Patterns of coping with cancer.

We identified five patterns of coping in a sample of 603 cancer patients: "seeking or using social support," "focusing on the positive," "distancing," "cognitive escape-avoidance," and "behavioral escape-avoidance." Relationships of these coping patterns to sociodemographic characteristics, medical factors, stress appraisals, psychotherapeutic experience, and emotional distress were tested using correlational and regression techniques. Type of cancer, time since diagnosis, and whether a person was currently in treatment had few or no relationships to coping. The specific cancer-related problem (e.g., pain, fear of future) was also not associated with how individuals coped. Perceptions of its stressfulness, however, were related to significantly more coping through social support and more of both forms of escape-avoidance. Coping through social support, focusing on the positive, and distancing was associated with less emotional distress, whereas using cognitive and behavioral escape-avoidance was associated with more emotional distress. Implications of the results for understanding coping processes and intervention with cancer patients are discussed.     

Developmental expression of defensive responses during exposure to conspecific adults in preweanling rats (Rattus norvegicus).

I examined preweanling rats' (Rattus norvegicus) expression of ultrasounds and secretion of ACTH when exposed to unfamiliar adult male rats or to their mothers. Pups at 7 days of age produced similar levels of ultrasonic vocalization near both unfamiliar males and mothers. However, these pups could discriminate familiar from unfamiliar adults because ACTH was significantly higher in pups near adult males than in those near mothers. At 14 days of age, pups avoided adult males but not their mothers; therefore, adult males represented a significant threat. Importantly, 14-day-old rats significantly reduced ultrasound production only when near adult males. Pups at 21 days of age no longer emitted ultrasounds when socially isolated or when near conspecific adults. In addition, 14- and 21-day-old rats produced similar elevated ACTH levels across stimulus conditions. Results show significant changes in preweanling rats' responses to conspecific adults.     

Components of analogical reasoning in a mildly head injured population

This study sought to investigate the effects of mild head injury on a particular type of cognitive ability, verbal analogical reasoning. The performance of 19 individuals with head injuries was compared to a group of 30 control subjects matched for age, education, and gender on 100 verbal analogies. Solution times and error rates were modeled. Unstandardized regression weights for individual subjects were correlated with subjects’ performance on a number of standardized ability tests. Results showed that compared to the control subjects, the head injured subjects: (a) were significantly slower to solve the analogies, and were particularly slow to perform certain processes: encoding/inference and comparison; (b) tended to show greater variability in performance; and (c) had data that had a poorer componential model fit. The data suggest that analogical reasoning is affected by a head injury, and that certain information processes may be responsible for performance deficits.     

Motion perception and aging.

The authors used a correlated motion paradigm to investigate the effects of aging and gender on motion sensitivity. In 2 experiments with a total of 50 elderly and 50 young subjects, motion thresholds were significantly higher for elderly women. The correlated motion signal, which was embedded in random motion, may have been coherent to subjects in much the same way a form is in Witkin's Embedded Figures Test (EFT). In Experiment 2, EFT scores were obtained. A significant positive relationship between motion thresholds and EFT performance was found within each age group. Although gender-related perceptual style differences may contribute to motion perception effects, the authors argue that a common neural factor contributes to performance on both the EFT and the correlated motion task.     

Beliefs about condoms and accessibility of condom intentions in Hispanic and African American youth

The construct accessibility model (CAM) holds that constructs are most likely to influence behavior when they are accessible in memory. While the theory of reasoned action sees intention as an important determinant of behavior, the CAM predicts that the intention to act upon a given health behavior is not likely to be acted upon unless the intention is in an accessible state. Therefore, people who frequently talk about or think about using condoms are likely to have condom related constructs available and use them when needed. This paper reports findings from the pilot phase of a project to identify beliefs which influence condom use in Hispanic and African-American youth living in Detroit. 15 male and 15 female Hispanics and 17 male and 17 female African-Americans aged 15-21 years of mean and median age 18.5, were interviewed face-to-face in 1989 with the goal of identifying condom beliefs which may influence their condom use. 80-82% of male participants, 53% of Hispanic females, and 100% of Black females had experienced sexual intercourse, with age at first intercourse ranging between 13.1 and 16.5 years. 88% of Black women and 7% of Hispanic women were pregnant at the interview. Regarding participants' level of preventive knowledge, all but 1 recently immigrated Hispanic female knew HIV was transmitted by needles and sexual intercourse. 87% of Hispanics and 94% of African-Americans responded that condoms protect against AIDS, but only 13% of Hispanics and 47% of African-Americans knew that nonlatex condoms do not. Some participants expressed concern that condoms reduce sensitivity and/or break during intercourse. Controlling for sexual activity, 25% of Hispanic females, 83% of Hispanic males, 71% of African-American females, and 80% of African-American males had ever used a condom; no Hispanic and 14% of Blacks reported using them consistently in the 12 month period preceding the interview. With 100% of African-American males and 97% of Black females reporting thinking about using condoms compared to 80% of Hispanics, the study findings suggest that condom intentions are more accessible in African-Americans than among Hispanics.     

Gender and Wellness: A Multidimensional Systems Model for Counseling

An expanded view of health is advocated for assessment and treatment of individual clients in helping them achieve and maintain their maximum potential for high-level wellness. In addition, moderating variables, such as culture, age, and gender differences, have an impact on every dimension of health and wellness. In this article a multidimensional systems model for wellness is described, and gender differences along those dimensions are reviewed. Application of the model and implications for counseling are discussed. Finally, two illustrative case examples, one man and one woman, are described.     

Everyday memory performance across the life span: effects of age and noncognitive individual differences.

Gerontologists have long been concerned with the impact of individual-difference factors on memory. This study used a large sample (N = 2,495) of adult volunteers aged 18 to 90 years to determine if a set of individual-difference variables--vocabulary, education, depression, gender, marital status, and employment status--mediates the effects of aging on a wide range of laboratory-analogue tests of everyday memory. The data indicated that age was consistently the most significant predictor of memory performance, followed by vocabulary and gender. Vocabulary totally mediated age effects on a prose memory measure, and partial mediation of aging effects--primarily by vocabulary and gender--was observed on 5 other memory tests. These data suggest that when health samples of volunteers serve as research subjects, these individual differences can affect some memory test scores, but age remains the best overall predictor of memory performance.     

Adult age differences in short-term memory and subsequent long-term memory for actions.

Short-term memory for actions was investigated for young adult and elderly adult subjects with the Brown-Peterson procedure at retention intervals of 0 and 15 s. The short-term memory trials were followed by the long-term recall of the prior to-be-remembered actions. The 15-s retention interval was filled either with no activity or with 1 of 3 different interfering activities. Verbal interference had little effect on short-term memory at either age level. Actions performed in the interval either by the subjects or by the experimenter produced significantly lower recall scores at each age level, with the decrement being more pronounced for the elderly than for the young subjects. The long-term memory results indicated that successful short-term recall enhanced later long-term recall, regardless of age level.