Assessment and Prediction of Stress-Related Growth

This article reports the development of the Stress-Related Growth Scale (SRGS) and its use in a study examining determinants of stress-related positive outcomes for college students. Study 1 analyses showed that the SRGS has acceptable internal and test-retest reliability and that scores are not influenced by social desirability. Study 2 analyses showed that college students' SRGS responses were significantly related to those provided by friends and relatives on their behalf. Study 3 analyses tested the determinants of stress-related growth longitudinally. Significant predictors of the SRGS were (a) intrinsic religiousness; (b) social support satisfaction; (c) stressfulness of the negative event; (d) positive reinterpretation and acceptance coping; and (e) number of recent positive life events. The SRGS was also positively related to residual change in optimism, positive affectivity, number of socially supportive others, and social support satisfaction, lending further support to the validity of this new scale. Results have implications for current theory on stress-related positive outcomes.     

Behavioral assessment of eating patterns and blood glucose in diabetes using the Self-Monitoring Analysis System

The Self-Monitoring Analysis System is a set of microcomputer programs that were developed to remove clinical judgment from the task of behavioral assessment using self-monitoring diaries. The program is written in Turbo Pascal and runs on MS-DOS (16-bit) or CP/M (8-bit) microcomputer systems. The program allows the user to custom design data bases with hundreds of binary, categorical, integral, and real variables. Full-screen data-entry forms can be custom designed, and random access files allow for flexible data entry and editing. The program makes extensive utilization of Pascal’s very flexible data structure capabilities. Dynamic allocation of memory allows the program to maximize its use of available RAM. Data from a patient with diabetes is presented as a case study illustrating the system’s utility.     

Semantic and associative factors in probability learning with words

Using a probability-learning technique with a single word as the cue and with the probability of a given event following this word fixed at .80, it was found (1) that neither high nor low associates to the original word and (2) that neither synonyms nor antonyms showed differential learning curves subsequent to original learning when the probability for the following event was shifted to .20. In a second study when feedback, in the form of knowledge of results, was withheld, there was a clear-cut similarity of predictions to the originally trained word and the synonyms of both high and low association value and a dissimilarity of these words to a set of antonyms of both high and low association value. Two additional studies confirmed the importance of the semantic dimension as compared with association value as traditionally measured.     

The differential effects of thalamus and basal ganglia on facial emotion recognition

This study examined if subcortical stroke was associated with impaired facial emotion recognition. Furthermore, the lateralization of the impairment and the differential profiles of facial emotion recognition deficits with localized thalamic or basal ganglia damage were also studied. Thirty-eight patients with subcortical strokes and 19 matched normal controls volunteered to participate. The participants were individually presented with morphed photographs of facial emotion expressions over multiple trials. They were requested to classify each of these morphed photographs according to Ekman's six basic emotion categories. The findings indicated that the clinical participants had impaired facial emotion recognition, though no clear lateralization pattern of impairment was observed. The patients with localized thalamic damage performed significantly worse in recognizing sadness than the controls. Longitudinal studies on patients with subcortical brain damage should be conducted to examine how cognitive reorganization post-stroke would affect emotion recognition.     

Effects of counseling Ashkenazi Jewish women about breast cancer risk

The goal of this study was to determine whether genetic counseling or psychosocial group counseling provided to Ashkenazi women can reduce breast cancer worry, cancer risk perception, and interest in having genetic testing. Women (N=211) were randomized to receive individual genetic risk counseling, to receive a group psychosocial group counseling, or to serve as a control group. The authors found that both counseling methods reduced cancer worry, lowered perceptions of breast cancer risk, and decreased interest in having genetic testing. Counseling can help women gain a more accurate perception of their risk, expose them to the benefits and limitations of genetic testing, and reduce their worry about cancer.     

The Galileo bias: a naive conceptual belief that influences people's perceptions and performance in a ball-dropping task

This research introduces a new naive physics belief, the Galileo bias, whereby people ignore air resistance and falsely believe that all objects fall at the same rate. Survey results revealed that this bias is held by many and is surprisingly strongest for those with formal physics instruction. In 2 experiments, 98 participants dropped ball pairs varying in volume and/or mass from a height of 10 m, with the goal of both balls hitting the ground simultaneously. The majority of participants in both experiments adopted a single strategy consistent with the Galileo bias, showing no improvement across trials. Yet, for participants reporting intentions of dropping both balls at the same time, the differences between release points were significantly greater than 0 ms. These findings support separate but interacting cognition and perception-action systems.     

Turning Fantasies About Positive and Negative Futures into Self-Improvement Goals

Contrasting fantasies about the future with reflections on reality that impedes fantasy realization creates a tight link between expectations of success and forming commitments to self-improvement goals. This effect applies to both fantasies about a positive future contrasted with impeding negative reality as well as fantasies about a negative future contrasted with impeding positive reality. In Study 1, with 63 student participants, contrasting positive fantasies about benefiting from a vocational training with negative reflections on reality impeding such benefits led to expectancy-dependent willingness to invest in the training, more so than indulging in the positive future and than dwelling on the negative reality. In Study 2, with 158 high school students from former East Berlin, contrasting negative, xenophobic fantasies about suffering from the influx of immigrants with positive reflections on reality impeding such suffering led to expectancy-dependent tolerance and willingness to integrate the immigrants. Findings are discussed in terms of how mental contrasting facilitates self-improvement and personal development by making people form expectancy-dependent goal commitments to approach positively-perceived as well as negatively-perceived futures.     

On the methodology of body image assessment: the use of figural rating scales to evaluate body dissatisfaction and the ideal body standards of women

We examined the use of figural rating scales to measure body dissatisfaction and the ideal body standards of women. We also attended to the potential influence of demand characteristics in body assessment research using these measures, a methodological concern largely ignored in this field. We used both within- and between-subjects designs to assess whether women hold different body standards for themselves compared to their same sex peers and whether their own ideal body size (IBS) is different from what they think men prefer. Regardless of the method of data collection (within or between design), we failed to find any differences on separate items of body image ideals. The findings do provide evidence of robust and large effects for the current–ideal discrepancy as measured by figural rating scales, but argue against including multiple questions about ideal body preferences on these types of scales. Concerns about the influence of demand characteristics were not supported by the data.