The relationship between anxiety sensitivity and latent symptoms of emotional problems: A structural equation modeling approach

A large body of research suggests that common and specific psychopathology dimensions underlie the symptoms that occur within mood and anxiety disorders. As of yet, it is unclear precisely how the facets of Anxiety Sensitivity (AS), or fear of the symptoms of fear and anxiety, relate to these latent factors. Using data from 606 adolescents participating in the baseline phase of a longitudinal study on risk factors for emotional disorders, we modeled the facets of AS as measured by the Anxiety Sensitivity Index-Expanded Form (ASI-X) and related these facets to a hierarchical model of latent symptoms of psychological distress. Results suggest that one facet of AS is associated with a broad General Distress factor underlying symptoms of most emotional disorders while others relate to intermediate-level and conceptually-meaningful narrow factors representing aspects of psychological distress specific to particular emotional disorders.     

Whatever does not kill us: cumulative lifetime adversity, vulnerability, and resilience

Exposure to adverse life events typically predicts subsequent negative effects on mental health and well-being, such that more adversity predicts worse outcomes. However, adverse experiences may also foster subsequent resilience, with resulting advantages for mental health and well-being. In a multiyear longitudinal study of a national sample, people with a history of some lifetime adversity reported better mental health and well-being outcomes than not only people with a high history of adversity but also than people with no history of adversity. Specifically, U-shaped quadratic relationships indicated that a history of some but nonzero lifetime adversity predicted relatively lower global distress, lower self-rated functional impairment, fewer posttraumatic stress symptoms, and higher life satisfaction over time. Furthermore, people with some prior lifetime adversity were the least affected by recent adverse events. These results suggest that, in moderation, whatever does not kill us may indeed make us stronger.     

Remembering the past and imagining the future: A role for nonvisual imagery in the everyday cognition of blind and sighted people

Past research has associated depression with memory biases pertaining to the frequency, duration, and specificity of past events. Associations have been proposed between both negative and positive memory biases and depression symptoms. However, research has not examined the occurrence of actual events over time in the study of memory bias. To address these limitations and investigate whether a negative or positive memory bias is associated with symptoms of depression, we collected weekly data on specific types of life events over a 4-year period from a sample of college students, and asked students to recall event frequency at the end of that period. Exaggerated recall of frequency for positive events but not other types of events was associated with depression symptoms, using both continuous and categorical measures. Moderator analyses indicated that these effects were evidenced primarily for memories involving the self and among individuals low in trait self-enhancement. The current study indicates that positive memory-frequency bias is an important type of memory bias associated with symptoms of depression. Results support the idea that the link between memory bias for positive event frequency and depressed mood arises out of a current-self vs past-self comparison.     

Exposure to Unethical Career Events: Effects on Decision Making,Climate, and Socialization

An implicit goal of many interventions intended to enhance integrity is to minimize peoples' exposure to unethical events. The intent of the present effort was to examine if exposure to unethical practices in the course of one's work is related to ethical decision making. Accordingly, 248 doctoral students in the biological, health, and social sciences were asked to complete a field appropriate measure of ethical decision making. In addition, they were asked to complete measures examining the perceived acceptability of unethical events and a measure examining perceptions of ethical climate. When these criterion measures were correlated with a measure examining the frequency with which they had been exposed to unethical events in their day-to-day work, it was found that event exposure was strongly related to ethical decision making but less strongly related to climate perceptions and perceptions of event acceptability. However, these relationships were moderated by level of experience. The implications of these findings for practices intended to improve ethics are discussed.     

Environmental Influences on Ethical Decision Making: Climate and Environmental Predictors of Research Integrity

It is commonly held that early career experiences influence ethical behavior. One way early career experiences might operate is to influence the decisions people make when presented with problems that raise ethical concerns. To test this proposition, 102 first-year doctoral students were asked to complete a series of measures examining ethical decision making along with a series of measures examining environmental experiences and climate perceptions. Factoring of the environmental measure yielded five dimensions: professional leadership, poor coping, lack of rewards, limited competitive pressure, and poor career direction. Factoring of the climate inventory yielded four dimensions: equity, interpersonal conflict, occupational engagement, and work commitment. When these dimensions were used to predict performance on the ethical decision-making task, it was found that the environmental dimensions were better predictors than the climate dimensions. The implications of these findings for research on ethical conduct are discussed.     

A Sensemaking Approach to Ethics Training for Scientists: Preliminary Evidence of Training Effectiveness

In recent years, we have seen a new concern with ethics training for research and development professionals. Although ethics training has become more common, the effectiveness of the training being provided is open to question. In the present effort, a new ethics training course was developed that stresses the importance of the strategies people apply to make sense of ethical problems. The effectiveness of this training was assessed in a sample of 59 doctoral students working in the biological and social sciences using a pre–post design with follow-up and a series of ethical decision-making measures serving as the outcome variable. Results showed not only that this training led to sizable gains in ethical decision making but also that these gains were maintained over time. The implications of these findings for ethics training in the sciences are discussed.     

The Influence of Temporal Orientation and Affective Frame on Use of Ethical Decision-Making Strategies

This study examined the role of temporal orientation and affective frame in the execution of ethical decision-making strategies. In reflecting on a past experience or imagining a future experience, participants thought about experiences that they considered either positive or negative. The participants recorded their thinking about that experience by responding to several questions, and their responses were content-analyzed for the use of ethical decision-making strategies. The findings indicated that a future temporal orientation was associated with greater strategy use. Likewise, a positive affective frame was associated with greater strategy use. Future orientation may permit better strategy execution than a past orientation because it facilitates more objective, balanced contemplation of the reflected-upon situation and minimizes potential self-threat associated with past behavior. A positive affective frame likely improves strategy execution because it facilitates active analysis of the experience. Future directions and implications of these findings are discussed.     

Evaluations of White American versus Black American discrimination claimants' political views and prejudicial attitudes

Although White Americans experience less frequent and less severe forms of discrimination than ethnic minorities (Schmitt & Branscombe, 2002), White Americans may actually be more likely to claim discrimination compared to ethnic minorities (Goldman, 2001). The present research investigated evaluations of White and Black American discrimination claimants' political views and prejudicial attitudes. Across two studies, a White American target was evaluated as more politically conservative when claiming discrimination compared to a control condition. In contrast, a Black American target was evaluated as more politically liberal when claiming discrimination compared to a control condition. Both the White and Black American target were evaluated as more prejudiced against the outgroup when claiming discrimination; however the increase in prejudice evaluations was more pronounced for the White American target. The present research suggests that lay people make distinct inferences about the political views and prejudicial attitudes of White versus Black American discrimination claimants.     

The Semantics of Secrecy: Young Children's Classification of Secret Content

The authors explored whether young children can distinguish potential secrets from nonsecrets by their content, as can older children, adolescents, and adults. Ninety children, 4, 5, and 6 years old, rated the secrecy of items from an adult-validated list of personal information about an age- and gender-appropriate puppet. Two factors of the children's data corresponded to the adult categories of nonsecrets and secrets, and a third factor corresponded to surprises. All ages rated surprises as significantly more secret than nonsecret items; however, the surprise items contained linguistic cues to secrecy. A tendency to rate nonsecrets as secret decreased with age, but only the 6-year-olds rated secrets other than surprises as significantly more secret than nonsecrets. Thus, children acquire the implicit rules defining secret content from a somewhat later age than that reported for the cognitive or behavioral capacities for secrecy.