Ambivalence Over Emotional Expression and Psychological Weil-Being Among Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients and Their Spouses1

Associations between ambivalence over emotional expression and psychological well-being among rheumatoid arthritis patients and their spouses were investigated. Sixty-nine couples completed questionnaires assessing ambivalence over emotional expression, emotional expressiveness, psychological well-being, and strategies used in coping with arthritis. Associations between the patient's ambivalence and psychological well-being were stronger for those married to a highly ambivalent spouse, although this pattern of results was not found for spouses. Lower psychological well-being among more ambivalent spouses, and to a lesser extent patients, could be partially explained by their greater use of passive and distancing coping strategies. Results emphasize the importance of taking a dyadic approach to the study of psychological functioning among chronically ill patients and their spouses.     

Head Start Children at Third Grade: Preliminary Special Education Identification and Placement of Children with Emotional, Learning, and Related Disabilities

Although children in Head Start are at risk for emotional or behavioral problems, little is known about their later need for special education. There is evidence that children at risk for emotional disturbance are underidentified or misidentified in other special education categories. We examined special education identification rates for Head Start children at risk for emotional disturbance, learning disabilities, speech or language impairments, and mental retardation as they complete third grade. Two cohorts of 4136 children across 30 sites were followed as part of a larger study on transition. Diagnosis of each child as being at risk for emotional disturbance or related disabilities was made using clinical cut-offs on teacher ratings and individual testing completed in the spring of third grade. Special education eligibility of these children was determined from school records. Only 31.8% of children considered to be at risk, based on research diagnostic criteria, were actually identified by the schools, and fewer than 6% of children at risk for ED were identified in the school category of ED. Comparisons were made between school-identified and nonidentified children in gender, ethnicity, and school variables; and findings were discussed in relation to underidentification or misidentification of children with emotional disturbance.     

Women Surviving an Abusive Relationship: Grief and the Process of Change

The authors briefly survey the literature about women in abusive relationships and discuss key issues about the change process that arise from that work and are consistent with the grieving process. The constructs of depression, guilt, and decision-making difficulty among women abused by an intimate partner are examined and compared with the perspective of the normal grieving of a major loss. Implications for counseling practice are considered.     

Linguistic characteristics of neurotic, borderline and psychotic personality organization

Thirty patients were subjected to a Structural Interview by means of which 10 of them received the diagnosis NPO (Neurotic Personality Organization), 10 BPO (Borderline Personality Organization) and 10 PPO (Psychotic Personality Organization). About 2500 words and groups of words were extracted from the patients' utterances for analysis. The word-frequencies thus found were analyzed by a PLS discriminant analysis which yielded two significant principal components (main dimensions) explaining 57% of the variance. This analysis showed that the three groups of patients are well separated from one another and that there is a definite correlation between personality organization and linguistic variables. The main features of the BPO-patients in this study seem to be that they refer to positions outside themselves and their language is impersonal; we see this as an exemple of a vacillating identity. The NPO-group is characterized by an intense and rich language, signs of a more advanced symbolizing ability, deixis and high level defenses. The language of the PPO-patients is poor and its predominant feature is a lack of words; in our interpretation this indicates foreclosure and a lack of identity.     

Gender differences in attributions for triathlon performance

Causal attributions given by athletes for performance can influence performance satisfaction, expectation of future success, and persistence in training and competition. Young and inexperienced athletes often show gender differences in sport attribution, with males attributing success to controllable or stable factors like ability and effort, and females attributing success to uncontrollable or unstable factors like luck and social support. Would older, more experienced female triathletes also show a self-defeating attribution style and see themselves with little control over sport performance? Using questionnaires, 624 triathletes (mostly white, 443 males, 181 females) rated the importance of 13 attributions for triathlon performance. Unlike past research, female triathletes attributed more importance than males to factors they can attempt to control (psychological state, diet, and weight). After a recent success, female triathletes downplayed the importance of luck and social support.     

ASSESSING STIMULUS CONTROL IN NATURAL SETTINGS: AN ANALYSIS OF STIMULI THAT ACQUIRE CONTROL DURING TRAINING

When a learner is taught a new response, the stimuli that influence its display are often unknown. The presence or absence of these stimuli alters the probability of occurrence of the response. By identifying the stimuli influencing the probability of newly acquired responses, interventionists may program for their generalization more effectively and efficiently. This investigation describes the application of an operant methodology to assess functional relationships between responses and specific stimulus variables. Four young adults with moderate mental retardation were taught to include “please” as part of requests they made in school. Four environmental stimuli, present during training, were assessed for the controlling properties they acquired. Each of the four was assessed prior to and after training by presenting it in isolation (i.e., the other three were varied). If the presence of a single stimulus associated with training did not occasion “please,” then pairs of stimuli were probed. The results revealed that single-stimulus probing occasioned responding by only 1 learner; paired-stimulus probing set the occasion for including “please” by 2 others. Control of the 4th learner's responding was lost before training was introduced, because he began including “please” in his requests during baseline. The implications of these results are discussed in terms of analyzing stimulus control and promoting stimulus generalization.     

Thinking theologically about modern medicine

In the last century the dictates of modern science and technology have gained an unprecedented authority, sometimes heeded with a religious fervor once directed at religious bodies. Meanwhile, on many subjects, mainline Protestantism has withdrawn from the conversation. This is particularly the case when church and academy have tried to think theologically about the highly technical and at times dramatically nontheological problems of physical health. I propose to look at the ways in which this decline from dominance affects 1) mainline attitudes toward healing; 2) Protestant reflections on moral dilemmas in medicine; 3) religious ideals of ministry to the sick and the poor. After attending to the problems in each arena and then noting promising developments, I conclude with suggestions about reviving a vibrant theological witness in medical ethics and health care.     

Brief report: Cool down: A procedure for decreasing aggression in adults with traumatic head injury

The application of techniques for reducing verbal and physical aggression can be problematic when the procedures are applied to high functioning adults who have sustained a traumatic head injury. In this investigation, the effect of a ‘cool down’ training procedure on two adult males with brain injuries was examined using the same strategy, which was simultaneously applied to both behaviors for 1 subject and applied only to verbal aggression for a second subject. The cool down training procedure included 2 training sessions per week, plus implementation of a modified training program in the test situation. Results revealed that the cool down training program was effective in reducing both verbal and physical aggression and therefore provides an alternative treatment for adults with head injuries.     

Spatial representation of pitch height: the SMARC effect

Through the preferential pairing of response positions to pitch, here we show that the internal representation of pitch height is spatial in nature and affects performance, especially in musically trained participants, when response alternatives are either vertically or horizontally aligned. The finding that our cognitive system maps pitch height onto an internal representation of space, which in turn affects motor performance even when this perceptual attribute is irrelevant to the task, extends previous studies on auditory perception and suggests an interesting analogy between music perception and mathematical cognition. Both the basic elements of mathematical cognition (i.e. numbers) and the basic elements of musical cognition (i.e. pitches), appear to be mapped onto a mental spatial representation in a way that affects motor performance.