, are briefly discussed.     

Death anxiety in Spain and five Arab countries

The present study compared death anxiety among volunteer undergraduates from Spain and five Arab countries, i.e., Egypt, Kuwait, Qatar, Lebanon, and Syria. The Templer Death Anxiety Scale was used in its Spanish and Arabic forms, respectively. The Mean for the Spanish sample was lower than that of their Arabic counterparts in the five countries, whether the subjects were men or women.     

Death Anxiety and Symbolic Immortality in Relatives at Risk for Familial Amyloid Polyneuropathy Type I (FAP I,ATTR V30M)

This study is an investigation of the impact of familial amyloid polyneuropathy type I (FAP I, ATTR V30M) on death anxiety and symbolic immortality. Templer and Drolet’s scales were administered to 524 individuals: (1) 84 relatives at risk, (2) 92 relatives not at risk for FAP I; and (3) a control group (n = 348) with no known hereditary disease in their families. At-risk relatives had, on average, a higher score for death anxiety and a lower score for symbolic immortality, than either those not-at-risk or controls. There were no significant differences in scores on either measure for those not-at-risk versus controls. Being at risk increases death anxiety and threatens the sense of symbolic immortality and psychosocial wellbeing. This may be true for other serious hereditary disorders as well. Genetic counsellors should become familiar with these concepts, feel comfortable initiating discussions about death with their patients, and be able to identify and reinforce their patients’ and family members’ sense of symbolic immortality.     

Differences in State-Trait Anxiety Inventory scores for ethnically diverse adolescents in Hawaii

This study examined the association between anxiety and 5 predictor variables: ethnicity (Caucasian, Native Hawaiian/part Hawaiian, Japanese, other), gender, grade level (9-12th), main wage earners' educational level, and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI; C. D. Spielberger, R. L. Gorsuch, & R. E. Lushene, 1970) factors for a diverse group of students. Hawaiian students were found to have significantly higher levels of anxiety than Japanese students; however, ethnicity was not a significant predictor when gender, grade level, and main wage earners' education were statistically held constant. An interaction between ethnicity and STAI factor scores indicated an atypical pattern for Caucasians. Female students scored significantly higher than male students, and main wage earners' education predicted amount of anxiety. In general, these 2 associations remained significant when ethnicity and grade level were held constant. An interaction between gender and STAI factor scores indicated that the difference between female and male students was relatively larger for positively (as opposed to negatively) worded State items and for negatively (as opposed to positively) worded Trait items. Overall, the findings suggested that apparent ethnic differences in anxiety levels may be due to causal variables related to other sociodemographic variables. Factor scores in the form of positively versus negatively worded items should be considered an important variable; using only a global STAI composite as a measure of anxiety will mask the differential effects of the STAI factor scores. Further research is needed to determine the generalizability of these findings to other groups and to provide knowledge on direct causal variables that may account for a greater percentage of variance.     

Construction and validation of a japanese adaptation of the test anxiety inventory

This study describes the construction and validation of a Japanese adaptation of Spielberger's (1980) Test Anxiety Inventory (TAI) and presents evidence of the reliability and validity of this new instrument. The items for the Japanese TAI (TAI-J) were selected on the basis of content validity and itemremainder correlations, which were .40 or higher for both sexes. Alpha reliability coefficients for the TAI-J Total scores were .90 or higher for both high school and college students; test-retest stability over a three-week interval was .89. Mean TAI-J Total scores for Japanese high school females were significantly higher than those of Japanese college students, whose scores were slightly lower than those reported for American undergraduates. TAI-J Total scores correlated .72 with a Japanese trait anxiety measure. Significant negative correlations were found between TAI-J Total scores and measures of academic achievement. Implications of these results for the measurement of test anxiety in Japanese students are discussed from a cross-cultural perspective.     

Anxiety symptoms in Japanese and in German children

The purpose of this study was to compare the frequency of anxiety symptoms and their association with gender and age in Japanese and German children using the Spence Children's Anxiety Scale (SCAS). A total of 1837 children (862 from Germany and 975 from Japan) between the age of 8 and 12 years were investigated. Results revealed that German children reported significantly higher symptoms of separation anxiety, social phobia, obsessive compulsive disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder than Japanese children. Conversely, Japanese children reported significantly higher scores on symptoms related to physical injury fear. In both countries, girls scored higher than boys on all the scales of the SCAS. Symptoms of separation anxiety and panic decreased with age, whereas social phobia increased with age. The findings underscore the impact of culture on children's anxiety.     

Analysis of the effect of competitive trait anxiety on performance in Taekwondo competition.

This study examined the effect of competitive trait anxiety on performance in open- (sparring) and closed- (forms) skills in Taekwondo. 58 subjects responded to the Sports Competition Anxiety Test immediately prior to competition. Subjects were categorized into groups showing high, medium, and low competitive anxiety to assess whether differences on the variables of sparring and forms were significantly related with scores on competition anxiety, age, or gender after adjusting for the covariate of years of competition. Multivariate analysis of covariance showed no significant differences between subjects and the normative samples on competitive anxiety scores except for boys, whose scores were significantly higher than those of a normative sample of male youth athletes.     

Intimations of mortality: integrative simplification as a precursor of death

This article tested the hypothesis that a "terminal drop" in cognitive functioning occurs a few years prior to death. Letters written during the last 10 years of life were selected from the published correspondence of 18 eminent individuals and scored for integrative complexity--a variable which is related to the degree of integration and differentiation in information processing. The overall analysis supported the terminal drop hypothesis. The predicted decline in complexity was found during the five years prior to death among subjects who died of protracted illness or old age but only in the year immediately prior to death among subjects who died suddenly. There was no relation between complexity and age; the mean complexity scores of men were higher than those of women. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Responses of Japanese and American university students to the STAI items that assess the presence or absence of anxiety

Symptom endorsements and item response patterns on the anxiety-present and anxiety-absent items of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory Form Y (Spielberger, 1983) for 149 Japanese (99 living in Japan and 50 studying in the United States) and 76 American university students were compared. Although mean scores for the state and trait anxiety-absent items were comparable for Japanese students living in Japan and Japanese international students studying in the United States, the scores of both Japanese groups were significantly higher than those of American students. These differences were attributable to much higher scores of Japanese students on anxiety-absent items that corresponded to a lack of positive feelings. Japanese students had a tendency to inhibit positive (anxiety-absent) feelings, resulting in higher anxiety scores. Responses to anxiety-present and anxiety-absent items should be considered independently in scoring anxiety scales.     

Narcissism and belief in the paranormal

The present study was designed to assess whether the relationship between narcissistic personality and paranormal belief identified by Tobacyk and Mitchell earlier could be replicated with a general population and to see whether the effect could be found with a narrower definition of paranormal beliefs that focuses only on belief in psychic phenomena. 75 participants completed the Narcissistic Personality Inventory and two measures of paranormal belief, the Paranormal Belief Scale and the Australian Sheep-Goat Scale. There was no correlation between narcissism and Paranormal Belief Scale scores, but narcissism and Australian Sheep-Goat Scale scores were significantly positively correlated. Of the three subscales to the Australian Sheep-Goat measure, scores for narcissism correlated with belief in ESP and PK but not in Life after death. These relationships were interpreted in terms of need for control.     

Psychological distress,problem solving,and coping reactions: Sex role differences

Previous research has demonstrated that psychological well-being and distress are strongly associated with masculinity, but unrelated to femininity. The present study provides for a replication of this literature in that results from 211 undergraduate students revealed that high-masculine subjects, compared to low-masculine persons, reported significantly lower scores on self-report measures of depression, state anxiety, and trait anxiety. No differences in distress were found as a function of sex or the femininity dimension. Further, high-masculine subjects, relative to low-masculine subjects, were also found to rate their problem-solving ability as more effective, to engage in more active-behavioral and less avoidance methods of coping in response to previously experienced stressful reactions and to engage in more problem-focused and less emotional-focused coping styles regarding stressful situations. Sex and femininity differences were not found related to differences in problem solving and coping. However, the relation between masculinity and distress was found to be nonsignificant when the variance due to coping was partialed out, suggesting that sex role relations to distress may be mediated by coping skills.Completion of this article occurred while Christine M. Nezu was affiliated with Beth Israel Medical Center-Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, New York.     

The influence of personality and anxiety on the oral performance of Japanese speakers of English

This study investigated the relationship between personality and anxiety characteristics of Japanese students and their oral performance in English. The participants were 73 native‐speakers of Japanese who were studying English at various language schools in New Zealand. They were administered the Maudsley Personality Inventory, the Spielberger State Anxiety Inventory, and a story‐retelling task which was scored in terms of oral fluency, accuracy, complexity, and global impression. Significant correlations were found between extraversion and global impression scores, and state anxiety and clause accuracy scores. These findings suggest that participants who were more extraverted produced better global impressions during their oral performance, and those who were experiencing higher levels of state anxiety made more errors in their spoken use of clauses. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Social anxiety and social adaptation among adolescents at three age levels

The aim of the study was to examine the relationship between social anxiety and social adaptation among adolescents. This is the first study to research these parameters among three age groups: early, middle and late adolescence. On the whole, a negative relation was found between social anxiety and social adaptation. Specifically, for adolescents aged 12?C13, social anxiety was positively associated with social rejection, and negatively associated with social acceptance and popularity. The same was true of adolescents aged 14?C15, but the correlations were lower. For late adolescents (aged 17?C18), social anxiety was not significantly correlated with any dimension of social adaptation. The results provide evidence that young adolescents (12?C13) suffer from higher levels of social anxiety than their older counterparts. The relation found between social anxiety and social adaptation may indicate that high levels of social anxiety may cause intense distress, which can be expected to impair adolescents?? social performance.     

焦虑情绪对图像信息意识提取和无意识提取影响的实验研究

采用加工分离程序,以不同性价图片为实验材料,考察了特质焦虑、启动焦虑和非焦虑三种焦虑类型对图片信息意识提取和无意识提取的影响,结果表明：（1）不同焦虑类型对图像信息的意识提取和无意识提取均有影响,其中特质焦虑对图像的无意识提取更敏感,非焦虑状态对意识提取更敏感;（2）特质焦虑明显促进了负性图片的意识和无意识提取且干扰了正性图片的提取,启动焦虑促进了对负性图片的意识提取。     

Electrodermal lability in anxiety disorders

Twenty-eight anxiety patients, aged below 50 years, were diagnosed according to DSM-III-R criteria (panic disorder with and without agoraphobia, generalised anxiety disorder, and anxiety disorder not otherwise specified). The patients were characterised by high levels of state and trait anxiety and neuroticism, compared with the controls. However, there were no differences between patients and controls in electrodermal habituation rate, non-specific activity, or skin resistance level. When the patients were divided into electrodermally labile and stable subjects, significant differences were found between patients and controls in both electrodermal activity and Eysenck's personality dimensions. The labile patients were more introverted and attained higher psychoticism scores than either the stable patients or controls. Duration of anxiety symptoms removed the difference found in extroversion, but not in any other variable. The results are discussed in relation to the utility of electrodermal measurements in validation of diagnostic entities. It is concluded, that from the psychophysiological point of view, anxiety disorders may be examined within a dimensional framework.     

Anxiety and Depression in Patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Their Caregivers

A large number of studies have investigated a variety of psychological aspects in people with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, but there is still considerable uncertainty concerning the actual morbidity, in particular for anxiety. We aim to evaluate depression levels and anxiety disposition in ALS patients and their caregivers, in comparison to healthy controls. We conducted a cross-sectional comparison between people with ALS, their caregivers and a non-clinical control group in order to evaluate anxiety and depression levels. 40 ALS patients, their caregivers and 40 healthy adult subjects completed the Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II) and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory—Y2 scale (STAI). We compared overall and single item scores in order to find differences between the three groups. BDI-II scores were significantly different between groups. Depression scores were higher for patients than for healthy controls, in both somatic and psychological sub-scales. Caregivers presented higher levels of psychological depression in comparison with healthy controls, and lower scores of somatic depression in comparison to patients. No differences were found in trait anxiety levels comparing the three groups. ALS patients and their caregivers developed more depression related symptomatology than the non-clinical sample. However, susceptibility to anxiety for both patients and caregivers seemed to be at a normal level.     

Cognitive anxiety: a method of content analysis for verbal samples

The work of such psychologists as Kelly, McReynolds, Epstein, and Lazarus suggested the need for a measure of cognitive anxiety and provided a definition of that construct. A method of content analysis of verbal samples was devised and found to have adequate interjudge reliability. Normative data for five groups of subjects were provided. The validity of the measure as representative of a reaction to being unable to anticipate and integrate experience meaningfully was demonstrated in (a) the higher scores of groups of subjects who were currently coping with new experiences than those who were not, (b) the significant correlation of its scores with a state rather than trait anxiety measures, (c) the variability of its scores over time as observed in a generalizeability study, and (d) the higher scores of subjects when they were dealing with experiences for which meaningful anticipation was relatively difficult.     

Eating disorders and dieting behavior among Australian and Swazi university students

The eating behaviors of 192 Australian and 129 Swaziland university students were examined by using the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26; D. M. Garner, M. P. Olmsted, Y. Bohr, & P. E. Garfinkel, 1982). The results did not support the hypothesis that more Australian students than Swazi students would display eating disorder symptoms. Australian women scored significantly higher than Australian men. Surprisingly, scores on the EAT-26 for men and women from Swaziland did not differ significantly. Furthermore, there was little difference between the scores of Swazi men and either Australian women or Swazi women. Results are discussed in relation to various cultural factors and assessment issues.