The role of illness uncertainty on coping with fibromyalgia symptoms.

This study examined the role of illness uncertainty in pain coping among women with fibromyalgia (FM), a chronic pain condition of unknown origin. Fifty-one FM participants completed initial demographic and illness uncertainty questionnaires and underwent 10-12 weekly interviews regarding pain, coping difficulty, and coping efficacy. Main outcome measures included weekly levels of difficulty coping with FM symptoms and coping efficacy. Multilevel analyses indicated that pain elevations for those high in illness uncertainty predicted increases in coping difficulty. Furthermore, when participants had more difficulty coping, they reported lower levels of coping efficacy. Results were consistent with hypothesized effects. Illness uncertainty accompanied by episodic pain negatively influenced coping efficacy, an important resource in adaptation to FM.     

The Role of Status in Producing Depressed Entitlement in Women's and Men's Pay Allocations

Extensive empirical evidence confirms a depressed entitlement effect wherein women pay themselves less than men for comparable work and believe the allocation fair. The present study tests the hypothesis that status subordination linked to being female underlies at least some of this effect. A 2 × 3 design crossed 180 undergraduates' gender with a control condition, which successfully established the depressed entitlement effect, and two experimental conditions. In one, women's status was enhanced through legitimation of women's task abilities; in the other, both women's and men's status was enhanced by adding educational credentials relevant to task ability. Follow-up analyses of the significant interaction revealed that the gap in self-pay demonstrated in the control condition disappeared when women's status was enhanced such that higher-status women's self-pay equaled that of men and exceeded that of control women. Although these findings confirm that status plays a role in producing depressed entitlement in self-pay, ancillary analyses of participants' perceptions point to the persistence of shifting standards and men's resistance to status threats.