Interpersonal perceptions and consequences of depressive-significant other relationships: a naturalistic study of college roommates

We investigated social perceptions and consequences of depression and anxiety in roommate relationships. Mildly depressed, anxious but nondepressed, and nondepressed-nonanxious students (targets) and normal, same-sex roommates (a) rated the interpersonal impact on themselves of typical associations with their roommates and (b) judged their own interpersonal impact. Only depressed men received negative evaluations and emotional reactions from their roommates. However, depressed women reported more negative reactions to their normal roommates than vice versa. Finally, depressed targets perceived their interpersonal impact negatively, whereas their normal roommates perceived their own interpersonal impact as overly positive. These findings suggest that negative relationships between depressives and nondepressed others may be attributable, at least in part, to both participants' misperceptions of their social behavior and its consequences.     

Voluntary Stigmatization and Social Comparison: Single Mothers View Their Lot1

This research examined the impact of voluntary Stigmatization, depression, and self-esteem on downward social comparisons. The stigmatized group was 51 mothers who chose to become parents as single women; 51 demographically similar married mothers were the nonstigmatized group. The women described their stressors and rated these stressors relative to other mothers of the same marital status and relative to mothers who differed in marital status. Consistent with downward comparison theory, Stigmatization increased the likelihood of making downward comparisons. Contrary to the theory, high self-esteem and low levels of depression resulted in self-enhancing comparisons, but only when individuals compared themselves to others who differed in Stigmatization status. The combination of these individual difference variables and Stigmatization increased the tendency to make downward comparisons.     

Drug-onset cues as signals: intraadministration associations and tolerance.

On the basis of a conditioning analysis of drug tolerance, drug-associated cues become associated with the drug effect. These cues elicit conditional compensatory responses and modulate the expression of tolerance. Although there are many findings consistent with the conditioning analysis of tolerance, there also are contrary findings. The results of these experiments suggest that some of the apparently contradictory findings result because interoceptive pharmacological cues, as well as exteroceptive environmental cues, are paired with a drug effect. That is, within each administration, early drug-onset cues may become associated with the later, larger drug effect, and these pharmacological cues may overshadow simultaneously present environmental cues. We demonstrate the contribution of such intraadministration associations to tolerance to the analgesic effect of morphine and to the expression of conditional compensatory hyperalgesia.     

Intelligence and changes in regional cerebral glucose metabolic rate following learning

Positron emission tomography (PET) studies of brain glucose metabolic rate (GMR) in normal volunteers report inverse correlations between GMR and scores on the Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices (RAPM) and verbal fluency. A new study in eight normal men reports widespread significant GMR decreases following learning a complex task (the computer game “Tetris”). The purpose of this study is to ascertain the correlations between GMR changes following learning “Tetris” and psychometric intelligence scores (RAPM and WAIS-R) to determine whether high-ability subjects show the largest GMR decreases, as predicted by a brain efficiency hypothesis. This hypothesis is supported with significant correlations between the magnitude of GMR change and intelligence scores in many brain areas that changed with learning. Some implications for the role of attention, memory, and speed of processing are discussed in view of the specific brain areas involved.     

An investigation of cognitive-behavior therapy combined with oral valium for children undergoing painful medical procedures

In previous research, a cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) package was found to be effective in reducing children's distress associated with the painful medical procedures of bone marrow aspirations (BMAs) and lumbar punctures (LPs). Orally administered Valium demonstrated less effectiveness but was helpful in reducing behavioral distress before the medical procedure. In the present study, we investigated whether the combination of oral Valium and CBT would result in increased efficacy of the CBT. Eighty-three subjects were randomly assigned to receive either CBT or CBT plus Valium while undergoing either a BMA or an LP. Dependent variables included observed behavioral distress, self-reported fear and pain, and pulse rate. Results failed to support the value of such a combination but did provide additional evidence in regard to the effectiveness of the CBT. The need for more potent medical interventions for some children is discussed.     

Extinction of morphine analgesic tolerance

It has been suggested that the analgesic effect of morphine becomes attenuated over the course of successive administrations by a conditional, compensatory, hyperalgesic response elicited by the administration procedure, thus accounting (in part) for analgesic tolerance. On the basis of this associative model of tolerance, it would be predicted that established tolerance would be extinguished by placebo sessions. In experiments of apparently similar design (but conducted by different experimenters in different laboratories), data both confirming and refuting this prediction have previously been published. The present experiment, conducted jointly by the experimenters who reported the divergent findings, was designed to determine the reasons for the different results. It was found that placebo sessions do consistently attenuate morphine analgesic tolerance. Such extinction is not limited to the experimenter, drug preparation, rat strain, or apparatus used in the original, successful demonstration of the phenomenon, but rather is also demonstrable under conditions similar to those used in subsequent experiments which failed to demonstrate extinction of tolerance. Results of the present experiment suggest that the failures to demonstrate extinction of tolerance were attributable to insufficient extinction training.     

The use of the cumulative rehearsal strategy: A developmental study

This study was designed to address two issues: (1) At what age do children spontaneously use a cumulative rehearsal strategy; and (2) What effect does the use of the strategy have on their performance?Twenty-eight children at each of five grade levels (nursery, kindergarten, 1, 3, and 5) were tested in a serial-position recall task. Stimuli were pictures of common objects and animals whose labels were one or two syllables in length. Following testing, the children were asked to report the memory strategy they had used.The assumption was made that children who were using a cumulative rehearsal strategy would perform better on series of one-syllable items than on series of two-syllable items. As predicted, nursery, kindergarten, and first-grade subjects correctly recalled as many two-syllable as one-syllable items: Both third- and fifth-graders recalled significantly more one-syllable than two-syllable items. Results indicated that (1) young children do not spontaneously use a cumulative rehearsal strategy until after first grade, and (2) the use of rehearsal did not facilitate overall performance of the rehearsers relative to the nonrehearsers at any grade level. Results are discussed in terms of their theoretical implications for the study of memory development.