Personality differences in high risk sports amateurs and instructors

This study investigated the personality differences of 21 amateurs and 20 instructors who participated in the high risk sports of skydiving, hang-gliding, paragliding, scuba diving, microlighting, and rock climbing, versus those who did not. 38 men and 28 women (M age=32.6 yr., SD= 10.0) were assessed using the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised, the General Health Questionnaire, the Generalised Self-efficacy Scale, and a Type A/B personality measure. Instructors and Amateurs scored significantly higher on Extroversion and lower on Neuroticism than Nonparticipants; however, they differed from each other on the General Health Questionnaire and Type A/B personality scores. Amateurs scored significantly higher on Psychoticism and Self-efficacy than Instructors and Nonparticipants. In conclusion, these test scores suggest that people who are attracted to high risk sports tend to be at the extroverted and emotionally stable end of the scale, with a tendency to exhibit Type A characteristics; however, Instructors' scores on Psychoticism and Self-efficacy are more akin to those of Nonparticipants.     

Diagnosis and treatment of depression during pregnancy

Pregnancy has frequently been described as a time of affective well-being. However, a growing literature suggests that women are neither "protected" against new-onset or recurrence of depression during this time. Diagnosis and effective treatment of depression during pregnancy requires a careful weighing of risk of treatment which may include psychotropic medications against the risks associated with failure to adequately manage affective distress and its potential impact of maternal and fetal well-being. Treatment options during pregnancy are reviewed in the context of developing the most appropriate risk/benefit decision for individual patients with past or current depression who either anticipate pregnancy or who become pregnant.     

Anxiety sensitivity interacts with marijuana use in the prediction of anxiety symptoms and panic-related catastrophic thinking among daily tobacco users

The present investigation evaluated whether anxiety sensitivity interacted with marijuana use in relation to the prediction of panic-relevant variables among young adult tobacco smokers (n=265). Approximately 73% of the sample was composed of current marijuana smokers, with 78.5% of this sub-sample using marijuana more than once per week. As expected, after covarying cigarettes per day, alcohol use, and negative affectivity, the interaction between marijuana use and anxiety sensitivity predicted anxiety symptoms and agoraphobic cognitions. Partially consistent with prediction, the interaction between frequency of marijuana use and anxiety sensitivity predicted only anxiety symptoms. These results are discussed in relation to better understanding the potential role of regular marijuana use and anxiety sensitivity for panic-relevant emotional vulnerability among regular tobacco smokers.     

The modern confessional: Anglo-American religious groups and the emergence of lay psychotherapy

This article reconceives of secularization as a gradual process of increasing interaction between the (social) scientific and spiritual realms by examining the influence of Christian ideas of group confession on lay psychotherapeutic groups in Britain, Canada, and the U.S. in the early twentieth century. This article focuses on three religious group leaders of the interwar period: Frank Buchman (1878-1961), Gerald Heard (1889-1971), and Henry Burton Sharman (1865-1953). Influenced by Natural Theology and the holiness movement, they placed sin and its redemption within the world, reconceiving it as psychological individualism and its redemption as self-sacrifice to the group. This reconception endorsed the moral power of groups and influenced Alcoholics Anonymous and various groups within the Human Potential Movement.     

A case study of community-based participatory research ethics: The healthy public housing initiative

We conducted and analyzed qualitative interviews with 12 persons working on the Healthy Public Housing Initiative in Boston, Massachusetts in 2001. Our goal was to generate ideas and themes related to the ethics of the community-based participatory research in which they were engaged. Specifically, we wanted to see if we found themes that differed from conventional research that is based on an individualistic ethics. There were clearly distinct ethical issues raised with respect to projects and individuals who engage in community-based collaborations. The differences that arose from the interviews were seeking equality between the partners, the need for the community partner to defend the community, dealing with unflattering data, meeting community expectations and producing tangible benefits to the community. Alison Kole is an MD/MPH candidate, Tufts University School of Medicine.     

Crosstalk between on-line and off-line processing of visual features

Three dual-task experiments were conducted to investigate the relation between immediate, on-line judgments about visual features and delayed, off-line judgments. One hypothesis (selective interference) predicted that dual-task performance would be challenged specifically within a visual dimension, as both tasks compete for the same resources. Another hypothesis (cost of switching) made the opposite prediction. In Experiment 1, participants performed either color or shape discriminations in the on-line and off-line visual tasks, with systematic variation of feature similarity between the on-line and off-line features. In Experiment 2, participants performed either color or shape discriminations in the off-line task and color discriminations in the on-line task, with no overlap between the on-line and off-line features. In Experiment 3, participants performed color discriminations in both the on-line and off-line tasks, with partially overlapping stimulus sets. Altogether, the data from the three experiments provided evidence in favor of the hypothesis of cost of switching. Stimulus–stimulus compatibility effects between features in the off-line task and those in the on-line task further underscored the perceptual nature of the crosstalk.     

Do We Know Which Interventions are Effective for Disruptive and Delinquent Girls?

Disruptive and delinquent girls are not well served by the mental health and juvenile justice systems. Interventions that have been developed for the behavior problems of boys are frequently applied to girls despite growing evidence for a female-specific phenotype, developmental course, and set of risk factors from middle childhood onwards. The current review demonstrates that evidence of the effectiveness of treatments for girls with disruptive and delinquent behaviors is extremely limited, with relatively few studies including sufficient numbers of females or reporting on treatment effects by gender. However, a small body of evidence suggests that interventions specifically designed to address female behavior problems or risk factors can be effective in ameliorating disruptive and delinquent behaviors in both pre-adolescence and adolescence. Multi-modal interventions that target interacting domains of risk also show promise. Methodological issues are discussed and recommendations are made for the development and evaluation of future interventions to prevent and reduce girls’ disruptive and delinquent behavior.     

The Schedule for Nonadaptive and Adaptive Personality (SNAP): temporal stability and predictive validity of the diagnostic scales

The authors investigated the test-retest reliability and predictive validity of the diagnostic scales from the Schedule for Nonadaptive and Adaptive Personality (SNAP). Participants were identified from a sample of 240 undergraduates who completed the SNAP and the Social Adjustment Scale (SAS-SR) at Time 1. The authors selected 50 people who met criteria for a personality disorder (PD) based on the SNAP and 50 who did not qualify for a diagnosis. Eighty-three of these people completed the SNAP and the SAS-SR for a second time approximately 9 months after initial screening. SNAP PD scales were relatively stable over time. Test-retest correlation coefficients ranged from .58 to .81. Scores on diagnostic scales for paranoid, schizoid, and schizotypal PD were inversely related to self-reported levels of adjustment for social roles concerned with work as a student, leisure activities, and relationships with family. The results provide some evidence for the validity of the SNAP     

The reliability of the DRM paradigm as a measure of individual differences in false memories

Despite considerable research on the Deese—Roediger-McDermott (DRM) false memory paradigm, little attention has been paid to the reliability of the paradigm as a measure of individual differences. In the present research, we examined the reliability of the DRM paradigm in a 2-week test-retest design. This analysis showed that the false memories produced in the paradigm were quite stable across the 2-week period and that this stability had both global (cross-list) and list-specific components. In contrast, correct memories showed only global stability across the testing period.