Laboratory Simulated Gambling: Risk Varies Across Participant-Stake Procedure

ABSTRACT. This study investigated whether risk taking on a laboratory gambling task differed depending on whether participants gambled with earned or experimenter-provided game credits. Participants made repeated choices between two options, one to wager game credits on a game that produced probabilistic gains and losses, and one to gain game credits with certainty. Choice was investigated across stake and no-stake conditions and condition order was counterbalanced across conditions. Risk taking was higher under stake than no-stake conditions, but only when stake conditions were experienced first. There was no effect on risk taking of the amount of the certain gain. Results are consistent with previous research showing that participant-stake procedures promote greater risk taking than procedures that allow participants to gamble with their own earnings, and also show that experience gambling with earned credits has an enduring effect on risk taking.     

Maternal Emotional Distress,Abuse Risk,and Children's Symptoms: Child Gender as a Moderator of Parent Sensitivity as a Mediator

Mothers' distress is a correlate of their children's elevated behaviour problems and symptoms. Parenting practices have been shown to mediate these associations, but few studies have observed parenting or focused on parents at risk of child abuse. In this study of 269 high‐risk mothers and their young children (M = 4.2 years), structural equation modelling was used to test associations between mothers' distress and child externalizing and internalizing symptoms. Associations were expected to be partly indirect via mothers' observed low sensitivity, and child gender was expected to moderate associations. Also, mothers' child abuse risk was examined as a unique correlate of sensitivity and children's symptoms, and a moderator of associations of distress with sensitivity and symptoms. Associations showed a pattern of gender‐moderated mediation with the link between mothers' distress and internalizing mostly direct for boys, and equally direct and indirect via sensitivity for girls. The association of mothers' distress with externalizing was mostly direct for boys and girls. Mothers' child abuse risk was not uniquely associated with sensitivity or symptoms and did not moderate any associations. There were no differences in model paths between mothers referred from child welfare/mental health compared with other sources or self‐referred. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Comparison Versus Contrast: Task Specifics Affect Category Acquisition

A large literature has documented that comparison and contrast lead to better performance in a variety of tasks. However, studies of comparison and contrast present contradictory conclusions as to when and how these processes benefit learners. Across four studies, we examined how the specifics of the comparison and contrast task affect performance by systematically manipulating the feature variation and category structure in a category extension task performed by 3‐year‐old and 4‐year‐old children. Studies 1 (n = 48, M = 42.6 months) and 2 (n = 48, M = 42. 4 months) investigated comparison and contrast with high‐density categories. Studies 3A (n = 60, M = 43.47 months), 3B (n = 48, M = 53. 2 months) and 4 (n = 48, M = 53.7 months) investigated comparison and contrast with low‐density categories. Results indicated both category structure and feature variation affect the efficacy of comparison and contrast. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dimensionality of organizational justice in a call center context

Summary.-Employees in three call centers were surveyed about their perceptions of organizational justice. Four factors were measured: distributive justice, procedural justice, interpersonal justice, and informational justice. Structural equation modeling was employed to test whether a two-, three-, or four-factor model best fit the call center data. A three-factor model of distributive, procedural, and informational justice provided the best fit to these data. The three-factor model that showed the best fit does not conform to any of the more traditional models identified in the organizational justice literature. This implies that the context in which organizational justice is measured may play a role in identifying which justice factors are relevant to employees. Findings add to the empirical evidence on the dimensionality of organizational justice and imply that dimensionality of organizational justice is more context-dependent than previously thought.     

Differential Daily Writing Contingencies and Performance on Major Multiple-Choice Exams

On 4 of 7 days in each unit of an undergraduate human development course, students responded in writing to specific questions related to instructor notes previously made available to them. The study compared the effects of three writing contingencies on the quality of student writing and performance on major multiple-choice exams in the course. The three contingencies were (1) receiving credit for all writing products each unit, (2) receiving credit for one randomly selected writing product each unit, and (3) receiving no credit for any writing product each unit. On all dimensions of exam performance, writing for daily credit produced higher scores than did writing for random credit and writing for no credit. The daily-writing contingency also produced the highest writing ratings across all units; the writing for random credit produced the next highest writing scores; and the writing for no credit yielded the lowest writing scores. Across all three contingencies, writing scores were highly correlated with performance on multiple-choice exams.     

Stress, appraisal, coping, and social support as predictors of adaptational outcome among dementia caregivers

A stress and coping model was used to study predictors of individual differences in caregiver adaptation. A total of 54 family caregivers of elderly dementia patients completed interviews and questionnaires assessing the severity of patient impairment and caregiving stressors; caregiver appraisals, coping responses, and social support and activity; and caregiver outcomes, including depression, life satisfaction, and self-rated health. Correlational and regression analyses supported the utility of the stress and coping model. Appraisal, coping responses, and social support and activity were significant predictors of caregiver outcome, even when severity of caregiving stressors was statistically controlled. The importance of a multidimensional approach to assessing caregiver outcomes was supported by regression analyses indicating that each caregiver outcome was predicted by different patterns of stressors, appraisal, coping, and social support and activity. Results are discussed in terms of a stress and coping model of caregiving, and clinical implications for work with caregiving families.     

The Vietnam veteran and his preschool child: Child rearing as a delayed stress in combat veterans

Integral to a successful readjustment following his Vietnam combat experience, is the veteran's ability to make the transition from the reflex of combat aggressiveness, to adaptive, nondestructive aggression in his current life. Child rearing has been observed to stress the veteran's working through of this very necessary, though often difficult, transition. Specifically, the activity and agression of the terrible two's and the preschool child, particularly males, reawakens the painful affects of combat aggression and sadism. Attempts to control the aggressiveness in his children and himself may lead to maladaptive coping and symptom breakthrough in the veteran, his child and/or his family unit. Two case examples, one brief, one more detailed, illustrate this observation.Paper read at Symposium on War Babies: Delayed Effects of Warmaking, Disaster and Persecution on Children, Xth International Congress of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Dublin, July 26, 1982.     

Correspondence between parents' reports on the Behavior Problem Checklist

Interparent agreement on the Behavior Problem Checklist (BPC) was assessed in relation to several potentially influential variables. Major findings indicated parent agreement to be of a moderate level, generally higher in nondistressed than distressed samples, lower on Personality Problem items than Conduct Problem items, very low regarding presence of specific behaviors, and importantly related to type of reliability index employed. Issues deserving additional research effort are discussed.This research was supported in part by NIMH Grant No. 2R01 MH25802 and by NIAAA Research Scientist Development Award No. 1K01 AA00027 to the first author.     

Aging and Ethnicity: Issues for Clinical Practice

Due to dramatic improvements in life expectancy among Americans from diverse ethnic groups, the graying of America is resulting in a particularly marked increase in ethnic diversity in late life. Clinicians must be prepared to address the problems of older ethnic minority patients, who present with distinct problems during late life and may present these problems in culturally prescribed ways. Cultural variations in views about the nature of mental disorders, issues in assessing and treating depression and dementia, and attention to issues of family caregivers are deserving of special attention.     

Clinical Geropsychology: Implications for Practice in Medical Settings

Older adults are a rapidly growing segment of the population, who have high rates of chronic illness and who utilize health care resources heavily. Psychologists must become better prepared to work with older patients in geriatric settings, including geriatric assessment units, memory disorders clinics, and nursing homes. In addition, all psychologists will increasingly encounter older patients in environments such as primary care clinics, rehabilitation settings, and disease management programs focusing on problems that are prevalent in older patients (e.g., cancer, diabetes). Suggestions are offered for adaptation of usual clinical practice to address the special needs of older patients and their families, and recommendations made for advancing and expanding the practice of clinical geropsychology.