The negative event scale: measuring frequency and intensity of adult hassles

This study examined the structure, concurrent validity, and reliability of a hassle measure for middle-aged adults in both event frequency and intensity recordings. The measure included a range of interpersonal day-to-day events and re-examined aspects of the primary appraisal confounding debate between Lazarus and colleagues (Lazarus, Delongis, Folkman, & Gruen, 1985) and Dohrenwend and Shrout (1985). Of the 373 participants, 73% were female, 72% were in paid work, 69% were in permanent relationships and 62% had children. Principal component analyses of separate hassle frequency and intensity scores highlighted components consistent with previous research. There were seven interpersonal and four non-interpersonal subscales associated with negative events with family and friends, work, health, money, and household. The subscales had very good reliability and concurrent validity and there were generally strong correlations (i.e. up .84) between frequency and intensity scores for each subscale. Given some important sampling limitations (e.g. female overrepresentation) the findings show a psychometrically sound hassle scale for adults.     

Identifying and changing the normative beliefs about aggression which lead young Muslim adults to join extremist anti‐Semitic groups in Pakistan

Two studies investigated the role of beliefs about the acceptability of aggression (“normative beliefs”) against Jews in determining who would join an extremist group. In Study 1, students in a university in Pakistan (N=144) completed self‐report attitude measures, and were subsequently approached by a confederate who asked whether they wanted to join an extremist anti‐Semitic organization. Normative beliefs about aggression against Jews were very strong predictors of whether participants agreed to join. In Study 2, participants (N=92) were experimentally assigned to either a brief educational intervention, designed to improve inter‐group relations, or to a control group. They also filled in self‐report attitude measures pre and post intervention. Participants in the intervention group were much less likely to agree to join the extremist group, and this effect of the intervention on joining was mediated by changes in normative beliefs about aggression against Jews. The results have implications for theories of inter‐group aggression and interventions to prevent people from being recruited into extremist groups. Aggr. Behav. 35:514–519, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Neurobiological Markers of Illness Onset in Psychosis and Schizophrenia: The Search for a Moving Target

In this review, we describe neuropsychological and brain imaging findings in the early stages of psychosis and schizophrenia. We focus on recent clinical high-risk studies and consider whether the evidence supports these as ‘endophenotypes’ of a vulnerability to the illness or as ‘biomarkers’ of illness onset and transition. The findings suggest that there are a number of processes at psychosis onset that may represent biomarkers of incipient illness. These neurobiological indices particularly implicate the integrity of frontal and temporal cortices, which may or may not be related to the genetics of psychosis (i.e. potential ‘endophenotypes’). However, these brain regions are dynamically changing during normal maturation, meaning that any putative neurobiological markers identified at the earliest stages of illness may be relatively unstable. We suggest that, while such measures may be readily identified as potential neurobiological markers of established illness, they are inconsistent at (or around) the time of illness onset when assessed cross-sectionally. Instead, identification of more valid risk markers may require longitudinal assessment to ascertain normal or abnormal trajectories of neurodevelopment. Accordingly, we assert that the current conceptualisations of potential biomarkers and/or ‘endophenotypes’ for schizophrenia may need to be reconsidered in the context of normal and abnormal brain maturational processes at the time of onset of psychotic disorders.     

Do Colours Look Like Dispositions? Reply to Langsam and Others

Dispositional theories of colour have been attacked by McGinn and others on the ground that 'Colours do not look like dispositions'. Langsam has argued that on the contrary they do, in 'Why Colours Do Look Like Dispositions', The Philosophical Quarterly , 50 (2000), pp. 68–75. I make three claims. First, neither side has made its case. Secondly, it is true, at least on one interpretation, that colours do not look like dispositions. Thirdly, this does not show that dispositionalism about colours is false.     

Some everyday life consequences of disability and bereavement for older adults

The study analyzed daily event differences between groups experiencing the major stressors of conjugal bereavement and physical disability, and analyzed the association of everyday events with self-reports of mental health for different groups across a 3-month time span. Monthly interviews were conducted with 61 recently conjugally bereaved, 62 recently physically disabled, and 123 matched-comparison older adults between the ages of 60 and 80. The purpose of these interviews was to obtain a comprehensive assessment of the monthly frequencies of everyday life events. Self-reports of mental health were obtained from paper-and-pencil measures filled out after each interview. Causal models were used to analyze the best-fitting structure of event/mental health relationships for the first 3 monthly interviews. Undesirable events showed uniformly adverse effects on mental health. Desirable events benefited the psychological well-being of the disabled the most and had no positive effects on the mental health of the bereaved. The bereaved also evidenced less stability over time than other groups in the frequency of small undesirable events.     

Generality of a strength model for three conditions of repeated recall

A Markovian model of repeated recall is presented that is based on four memory processes: (a) a presentation increment that strengthens the memory trace of a word when the word is shown to a subject, (b) a recall increment that strengthens the trace when the subject successfully recalls the word, (c) a cueing decrement that weakens the trace as contextual cues for retrieving a word change over successive trials of attempted recall, and (d) a sampling rule that translates the strength of a memory trace into a probability of recall. Mathematically, the model predicts the relative frequencies of the recall patterns that are defined by sequences of recalls and forgets for individual words over trials. According to the model, the recallability of a word depends on its state, which is a function of (a) whether the word has been recalled for the first time, and if so, then (b) how many consecutive forgets of the word immediately precede the current trial, (c) how many successful recalls of the word have accumulated, and (d) how many previous trials of attempted recall have elapsed. Paradigms that were well described by the model were (a) no reminding, in which words were presented once and then recalled repeatedly without additional presentations; (b) restricted reminding, in which words were presented before each trial of attempted recall up to their first successful recall but not thereafter; and (c) complete reminding, in which all words were presented befor each attempted recall, whether previously recalled or not. Differences in recall among these conditions were explained in terms of differences in values of the model's parameters.