Differential efficacy of a cognitive-behavioral intervention versus pharmacological treatment in the management of fibromyalgic syndrome

Given that studies about the differential efficacy of existing treatments in fibromyalgia syndrome are scarce, the aim of this study was to compare the differential efficacy of a cognitive-behavioral and a pharmacological therapy on fibromyalgia. Using a randomized controlled clinical trial, 28 fibromyalgic patients were assigned to one of following experimental conditions: (a) pharmacological treatment (i.e., cyclobenzaprine), (b) cognitive-behavioral intervention (i.e., stress inoculation training), (c) combined pharmacological and cognitive-behavioral treatment and (d) no treatment. The results show the superiority of cognitive-behavioral intervention to reduce the severity of fibromyalgia both at the end of the treatment and at follow-up. We conclude that cognitive-behavioral interventions must be considered a primary treatment of fibromyalgia syndrome.     

Asian Americans and racism: when bad things happen to "model minorities."

Due to the limited psychological research on Asian Americans' experiences with racism, in the current study the authors examined the relationships between racial socialization, racial identity, and perceptions of racism, with a college-aged sample (N = 254) consisting primarily of Chinese Americans and Filipino Americans. With the use of multiple regression analyses, the results indicated that racial socialization, particularly discussions about race and racism, was positively related to one's perceptions of racism. Moreover, the study also showed that the relationship between racial socialization and perceptions of racism was partially mediated by racial identity schemas. To understand how Asian Americans regard racism, it is useful to have an understanding of racial identity theory and the manner in which Asian Americans are socialized to perceive racism.     

Lying and cheating: fraudulent excuse making, cheating, and plagiarism

Undergraduates reported their use of fraudulent excuses; 72% of the student participants claimed to have used a fraudulent excuse in college at least once. This activity was correlated with an independently obtained self-report measure of cheating (r = .38) and plagiarism (r = .27). Grade point average was negatively correlated with all 3 measures but did not reach statistical significance with the measure of plagiarism.     

Do multielement visual tracking and visual search draw continuously on the same visual attention resources?

Multielement visual tracking and visual search are 2 tasks that are held to require visual-spatial attention. The authors used the attentional operating characteristic (AOC) method to determine whether both tasks draw continuously on the same attentional resource (i.e., whether the 2 tasks are mutually exclusive). The authors found that observers can search and track within the same trial significantly better than would be predicted if the 2 tasks were mutually exclusive. In fact, the AOC for tracking and search is similar to that for tracking and auditory monitoring. The results of additional experiments support an attention-switching account for this high level of dual-task performance in which a single attentional resource is efficiently switched between the tracking and search. The results provide important constraints for architectures of visual selective attention and the mechanisms of multielement tracking.     

Aggressive adolescents benefit from massage therapy

Seventeen aggressive adolescents were randomly assigned to a massage therapy group or a relaxation therapy group to receive 20-minute therapy sessions, twice a week for five weeks. The massaged adolescents had lower anxiety after the first and last sessions. By the end of the study, they also reported feeling less hostile and they were perceived by their parents as being less aggressive. Significant differences were not found for the adolescents who were assigned to the relaxation group.     

Racial identity and reflected appraisals as influences on Asian Americans' racial adjustment

J. E. Helms's (1990) racial identity psychodiagnostic model was used to examine the contribution of racial identity schemas and reflected appraisals to the development of healthy racial adjustment of Asian American university students (N = 188). Racial adjustment was operationally defined as collective self-esteem and awareness of anti-Asian racism. Multiple regression analyses suggested that racial identity schemas and reflected appraisals were significantly predictive of Asian Americans' racial adjustment. Implications for counseling and future research are discussed.     

Assessment of tobacco craving by means of the affective image visualization paradigm

Smoking cues that increase craving are subjectively described by smokers as pleasant rather than unpleasant. However, it remains controversial whether the motivational nature of these smoking cues is consistent with an appetitive or aversion-relief model of tobacco craving. In the two studies presented here, the Bioinformational model of emotion proposed by Lang was used to address this issue. In study I, 40 smokers (10 males) assessed a set of tobacco-related pictures and a subset of standard pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant pictures in order to examine how craving relates to the three general dimensions of emotion: valence, arousal, and dominance. Results showed that the tobacco-related images were all assessed as appetitive, and craving was correlated positively with valence (r = .863, p < .0001) and arousal (r = .923, p < .0001) and negatively with dominance (r = −.504, p < .002). In study II, 24 female abstinent smokers were examined using Lang’s startle modulation paradigm in order to assess whether tobacco-related pictures, compared to standard pleasant and unpleasant ones, inhibited the startle response, consistent with an appetitive model of tobacco craving. Contrary to expectations, the startle response during visualization of tobacco-related pictures was more similar in magnitude to the response to unpleasant than to pleasant images, a finding inconsistent with an appetitive model of tobacco craving.     

When Contact Correlates with Prejudice: Adolescents’ Romantic Relationship Experience Predicts Greater Benevolent Sexism in Boys and Hostile Sexism in Girls

The present research examines how romantic relationship experience and age predict ambivalent sexism in adolescents. We measured sexist beliefs and romantic relationship experience in a large sample of Spanish adolescents (N?=?1447), ranging from 12 to 19 years of age. Consistent with prior research, age predicted less sexist beliefs. Controlling for the effects of age, relationship experience predicted increased hostile sexism in girls and increased benevolent sexism in boys. Additionally, younger boys (12–14 years) with greater relationship experience tended to endorse hostile sexism more strongly. The general decline in sexism over the course of adolescence masks a contrasting effect of romantic experience, which suggests that heterosexual adolescents’ desire to attract romantic partners may foster, rather than reduce, sexism.     

Contingency is used to prepare for outcomes: Implications for a functional analysis of learning

It is generally assumed that the function of contingency learning is to predict the occurrence of important events in order to prepare for them. This assumption, however, has scarcely been tested. Moreover, the little evidence that is available suggests just the opposite result. People do not use contingency to prepare for outcomes, nor to predict their occurrence, although they do use it to infer the causal and predictive value of cues. By using both judgmental and behavioral data, we designed the present experiments as a further test for this assumption. The results show that—at least under certain conditions—people do use contingency to prepare for outcomes, even though they would still not use it to predict their occurrence. The functional and adaptive aspects of these results are discussed in the present article.     

How believing in affirmative action quotas affects White women’s self-image

Believing that affirmative action entails quotas may both help and hurt White women’s self-image - contingent on whether they perceive themselves as beneficiaries of affirmative action. Consistent with research on the affirmative action “stigma of incompetence” (Heilman, Block, & Lucas, 1992), White women who think of themselves as affirmative action beneficiaries may report a more negative self-image the more they believe that affirmative action entails quota procedures. Conversely, White women who do not think of themselves as beneficiaries of affirmative action may report a more positive self-image as a function of quota beliefs, consistent with research suggesting that non-beneficiaries can derive self-image benefits from maintaining the belief that affirmative action entails quotas (Unzueta, Lowery, & Knowles, 2008). Two studies provide evidence for the benefits of quota beliefs on White women’s self-image, but no support for the stigma of incompetence perspective. The lack of support for the stigma of incompetence perspective suggests that self-stigmatization may occur only under operationalizations of affirmative action that explicitly inform beneficiaries that they were selected on the basis of demographics and not merit. Absent such an operationalization, the affirmative action self-stigma may not emerge.