Stability and coherence of health experts' upper and lower subjective probabilities about dose-response functions

As part of a method for assessing health risks associated with primary National Ambient Air Quality Standards. T. B. Feagans and W. F. Biller (Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. EPA Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards, May 1981) developed a technique for encoding experts' subjective probabilities regarding dose--response functions. The encoding technique is based on B. O. Koopman's (Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, 1940, 46, 763-764; Annals of Mathematics, 1940, 41, 269-292) probability theory, which does not require probabilities to be sharp, but rather allows lower and upper probabilities to be associated with an event. Uncertainty about a dose--response function can be expressed either in terms of the response rate expected at a given concentration or, conversely, in terms of the concentration expected to support a given response rate. Feagans and Biller (1981, cited above) derive the relation between the two conditional probabilities, which is easily extended to upper and lower conditional probabilities. These relations were treated as coherence requirements in an experiment utilizing four ozone and four lead experts as subjects, each providing judgments on two separate occasions. Four subjects strongly satisfied the coherence requirements in both conditions. and three more did no in the second session only. The eighth subject also improved in Session 2. Encoded probabilities were highly correlated between the two sessions, but changed from the first to the second in a manner that improved coherence and reflected greater attention to certain parameters of the dose--response function.     

Tonic immobility and childhood sexual abuse: a preliminary report evaluating the sequela of rape-induced paralysis

The present study examined tonic immobility (TI) in victims of childhood sexual abuse (CSA). Female undergraduates (n=39) and female psychiatric inpatients (n=41) who experienced CSA completed a series of questionnaires assessing aspects of their victimization history, psychological functioning, and TI symptoms. Over fifty-two percent of all participants reported TI in response to CSA. Episodes of CSA involving attempted or completed penile/vaginal penetration were more likely to be associated with an increased likelihood of experiencing TI, and report of TI was associated with greater current psychological impairment. The implications of these findings are discussed, and suggestions for future research are offered.     

Interoceptive fear conditioning and panic disorder: the role of conditioned stimulus-unconditioned stimulus predictability

Interoceptive fear conditioning is at the core of contemporary behavioral accounts of panic disorder. Yet, to date only one study has attempted to evaluate interoceptive fear conditioning in humans (see Acheson, Forsyth, Prenoveau, & Bouton, 2007). That study used brief (physiologically inert) and longer-duration (panicogenic) inhalations of 20% CO(2)-enriched air as an interoceptive conditioned (CS) and unconditioned (US) stimulus and evaluated fear learning in three conditions: CS only, CS-US paired, and CS-US unpaired. Results showed fear conditioning in the paired condition, and fearful responding and resistance to extinction in an unpaired condition. The authors speculated that such effects may be due to difficulty discriminating between the CS and the US. The aims of the present study are to (a) replicate and expand this line of work using an improved methodology, and (b) clarify the role of CS-US discrimination difficulties in either potentiating or depotentiating fear learning. Healthy participants (N=104) were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: (a) CS only, (b) contingent CS-US pairings, (c) unpaired CS and US presentations, or (d) an unpaired "discrimination" contingency, which included an exteroceptive discrimination cue concurrently with CS onset. Electrodermal and self-report ratings served as indices of conditioned responding. Consistent with expectation, the paired contingency and unpaired contingencies yielded elevated fearful responding to the CS alone. Moreover, adding a discrimination cue to the unpaired contingency effectively attenuated fearful responding. Overall, findings are consistent with modern learning theory accounts of panic and highlight the role of interoceptive conditioning and unpredictability in the etiology of panic disorder.     

A meta-analysis of the Dark Triad and work behavior: a social exchange perspective

We reviewed studies of the Dark Triad (DT) personality traits--Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy-and meta-analytically examined their implications for job performance and counterproductive work behavior (CWB). Relations among the DT traits and behaviors were extracted from original reports published between 1951 and 2011 of 245 independent samples (N = 43,907). We found that reductions in the quality of job performance were consistently associated with increases in Machiavellianism and psychopathy and that CWB was associated with increases in all 3 components of the DT, but that these associations were moderated by such contextual factors as authority and culture. Multivariate analyses demonstrated that the DT explains moderate amounts of the variance in counterproductivity, but not job performance. The results showed that the 3 traits are positively related to one another but are sufficiently distinctive to warrant theoretical and empirical partitioning.     

The relationship between racial identity status attitudes, racism-related coping, and mental health among Black Americans

To date, few studies have examined how different strategies for coping with racism affect the mental health of Black Americans, and none have explored how racial identity status attitudes and racism-related coping affect mental health. This study sought to examine the relationship between racial identity status attitudes, the specific strategies used by Black Americans to cope with racism, and mental health outcomes. Participants were 233 Black adults, and cluster analysis identified four cluster groups that differed significantly with respect to the patterns of racial identity attitudes and racism-related coping strategies employed. Although the groups did not differ significantly in well-being, the group with predominantly high Internalization status attitudes and that used primarily Empowered Resistance racism-related coping strategies had the least psychological symptoms. Implications for mental health and research are discussed.     

The Punishment Gap: Racial/Ethnic Comparisons in School Infractions by Objective and Subjective Definitions

This research examines the differences between ethnic groups when school infractions are subjective/objective. Using school discipline incident data, eight categories of infractions are analyzed: disobedience, violence, substance abuse, vandalism, theft, truancy, safety, and miscellaneous. Within these eight categories there are 32 specific infractions. Specific infractions were then classified as either subjective or objective by a committee. Population proportion criteria (PPC; minus or plus 10% of a group’s overall population) is used. Findings indicated that only black students exceeded the criteria with infractions having subjective definitions. All other groups only exceeded PPC with infractions having objective definitions.