Does who you marry matter for your health? Influence of patients' and spouses' personality on their partners' psychological well-being following coronary artery bypass surgery

Research suggests that presurgical personality attributes influence postsurgical well-being in both patients and their spouses in the context of coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) surgery. The authors hypothesized that a spouse's characteristics would influence a partner's psychological well-being, regardless of whether he or she was the patient or the caregiver. In this study, 111 male patients and their caregiver spouses completed measures of neuroticism, optimism, perceived marital satisfaction, and depression prior to elective CABG. Follow-up was conducted at 18 months. As expected, higher caregiver presurgical neuroticism predicted higher patient depressive symptoms at follow-up, with caregiver's concurrent 18-month affect controlled for. Likewise, higher patient presurgical neuroticism predicted higher caregiver depressive symptoms at follow-up. Additionally, higher patient presurgical depressive symptoms and lower presurgical optimism contributed to greater caregiving burden. Relationship satisfaction moderated these effects. These results suggest that partners' personality traits are important determinants of both patients' and their caregiving spouses' well-being.     

Dream recall and nightmare frequency: a family study

The present study investigated dream recall as well as nightmare frequency in families. Whereas a positive correlation for nightmare frequencies between children and mothers was found (but not for children and their fathers), the relationship for dream recall frequency was small and nonsignificant. Assuming that mothers are still the primary caregivers in the modern family, and, thus, might encourage or discourage children to talk about their dreams, the findings of the study support Cohen's 1973 hypothesis of a socialization effect on nightmare frequency and maybe a smaller effect on dream recall frequency.     

Phonological Assimilation and Visual Word Recognition

Are the visual word-processing tasks of naming and lexical decision sensitive to systematic phonological properties that may or may not be specified in the spelling? Two experiments with Hangul, the alphabetic orthography of Korea, were directed at the effects of the phonological process of assimilation whereby one articulation changes to conform to a neighboring articulation. Disyllabic words were responded to more quickly when (a) the final letter of the first syllable and the initial letter of the second syllable specified phonemes that satisfied rather than violated consonant assimilation, and (b) the vowel letters specified harmonious as opposed to disharmonious vowel phonemes. Discussion addressed the possible mediation of assimilation effects by consistency differences and theories that predict broad phonological influences on visual word recognition.     

Transference and attachment: how do attachment patterns get carried forward from one relationship to the next?

This research investigated how working models of attachment are carried forward from one relationship to the next. A two-part study was conducted in which participants learned about two potential dating partners: one that was constructed to resemble a romantic partner from their past and one that resembled a partner from another participant's past. Results showed that people applied their attachment representations of past partners to both targets but did so to a greater degree when the target resembled a past partner. People also tended to feel more anxious and less avoidant toward the target that resembled their past partner. Overall, the findings were consistent with the hypothesis that working models of attachment are transferred in both general and selective ways in new relationships.     

Distinguishing narcissism and hostility: similarities and differences in interpersonal circumplex and five-factor correlates

Narcissism and hostility are both characterized by dysfunctional social interactions, including tendencies to perceive slights, experience anger, and behave aggressively. The aim of this study was to examine the similarities and differences of narcissism and hostility, using 2 conceptual tools-the interpersonal circumplex and the Five-factor model. In a sample of 292 undergraduate men and women, composite measures of hostility (i.e., Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire [Buss & Perry, 1992] and Cook-Medley Hostility [Cook & Medley, 1954] total scores) were inversely correlated with affiliation and unrelated to dominance. In contrast, composite narcissism scores (i.e., Narcissistic Personality Inventory) were positively correlated with dominance and inversely correlated with affiliation. Examination of components of these traits revealed additional similarities and differences, as did associations with other dimensions of the Five-factor model. These findings suggest that the traits of narcissism and hostility are distinguishable by their interpersonal referents, as are their components.     

Traumatic Brain Injury Outcome in Older Adults: A Critical Review of the Literature

This paper is a critical overview of the literature on older adults' outcome after traumatic brain injury (TBI). Eighteen outcome studies were reviewed. Results indicated that older patients demonstrated an increased risk for negative outcome following TBI when compared to younger patients with similar injury severity. Poorer outcome was characterized by higher mortality rates, decreased likelihood of returning to preinjury living arrangement, and declines in cognitive and affective functioning. In the studies reviewed, discharge destination, global outcome scales, and standardized neuropsychological tests were the primary measures of outcome from elderly TBI. Conceptual and methodological difficulties including variability in the definition of and inadequate measures of recovery from elderly TBI, inadequate control groups, and poor follow-up were discussed. Recommendations for future outcome research to increase uniformity in defining recovery in order to enhance comparability between studies and to tailor cognitive rehabilitation to the special needs of the older TBI patient were provided.     

Limits on the role of retrieval cues in memory for actions: Enactment effects in the absence of object cues in the environment

Verb-object phrases (open the umbrella, knock on the table) are usually remembered better if they have been enacted during study (also called subject-performed tasks) than if they have merely been learned verbally (verbal tasks). This enactment effect is particularly pronounced for phrases for which the objects (table) are present as cues in the study and test contexts. In previous studies with retrieval cues for some phrases, the enactment effect in free recall for the other phrases has been surprisingly small or even nonexistent. The present study tested whether the often replicated enactment effect in free recall can be found if none of the phrases contains context cues. In Experiment 1, we tested, and corroborated, the suppression hypothesis: The enactment effect for a given type of phrase (marker phrases) is modified by the presence or absence of cues for the other phrases in the list (experimental phrases). Experiments 2 and 3 replicated the enactment effect for phrases without cues. Experiment 2 also showed that the presence of cues either at study or at test is sufficient for obtaining a suppression effect, and Experiment 3 showed that the enactment effect may disappear altogether if retrieval cues are very salient.     

Probability Biases in Genetic Problem Solving: A Comparison of Undergraduates, Genetic Counseling Graduate Students, and Genetic Counselors

Heuristics are mental shortcuts that aid people in everyday problem-solving and decision-making. Although numerous studies have demonstrated their use in contexts ranging from consumers’ shopping decisions to experts’ estimations of experimental validity, virtually no published research has addressed heuristics use in problems involving genetic conditions and associated risk probabilities. The present research consists of two studies. In the first study, 220 undergraduates attempted to solve four genetic problems—two common heuristic problems modified to focus on genetic likelihood, and two created to study heuristics and probability rule application. Results revealed that the vast majority of undergraduates used heuristics and also demonstrated a complete misuse of probability rules. In the second study, 156 practicing genetic counselors and 89 genetic counseling students solved slightly modified versions of the genetic problems used in Study 1. Results indicated that a large percentage of both genetic counselors and students used heuristics, but the counselors demonstrated superior problem-solving performance compared to both the genetic counseling students and the undergraduates from Study 1. Research, training, and practice recommendations are presented.     

Cultural illiteracy and the Internet.

The Internet has created different expectations regarding its possibilities as a tool for including groups that have heretofore been excluded from the modern world. But mere access to information does not necessarily imply correct and effective use of it. Despite the great increase in Internet access in previously excluded areas, expectations of inclusion have not been fulfilled. Research suggests that the effectiveness of Internet use varies among cultures, but all such studies analyze countries as a whole with no further breakdown. Yet it is known that within a given country there co-exist subcultures that differ both in language and social context. This paper presents a study that shows the correlation between different social subcultures and their Internet knowledge.     

A comparison of implicit memory tests in schizophrenic patients and normal controls

The objective of the current study was to compare the performance of schizophrenic patients and normal controls on implicit memory tests. Two neuropsychological tasks were administered to 29 patients and normal participant samples. The implicit tests were: Word fragment completion and Word production from semantic categories. The priming score was the variable of interest. Priming effects are obtained in normal subjects and schizophrenia patients, regardless of the implicit test used. However, a dissociation in priming between normal and patient groups was observed, depending on the test used. For word fragment test, priming was identical between the two groups. However, for word production, priming obtained in schizophrenics was lower than priming in normal controls. Results confirm a dissociation effect in implicit memory tests. These results could be explained in the context of the Roediger and Blaxton (1987) distinction between data-driven and conceptually-driven processing. This evidence suggests that a complete neuropsychological assessment of memory in schizophrenia should include different kinds of implicit memory tests (procedural, perceptual, and conceptual tasks).