Disgust sensitivity and attitudes toward organ donation among African-American college students.

241 African-American college students (94 men and 147 women, mean age = 20.3 +/- 3.4 yr.) completed the 1994 Disgust Scale of Haidt, McCauley, and Rozin and a modified form of Parisi-Rizzo's 1987 Attitudes Toward Organ Donation Scale (negative subscale only) as well as a behavioral measure of intention to donate organs after death. Analyses indicated that the higher the disgust sensitivity, the more negative the attitude toward organ donation and the less likely the student was to indicate intent to donate organs. It was further shown that negative attitudes toward organ donation mediated the relationship between disgust sensitivity and the behavioral intention measure. Results highlight the complexity of the issues surrounding organ donation within an African-American population and provide additional empirical evidence for the development of a theoretical model to explain the organ donation phenomenon.     

Unnecessary Supplement

Studies in Philosophy and Education -     

Cognitive–Behavioral-Interpersonal Scenarios: Interformulator Reliability and Convergent Validity

Although a clinical case formulation can help focus treatment, little is known about the reliability and convergent validity of independently generated, cognitive–behavioral or cognitive–interpersonal formulations. Using videotapes of a semi-structured interview, pairs of clinicians independently formulated 2–3 cognitive–behavioral–interpersonal scenarios (CBISs) on each of 4 women with mood or comorbid mood and anxiety disorders. Ten licensed psychologists then rated each CBIS on 15 dimensions involving cognition, affect, symptoms, and interpersonal functioning. Reliability of the mean ratings (aggregated over the 10 raters) was >.83 for all dimensions. The set of CBISs formulated by a clinician for a patient generally demonstrated good convergent (same patient/different formulator) and discriminant (different patient/same or different formulator) validity on three factor-analytically derived general dimensions of depression, anxiety, and interpersonal functioning. Within each of three patients, pairs of formulators generally agreed on the situational components of the CBISs and demonstrated adequate to very good convergent validity of corresponding CBIS content. These results contribute to accumulating evidence for the reliability and validity of clinical scenarios as an idiographic, situation-level case formulation. Such formulations can help identify multiple cognitive, behavioral, or interpersonal intervention points in the causal chain leading to distress or dysfunction.     

The role of meaning and familiarity in mental transformations

Eighty-four participants mentally rotated meaningful and meaningless objects. Within each type of object, half were simple and half were complex; the complexity was the same across the meaningful and meaningless objects. The patterns of errors were examined as a function of the type of stimuli (meaningful vs. meaningless), complexity, and angle of rotation. The data for the meaningful objects showed steeper slopes of rotation for complex objects than that for simple objects. In contrast, the simple and complex meaningless objects showed comparable increases in error rates as a function of angle of rotation. Furthermore, the slopes remained comparable after pretraining that increased familiarity with the objects. The results are discussed in terms of underlying representations of meaningful and meaningless objects and their implications to mental transformations. The data are consistent with a piecemeal rotation of the meaningful stimuli and a holistic rotation of the meaningless stimuli.     

Incremental validity of spouse ratings versus self-reports of personality as predictors of marital quality and behavior during marital conflict

The personality traits of neuroticism and agreeableness are consistently related to marital quality, influencing the individual's own (i.e., actor effect) and the spouse's marital quality (i.e., partner effect). However, this research has almost exclusively relied on self-reports of personality, despite the fact that spouse ratings have been found to have incremental validity over self-reports for a variety of other important outcomes. In a study of 300 middle-aged and older married couples, we examined the incremental validity of spouse ratings of neuroticism and agreeableness in predicting concurrent levels of self-reported marital quality, observations of behavior during a marital disagreement task, and depressive symptoms. Neuroticism and agreeableness had expected actor and partner effects on each of these outcomes. Spouse ratings of these traits demonstrated incremental validity in estimates of actor and partner effects on marital quality, marital behavior, and depressive symptoms. Results suggest that spouse ratings of personality may be important additions to the typical reliance on self-reports for research and clinical assessment in marriage.     

The effectiveness of therapeutic assessment with an adult client: a single-case study using a time-series design

This article presents the therapeutic assessment (TA; Finn, 2007) of a traumatized young woman named Claire. Claire reported feeling debilitated by academic demands and the expectations of her parents, and was finding it nearly impossible to progress in her studies. She was also finding it difficult to develop and sustain intimate relationships. The emotional aspects of close relationships were extremely difficult for her and she routinely blamed herself for her struggles in this arena. The assessor utilized the TA model for adults, with the exception of not including an optional intervention session. The steps of TA, particularly the extended inquiry and the discussion of test findings along the way, cultivated a supportive and empathic atmosphere with Claire. By employing the single-case time-series experimental design used in previous TA studies (e.g., Smith, Handler, & Nash, 2010; Smith, Wolf, Handler, & Nash, 2009), the authors demonstrated that Claire experienced statistically significant improvement correlated with the onset of TA. Results indicated that participation in TA coincided with a positive shift in the trajectory of her reported symptoms and with recognizing the affection she held for others in her life. This case illustrates the successful application of case-based time-series methodology in the evaluation of an adult TA. The potential implications for future study are discussed.     

Attentional control in visual signal detection: effects of abrupt-onset and no-onset stimuli

The attention literature distinguishes two general mechanisms by which attention can benefit performance: gain (or resource) models and orienting (or switching) models. In gain models, processing efficiency is a function of a spatial distribution of capacity or resources; in orienting models, an attentional spotlight must be aligned with the stimulus location, and processing efficiency is a function of when this occurs. Although they involve different processing mechanisms, these models are difficult to distinguish empirically. We compared performance with abrupt-onset and no-onset Gabor patch stimuli in a cued detection task in which we obtained distributions of reaction time (RT) and accuracy as a function of stimulus contrast. In comparison to abrupt-onset stimuli, RTs to miscued no-onset stimuli were increased and accuracy was reduced. Modeling the data with the integrated system model of Philip L. Smith and Roger Ratcliff (2009) provided evidence for reallocation of processing resources during the course of a trial, consistent with an orienting account. Our results support a view of attention in which processing efficiency depends on a dynamic spatiotemporal distribution of resources that has both gain and orienting properties.     

Contraction intensity and velocity on vastus lateralis SEMG power spectrum and amplitude

Effect of contraction intensity [100%, 75%, 50%, and 25% maximum voluntary contraction (MVC)] and movement velocity [0 degrees (isometric)], 50 degrees, 100 degrees, 200 degrees, and 400 degrees/sec. [isovelocities]) on root mean square amplitude (SEMG-RMS) and median frequency power spectrum (SEMG-MNF) of vastus lateralis (VL) surface electromyography was investigated with ten healthy female university students. Peak torque (PT), mean torque (MT), SEMG-MNF, and SEMG-RMS, analyzed using separate repeated-measures analyses of variance (p < or = .05), indicated: (1) an inverse relation between PT and MT and movement velocity, (2) greater SEMG-MNF values during all isovelocity conditions compared with isometric conditions, with highest values occurring at 50 degrees /sec. and at 100% and 75% MVC, and (3) at all contraction intensities SEMG-RMS values were higher during dynamic movements than isometric movements and highest at 200 degrees /sec. Isovelocity contractions were inferred to facilitate a greater recruitment of fast-twitch fibers (via increased SEMG-MNF), which was intensified at 50 degrees /sec., whereas greater overall muscle activation was found at 200 degrees /sec.