Assessing Perceived Health and Associated Health-Promoting Behaviors: An Investigation of Methods Used to Assess Health Status

Health assessments have been integral in the development of health behavior and policy recommendations. As the nation's health status improves, information about positive health is needed to continue development of appropriate behavior and policy recommendations. In this study, perceived health, health behaviors, health care usage, and how participants defined health were assessed. Using reported health-promoting behaviors, respondents were grouped into high-, middle-, and low-health groups. Analyses found statistically significant differences ( p <.05) for all health behaviors reported and for life satisfaction. Each group's understanding of health also differed significantly. Results document the discriminating value and importance of positive health-promoting behaviors beyond their traditional role in prevention. Recommendations for health professionals' use of positive health assessments are discussed.     

The Buss–Perry Aggression Questionnaire: Some unfinished business

This article gauges the extent to which items and sum scores of the Buss–Perry Aggression Questionnaire (BPAQ) are contaminated with social desirability response set (SDR), and the extent to which that contamination results in biased findings. Special validity coefficients are introduced for that purpose. Although the SDR confound was quite substantial across all items (with one exception), it is argued on the basis of the size of the introduced validity coefficients and other, logical considerations that paradoxically the confound had minimally distorting effects in estimating the BPAQ models selected for probing the extent of bias.     

Social support as a multifaceted concept: Examination of important dimensions for adjustment

Four commonly used operationalizations of the social support concept: network contact frequency, satisfaction with support (including nine dimensions), perceived availability of support, and use of support, were related to two measures of psychological adjustment (Beck Depression Inventory and Symptom Checklist-90) and to one measure of physical adjustment (Cornell Medical Index). Subjects were 68 45- to 85-year-old, highly stressed care-givers to spouses with Alzheimer's disease. Results indicate that of the four operationalizations, Satisfaction with Support was the only significant predictor of depression and general psychopathology. The set of four support variables showed the strongest relationship to depression level, next strongest to general psychopathology, and least to physical health. The satisfaction with nine social support dimensions related differentially to the types of adjustment. Results suggest the importance of specificity (sample, support operationalization, dimensions, adjustment measures) in social support research.     

Factors associated with erection in adolescent sex offenders

A majority of adult child molesters report that their deviant interest began prior to the age of 18. This illustrates the need to evaluate adolescents who have molested children. Since self-report of deviant interest is rare in adolescent offenders, psychophysiologic assessment is necessary to help to determine the extent for a deviant interest pattern. The current study was designed to determine what factors are associated with erectile responding to age-inappropriate stimuli in an adolescent sex offender population. Factors studied were (a) admit/deny, (b) history of physical abuse, (c) history of sexual abuse, (d) history of nonsex arrests, and (e) incest/nonincest. The dependent variables were two pedophile indices, a relative measure of deviant to nondeviant arousal. Results indicated that history of sexual abuse was associated with more deviant erectile responding in those adolescents who had molested young boys. The possibility of adolescents modeling their own victimization is discussed.     

Freges Erläuterung des Urteils

According to Frege the notion of judgement cannot be defined, but must be explicated by referring to natural language. Frege uses a subjective and an objective notion of judgement: on the one hand a judgement is an inner mental process, on the other hand judging is explained as advancing from the thought to the truth-value. The subjective notion of judgement logically depends on the objective conception of a judgement, but nevertheless remains indispensable. To clarify the objective notion of judgement, the relation of thought and truth must be explicated by using Frege's theory of sense and reference. Only an intersubjective and action-guiding knowledge of the way in which the truth-value of a sentence is determined can make it possible to advance from the thought and the understanding of a sentence to the acknowledgement of its truth. Since by this advance a sentence receives a cognitive value, Frege's theory of sense and reference makes a contribution not only to semantics but also to epistemology.     

The treatment of youthful sexual offenders

Approximately 20% of all rapes and between 30% and 50% of child molestations are perpetrated by adolescent males. These statistics underscore the need for improved understanding of youthful sexual offending so that effective prevention measures may be utilized for those adolescents at risk of offending and effective treatments may be utilized with those adolescents who have already committed sexual offenses. In this article we review the current knowledge of the characteristics of youthful offenders, proposed etiologies of youthful offending, proposed typologies of, assessment protocols, and treatments for youthful offenders. Finally we discuss the need for further research in the area of youthful sex offending.     

Object relations in borderlines, depressives, and normals: an examination of human responses on the Rorschach

Recently, researchers and clinicians have become increasingly interested in diagnostic distinctions between borderline and mood disorders. Object relations theory provides a useful framework for the comparison of these two overlapping diagnostic categories. In our study, a measure of object relations as represented on the Rorschach, developed by Blatt, Brenneis, Schimeck, and Glick (1976), was applied to data produced by borderline and depressive inpatients and by normal comparison subjects. Portions of the Blatt measure that tap the subject's experience of human action and interaction distinguish among the three diagnostic groups. Specifically, borderlines tend to understand human action as more highly motivated and human interaction as more malevolent in nature than do either depressive or normals. The data indicate that borderlines experience the object-relational world in a way that is fundamentally different from the way normals and depressives perceive it. Implications are discussed for theories of borderline object relations.     

Violent death in the West: suicide and homicide in New Mexico, 1958-1987

We examined New Mexico vital statistics data for suicides and homicides among the state's Hispanics, Native Americans, and non-Hispanic whites collected from 1958 to 1987. We found high age-adjusted rates for both suicides and homicides among Hispanic and Native American males, in comparison with rates for non-Hispanic white males. Suicide rates among Native American women were comparatively low, contrasting with their high homicide rates. Homicide rates for males in all three ethnic groups increased substantially over the 30-year study period. We conclude that death from violent causes, both suicide and homicide, is a major public health problem in New Mexico, and disproportionately affects minority males.