Coping in context: the role of stress, social support, and personality in coping

Personality and social relationships play an important role in almost every aspect of stress and coping. Daily process methods are particularly useful in elucidating how these factors might influence both responses to and outcomes of stress. Our work has linked both dimensions of personality, particularly the Big Five, and aspects of social relationships, particularly social support, to the likelihood of engaging in certain coping strategies and the effectiveness or outcomes of these coping strategies. In addition, we have found the effect of personality on coping and stress outcomes to vary by the situational context in which stress occurs. We review findings from our recent daily process studies of stress, coping, and social support. Further, we discuss the costs and benefits of the daily process methodology for addressing these questions, highlighting the clinical utility of findings gleaned with the use of this approach. Finally, we discuss future directions and applications of daily process methods to the study of stress and coping.     

Just lying there, remembering: improving recall of prose in amnesic patients with mild cognitive impairment by minimising interference

The hallmark of amnesia is poor explicit long-term memory along with normal short-term memory. It is often stated that information encountered by amnesic patients is forgotten within 1 minute of presentation. However, previous work has not distinguished between forgetting as a function of time versus the interfering material occupying that time. We show that there is a marked benefit of reduced interference in amnesic patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a condition that is characterised by anterograde amnesia in the absence of other neuropsychological deficits and carries an increased risk for Alzheimer's disease. The result suggests that long-term memory is encoded in these patients to a greater extent than had been realised but that their memory is highly vulnerable to interference.     

Coherence of the irrelevant-sound effect: Individual profiles of short-term memory and susceptibility to task-irrelevant materials

We examined individual and developmental differences in the disruptive effects of irrelevant sounds on serial recall of printed lists. In Experiment 1, we examined adults (N = 205) receiving eight-item lists to be recalled. Although their susceptibility to disruption of recall by irrelevant sounds was only slightly related to memory span, regression analyses documented highly reliable individual differences in this susceptibility across speech and tone distractors, even with variance from span level removed. In Experiment 2, we examined adults (n = 64) and 8-year-old children (n = 63) receiving lists of a length equal to a predetermined span and one item shorter (span-1). We again found significant relationships between measures of span and susceptibility to irrelevant sounds, although in only two of the measures. We conclude that some of the cognitive processes helpful in performing a span task may not be beneficial in the presence of irrelevant sounds.     

Development and psychometric properties of the disability application appraisal inventory

This article describes the development and psychometric properties of an inventory to assess cognitive appraisal of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) disability application process, the Disability Application Appraisal Inventory (DAAI). Participants were 439 veterans seeking disability status for posttraumatic stress disorder through the VA and subgroups from that sample. The 3 DAAI scales assess (a) understanding of the disability application process (Knowledge scale) (b) expectations specific to the process (Negative Expectations scale) and (c) investment in obtaining disability status (Importance scale). The scales are internally consistent and largely uncorrelated. Test-retest correlations are adequate for the Negative Expectations and Importance scales. Evidence of factorial and construct validity is presented.     

Two- and three-year-olds infer and reason about design intentions in order to categorize broken objects

In naming artifacts, do young children infer and reason about the intended functions of the objects? Participants between the ages of 2 and 4 years were shown two kinds of objects derived from familiar categories. One kind was damaged so as to undermine its usual function. The other kind was also dysfunctional, but made so by adding features that appeared to be intentional. Evidence that 2‐, 3‐ and 4‐year‐olds were more likely to apprehend the broken objects than the intentionally dysfunctional objects as members of the familiar lexical categories favors the conclusion that, in naming, children may spontaneously infer and reason about design intentions from an early age. This is the first evidence that 2‐ and 3‐year‐olds not only take design intentions into account in object categorization, but that they do so even without explicit mention of the objects’ accidental or intentional histories. The results cast doubt on a proposal that young children's lexical categorization is based on automatic, non‐deliberative processes.     

Ethnicity, expressed emotion, attributions, and course of schizophrenia: family warmth matters

The authors examined the role of family factors and the course of schizophrenia by carrying out additional assessments and analyses in 2 previously published studies of Mexican American and Anglo American patients and families. The authors found partial support for an attributional model of relapse for families who are low in emotional overinvolvement. Attributions of control, criticism, and warmth together marginally predicted relapse. The data also indicated that for Mexican Americans, family warmth is a significant protective factor, whereas for Anglo Americans, family criticism is a significant risk factor. These findings suggest that the sociocultural context shapes the pathways by which family processes are related to the course of illness. Moreover, the warmth findings suggest that families may contribute to preventing relapse.     

Integrity, conscientiousness, and honesty

Undergraduate volunteers from the Psychology participant pool (N=86, age M=22.7, SD=4.8 yr.; 72 of 86 were female) took two tests, a commercially available integrity test (the Personnel Selection Inventory) and the NEO-Five Factor Inventory. Later in the study, each participant was given an opportunity to report dishonestly the amount of time spent in the laboratory and thus to receive more extra-credit points than earned. An observer recorded participants' actual times in the laboratory to provide an accurate assessment of participants' honesty. Analysis indicated that the Personnel Selection Inventory did not predict whether the participant was honest or dishonest in reporting time spent. Conscientiousness as measured by the NEO-Five Factor Inventory, however, not only predicted behavior, but did so significantly better than did the Personnel Selection Inventory. The study provides new information about the value of integrity tests by comparing integrity and personality tests in the simultaneous prediction of a specific criterion.