Is pain sensitivity associated with occupational fears in police recruits?

Gross (Behaviour Research and Therapy, 30, 7-13, 1992a) showed that the fear of pain (pain sensitivity) could be distinguished from dental fears and health concerns. Furthermore, the Pain Sensitivity Index (PSI) correlated significantly with pain expectations, and pain expectations correlated significantly with dental avoidance behaviour. However, Gross noted that the psychometric properties of the PSI had not been fully determined. The present study examined the factor structure of an expanded version of the PSI with a sample of 212 police recruits. A single factor accounted for 52.1% of the variance and the reliability coefficient (alpha = 0.89) indicates that the PSI possesses a high degree of internal reliability. Subsequently, it was hypothesized that pain sensitivity correlates positively with fears relating to police tasks which are characterized by pain expectancies, such as the fear of being assaulted during operational police work. In support of the hypothesis, pain sensitivity correlated highest with situations involving pain. The pain sensitivity construct may help to explain individual differences in fear reactions to situations where pain could be experienced, such as operational police duties or dental attendances.     

Is pain sensitivity associated with dental avoidance?

The present investigation examined whether pain sensitivity is associated with dental avoidance. Whereas the aim of the first study was to determine whether pain sensitivity can be distinguished from dental fears and health concerns, the aim of the second study was to examine the structure of cognitive aspects of pain sensitivity, and the aim of the third study was to examine the relationships of pain sensitivity to anxiety sensitivity, fear, pain, and avoidance. In the first study (n = 222), a factor analysis performed with items from the Dental Phobia and Pain Sensitivity Inventory distinguished a pain sensitivity factor from factors relating to dental phobia and health concerns. The factor structure of the Pain Sensitivity Index was examined in the second study (n = 181), and similarly, a pain sensitivity factor was interpreted in the data. The third study (n = 65) found that although pain sensitivity correlated significantly with anxiety sensitivity, these constructs are not identical to each other. For instance, pain sensitivity but not anxiety sensitivity correlated significantly with blood-injury phobia. Pain sensitivity should be taken into account in future studies of dental phobia as pain sensitivity was found to be predictive of pain intensity, and pain intensity was found to be predictive of dental avoidance.     

EXPLORING THE CONCEPT OF SPIRIT AS A MODEL FOR THE GOD-WORLD RELATIONSHIP IN THE AGE OF GENETICS

Abstract. The cultural impact of genetics focuses the intellectual and moral challenge of science to theology. Many traditional images of God and the God-world relation are inadequate to represent religious ideas in a world whose self-understanding has been transformed by genetics. Such images also lack the power to help in approaching the ethical challenges of this new era. The way conceptions of the God-world relation can be modified in the light of genetic knowledge is explored by examining how far a new conception of Spirit can function alongside contemporary genetic views of human life in nature. The relationship between genetic theories of human behavior and evolution is related to the revised conception of Spirit.     

ELEVATION OF VOICE VOLUME IN YOUNG DEVELOPMENT ALLY DELAYED CHILDREN VIA AN OPERANT SHAPING PROCEDURE

Unusually low voice volume was identified by teachers as a significant impediment to the academic and social progress of two preschool students. A simple operant shaping procedure was conducted by teachers to increase voice volume using a voice-activated apparatus with attractive visual display. Setting generalization of volume increases to the classroom was achieved and maintained at one- and four-month follow-ups.     

Effects of Offered and Requested Help on Help Seeking and Reactions to Being Helped1

Subjects could receive assistance on a difficult logic problem either by requesting help or by accepting an offer of aid from a helper. Normativeness of help seeking and presence of an incentive for correct completion of the task were also varied. Results of the study indicated that more help was obtained in the offer condition and that subjects liked the helper more when help was offered than when it was requested. The normativeness and incentive variables did not produce the expected effects. Negative consequences of requesting help were interpreted in terms of attribution theory, and the implications of these findings for help-delivery systems were discussed.     

Hemispheric specialization for processing of visually presented verbal and spatial stimuli

Two “same-different” reaction time experiments, analogous in task demands made on the S, were designed to test laterality differences in. perception. Ten normal right-handed Ss performed a verbal task in which they decided whether or not two three-letter words belonged to the same conceptual class. Ten different Ss performed a spatial task in which they decided whether two 16-cell matrices with 3 blackened cells were identical. Reaction times were found to be sensitive to laterality differences in perception. Verbal stimuli were processed faster when presented in the right visual field, and thus projected directly to the left cerebral hemisphere; spatial stimuli were processed faster when presented in the left visual field, and thus projected directly to the right cerebral hemisphere. These results were analyzed in terms of implications regarding hemispheric asymmetries for processing of verbal and spatial material and the nature of interhemispheric transfer of information.     

Behavioral obesity research: Where have all the single subjects gone?

Many recent reviews of the literature concerning behavioral treatments of obesity have concluded that behavioral methods have not been as successful in treating this problem as might have been predicted in the early years of behavior modification. Among the many potential reasons for this lack of success is the growing trend to utilize group statistical designs rather than single subject designs to examine the problem of obesity, in spite of the fact that single case methodology has provided the foundation for applied behavior analysis and behavior therapy. Several behavioral journals were surveyed to determine more precisely the trends in types of research strategies utilized in obesity studies. The potential relationship between research methodology and the development of effective treatments is discussed.     

Situational and personality determinants of a victim's identification with a tormentor

The effects of two situational (tormentor legitimacy and tormentor justification) and two personality (victim's belief in the just world and victim's Machiavellianism) factors on several reactions of a victim to his tormentor were explored. Greater conformity by victims to their tormentor's opinions occurred when the victims believed strongly in the just world and when the tormentor was well justified for his behavior; there was a greater conformity towards the tormentor in these conditions than towards a neutral nontormentor. The tormentor received less positive evaluations from the victim when he acquired his role illegitimately or when the victim was Machiavellian; when the tormentor acquired the role legitimately, he was liked no less than the nontormentor. The experimental variables did not affect behavioral imitation of the tormentor or the interpersonal distance maintained by the victim. The results failed to conform to any simple identification process. Several explanations for these results are explored and directions for additional research are discussed.     

How to bite your tongue without blowing your top: implicit evaluation of emotion regulation predicts affective responding to anger provocation

People frequently have to control their emotions to function in life. However, mounting evidence suggests that deliberate emotion regulation often is costly. This presents a dilemma: Is it better to let emotions go or to pay the price of exerting costly control? In two studies, the authors explore whether emotion regulatory processes associated with implicit positive evaluation of emotion regulation might provide the benefits of successful emotion regulation without the costs. In Study 1, the authors introduce a measure of implicit evaluation of emotion regulation (ER-IAT). Study 2 examined whether this measure is associated with actual emotional responses to an anger provocation. It was found that greater ER-IAT scores were associated with lesser anger experience, fewer negative thoughts, lessened self-reported effortful emotion regulation, and an adaptive pattern of cardiovascular responding. These findings suggest that implicit positive evaluation of emotion regulation is associated with successful, automatic, and physiologically adaptive down-regulation of anger.