Secure Attachment to God Uniquely Linked to Psychological Health in a National,Random Sample of American Adults

Relationships between religiousness and psychological health are well established. The primary purpose of this study was to investigate whether perceived relationship with God (i.e., attachment to God) or how people view God (i.e., image of God) account for variation in psychological distress and well-being. Statistical relationships between two attachment to God dimensions (avoidance, anxiety), two dimensions of God image (forgiving, wrathful), and general psychological well-being were investigated in a convenience sample (Study 1) and nationally representative sample (Study 2) of American adults who expressed belief in God or a higher power. In both studies, secure attachment to God (i.e., lower avoidance, lower anxiety) and religious service attendance were positively correlated with self-reported psychological well-being. Hierarchical regressions indicated that attachment to God dimensions account for unique variability in reported mental health even after religious service attendance, prayer frequency, God image and demographic variables were statistically controlled. Negligible associations were found between images of God as forgiving or wrathful and psychological well-being. Perceived relationship with God appears to be an important factor in the connection between religiousness and psychological health.     

Examining incremental explanatory power in accounting for worry severity: negative metacognitive beliefs uniquely predict worry severity following a worry episode

Background and Objectives: Contemporary conceptual models posit that different core variables contribute to worry, including intolerance of uncertainty (IU), metacognitive beliefs, and experiential avoidance. To date, a concurrent investigation of the incremental explanatory power of these variables in accounting for worry severity remains unexamined. The present study sought to address that gap in the literature.

Design/Methods: Participants endorsing frequent worry (N?=?127) completed self-report measures assessing IU, metacognitive beliefs, and experiential avoidance during an online session. Participants later attended an in-person lab-based session where they completed a worry episode and in-vivo worry severity was assessed following the worry episode.

Results: IU, negative metacognitive beliefs, and experiential avoidance each shared a bivariate association with post-episode worry severity. However, in multivariate analyses, only baseline worry severity and negative metacognitive beliefs surrounding the dangerousness and uncontrollability of worry predicted post-episode worry severity.

Conclusions: The present results further underscore links between negative metacognitive beliefs and worry.     

Experiments on Socio-Technical Systems: The Problem of Control

My aim is to question whether the introduction of new technologies in society may be considered to be genuine experiments. I will argue that they are not, at least not in the sense in which the notion of experiment is being used in the natural and social sciences. If the introduction of a new technology in society is interpreted as an experiment, then we are dealing with a notion of experiment that differs in an important respect from the notion of experiment as used in the natural and social sciences. This difference shows itself most prominently when the functioning of the new technological system is not only dependent on technological hardware but also on social ‘software’, that is, on social institutions such as appropriate laws, and actions of operators of the new technological system. In those cases we are not dealing with ‘simply’ the introduction of a new technology, but with the introduction of a new socio-technical system. I will argue that if the introduction of a new socio-technical system is considered to be an experiment, then the relation between the experimenter and the system on which the experiment is performed differs significantly from the relation in traditional experiments in the natural and social sciences. In the latter experiments it is assumed that the experimenter is not part of the experimental system and is able to intervene in and control the experimental system from the outside. With regard to the introduction of new socio-technical systems the idea that there is an experimenter outside the socio-technical system who intervenes in and controls that system becomes problematic. From that perspective we are dealing with a different kind of experiment.     

Exploratory Evaluation and Initial Adaptation of a Parent Training Program for Hispanic Families of Children with Autism

The present paper takes a translational approach in applying the themes of the current special section to prevention and intervention science in Latino families. The paper reviews the current literature on cultural processes in prevention and intervention research with Latino families. Overall, many prevention and intervention programs have either been developed specifically for Latino families or have been modified for Latino families with great attention paid to the socio‐cultural needs of these families. Nevertheless, few studies have tested the role of cultural values or acculturation processes on outcomes. We make recommendations based on findings within basic science and in particular this special section on the incorporation of these values and processes into prevention and intervention science with Latino families.     

Collecting information: Optimizing outcomes, screening options, or facilitating discrimination?

Collection of information prior to a decision may be integrated into a compensatory choice process; if it is, the information packet that is collected should be the one that produces the highest net gain. Alternatively,information may be collected in order to screen out options that fail to meet minimum standards; if this is the case, people should not choose options on which they have not collected available information. We tested these and other predictions from the two approaches in four experiments. Participants were given specific information about three attributes of each choice option but only probabilistic information about a fourth one. They rated attractiveness of options, decidedwhether to collect specific information about the fourth attribute of each one, rated options again, and then selected one of them. Data were consistent with neither of the above approaches. Instead they suggested that people collect information in order to facilitate their ability to discriminate between the attractiveness of options.     

Age differences in recollection: three patterns of enhanced encoding

Memory encoding conditions can be manipulated in a variety of ways, and many of these methods result in improved recollection for both younger and older adults relative to baseline conditions. Previous results have shown differential age-related patterns of improvement, however, with some manipulations giving equal improvement to young and old participants, some benefiting older adults more, and others benefiting younger adults more. In 2 experiments, the authors show that presenting pictures with words benefited older more than younger participants, word generation benefited both groups equally, and an encoding condition requiring novel integrative processing benefited younger more than older adults. The authors discuss these results in terms of the enhanced elaboration afforded and processing demanded by differential combinations of age groups and encoding conditions.     

A comparison of acceptance- and control-based strategies for coping with food cravings: an analog study

The present study utilized an analog paradigm to investigate the effectiveness of two strategies for coping with food cravings, which was theorized to be critical to the maintenance of weight loss. Ninety-eight undergraduate students were given transparent boxes of chocolate Hershey's Kisses and instructed to keep the chocolates with them, but not to eat them, for 48 h. Before receiving the Kisses, participants were randomized to receive either (a) no intervention, (b) instruction in control-based coping strategies such as distraction and cognitive restructuring, or (c) instruction in acceptance-based strategies such as experiential acceptance and defusion techniques. Measures included the Power of Food Scale (PFS; a measure of psychological sensitivity to the food environment), self-report ratings of chocolate cravings and surreptitiously recorded chocolate consumption. Results suggested that the effect of the intervention depended on baseline PFS levels, such that acceptance-based strategies were associated with better outcomes (cravings, consumption) among those reporting the highest susceptibility to the presence of food, but greater cravings among those who scored lowest on the PFS. It was observed that craving self-report measures predicted chocolate consumption, and baseline PFS levels predicted both cravings and consumption. Results are discussed in terms of the implications for weight loss maintenance strategies.     

Introduction to the special issue on personality assessment in medical settings

This special issue of the Journal of Personality Assessment brings together 3 review articles and 5 research studies on personality assessment in medical settings that should help clinicians become more familiar with the current status of this field. In 1 review article, Sirri, Fabbri, Fava, and Sonino (2007/this issue) summarize evidence of a new approach to the assessment of psychological syndromes in somatizing patients based on the Diagnostic Criteria for Psychosomatic Research (Fava et al., 1995). The other reviews focus on 2 personality constructs widely used in investigations with medical patients. Kupper and Denollet (2007/this issue) review the Type D personality, whereas Lumley, Neely, and Burger (2007/this issue) provide an overview of alexithymia. Of the research articles, 2 also focus on alexithymia, specifically on the factor structure of the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (Bagby, Parker, & Taylor, 1994), which is the best-validated and most commonly used measure of alexithymia (Bagby, Taylor, Quilty, & Parker, 2007/this issue; Gignac, Palmer, & Stough, 2007/this issue). The other 3 research studies examine the relationship between specific personality dimensions (behavioral problems relevant to medicine, resiliency, and interpersonal sensitivity) and medical outcomes (adherence to treatment, coping with injury, and postsurgical sexual functioning) from medical samples of patients with HIV, spinal cord injury, and prostate carcinoma (Berry, Elliott, & Rivera, 2007/this issue; Cruess, Meagher, Antoni, & Millon, 2007/this issue; Siegel et al., 2007/this issue). Each article touches on the role person variables can play in the expression of medical problems.