The PMS Illusion: Social Cognition Maintains Social Construction

This article reports the results of a preliminary study of ways that self-serving biases contribute to the maintenance of the cultural stereotype of the premenstrual woman. Self-serving biases such as illusory optimism and the false uniqueness effect lead individuals to believe that they are better than average and less likely to have negative experiences. Thus, even though individual women’s premenstrual symptoms are mild to moderate, they accept the stereotype because they believe that other women’s symptoms are worse than their own. Participants were 92 undergraduate women from two small colleges in southern New England. They completed measures of optimism, locus of control, and premenstrual symptoms and answered a series of questions about the incidence of PMS. Participants showed a significant tendency to believe that other women’s premenstrual symptoms are worse than their own. In addition, women who were high in optimism were significantly less likely to believe that they could be diagnosed with PMS, and they had significantly lower scores on the pain and behavior change subscales of the Menstrual Distress Questionnaire than did those low in optimism.     

Low heart rate variability is not caused by typical neuroleptics in schizophrenia patients

Both elevated cardiovascular mortality and low cardio-vagal (parasympathetic) heart rate variability (HRV)--a risk factor for postmyocardial infarction--are reported in schizophrenia (SZ). Since a number of medications have strong effects of cardiac conductivity, we thought it important to examine if typical neuroleptic medications might also affect HRV. We examined cardiac vagal activity during both neuroleptic treatment and a drug-free condition in seven SZ patients who were participating in a pilot double-blind, crossover study of placebo and haloperidol treatment. Twenty-four-hour Holter electrocardiograms were analyzed for high frequency HRV, quantitated as the percent of successive normal interbeat intervals greater than 50 milliseconds (PNN50), which is a good index of parasympathetic cardiac modulation. The patients showed unchanged PNN50 (8.4+/-9.5 versus 8.3+/-10.5; t=.22, df=6, P=.5) between the haloperidol treatment and drug-free conditions. Despite the elapsed time, change in medication, and altered clinical state, the PNN50s were highly correlated (Spearman r=.98, P=.000). SAPS positive symptom scores declined with treatment from 12.8+/-6.5 to 8.5+/-3.5; paired t=3.26: df=6; P=.01. PNN50s were significantly associated with positive (r=-.86, df=6, P=.012) and negative symptom scores (r=-.87, df=6, P=.01). We found low cardiovagal modulation in medication-free SZ patients that was associated with core SZ symptoms and was unchanged by haloperidol and benztropine treatment. The reduced HRV in SZ patients at baseline may render them at greater cardiovascular risk than healthy subjects when treated with medications having strong cardiovascular effects.     

Difficulties in interpersonal relationships associated with personality disorders and axis I disorders: a community-based longitudinal investigation

A longitudinal study was conducted to investigate the association between Axis I and Axis II psychiatric disorders, interpersonal relationships, and global functioning among men in the community. Structured clinical interviews assessing Axis I and Axis II psychiatric disorders, global assessments of functioning, and questionnaires assessing social support, social conflict, and loneliness were administered to a community sample of 95 HIV+ and 45 HIV- men. The questionnaires were readministered 1 year later. Results indicated that (a) Personality disorders (PDs) and unipolar depressive disorders were associated with loneliness, social conflict, and low levels of social support after HIV status was controlled statistically; (b) PDs were associated with interpersonal and global impairment after HIV status and co-occurring Axis I disorders were controlled statistically; (c) Axis I disorders were associated with global impairment, but were not associated with interpersonal difficulties after HIV status and PDs were controlled statistically; (d) PDs, but not Axis I disorders, predicted increases in social conflict and global impairment after HIV status was controlled statistically; (e) PDs continued to predict increases in global impairment after both Axis I disorders and HIV status were controlled statistically; and (f) HIV+ men reported more loneliness, less social support, and had a higher prevalence of substance use disorders than HIV- men. The present findings are of particular interest because they suggest that PDs are associated with loneliness, social conflict, and a lack of social support among men in the community, whether or not Axis I disorders are present.     

Reduced attentional focus and the influence on expert anticipatory perception

The anticipatory memory encodings of expert and novice basketball players were examined under conditions of both full (attended condition) and reduced (unattended condition) attention (see also Gorman, Abernethy, & Farrow in Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 75, 835–844, 2013a). Participants completed a typical pattern recall task using dynamic playing sequences from basketball, and their responses were compared to both the original target pattern as well as to the series of patterns that occurred immediately after and immediately before the target image. The latter had not previously been employed in a pattern recall task when examining the anticipatory encoding of pattern information. Results revealed that the overall extent of the forward displacement for both the attended and unattended patterns was generally significantly greater for the experts, with the expert advantage tending to be most prominent for the attacking patterns. The novel addition of both forward and backward scenes may provide a more precise measure of the anticipatory effect, suggesting that future research in this domain should use a similar methodological design.     

Neighborhood Concentrated Disadvantage and Dating Violence among Urban Adolescents: The Mediating Role of Neighborhood Social Processes

The link between relationship violence and aspects of neighborhood concentrated disadvantage (e.g., percent of unemployed adults, percent of families below poverty level), has been established. However, the literature examining neighborhood social processes, including informal social control and social cohesion, in relation to adolescent dating violence has shown mixed results with a limited theoretical foundation and methodology. Using a social disorganization theoretical framework, this study examined the mediating role of these neighborhood social processes in the relation between concentrated disadvantage and adolescent dating violence within an urban context. Participants included 605 adult residents in 30 census tracts and 203 adolescents from neighborhoods on the West and South sides of Chicago. Neighborhood‐level concentrated disadvantage was measured via Census data, adult residents reported on neighborhood social processes, and youth reported on dating violence. Informal social control was negatively associated with dating violence, and social cohesion was positively associated with dating violence. A multilevel mediation model showed that concentrated disadvantage was related to higher levels of dating violence via lower levels of informal social control. These results extend social disorganization theory to dating violence within an urban context, while also highlighting the important role of neighborhood processes on relationship violence. Implications for research and intervention programming are discussed.     

Assessment of acquired capability for suicide in clinical practice

The Interpersonal Psychological Theory of suicide proposes that the interaction between Thwarted Belongingness, Perceived Burdensomeness, and Acquired Capability for Suicide (ACS) predicts proximal risk of death by suicide. Instruments to assess all three constructs are available. However, research on the validity of one of them, the acquired capability for suicide scale (ACSS), has been limited, especially in terms of its clinical relevance. This study aimed to explore the utility of the different versions of the ACSS in clinical assessment. Three versions of the scale were investigated, the full 20-item version, a 7-item version and a single item version representing self-perceived capability for suicide. In a sample of patients recruited from a clinic specialising in the treatment of suicidality and in a community sample, all versions of the ACSS were found to show reasonable levels of reliability and to correlate as expected with reports of suicidal ideation, self-harm, and attempted suicide. The item assessing self-perceived acquired capacity for suicide showed highest correlations with all levels of suicidal behaviour. However, no version of the ACSS on its own showed a capacity to indicate suicide attempts in the combined sample. It is concluded that the versions of the scale have construct validity, but their clinical utility is limited. An assessment using a single item on self-perceived ACS outperforms the full and shortened versions of ACSS in clinical settings and can be recommended with caution for clinicians interested in assessing this characteristic.