Instrumental Behaviors Following Test Administration and Interpretation: Exploration Validity of the Strong Interest Inventory

A two-phase longitudinal study was conducted to explore the exploration validity (i.e., the power of interest inventories to facilitate career exploration activities such as talking to professionals and seeking vocational information) of the 1985 Strong Interest Inventory (SII) for college students. Participants in the study included an experimental group (N =75), which participated in the SII testing and a group interpretation, and a contrast group(N=67). Students in the experimental group reported significantly more instrumental career exploration behaviors at a 1-year follow-up than did the contrast group.     

Interrelationships of personality and coping in a challenging extreme situation

The relationship between personality characteristics, daily stressors, and means of coping were studied in a 12-person Soviet-American expedition ateamconsisting of Caucasian and Eskimo men and women. The members scored relatively high on scales measuring well-being, achievement orientation, and traditionalism and scored relatively low on stress reactivity. The use of social support as a coping mechanism was positively related to high stress reactivity, control, and negative emotionality and negatively related to well-being. Negative emotionality was related to ratings of daily intrapersonal stressor. Discussion centered on the function of social support in an extreme, task-focused situation and the relationship of social support coping in this particular type of situation to maladaptive personality characteristics.     

A Comparison of Anglo-American and Mexican-American Jurors' Judgments of Mothers Who Fail to Protect Their Children from Abuse1

Two studies were conducted to determine if people with an individualist cultural background differ from those with a collectivist cultural background (Triandis, 1990) in their adjudication of mothers who fail to protect their children from abuse. In the first study, 452 students evaluated the case of a mother accused of failure to protect her son from physical abuse. In the second study, an additional 334 subjects considered a case of a mother's failure to protect her daughter from sexual abuse. While the verdicts depended on the gender of the juror, female jurors were significantly more likely to convict the defendant; the verdict was independent of ethnicity. However, ethnicity did influence sentencing and whether the juror recommended that the defendant serve time. The results are discussed in terms of cultural influences on discretionary decisions.     

Pre- and postlexical loci of contextual effects on word recognition

The context in which a word occurs could influence either the actual decoding of the word or a postrecognition judgment of the relatedness of word and context. In this research, we investigated the loci of contextual effects that occur in lexical priming, when prime and target words are related along different dimensions. Both lexical decision and naming tasks were used because previous research had suggested that they are differentially sensitive to postlexical processing. Semantic and associative priming occurred with both tasks. Other facilitative contextual effects, due to syntactic relations between words, backward associations, or changes in the proportion of related items, occurred only with the lexical decision task. The results indicate that only associative and semantic priming facilitate the decoding of a target; the other effects are postlexical. The results are related to the different demands of the naming and lexical decision tasks, and to current models of word recognition.     

Marital adaptation,divorce, and parent–infant development: A prospective study

In this prospective study of divorce in the first 4 years of life we have shown that previous marital patterns anticipate the occurrence of divorce and influence the response to that event. Most of the divorces occurred in marriages that were consistently low in satisfaction or decreased in satisfaction from birth on. The family response to the event differed. The continuing effort at conflict resolution and the fact that differing levels of adjustment are reached at different time points are suggested by these reactions. For couples with an unsatisfactory marriage from late pregnancy through the first 2 years (consistently low), the immediate and sustained impact of divorce was to enhance the parent's responsiveness to the needs of their infant and the infant's expectation of being cared for. This was not true for couples decreasing from high to lower satisfaction in their adaptation. However, by child age 4, when all families had been divorced for 1 year, divorce versus no divorce was associated with a differential positive effect on teacher Q-sort ratings of the children for both marital patterns. Children who were from families where the parents were in conflict but did not divorce were more likely to externalize control, were more often uncontrolled, and were more anti- as opposed to prosocial. The implication of these findings are discussed. © 1997 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health     

Suicide after surgical treatment in patients with epilepsy: a meta-analytic investigation

Suicide is a major issue in surgically treated epileptic patients. A meta-analysis was performed comparing suicides in a sample of such patients and in the general population. The Index Medicus and the World Health Statistics Annual were searched to ascertain the suicide rates in the age groups indicated in the studies of epileptic patients for specific years and country. 11 studies were selected, comprising 2,425 patients, 24 of whom committed suicide. Data obtained for each study were processed together to calculate the mean number of suicides per 100,000 individuals with surgically treated epilepsy for each year. This meta-analysis shows that suicide in patients with epilepsy after surgical treatment is more frequent than in the general population. Results are discussed with particular attention to possible causative factors.     

Meta-analyses of ethnic match as a predictor of dropout,utilization, and level of functioning

Meta-analyses were performed on 7 studies of ethnic match and psychotherapy. From 13 comparisons of ethnic match and dropout, a small overall effect size was found (r = .03). From 16 comparisons of ethnic match and number of sessions attended, a small overall effect size was found (r = .04). Effect sizes for dropout and utilization were heterogeneous, with ethnic minority groups having larger effect sizes than Caucasian Americans. From 9 comparisons of ethnic match and termination Global Assessment Score, a negligible overall effect size was found (r = .01). The small dropout and utilization effect sizes indicate that ethnic match is not a significant clinical predictor of decreasing dropout after the first session or increasing number of sessions attended.     

Non-pharmacologic Interventions for CFS: A Randomized Trial

Non-pharmacological behavioral treatments for CFS have been suggested as promising. These trials have tested protocols composed of behavioral, cognitive and cognitive–behavioral interventions but there have been few efforts to differentially evaluate their outcomes. The primary purpose of the current study was to evaluate the effectiveness of nurse delivered non-pharmacologic interventions. In the present study, 114 participants diagnosed with CFS were randomly assigned to four 6-month interventions. The interventions were: cognitive–behavior therapy, cognitive therapy, anaerobic activity, and a relaxation control group. The study found that these interventions led to increases in several areas of functioning, with more consistent changes occurring among those participants in the cognitive condition. For the 25 variables in this study, significant change occurred for 28%, 20%, 16%, and 12% of the variables for the cognitive, cognitive behavior therapy, anaerobic activity, and relaxation conditions, respectively. However, the majority of participants continued to be diagnosed with CFS following the treatment trial. Implications of these findings are discussed.