Distress,wellbeing, and growth amidst COVID-19: Considering the dynamic interplay between positive and negative anticipatory emotions

Although negative anticipatory emotions are typically seen as risk factors for poorer psychological outcomes over COVID-19, emotion theorists suggest that this risk may be attenuated if balanced by the experience of positive emotion. Thus, the current study examined whether interactions between positive and negative anticipatory emotions were concurrently associated with psychological distress and greater personal wellbeing/posttraumatic growth (PTG) at three distinct periods (i.e., pre-lockdown, during lockdown, post-lockdown), and whether associations varied by these three COVID-19 time periods. The study utilizes two large longitudinal Australian samples, surveyed in 2020 prior to, during, and after a strict 4-month lockdown that occurred in Australia. Overall, positive emotions attenuated the adverse psychological outcomes arising from higher levels of negative emotion (i.e., higher psychological distress and lower personal wellbeing). Observed effects varied according to COVID-19 threat exposure. Specifically, the interaction was significantly associated with psychological distress prior to the lockdown for Sample 2, and during the lockdown for both samples. The interaction was significantly associated with wellbeing (Sample 2) prior to, and during, the lockdown but only marginally associated post-lockdown. The interaction, however, was not significantly associated with PTG (Sample 1). The results suggest that it is valuable for future research to consider greater emotional complexity (i.e., mixed emotions) over COVID-19, and other stressors more generally, to encompass a more nuanced understanding of resilience.     

Promoting the Culturally Sensitive Diagnosis of Mexican Americans: Some Personal Insights

This article presents a series of personal guidelines for promoting the culturally sensitive psychiatric diagnosis of Mexican American/Chicano clients. These guidelines are primarily based on the authors' collective experiences in diagnosing and treating this population.     

Exposure-based models of human parsing: Evidence for the use of coarse-grained (nonlexical) statistical records

Several current models of human parsing maintain that initial structural decisions are influenced (or tuned) by the listener's or reader's prior contact with language. The precise workings of these models depend upon the grain, or level of detail, at which previous exposures to language are analyzed and used to influence parsing decisions. Some models are premised upon the use of fine-grained records (such as lexical cooccurrence statistics). Others use coarser measures. The present paper considers the viability of models based exclusively on the use of fine-grained lexical records. The results of several studies are reviewed and the evidence suggests that, if they are to account for the data, experience-based parsers must draw upon records or representations that capture statistical regularities beyond the lexical level. This poses problems for several parsing models in the literature.Aspects of this work were supported by ESRC grant No. R0023 4062 to Don Mitchell, by a Spanish Government grant DGICVT No. PB-92-0656-C04-02 to Fernando Cuetos, and by the Belgian National Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, of which Marc Brysbaert is a Research Associate. We are grateful to Chuck Clifton, Barbara Hemforth, Martin Pickering, Matt Traxler, and an anonymous reviewer-all of whom made helpful comments on an earlier draft of the paper.     

Construction and validation of the Gender Attitude Inventory,a structured inventory to assess multiple dimensions of gender attitudes

Three studies describe the development and initial validation of the Gender Attitude Inventory (GAI), a structured inventory that assesses attitudes toward the multiple objects that organize college students' thoughts and feelings about sex and gender. An intergroup relations perspective was used to specify the universe of gender-related targets and to construct a preliminary instrument. Factor analyses of the results of two sequential studies yielded a 109-item inventory with 14 content-specific attitude areas and three second-order factors. In Study 3 GAI scales were shown to have acceptable internal consistency and temporal stability, as well as convergent and discriminant validity. In terms of race/ethnicity, most respondents were white (ranging from 69% to 82% across the three studies).     

The postmodern counsellor: Some implications for practice,theory, research and professionalism

What is postmodernism? What are the implications of the death of God, science and the subject for counselling? Further questions include: To what extent does postmodernism, show that behavioural, humanistic, existential, and most psychoanalytic theories are delusional in that they would have the clients/patients believe that they are the core, the centre, the subject? What are the dangers of seeing ‘others’ practically, theoretically and when conducting research as either enhancing our narcissism and/or the counselling order? In terms of an ethical practice, can the postmodern counsellor stop counselling from reverting to a technique orientated mechanism of professional vested interests, and instead find a better way for us all to put the other first?     

An auto-adjusting shaping procedure

A variable interval (VI) schedule is described that automatically adjusts the programmed rates of reinforcement in accordance with the rates of responding of subjects during the two immediately preceding 30-sec time intervals. The schedule prescribes that as rate of responding decreases, programmed reinforcement rate increases, and that when rate of responding increases, reinforcement rate decreases. Thus, programmed reinforcement rate is adjusted continuously until some target value is reached. Ten rats were exposed to this procedure five times a day at 1-h intervals. The target, set at VI 120 sec, was reached by most subjects within 4 days of training. Subsequently, all subjects responded consistently during five daily 1-h sessions with VI 120 sec. This procedure speeds up the training of subjects on long VI schedules and substantially reduces the time and effort spent observing the subjects and adjusting the schedule parameter value during the early development of responding.     

Maternal employment and socioeconomic status as factors in daughters' career salience: Some substantive refinements

Research on children of working mothers has indicated that an important relationship exists between maternal employment and subsequent career salience of female offspring. Effects caused by socioeconomic factors have been noted in this relationship but have not been examined either systematically or over time. In the present study, socioeconomic differences were controlled for examination of longitudinal data on established critical factors in career salience of female college graduates. Multiple regression models were estimated for three points in time, covering an eight-year period, for subsamples of single and married women. Details about mother's employment history, respondent's recollection of the attitudes of family members concerning that employment, and indicators of daughter's sex-role ideology were independent variables. Maternal employment was significantly related to both single and married daughters' career salience but in opposite directions and accounted for only a minimum of the observed variance. Related maternal employment variables are associated with career salience of single women early in their postbaccalaureate careers and are not associated with the career salience of married women until somewhat later. Sex-role ideology was important for the career salience of married women but not for single women. The importance of a generalizable context for these findings is discussed.Support for this research was provided in part by a grant from the University of Wisconsin Graduate School and NIMH Grant Number MH-13112 to the Departments of Sociology and Psychiatry, Duke University. This research was based on a part of the author's doctoral dissertation.     

The Del Greco Assertive Behavior Inventory

Previous research in the area of assertiveness training has been examined with respect to the definitions of assertive, aggressive, and nonassertive behavior and the prominent assertion model. Logical inconsistencies have led to a refinement of the definitions of these behaviors, the inclusion of passive aggressive behavior, and the testing of a new two-dimensional model of assertion. The present study has developed a psychometric test to measure assertive, aggressive, nonassertive, and passive aggressive behavior in the college dormitory population. In addition, support was demonstrated for the validity of the two dimensional model of assertion. The instrument development was divided into four phases: item generation, item evaluation and revision, reliability testing and item analysis, and validity testing. Data analysis supported the two-dimensional model of assertion. In addition, an 86-item Del Greco Assertive Behavior Inventory designed for use with college dormitory students has weathered preliminary validity and reliability testing.     

Invariance of the weight parameter in information integration

The relative effect of each informational dimension in an information integration task is a joint function of its weight and the range of values over which it is varied. A method is developed for separating these two factors. Weights obtained by this method were compared across variations of stimulus range. Subjects rated the performance of students on the basis of midterm exam scores and final exam scores. For some subjects, the range of scores on the final exam was twice that on the midterm and the reverse was true for other subjects. An averaging model was shown to describe the results, and weights did not differ for different stimulus ranges. This was true for each of two instructional conditions: one in which a particular weighting strategy was prescribed and one in which there was no prescribed weighting. Students who were instructed to use a 2∶1 weighting were found to assign more than twice as much weight to the final as to the midterm.     

Revisiting Reichenbach’s logic

Synthese - In this paper we show that, when analyzed with contemporary tools in logic—such as Dunn-style semantics, Reichenbach’s three-valued logic exhibits many interesting features,...