Fatigue Impact Scale: Its validation in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

The aim of this study was to investigate the reliability and validity of the Fatigue Impact Scale (FIS) among patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and shorten the questionnaire. The empirically developed FIS, which comprised three subscales (cognitive, physical and psychosocial), was tested originally on Pipers' theoretical framework of subjective manifestations of fatigue, including behavioural, physical, emotional and cognitive expressions. The data analysed here consisted of responses from 296 patients with COPD who reported fatigue. The dimensionality of the FIS was examined using confirmatory factor analysis. A reduction of 15 items from the original FIS was made based on theory, modification indices and factor loadings. The results indicate that a nested-factor model with one general behavioural factor and three specific factors, physical, emotional and cognitive, shows acceptable fit. A modified version of 25 items, FIS-25 was developed. The original FIS and the FIS-25 were able to discriminate between patients with differing duration of fatigue. Test - retest correlations ranged from .70 to .85 for items and .94 for the total scale. Due to modification, the FIS-25 needs to be validated on a new group of patients with COPD.     

Composition of brain oscillations and their functions in the maintenance of auditory,visual and audio–visual speech percepts: an exploratory study

In the present exploratory study based on 7 subjects, we examined the composition of magnetoencephalographic (MEG) brain oscillations induced by the presentation of an auditory, visual, and audio-visual stimulus (a talking face) using an oddball paradigm. The composition of brain oscillations were assessed here by analyzing the probability-classification of short-term MEG spectral patterns. The probability index for particular brain oscillations being elicited was dependent on the type and the modality of the sensory percept. The maintenance of the integrated audio-visual percept was accompanied by the unique composition of distributed brain oscillations typical of auditory and visual modality, and the contribution of brain oscillations characteristic for visual modality was dominant. Oscillations around 20 Hz were characteristic for the maintenance of integrated audio-visual percept. Identifying the actual composition of brain oscillations allowed us (1) to distinguish two subjectively/consciously identical mental percepts, and (2) to characterize the types of brain functions involved in the maintenance of the multi-sensory percept.     

Overt and Relational Aggression and Victimization: Multiple Perspectives within the School Setting

The current study involved a comprehensive comparative examination of overt and relational aggression and victimization across multiple perspectives in the school setting (peers, teachers, observers in the lunchroom, self-report). Patterns of results involving sociometic status, ethnicity and gender were explored among 4th graders, with particular emphasis on girls. Controversial and rejected children were perceived as higher on both forms of aggression than other status groups, but only rejected children were reported as victims. Both European American and African American girls showed a greater tendency toward relational aggression and victimization than overt aggression or victimization. Results indicated negative outcomes associated with both relational and overt victimization and especially overt aggression for the target girl sample. Poorer adjustment and a socially unskillful behavioral profile were found to be associated with these three behaviors. However, relational aggression did not evidence a similar negative relation to adjustment nor was it related to many of the behaviors examined in the current study. Implications of these results are discussed.     

Implicit Candidate‐Trait Associations in Political Campaigns

While the study of political attitudes has incorporated implicit processes in its theoretical models, the predominant approach to candidate‐trait perception focuses exclusively on explicit processes. Our novel, dual‐process approach to candidate perception sees voters as holding both conscious, explicit impressions of candidate traits and automatic, implicit candidate‐trait associations that cannot be measured using traditional self‐report techniques. We examine implicit candidate‐trait associations for the first time using data from a three‐wave online panel conducted in the last month of the 2012 U.S. presidential election. First, we demonstrate that implicit candidate‐trait associations exist. Second, we show that implicit associations of warmth and competence with the candidates predict explicit candidate evaluations, economic evaluations, and vote choice, above and beyond conventional political science controls and explicit trait perceptions. Finally, we find that these effects are strongest among nonpartisans and partisans with conflicted feelings about their party's nominee. We suggest future directions for implicit political cognition research, including trait perception.     

Healing the Heart: A Qualitative Study of Challenges and Motivations to Cardiac Rehabilitation Attendance and Completion among Women and Men

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. Given that cardiovascular rehabilitation (CR) participation is the best secondary prevention of cardiac mortality, it is important to understand the challenges and motivations people experience while taking part in rehabilitation. The present qualitative study explored the treatment experiences of 20 women and 20 men at urban and rural rehabilitation clinics in Minnesota. Participants were equally divided based on the number of CR session completed (less than or equal to 18 vs. more than 18). The study’s primary aim was to articulate similarities and differences in the CR treatment experiences by gender. Data were gathered from individual interviews and analyzed using an inductive content analysis. Findings revealed that both women and men view CR as a means to move forward from their cardiac incident and achieve good health. Women were more likely than were men to be motivated by a perceived obligation to CR staff and improved quality of life. Men, in comparison, identified their commitment to CR as a need to complete a task. The study findings can help inform the design of rehabilitation programs and strengthen patient-centered interventions to enhance participation in treatment.     

‘You be the big sister’: Maternal‐preschooler internal state discourse,perspective‐taking,and sibling caretaking

Maternal–preschooler internal state discourse, preschooler perspective‐taking, and sibling caretaking for 32 dyads (preschooler M age=46.4 months, toddlers=14 months) was examined across three contexts varying in emotional demands: (a) naturalistic home observations, (b) mother–preschooler book reading (Parent–Child Affect Communication Task; Zahn‐Waxler, Ridgeway, Denham, Usher and Cole, 1993), and (c) a laboratory maternal separation session. Preschooler perspective‐taking was positively associated with emotional understanding during book reading. However, mothers did not adjust their internal state discourse in any of the three contexts to reflect preschoolers' perspective‐taking skills. Both preschooler internal state language during sibling conflict and maternal leave‐taking discourse were associated with sibling caretaking. Findings are discussed in light of the role of family discourse and dynamics in the development of children's social understanding. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Are mothers of stutterers different? An investigation of social-communicative integration

Many speech-language pathologists assume that parent-child communicative interactions are critical precipitating or maintaining factors in the onset and development of stuttering. Although parents are frequently counseled to alter their attitudes or behaviors, no studies have pinpointed specific parental behaviors as increasing children's disfluency. The purpose of this study was to analyze differences between 12 mothers of stutterers and 12 mothers of nonstutterers in their social-communicative interactions with their own child, an unfamiliar stutterer, and an unfamiliar nonstutterer. Ten minutes of free-play interaction between each mother and child were video recorded from behind a one-way mirror. Results indicate that the two groups of mothers differed significantly only in their use of routine statements. Other findings indicate that stuttering children used significantly more positive and imperative statements than nonstuttering children. All children asked significantly more questions of their own mothers than of unfamiliar mothers.     

Differentiating Adolescent Self-Injury from Adolescent Depression: Possible Implications for Borderline Personality Development

Self-inflicted injury (SII) in adolescence marks heightened risk for suicide attempts, completed suicide, and adult psychopathology. Although several studies have revealed elevated rates of depression among adolescents who self injure, no one has compared adolescent self injury with adolescent depression on biological, self-, and informant-report markers of vulnerability and risk. Such a comparison may have important implications for treatment, prevention, and developmental models of self injury and borderline personality disorder. We used a multi-method, multi-informant approach to examine how adolescent SII differs from adolescent depression. Self-injuring, depressed, and typical adolescent females (n = 25 per group) and their mothers completed measures of psychopathology and emotion regulation, among others. In addition, we assessed electrodermal responding (EDR), a peripheral biomarker of trait impulsivity. Participants in the SII group (a) scored higher than depressed adolescents on measures of both externalizing psychopathology and emotion dysregulation, and (b) exhibited attenuated EDR, similar to patterns observed among impulsive, externalizing males. Self-injuring adolescents also scored higher on measures of borderline pathology. These findings reveal a coherent pattern of differences between self-injuring and depressed adolescent girls, consistent with theories that SII differs from depression in etiology and developmental course.     

Achieving success at work: development and validation of the Motivational Climate at Work Questionnaire (MCWQ)

Although work represents an important achievement setting, research on the perceived motivational climate, as defined by the achievement goal theory (AGT), remains limited. Calls have been made for research on the salience of such situational influences based on traditional AGT. Therefore, the aim of this research was to develop a scale to measure the motivational climate at work. In a pilot study, participants completed a developed questionnaire and the findings supported psychometric properties of the questionnaire. Two further studies were conducted and the findings provided evidence of content validity, criterion‐related validity, construct validity, and internal consistency. The findings suggest the questionnaire might be used to determine the perception of the extant motivational climate in the workplace.