Age Differences in Coping Resources and Satisfaction With Life Among Middle-Aged,Young-Old,and Oldest-Old Adults

The authors examined age differences in perceived coping resources and satisfaction with life across 3 older-adult age groups (45-64, 65-74, and 75 years and older). The 98 participants represented healthy, socially active, community-residing adults. Group comparisons were made on 12 individual coping scales, and an overall coping resource effectiveness score was computed. No significant differences were found for 11 of the coping resources or for overall coping resource effectiveness. Similar consistencies in life satisfaction were found across the 3 age groups. The findings indicate that (a) for healthy adults, the oldest old cope at least as effectively as their younger counterparts, despite their likelihood of encountering increased levels of stress; and (b) psychologically, old age may be viewed as a time of resilience and fortitude.     

Risk Versus Effort in the Assessment of Motor Fatigue

The choice of probability leffort (COPE) devices require fatigued subjects to choose between risk and effort. In a first experiment, where fatigue was induced by an intense or by a prolonged motor task and where the required effort was perceptual, the fatigue did not generalize to the test mode. A second experiment used motor fatigue of the arm or leg, and tested with arm muscle effort, showing that subjects fatigued with either limb chose riskier alternatives in order to avoid the effort. The data correlated with self-rated fatigue, and closely paralleled earlier work using perceptual fatigue and perceptual effort.     

Reactive Inhibition Theory and Intertrial Correlations

From certain theoretical properties of Hull’s reactive inhibition and from the known modest reliability of reminiscence measures, it follows that intertrial correlations among psychomotor test scores should be higher under distributed-practice conditions than under massed-practice conditions. This proposition was tested in a conventional practice distribution paradigm involving 168 Caucasian subjects. Bartlett’s test for the homogeneity of covariance matrices confirmed the prediction, and a sign test for matched correlation pairs showed that correlations in the distributed practice mode were significantly more often higher than those in the massed practice mode. These results refute the prevailing view that intertrial correlations are invariant with respect to practice distribution, and they strengthen the credibility of Hull’s principle of reactive inhibition.     

A Note on Change in Creativity by Handedness Over A Maturational Time Period

Thirty left-handed and right-handed Ss (10 each from the second grade, fifth grade, and college) were compared on four subtests of the Torrance creativity test. At each age level, left-handed students had higher creativity scores than right-handers. The greatest differences were found on the Elaboration subtest.     

Evaluating OVal-9, An Instrument for Detecting Experiences of Value in Daily Occupations

The drastic increase of psychosocial ill health may point to the fact that current lifestyles produce longer lives, but with increased chronic disorders rather than greater health. Focus on current lifestyles, that is, on peoples' daily environments, are thereby warranted to develop models and methods for tracing health promoting factors inherent in people's daily participation and experiences. This study tests the content validity of OVal-9, an instrument based on the new concept; Occupational Value, among a sample of experts, students and clients. The result shows a good ability to assess the value that people experience in their daily occupations. We are convinced that measuring Occupational Value might be of importance in developing future strategies for intervention and prevention needed for the increasing incidence of mental ill-health.     

Psychopathic traits and men’s anger response to interpersonal conflict: A pilot study

Psychopathy is associated with emotional dysfunction that impedes the experience of emotions such as fear and sadness and has been purported to facilitate violent behavior. However, findings relative to the association between psychopathy and anger have not been reliably substantiated. Theorists have proposed that psychopathy predisposes one to experience greater frustration and anger, whereas other experts have suggested that there is no convincing evidence for this assertion. In the present study, we tested the relationship between psychopathy subfactors and anger subsequent to conflict or non-conflict interactions. Sixty-eight collegiate-men completed the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale and read vignettes depicting either a conflict or non-conflict scenario and were asked to imagine themselves in the situation. Following presentation of the vignettes, participants completed a lexical-decision-task assessing affective states. Results indicated that the psychopathy subfactors demonstrated strong differential associations, where Factor 1 showed negative and Factor 2 showed positive association with anger activation in response to interpersonal conflict. Findings are discussed in terms of the importance of anger as a facilitator of violence in some psychopathic individuals.     

Premarital counseling: Appraisal and status

Abstract

Premarital counseling programs have been proliferating in the United States since their appearance in the 1930s. In order to evaluate the success such programs have had in preparing couples to build successful marriages, reduce the incidence of divorce and prevent unsuccessful marriages from occurring, the authors reviewed those programs which outlined standardized intervention procedures and utilized dependent measures to assess the program's effectiveness. Thirteen programs met these criteria. In general, premarital counseling programs were found to be atheoretical in their approach to intervention, loosely designed and nonspecific as to their goals.     

Family Measurement Techniques

Abstract

This study examined the extent to which a brief, structured couples therapy program based on Imago Relationship Therapy was associated with improvements on the COMPASS scales of individual psychological functioning as well as on a measure of relationship satisfaction, the Marital Satisfaction Inventory. An examination of pre- to post-treatment differences revealed statistically significant differences on three of the four COMPASS scales and all three MSI scales. The rate of improvement in individual distress per couples therapy session was approximately equal to the improvement, found in previous studies, yielded by individual therapy. The results support previous findings that couples therapy may be an effective modality for the treatment of intrapersonal difficulties, and suggest that both relationship and individual distress indices should be utilized in the evaluation of the efficacy of marital therapies.