Pregnancy-specific stress, prenatal health behaviors, and birth outcomes

OBJECTIVE: Stress in pregnancy predicts earlier birth and lower birth weight. The authors investigated whether pregnancy-specific stress contributes uniquely to birth outcomes compared with general stress, and whether prenatal health behaviors explain this association. DESIGN: Three structured prenatal interviews (N = 279) assessing state anxiety, perceived stress, life events, pregnancy-specific stress, and health behaviors. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Gestational age at delivery, birth weight, preterm delivery (<37 weeks), and low birth weight (<2,500 g). RESULTS: A latent pregnancy-specific stress factor predicted birth outcomes better than latent factors representing state anxiety, perceived stress, or life event stress, and than a latent factor constructed from all stress measures. Controlling for obstetric risk, pregnancy-specific stress was associated with smoking, caffeine consumption, and unhealthy eating, and inversely associated with healthy eating, vitamin use, exercise, and gestational age at delivery. Cigarette smoking predicted lower birth weight. Clinically-defined birth outcomes were predicted by cigarette smoking and pregnancy-specific stress. CONCLUSION: Pregnancy-specific stress contributed directly to preterm delivery and indirectly to low birth weight through its association with smoking. Pregnancy-specific stress may be a more powerful contributor to birth outcomes than general stress.     

A Study of Current, Former, and New Elderly Volunteers: A Comparison of Developmental and Trait Models of Personality

This study examined relationships among personality traits, ego development, and volunteering among retired seniors who were current, former, and new volunteers. Volunteer history, but not extensiveness of volunteer experience, was associated with higher ego development. Current volunteers had higher levels of ego development than former and new volunteers, and former volunteers had higher levels than new volunteers. Openness to experience and ego development were positively associated. Results of multiple-regression analyses indicated that openness and volunteering history and extensiveness positively predicted ego development. This study supported the hypothesis that ego development is related to volunteering and suggests that participation in volunteer work promotes ego development.     

Individual differences in the verbal coding of familiar visual stimuli

Two experiments were performed both of which involved the same-different comparison of pairs of alphabet letters. "Same" reaction times were obtained for both physical matches (e.g., AA) and name matches (e.g., aA). The results of both experiments supported the hypothesis that individual subjects would differ with respect to whether or not they based their physical matches on a comparison of verbal codes. In Experiment I, subjects differed in the size of their reaction time difference between physical and name matches, and in Experiment II, individuals differed with respect to whether or not the frequency of usage of the letters affected their reaction time for physical matches. In both experiments, the individual differences in verbally coding physical matches were related to Hock's (1973) individual differences distinction between subjects emphasizing analytic processes and subjects emphasizing structural processes.     

Clinical Exchange: The Architectural Failure

The Clinical Exchange invites eminent clinicians of diverse persuasions to share, in ordinary language, their clinical formulations and treatment plans of the same psychotherapy patient—one not selected or nominated by those therapists—and then to discuss points of convergence and contention in their recommendations. This Exchange concerns a Mr. L, a 47-year-old, married man presenting for outpatient individual psychotherapy with chief complaints of depression, anxiety, and a lengthy history of vocational underachievement. Drs. Herbert Fensterheim, Leslie Greenberg, and Leigh McCullough, who anchor their practices in the cognitive-behavioral, experiential, and psychodynamic orientations, respectively, are the featured commentators. Finally, Dr. Jerold Gold, the case contributor and Mr. L's psychotherapist, provides a few closing comments.     

Value Priorities and Organ Donation in Young Adults

This research identifies major personal values among American university students that predict organ-donation registration with the Department of Motor Vehicles. Participants responded to a factual test of their knowledge about organ donation, indicated whether or not they had registered as posthumous donors, and filled out a personality inventory measuring their personal values (Schwartz, 1992, 1994). The data indicated a high level of factual knowledge about organ donation; and the greater the level of knowledge, the more likely participants were registered to donate their organs. Also, participants higher in benevolence, universalism, achievement, and stimulation were more likely to have registered to donate their organs. The results are discussed in terms of the need to develop more effective health-communication campaigns by using specific health-education messages tailored to students majoring in different disciplines or to people in various occupations as a means of increasing their willingness to donate.