Dependency,impulsivity, and self-harm: traits hypothesized to underlie the association between cluster B personality and substance use disorders

Cluster B personality disorders (PDs) (i.e., antisocial, borderline, histrionic, and narcissistic) typically show a high degree of comorbidity with substance use disorders (SUDs). Previous research suggests that the broad-based personality domains of Disinhibition and Negative Temperament/Neuroticism may be common factors to both types of disorders. Using a two-phase process (i.e., screening and follow-up), this study examined three lower-order personality traits (i.e., dependency, impulsivity, and self-harm) that fall within the Disinhibition and Neuroticism domains. The study evaluated the hypotheses that these traits (a) are related both to cluster B PDs and to SUDs; and (b) underlie the association between the two types of disorders. Results indicate that impulsivity and self-harm play a significant role in cluster B PDs and SUDs, as well as in their association with each other. However, dependency was not associated with either type of disorder. These results indicate that sets of individual traits can be of significant utility in understanding the comorbidity between PDs and SUDs.     

Subtypes of Victims and Aggressors in Children's Peer Groups

This study reports an investigation of the behavioral profiles and psychosocial adjustment of subgroups of victims and aggressors in elementary school peer groups. Peer nomination scores for aggression and victimization were used to classify 354 inner-city children (mean age of 10.3 years) into one of four subgroups: aggressive victims, nonaggressive victims, nonvictimized aggressors, and normative contrasts. Subgroup comparisons were then conducted using multi-informant assessment of social behavior, social acceptance-rejection, behavioral regulation, academic functioning, and emotional distress. Children in each of the victim-aggressor subgroups were characterized by a degree of social and behavioral maladjustment. However, impairments in behavioral and emotional regulation were most evident for the aggressive victim subgroup. Aggressive victims were also characterized by academic failure, peer rejection, and emotional distress. The results of this investigation highlight the distinctive nature of the aggressive victim subgroup.     

Worries and values

Relations of individuals' value priorities to their worries are investigated in seven samples from four cultural groups (N = 1,441). A social-cognitive analysis suggests that value priorities influence worries by increasing attention to and perception of threats to valued goals. On this basis, we generate hypotheses relating two types of worries, micro (about self and its extensions) and macro (about society and world), to 10 types of values. As predicted, giving priority to self-transcendence values (universalism and benevolence) is associated with low micro and high macro worry, whereas giving priority to self-enhancement values (power, hedonism, and--to a lesser degree--achievement) is associated with high micro and low macro worry. Meaningful associations are also found for other values. Values account for substantially more variance in macro than in micro worries.     

Partner Violence, Social Support, and Distress Among Inner-City African American Women

This study examined the role of social support in the partner violence–psychological distress relation in a sample of African American women seeking medical care at a large, urban hospital (n = 138). Results from bivariate correlational analyses revealed that partner violence was related to lower perceived social support and greater psychological distress, and lower social support was related to more distress. Furthermore, findings based on path analysis indicated that low levels of social support helped account for battered women's increased distress. Findings point to the need for service providers to screen for partner violence in nontraditional sites, such as hospital emergency rooms, and to address the role of social support resources in preventive interventions with African American battered women.     

Quantitative analysis of aphasic sentence production: further development and new data

The narrative production of patients with Broca's aphasia and age-and education-matched control subjects was analyzed using the Quantitative Production Analysis (Saffran et al., 1989), a procedure designed to provide measures of morphological and structural characteristics of aphasic production. In addition to providing data for a larger number of subjects than in the original study, we provide data on interrater and test-retest reliability. The data were also submitted to factor and cluster analyses. Two factors characterized the data and the cluster analysis yielded four sets of patients who performed differently on these factors. In particular, there is evidence that agrammatic patients can differ in their production of free and bound grammatical morphemes, substantiating earlier claims in the literature.     

The impersistence of false memory persistence

When subjects study lists of thematically related words they sometimes falsely recognise non-presented words related to the theme. The gist extraction account of these findings provided by fuzzy trace theory suggests that false recognition should decline substantially more slowly than true recognition across a delay. In two experiments we demonstrated that corrected recognition of targets and critical lures can decrease by equivalent amounts across a 48-hour delay. However the results for uncorrected recognition were mixed. In Experiment 1 we found evidence that uncorrected recognition of targets declined more rapidly than uncorrected recognition of critical lures. In Experiment 2, we found evidence that uncorrected recognition of targets and critical lures declined at equivalent rates. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for fuzzy trace and source monitoring accounts of false memories.     

Generalizability of carry-over effects in the emotional Stroop task

The emotional Stroop task has been the most widely used task to examine attentional bias to emotionally salient stimuli. In one format of this task, words are presented to participants in a mixed randomized or quasi-randomized sequence. Using a mixed smoking Stroop task, we have previously demonstrated that smokers are slower to respond to words which follow smoking-related words than words which follow neutral words. Here we show that this carry-over effect is present in heroin addicts-but not control subjects-in a heroin Stroop task, and in normal subjects in a stress Stroop task. Thus, the effect generalizes to other populations. In addition, an examination of the studies that have collected data from both mixed and blocked formats provides converging evidence for the presence of carry-over effects. We discuss the implications of the carry-over effect for research using the emotional Stroop task.     

Timing variability in circle drawing and tapping: probing the relationship between event and emergent timing

R. Ivry, R. M. Spencer, H. N. Zelaznik, and J. Diedrichsen (2002) have proposed a distinction between timed movements in which a temporal representation is part of the task goal (event timing) and those in which timing properties are emergent. The issue addressed in the present experiment was how timing in conditions conducive to emergent timing becomes established. According to what the authors term the transformation hypothesis, timing initially requires an event-based representation when the temporal goal is defined externally (e.g., by a metronome), but over the first few movement cycles, control processes become established that allow timing to become emergent. Different groups of participants (N = 84) executed either 1 timed interval, 4 timed intervals, or 2 timed intervals separated by a pause. They produced the intervals by either circle drawing, a task associated with emergent timing, or tapping, a task associated with event timing. Analyses of movement variability suggested that similar timing processes were used in the 2 tasks only during the 1st interval. Those results are consistent with the transformation hypothesis and lead to the inference that the transition from event-based control to emergent timing can occur rapidly during continuous movements.