Children's nighttime fears: parent-child ratings of frequency, content, origins, coping behaviors and severity

The present study investigated nighttime fears in normal school children aged 4 to 12 yr (N=176). Children and their parents were interviewed about the frequency, content, origins, coping behaviors and severity of children's nighttime fears. Results showed that 73.3% of the children reported nighttime fears, indicating that these fears are quite prevalent. Inspection of the developmental course of nighttime fears revealed that these fears are common among 4- to 6-year-olds, become even more frequent in 7- to 9-year-olds and then remain relatively stable in 10- to 12-year-olds. Inspection of the origins of nighttime fears revealed that most of the children (i.e., almost 80%) attributed their fear to negative information; conditioning and modeling were endorsed less frequently (25.6% and 13.2%, respectively). A substantial percentage of the children (24.0%) indicated that learning experiences had not played a role in the acquisition of their nighttime fears. Children reported a variety of coping strategies in order to deal with their nighttime fears and generally rated these strategies as helpful in reducing anxiety. Furthermore, children's nighttime fears were associated with moderate levels of anxiety. Moreover, in about 10% of the children, nighttime fears were related to one or more DSM-III-R anxiety disorders. Finally, parental reports of children's nighttime fears substantially deviated from children's reports. Most importantly, parents provided a marked underestimation of the frequency of nighttime fears, at least as reported by their children.     

Levels of interpersonal concerns and social functioning in early adolescent boys and girls

Previous research has shown that the Interpersonal Concerns factor of the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire (DEQ; Blatt, D'Affliti, & Quinlan, 1976, 1979; Depressive Experiences Questionnaire for Adolescent [DEQ-A]; Blatt, Schaffer, Bers, & Quinlan, 1992) assesses 2 levels of interpersonal relatedness in young adults and older adolescents: neediness and relatedness. However, studies investigating the relation of the DEQ and DEQ-A with social functioning have not used the Neediness and Relatedness subscales of the Interpersonal Concerns factor. This study investigated (a) whether the Neediness and Relatedness subscales can be differentiated in a sample of early adolescents and (b) how the 2 subscales are differentially associated with indexes of social functioning. Results indicate that this differentiation of Neediness and Relatedness, and their associations with social functioning, emerges in early adolescence, especially for girls.     

Theories of reasoned action and planned behavior as models of condom use: a meta-analysis

To examine how well the theories of reasoned action and planned behavior predict condom use, the authors synthesized 96 data sets (N = 22,594) containing associations between the models' key variables. Consistent with the theory of reasoned action's predictions, (a) condom use was related to intentions (weighted mean r. = .45), (b) intentions were based on attitudes (r. = .58) and subjective norms (r. = .39), and (c) attitudes were associated with behavioral beliefs (r. = .56) and norms were associated with normative beliefs (r. = .46). Consistent with the theory of planned behavior's predictions, perceived behavioral control was related to condom use intentions (r. = .45) and condom use (r. = .25), but in contrast to the theory, it did not contribute significantly to condom use. The strength of these associations, however, was influenced by the consideration of past behavior. Implications of these results for HIV prevention efforts are discussed.     

The depth and selectivity of suppression in binocular rivalry

Binocular rivalry occurs when the two eyes are presented with incompatible stimuli and the perceived image alternates between the two stimuli. The aim of this study was to find out whether the periodic perceptual loss of a monocular stimulus during binocular rivalry is mirrored by a comparable loss of contrast sensitivity. We presented brief test stimuli to one eye while its conditioning stimulus was dominant or suppressed. The test stimuli were varied widely across four stimulus domains--namely, the relative stimulation of medium- and long-wavelength-sensitive cones, duration, spatial frequency, and grating orientation. The result in each case was the same. Suppression depended slightly or not at all on the type of test stimulus, and contrast sensitivity during suppression was around 64% of that during dominance. The effect of suppression on sensitivity is therefore very weak, relative to its effect on the perceived image. Furthermore, suppression was largely independent of the similarity between the conditioning and the test stimuli, indicating that our results are better explained by eye suppression than by stimulus suppression. A model is presented to account for the small, monocular sensitivity loss during suppression: It assumes that test detection precedes conditioning stimulus perception in the visual pathway.     

Relationship of numbing to alexithymia, apathy, and depression

The present study assessed the relationship between numbing and three associated conditions of alexithymia, apathy, and depression, utilizing data collected on 353 Vietnam combat veterans diagnosed with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder from in- and out-patient settings and an outreach center at various Department of Veterans Affairs Medical centers. All subjects completed four self-report measures: the Glover Numbing Scale, the Beck Depression Inventory, the Apathy Evaluation Scale, and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20. The correlation matrix indicated that scores on the four measures were moderately to highly correlated. Principal components analysis with a varimax rotation indicated a five-factor solution that provided evidence for the factorial validity of each of the constructs assessed. Results of the factor analysis of items from the four measures were consistent with numbing being a separate and distinct construct from alexithymia, apathy, and depression. In general, results indicated that all constructs measured were separate and distinct from one another.     

Spiritual well-being and personality

The hypothesis that High and Low Spiritual Well-being groups have different personality profiles was tested with 319 psychology undergraduates (132 men and 187 women who completed the Revised NEO Personality Inventory and the Spiritual Well-being Scale for partial course credit. Univariate analyses of variance indicated that the High Spiritual Well-being group scored lower on Neuroticism and higher or Extraversion, Agreeableness. and Conscientiousness than the Low Spiritual Well-being group. Multivariate analysis of variance indicated that the two groups had significantly different personality profiles, supporting the hypothesis.     

Quality of life before and after lung transplantation in patients with emphysema versus other indications

Whether lung transplantation improves Health-related Quality of Life in patients with emphysema and other end-stage lung diseases before and after lung transplantation was examined. Between 1992 and 1999, 23 patients with emphysema and 19 patients with other indications completed self-administered questionnaires before lung transplantation, and at 4, 7, 13, and 25 mo. after transplantation. The questionnaire included the Nottingham Health Profile, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, the Self-rating Depression Scale, the Index of Well-being, the self-report Karnofsky Index, and four respiratory-specific questions. Neither before nor after transplantation were significant differences found on most dimensions of Health-related Quality of Life between patients with emphysema and other indications. Before transplantation, both groups report major restrictions on the dimensions Energy and Mobility of the Nottingham Health Profile, low experienced well-being, depressive symptoms, and high dyspnea. About 4 mo. after transplantation, most Health-related Quality of Life measures improved significantly in both groups. These improvements were maintained in the following 21 mo.     

Men and women at promise for scientific excellence: similarity not dissimilarity

U.S. math-science graduate students possessing world-class talent (368 males, 346 females) were assessed on psychological attributes and personal experiences in order to examine how their talents emerged and developed. Comparisons were made, using similar assessments, with mathematically talented students (528 males, 228 females) identified around age 13 and tracked into adulthood by the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY). Well before college, both samples were academically distinguished; however, the graduate students could be identified during adolescence as a subset of mathematically talented youths based on their nonintellectual attributes. Their profiles corresponded to what earlier psychological studies found to characterize distinguished (and exclusively male) scientists: exceptional quantitative reasoning abilities, relatively stronger quantitative than verbal reasoning ability, salient scientific interests and values, and, finally, persistence in seeking out opportunities to study scientific topics and develop scientific skills. On these attributes, sex differences were minimal for the graduate students (but not for the SMPY comparison groups). Developing exceptional scientific expertise apparently requires special educational experiences, but these necessary experiences are similar for the two sexes.     

The effects of lesions to the rat hippocampus or rhinal cortex on olfactory and spatial memory: retrograde and anterograde findings

The role of the hippocampal system in retrograde and anterograde amnesia was investigated by using a novel olfactory-guided paradigm and a traditional test of spatial learning. In the retrograde study, rats were trained on a sequence of two-choice olfactory discriminations in the weeks prior to receiving neurotoxic lesions of the hippocampus or aspiration lesions of the perirhinal-entorhinal cortex. Memory tests for preoperatively learned discriminations revealed no statistical impairment for subjects with damage to the hippocampus on a problem learned remote in time from surgery (i.e., 4 weeks +) or on the two recently learned discriminations (i.e., 1–3 weeks prior to surgery). The performance of subjects with perirhinal-entorhinal damage provided an important comparison for subjects with specific hippocampal lesions. Despite showing intact memory for the remotely learned problem, perirhinalentorhinal damage resulted in numerically (although not significantly) weaker performance on postoperative tests of retention for the discriminations learned in the 3 weeks prior to surgery. In the anterograde portion of the study, long-term memory for newly acquired discriminations was spared in subjects with damage to the hippocampus, whereas subjects in the perirhinal-entorhinal lesion group again showed the weakest memory performance on these tests of 5-day retention. Postoperative water maze learning was uniformly impaired in subjects with damage to the hippocampus and perirhinalentorhinal cortex, thus confirming the effect of these lesions and supporting the involvement of these brain areas in spatial processes. These findings further dissociate the specific involvement of the hippocampus in tasks of a spatial-relational nature versus nonrelational tasks, such as discrimination learning and recognition memory (e.g., Duva et al., 1997; Eichenbaum, 1997; Eichenbaum, Schoenbaum, Young, & Bunsey, 1996). Moreover, the results suggest that damage to the hippocampus itself does not contribute to retrograde or anterograde memory impairments for all types of information, whereas the data suggest a more important role for the perirhinal-entorhinal cortex in recognition memory, irrespective of modality.