Coping with interpersonal stress: role of big five traits

Seventy-one couples living in a stepfamily context reported interpersonal family stressors and related coping strategies daily for 1 week in a daily process study. The role of personality and of the stressful context in each of the spouse's coping was examined. Personality was assessed via the Five-Factor Model (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness). Two types of stressors emerged as primary dimensions of stepfamily stress: marital conflict and child misbehavior. These were treated as contextual factors in multilevel modeling analyses examining the independent and interactive effects of personality and situation on coping. Nine subscales of coping were examined based on three main functions of coping: problem-, emotion- and relationship-focused. Both the situational context and the five dimensions of personality examined were significantly and independently related to coping-strategy use. Moreover, there were significant personality-by-context interactions. The present study highlights the importance of considering personality in context when examining coping behaviors.     

Stress, Rewards, and Change in the Centrality of Women’s Family and Work Roles: Mastery as a Mediator

Although research suggests that stress and rewards experienced in a social role are associated with changes in the centrality (or personal importance) of that role over time, little attention has been given to the mechanisms that account for this relationship. This study was conducted to examine change in role mastery as a mediator in the relationship between changes in role experiences (stress and rewards) and changes in centrality among 195 women who simultaneously occupied the roles of parent care provider, mother, wife, and employee. Regression analyses indicated that increases in parent care, mother, and employee stress eroded mastery in those roles. In addition, increases in rewards were associated with a bolstered sense of mastery in each of the four roles. Mastery was found to be a mediating mechanism in the relationship between stress/rewards and centrality in one of the four roles examined, the employee role. However, changes in womens perceptions of mastery were unrelated to the extent to which women changed the importance of their three family roles. These findings extend prior research by demonstrating that mastery is a mechanism through which stress and rewards are associated with centrality in the employee role.     

The Sceptic,The Outsider,and Other Minds

Topoi - The usual way with scepticism is to formulate a problem in connection with the external world and then apply this to other minds. Drawing on work by Stanley Cavell and Richard Moran, I...     

The logic of questions as a theory of erotetic arguments

This paper argues for the idea that the logic of questions should focus its attention on the analysis of arguments in which questions play the role of conclusions. The relevant concepts of validity are discussed and the concept of the logic of questions of a semantically interpreted formalized language is introduced.This paper was presented at the symposium Erotetic Logic. A Dialogue organized by the Center for the Philosophy and History of Science of Boston University (February, 1994) and prepared during my stay at the Department of Philosophy, University of California, Riverside as a Fulbright grantee.I would like to thank Professors David Harrah and Sylvain Bromberger for valuable suggestions and comments.     

A new scale for use in non-clinical research into disinhibitive eating

The DIS, a 17-item questionnaire, was developed for subject selection in non-clinical research into disinhibitive eating. The DIS was designed to possess a tight and clear subscale structure, lessened impact of concern for dieting and explicit reference to self-esteem. Four subscales tapped the following themes: failed restriction, binge eating, weight fluctuations and self-esteem. DIS and the often used Restraint Scale (RS) were tested psychometrically among 269 female students from the Netherlands. Cronbach alpha was 0.88 for the DIS and 0.84 for the RS; correlation between the scales was 0.78. Factor analysis of the RS yielded the traditional two factors concern for dieting—weight fluctuations, whereas the DIS had a somewhat clearer four factors structure in accordance with its a priori subscales. On both the DIS and RS, high scorers were often currently dieting, and had higher Body Mass Index than low scorers. As to selection, DIS and RS differed in that partly different groups of individuals were selected when applying equally stringent cut-off scores. It was concluded that some of the psychometric and conceptual problems with the RS are alleviated by the DIS and that a next step is to behaviourally validate the DIS in disinhibition research.     

Formal reasoning in late adulthood: The role of semantic content and metacognitive strategy

Two experiments explored the availability of deductive or formal reasoning in late adulthood. In Experiment 1, fifty young (M=19.0 years) and 50 elderly adults (M=81.0 years) were assessed using adaptations of Wason's selection task and rated task content for familiarity, affect, and agreement. In Experiment 2, 100 young (M=21.0 years) and 100 elderly adults (M=81.0 years) were similarly assessed, with half of the subjects in each age group receiving a metacognitive strategy to facilitate reasoning. Results from Experiment 1 indicated equivalent reasoning among the groups on problems employed in earlier developmental research. In contrast, problems constructed to entail affect resulted in poorer performance by older adults. In Experiment 2, both young and older adults who used the metacognitive strategy reasoned equally acrossall problems. In both experiments, familiarity and agreement did not play a role in deductive reasoning performance, but affect seemed to be an interfering factor. Results are discussed in terms of competence-procedure and stability-decrement models of adult cognitive development.     

CATECHOLAMINE EXCRETION, PERFORMANCE, AND SUBJECTIVE STRESS

Psycho-endocrine relations were explored in 52 students exposed to moderately stressful psychological tests demanding selective attention. Subjects with high excretion rates of adrenaline performed better during the entire stress session than did subjects with low adrenaline excretion. The level of subjective stress increased consistently throughout the session in subjects with low excretion rates of adrenaline, while it remained relatively constant in subjects with high adrenaline excretion. No consistent relationship could be demonstrated between noradrenaline excretion and the psychological variables. Possible effects on the catecholamine-excretion patterns of factors such as severity and duration of the stress are discussed.     

Formulation in groups,or understanding what is going on

This article emphasizes the development of formulations as a framework from which leaders can intervene effectively in assisting groups to work toward their stated goals. The concept of formulation, used as a teaching tool to help students and supervisees conceptualize group issues, is presented, as is a schema whose purpose is to teach steps leading to clear formulations. The schema simplifies, for the purposes of teaching and supervision, the complex process used by experienced group therapists as a basis for interventions. The schema emphasizes perception, affect, cognition, validation, intervention, and evaluation. Here-and-now processes, conscious and unconscious mechanisms, and group affect also are stressed.     

Early rejected status and later social adjustment: A 3-year follow-up

Sociometric measures and rates of social interaction were obtained from 186 kindergarten children. Subjects were classified into popular, rejected, and average status groups on the basis of sociometric data. Teachers' ratings on the Bristol Social Adjustment Guides were obtained when the children were in grade 2 and again in grade 3. Analyses of variance showed rejected children to be significantly more acting-out than popular or average children by grade 3. Rejected children were rated as less physically attractive, doing less well in reading and in arithmetic. Negative peer nomination in kindergarten was more predictive of later acting-out in grades 2 and 3 than rate of interaction.Research was funded by Alberta Mental Health Advisory Council, and Alberta Advisory Committee for Educational Studies. I wish to thank Steven Asher for his helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.