The Use of the MMPI-2 Infrequency–Psychopathology Scale in the Assessment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Male Veterans

This study evaluated the use of the F_P (Infrequency–Psychopathology) scale of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory—2 (MMPI-2) as a measure of symptom overreporting among 423 service-seeking male veterans with and without PTSD. Results were consistent with several predictions based on the logic of the F_P scale. F_P produced lower scores for PTSD and non-PTSD patients than the other two MMPI-2 measures of infrequent responding; F and F_B. F_P also resulted in fewer invalid protocols than did F or F_B. Finally, F_P yielded lower correlations with MMPI-2 and other measures of psychopathology than did F or F_B. Consistent with previous studies, compensation-seeking status was associated with extreme elevations across clinical and validity scales. Contrary to previous findings, however, compensation-seeking veterans were also more likely to receive a PTSD diagnosis. Implications for the relationship between compensation seeking and symptom overreporting are discussed.     

Trajectories of Social Withdrawal from Middle Childhood to Early Adolescence

Heterogeneity and individual differences in the developmental course of social withdrawal were examined longitudinally in a community sample (N = 392). General Growth Mixture Modeling (GGMM) was used to identify distinct pathways of social withdrawal, differentiate valid subgroup trajectories, and examine factors that predicted change in trajectories within subgroups. Assessments of individual (social withdrawal), interactive (prosocial behavior), relationship (friendship involvement, stability and quality, best friend’s withdrawal and exclusion/victimization) and group- (exclusion/victimization) level characteristics were used to define growth trajectories from the final year of elementary school, across the transition to middle school, and then to the final year of middle school (fifth-to-eighth grades). Three distinct trajectory classes were identified: low stable, increasing, and decreasing. Peer exclusion, prosocial behavior, and mutual friendship involvement differentiated class membership. Friendlessness, friendship instability, and exclusion were significant predictors of social withdrawal for the increasing class, whereas lower levels of peer exclusion predicted a decrease in social withdrawal for the decreasing class.     

A test of the moderating role of importance of appearance in the relationship between perceived scar severity and body-esteem among adult burn survivors

This study tested the hypothesis that the relationship between subjective burn scar severity and body-esteem is moderated by importance of appearance. Three hundred and forty-six adult burn survivors completed a mailed or online survey. The three subscales of the Body-Esteem Scale for Adolescents and Adults (BE-Appearance [satisfaction with general appearance], BE-Weight [weight satisfaction], BE-Others [others' evaluations of one's body and appearance]) were regressed onto sex, subjective burn scar severity, importance of appearance and their two- and three-way interactions. With one exception, the hypothesized main effects were significant in each of the regression equations. As hypothesized, importance of appearance moderated the relationship between subjective burn scar severity and body-esteem for BE-Appearance and BE-Other but not BE-Weight. The results of this study are consistent with the cognitive model of body-esteem. Clinical implications are discussed.     

Influence of consonantal context on the reading of vowels: evidence from children

When college students pronounce nonwords, their vowel pronunciations may be affected not only by the consonant that follows the vowel, the coda, but also by the preceding consonant, the onset. We presented the nonwords used by Treiman and colleagues in their 2003 study to a total of 94 first graders, third graders, fifth graders, and high school students to determine when these context influences emerge. According to some theories of reading development, early decoding is characterized by context-free links from graphemes to phonemes. However, we found that even children reading at the first-grade level (6-year-olds) were influenced to some extent by a vowel's context. The effect of context on vowel pronunciation increased in strength up to around the fifth-grade reading level (8- and 9-year-olds), and sensitivity to coda-to-vowel associations emerged no earlier than did sensitivity to onset-to-vowel associations. A connectionist model of reading reproduced this general pattern of increasing context effects as a function of training.     

When fiends become friends: the need to belong and perceptions of personal and group discrimination

The present article examines the role that the need to belong (NTB) plays in people's judgments of personal and group discrimination and in the attributions people make for potentially discriminatory evaluations. The authors hypothesized that the NTB motivates people to conclude that (a) whereas they rarely experience personal discrimination, (b) their fellow in-group members do experience discrimination. In Study 1, people high in the NTB reported experiencing lower than average levels of personal and higher than average levels of group discrimination. In Study 2, an experimental manipulation of the NTB yielded similar results. In Study 3, women who were motivated to be accepted by a bogus male participant were less likely to attribute his negative evaluations of their work to prejudice.     

Brief cognitive-behavioral phone-based intervention targeting anxiety about the threat of attack: a pilot study

A brief, cognitive-behavioral, phone-based intervention was employed with an Israeli sample experiencing anticipatory anxiety about potential war-related attacks. In this quasi-experimental controlled pilot study, the cognitive-behavioral therapy intervention (diaphragmatic breathing and a modified cognitive-restructuring technique) was compared with the standard hotline care administered when worried citizens called a mental health emergency hotline in Israel. Individuals (n=32) were administered anxiety and worry measures pre-intervention, post-intervention, and three days post-intervention. The results indicated that anxiety levels decreased for the experimental and control group immediately post-intervention; however, three days later, the levels of anxiety in the CBT group continued to decline, while anxiety levels in the control group reached pre-intervention levels on two of the three outcome measures. These results suggest that CBT can be effectively delivered by paraprofessionals over the phone, which is cost-effective and efficient. Limitations are considered, and implications for treating individuals coping with the threat of terrorism are discussed.     

Vowels, syllables, and letter names: differences between young children's spelling in English and Portuguese

Young Portuguese-speaking children have been reported to produce more vowel- and syllable-oriented spellings than have English speakers. To investigate the extent and source of such differences, we analyzed children's vocabulary and found that Portuguese words have more vowel letter names and a higher vowel-consonant ratio than do English words. In a spelling experiment, we found that Portuguese speakers used more vowels, but did not produce more syllabic spellings, than did English speakers. The differences that we observed are attributable to quantitative differences in the languages and their writing and letter name systems. They do not support the widespread idea that speakers of Romance languages pass through an additional, syllabic, stage of development.     

The Association Between Female College Students' Reports of Depression and Their Perceptions of Parental Attitudes Regarding Gender

This study related female college students' ( n = 377) reports of symptomatology to their reports of parental attitudes suggesting limitations inherent in being female. Young women completed a scale measuring their perceptions that their fathers would have been prouder of them if they were male, and a scale measuring their distress over the limitations experienced by their mothers. Respondents who scored high on either scale exhibited much higher prevalence than other respondents of self-reported depression accompanied by anxiety, somatic symptoms including headaches, insomnia, dyspnea, fatigue, disordered eating, and poor body image/preference for thinness (labeled anxious somatic depression ). Compared to men ( n = 191), women exhibited much higher prevalence of anxious somatic depression, but not higher prevalence of depression unaccompanied by the other symptoms.     

A simple graphical technique for assessing timer accuracy of computer systems

Timing accuracy is of perennial concern to researchers conducting reaction time studies, especially for those using computers that were not designed with millisecond accuracy in mind. Inaccuracies can manifest themselves in the form of quantization of the continuous time data stream. The method proposed here is simply to inspect the graph of the order statistics because quantization is readily apparent in such graphs. The method is illustrated with timing measurements of keypresses on an IBM PC.