Psychological Distress and Help Seeking in Rural America

The implications of exposure to acute and chronic stressors, and seeking mental health care, for increased psychological distress are examined. Research on economic stress, psychological distress, and rural agrarian values each point to increasing variability within rural areas. Using data from a panel study of 1,487 adults, a model predicting changes in depressive symptoms was specified and tested. Results show effects by size of place for men but not for women. Men living in rural villages of under 2,500 or in small towns of 2,500 to 9,999 people had significantly greater increases in depressive symptoms than men living in the country or in larger towns or cities. Size of place was also related to level of stigma toward mental health care. Persons living in the most rural environments were more likely to hold stigmatized attitudes toward mental health care and these views were strongly predictive of willingness to seek care. The combination of increased risk and less willingness to seek assistance places men living in small towns and villages in particular jeopardy for continuing problems involving depressed mood.     

Issues in the assessment of fear: Response concordance and prediction of avoidance behavior

A large group of female subjects completed a battery of questionnaires including the Fear Survey Schedule and the Snake Questionnaire. They were later administered a behavioral approach test with a live snake during which self-report, behavioral, and psychophysiological measures were collected. These data were initially used to test Hodgson and Rachman's (Behavior Research and Therapy, 1974,12, 319–326) hypothesis that response concordance varies directly with the strength of emotional arousal. The results indicated that the less fearful subjects produced a greater degree of response concordance—contrary to the hypothesis. Next, previously identified factors extracted from the Snake Questionnaire were examined to determine their ability to predict behavioral avoidance during the test procedure. One factor was suitably predictive of the avoidance criterion. These two sets of results are discussed in terms of a possible explanation for concordance variations and in terms of the potential value of factor scores in subject selection and fear assessment.     

Semantic universals in sentence processing and interpretation: A study of Chinese,finnish, Japanese,and Slovenian speakers

The universality of certain aspects of sentence interpretation was investigated with native speakers of a variety of language families.Ss were given, in their own language, the same 156 affirmative and 156 corresponding negative sentences to sort into categories solely on the basis of sentence samples. The categories represented semantic sentence interpretations based on information value and nonsensicality.Ss generally sorted the same sentences (translation equivalents) into the same categories: e.g., Informative,The person is a man; Redundant,The man is a person; Contradictory,The chair is a spouse; Amphigorously Redundant,The chair is not a spouse. A semantic feature analysis indicates thatSs base their interpretations on particular interactions of features. Sets of rules and operations utilizing such feature combinations are formulated and attributed to theSs. Such knowledge is postulated to be universal to speakers of all languages.     

Phonology,reading, and Chomsky and Halle's optimal orthography

Chomsky and Halle claim that an orthography based on their underlying phonological representations (UPR) of lexical items would be optimal for English. This paper challenges three of C & H's basic phonological assumptions, that their vowel shift rule is valid, that the UPR is the only sound representation to be listed in the lexicon, and that derived words do not appear as wholes in the lexicon. A less abstract phonological representation level based on the conscious perceptions of speakers, the surface phonemic (SPR), is proposed. An SPR-based orthography has advantages which a UPR-based orthography would not: it is easy to learn and teach, it can be learned at an early age, and it permits rapid detection of rhyme. It is concluded that an orthography based on SPRs, and not UPRs, would be optimal.This research was supported in part by Office of Education contract OEC-9-71-0036(508), project 1-0527, to D. Steinberg and R. Krohn.     

An investigation of the normative and factor analytic composition of six questionnaires used for subject selection

Six self-report instruments which have been widely used for subject screening were administered to large samples of males and female college students. Normative information and bivariate correlations between scales were derived. Principal components analysis was applied to the individual scales to determine substructures. Finally, factor scores from the scales were examined in terms of second-order factors from an additional principal components analysis. The results are discussed in terms of comparisons with the results of previously published reports and implications for the discriminant validity of the scales and factor scores. The use of factor scores for more homogeneous subject selection is suggested.We wish to thank Arnold Holzman, Cynthia Volinsky, Ellen Tuckner, and Patricia Tolchin for their assistance in administering the questionnaires. Appreciation is also extended to Paul Malloy for his aid and suggestions concerning data analysis and to an anonymous reviewer for insightful comments which improved the quality of the final report. This study was conducted while the first author was at the State University of New York at Binghamton.     

Cognitive dissonance and psychotherapy: The role of effort justification in inducing weight loss

The role of effort justification in psychotherapy was examined. It was hypothesized that the effort involved in therapy, plus the conscious decision to undergo that effort, leads to positive therapeutic changes through the reduction of cognitive dissonance. An experiment was conducted in which overweight subjects attempted to lose weight through one of two forms of “effort therapy”. These therapies were bogus in that they were based solely on the expenditure of effort on a series of cognitive tasks that were unrelated to any existing techniques or theory addressing weight loss. One of the therapies called for a high degree of effort while the degree of effort in the second therapy was low. A no-treatment control group was also included. It was predicted that greater weight loss would occur for high-effort than low-effort or control subjects, and that this weight loss would be maintained or increased over time. Results supported these predictions. Over an initial 3-week period, high-effort subjects lost slightly more weight than low-effort subjects or controls. A 6-month follow-up revealed that the effects of effort on weight loss had increased and were highly significant. Reliable differences remained even 1 year after the initial experimental sessions. Possible mechanisms mediating the dissonance effect were discussed, as were several alternative explanations.     

Relationship between pathogenic beliefs and interpersonal problems: a cross-sectional study of Thai patients with depression

Pathogenic beliefs (PBs) are a key construct within control-mastery theory, a dynamic cognitive-relational psychotherapy approach. It is common for these beliefs to trigger interpersonal problems. The present study explored the relationship between PBs and interpersonal problems. Sixty-eight patients with depressive disorder were assessed using a 54-item Pathogenic Belief Scale (PBS), and the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems (IIP-32). Eight sub scales of the IIP-32 were analysed, along with the interpersonal circumplex (IPC) dominance and love dimensions. The PBS was significantly associated with the IIP-32 total score (r?=?.608, p?r?=??.285, p?相似文献   

Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome in Prader-Willi Syndrome: An Unrecognized and Untreated Cause of Cognitive and Behavioral Deficits?

Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS) is a rare genetic disorder characterized by a range of physical, psychological, and physiological abnormalities. It is also distinguished by the high prevalence of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS), i.e., repetitive upper airway collapse during sleep resulting in hypoxia and sleep fragmentation. In non-PWS populations, OSAS is associated with a range of neurocognitive and psychosocial deficits. Importantly, these deficits are at least partly reversible following treatment. Given the findings in non-PWS populations, it is possible that OSAS may contribute to neurocognitive and psychosocial deficits in PWS. The present review examines this possibility. While acknowledging a primary contribution from the primary genetic abnormality to central neural dysfunction in PWS, we conclude that OSAS may be an important secondary contributing factor to reduced neurocognitive and psychosocial performance. Treatment of OSAS may have potential benefits in improving neurocognitive performance and behavior in PWS, but this awaits confirmatory investigation.     

Externalizing and internalizing subtypes of combat-related PTSD: a replication and extension using the PSY-5 scales

This study replicated and extended prior findings of internalizing and externalizing subtypes of posttraumatic response (M. W. Miller, J. L. Greif, & A. A. Smith, 2003). Cluster analyses of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory--2 Personality Psychopathology--Five (MMPI-2 PSY-5; A. R. Harkness, J. L. McNulty, Y. S. Ben-Porath, 1995) profiles obtained from 736 veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) partitioned the sample into a low pathology cluster defined by personality scores in the normal range, an externalizing cluster characterized by low constraint and high negative emotionality, and an internalizing cluster with high negative emotionality and low positive emotionality. Externalizers showed the highest rates of alcohol-related and antisocial personality disorders; internalizers, the highest rates of panic and major depressive disorder. These findings support the development of a personality-based typology of posttraumatic response designed to account for heterogeneity in the expression of PTSD and associated psychopathology.     

Development of an ethanol model using social insects: III. Preferences for ethanol solutions

Experiments are designed to assess whether free-flying honey bees have an aversion to an ethanol solution when given a choice between targets containing an ethanol solution in sucrose or sucrose only. Animals given a choice between a 1% ethanol solution and sucrose only show no aversion to the ethanol solution either in acquisition or extinction. Honey bees given a choice between a 5% ethanol solution and sucrose only show no differences in the initial choice of targets but some ees do switch over to the sucrose-only target. Performance during extinction indicates that bees landed on the previously reinforced sucrose-only target more than the target previously containing the 5% ethanol solution. An experiment in which bees were given a single 5%, ethanol target showed that of 20 bees, 11 returned for the entire 12 trials of the experiment. All bees returned at least 6 times to the 5% ethanol target. Additional experiments were run on harnessed foragers in a palatability study of alcoholic beverages consumed by humans. The results of the palatability experiment indicate that in general, bees prefer more sweet drinks with less alcohol.