When is being known or adored by romantic partners most beneficial? Self-perceptions, relationship length, and responses to partner's verifying and enhancing appraisals

An experiment tested the hypothesis that relationship length moderates preferences for both verifying and enhancing appraisals from romantic partners, particularly for people with negative self-perceptions. One hundred and three romantically involved couples participated in this research. Participants with both negative and positive self-perceptions were randomly assigned to receive either verifying or enhancing feedback ostensibly created through comparison of their self-ratings and their partner's appraisals. The critical test was for those with negative self-ratings who received verifying feedback. For these participants, results revealed that those in longer relationships felt their partners were seeing the best in them more than did those in shorter relationships, whereas the opposite pattern of results was observed for those who were enhanced. Individuals with negative self-ratings who were verified also reported greater feelings of intimacy in the relationship when in long-term relationships. The importance of relationship length in moderating responses to partner's appraisals is discussed.     

Self-esteem and persistence in the face of failure

In 2 studies, the authors examined self-esteem, persistence, and rumination in the face of failure. Study 1 manipulated degree of failure and availability of goal alternatives. When an alternative was available, high self-esteem (HSE) participants persisted more than low self-esteem (LSE) participants after a single failure, but less after repeated failure. When no alternative was available, no self-esteem differences in persistence emerged. LSE participants ruminated more than HSE participants. Study 2 examined persistence and rumination for 10 personal goals across an academic year. HSE participants were better calibrated (higher within-subject correlations between perceived progress and persistence across goals), had higher overall levels of persistence, higher grade point averages, and lower levels of rumination than LSE participants. Although traditional views that emphasize the tenacious persistence of HSE individuals need revision, HSE people appear more effective in self-regulating goal-directed behavior.     

Intimate partner stalking and femicide: urgent implications for women's safety

This study describes the type and extent of intimate partner stalking and threatening behaviors that occurred within 12 months prior to a major assault or attempted or actual partner femicide and specifies which behaviors were associated with an increased risk of potential or actual lethality.The design was a ten-city case-control study of 821 women: 384 abuse victims and 437 attempted or actual femicide informants. Data were derived using a 16-item inventory. Logistic regressions, with adjustments for demographic variables, were used to identify the significant perpetrator behaviors associated with attempted/actual femicide.Women who reported the perpetrator followed or spied on them were more than twice as likely t o become attempted/actual femicide victims. Threats by the perpetrator to harm the children if the woman left or did not return to the relationship place the woman at a ninefold increase in the risk of attempted/actual femicide. Conclusions are that certain stalking and threatening behaviors are strong risk factors for lethality, and women must be so advised.     

Varieties of preschool hyperactivity: multiple pathways from risk to disorder

In this paper we examine the characteristics of preschool attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) from both mental disorder and developmental psychopathology points of view. The equivalence of preschool and school-aged hyperactivity as a behavioral dimension is highlighted together with the potential value of extending the use of the ADHD diagnostic category to the preschool period where these behaviours take an extreme and impairing form (assuming age appropriate diagnostic items and thresholds can be developed). At the same time, the importance of identifying pathways between risk and later ADHD is emphasized. Developmental discontinuity and heterogeneity are identified as major characteristics of these pathways. We argue that models that distinguish among different developmental types of early-emerging problems are needed. An illustrative taxonomy of four developmental pathways implicating preschool hyperactivity is presented to provide a framework for future research.     

Psychological verbs and the double-dependency hypothesis

The double-dependency hypothesis (DDH, Mauner et al., 1993) holds that where two dependencies of a certain kind are present, comprehension in Broca's aphasia will be random, but that where there is only one dependency, comprehension will be intact. We tested this hypothesis by examining the performance of Broca's aphasics on sentences with psychological verbs of two different classes. One class has an argument structure in which the Experiencer role is assigned to the subject. In the other class, the Experiencer role is assigned to the object. Subject-Experiencer verbs can form verbal passives which have two relevant dependencies, whereas object-Experiencer verbs can form adjectival passives and have only one relevant dependency. Thus these sentence types make contrasting predictions relevant to the DDH. Our results clearly demonstrate that patients understand the adjectival passive psychological verbs, as predicted by the DDH. On the verbal passive psychological verbs, patients perform at chance, again consistent with DDH predictions. These results firmly buttress the DDH account. They also contradict the results of an earlier study (of verbal passive psychological verbs only), a study which we argue is plagued with problems (namely, Grodzinsky, 1995b).     

Strategy choice for arithmetic verification: effects of numerical surface form

Canadian university students (n=48) solved simple addition problems in a true/false verification task with equations in digit format (3+4=8) or written English format (three+four=eight). Participants reported their solution strategy (e.g. retrieval or calculation) after each trial. Reported use of calculation strategies was much greater with word (41%) than digit stimuli (26%), and this difference was exaggerated for numerically larger problems. Word-format costs on reaction time (RT) were correspondingly greater for large than for small problems, but this Format×Size RT effect was bigger for true than for false equations. The results demonstrate that surface format affects central, rather than only peripheral, stages of cognitive arithmetic.     

Personality and affect characteristics of outpatients with depression

This investigation was designed to examine the relationship between depression severity and personality disorders measured by the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-II (Millon, 1987) and affectivity measured by the Positive Affectivity/Negative Affectivity Schedule (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988). Discriminant analyses were employed to identify the personality and affective dimensions that maximally discriminate between 4 different levels of depressive severity. Differences between the 4 levels of depressive severity are suggestive of unique patterns of personality characteristics. Discriminant analysis showed that 74.8% of the cases were correctly classified by a single linear discriminant function, and that 61% of the variance in depression severity was accounted for by selected personality and affect variables. Results extend current conceptualizations of comorbidity and are discussed with respect to depression severity.     

Is Connectedness Necessary to What Matters in Survival

The standard version of the psychological criterion or theory of personal identity takes it that psychological connectedness is not necessary for personal identity, or for what matters in survival. That is, a future person can be you, and/or have what matters in survival for you, even though there is no psychological connectedness between you and that future person. David Lewis, however, holds that psychological connectedness is necessary to both identity and what matters (which he takes to coincide). This entails, Lewis acknowledges, that if a human body were to live longer than connectedness lasts, then that body would 'embody' or 'constitute' a different person later on than it did to begin with. Moreover, Lewis accepts, a body may embody more than one person at any one time. Lewis claims that this can be reconciled to some degree with common sense if we count by person stages rather than by persons. I show, though, that Lewis' view cannot be salvaged in this way, and, moreover, that it leads to further absurdities. I conclude that as an account of identity and of what matters in survival, it is highly implausible, and most unsatisfactory.