Patterns of attachment and parents' adjustment to the death of their child

The impact of adult attachment on psychological adjustment among bereaved parents and the mediating effect of relationship satisfaction were examined among a sample of 219 couples of parents. Data collection took place 6, 13, and 20 months after loss. Use of the actor partner interdependence model in multilevel regression analysis enabled exploration of both individual as well as partner attachment as predictors of grief and depression. Results indicated that the more insecurely attached parents were (on both avoidance and anxiety attachment), the higher the symptoms of grief and depression. Neither the attachment pattern of the partner nor similarity of attachment within the couple had any influence on psychological adjustment of the parent. Marital satisfaction partially mediated the association of anxious attachment with symptomatology. Contrary to previous research findings, avoidant attachment was associated with high grief intensity. These findings challenge the notion that the avoidantly attached are resilient.     

Construct Validity of Concepts of Attention in Healthy Controls and Patients with CHI

The present study aimed to examine the construct validity of three aspects of attention, namely focused, divided, and supervisory control of attention. Factor-analytic techniques were applied to scores of healthy subjects on a series of neuropsychological tests tapping these aspects of attention. The two components found did not match the hypothesized aspects and were labeled as Memory-driven Action and Stimulus-driven Reaction. The second question was whether the same components could be found in a group of patients with CHI. The pattern of attentional functions found in healthy subjects had changed qualitatively in patients with CHI. A possible explanation for this result in terms of a shift from automatic to controlled processing is discussed.     

Computing maximum likelihood estimates of loglinear models from marginal sums with special attention to loglinear item response theory

In this paper algorithms are described for obtaining the maximum likelihood estimates of the parameters in loglinear models. Modified versions of the iterative proportional fitting and Newton-Raphson algorithms are described that work on the minimal sufficient statistics rather than on the usual counts in the full contingency table. This is desirable if the contingency table becomes too large to store. Special attention is given to loglinear IRT models that are used for the analysis of educational and psychological test data. To calculate the necessary expected sufficient statistics and other marginal sums of the table, a method is described that avoids summing large numbers of elementary cell frequencies by writing them out in terms of multiplicative model parameters and applying the distributive law of multiplication over summation. These algorithms are used in the computer program LOGIMO. The modified algorithms are illustrated with simulated data. The author thanks Wim J. van der Linden, Gideon J. Mellenberh and Namburi S. Raju for their valuable comments and suggestions.     

Prototypicality of arguments and conformity to ingroup norms

Social categorization is claimed to elicit a tendency to conform to ingroup norms, which may result in attitude change after exposure to information on the opinions of other ingroup members. It was hypothesized that the degree to which arguments represented ingroup norms, i.e., were prototypical, would affect their potential influence on attitudes, such that prototypical arguments would be perceived as being of higher quality and would elicit more attitude change. Moreover, prototypical arguments were expected to elicit more argument elaboration. Two experiments were designed to test these predictions. In Experiment 1 subjects were exposed to both a set of pro and a set of contra arguments, while one of the sets was allegedly prototypical of ingroup attitudes. In Experiment 2 subjects were exposed to either prototypical or a-prototypical pro or contra arguments allegedly originating from in- or outgroup. In both studies conformity to ingroup norms was observed. In addition, prototypical ingroup arguments elicited higher quality ratings in the first study. Indications of higher elaboration of prototypical ingroup arguments were found.     

Self-reported cognitive failures and neurotic symptomatology

Three studies examined the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ) and its psychopathological correlates. In Study 1, the psychometric qualities of the Dutch translation of the CFQ were evaluated in a student sample. Internal consistency and test-retest stability were found to be satisfactory. Furthermore, CFQ was positively correlated with anxiety symptoms, even when the influence of traditional trait variables (i.e., neuroticism and trait anxiety) was partialled out. Study 2 examined the CFQ as a predictor of treatment outcome in spider phobia. No evidence was found to suggest that high CFQ scores are associated with a less favourable treatment outcome. Also, spider phobics had CFQ scores in the normal range. Study 3 evaluated the CFQ in a mixed sample of anxiety disordered and depressive outpatients. Depressive patients, but not anxiety disordered patients, were found to have heightened CFQ scores. Overall, CFQ scores were positively associated with symptom severity. Yet, there were no indications that patients with high CFQ scores profit less from treatment than those with low CFQ scores. Taken together, the results provide support for the view that the CFQ taps daily cognitive routines that are undermined by anxiety and depression. However, the findings do not point to the CFQ being a cognitive vulnerability measure that is related to treatment success.     

Maximization of sums of quotients of quadratic forms and some generalizations

Monotonically convergent algorithms are described for maximizing six (constrained) functions of vectors x, or matricesX with columns x₁, ..., x _r . These functions are h₁(x)= _k (xA _kx)(xC _kx)^–1, H₁(X)= _k tr (XA _k X)(XC _k X)^–1, h₁(X)= _{k l} (x _l A _kx _l ) (x _l C _kx _l )^–1 withX constrained to be columnwise orthonormal, h₂(x)= _k (xA _kx)²(xC _kx)^–1 subject to xx=1, H₂(X)= _k tr(XA _kX)(XA_kX)(XC_kX)^–1 subject toXX=I, and h₂(X)= _{k l} (x _l A _kx _l )² (x _l C _kX _l )^–1 subject toXX=I. In these functions the matricesC _k are assumed to be positive definite. The matricesA _k can be arbitrary square matrices. The general formulation of the functions and the algorithms allows for application of the algorithms in various problems that arise in multivariate analysis. Several applications of the general algorithms are given. Specifically, algorithms are given for reciprocal principal components analysis, binormamin rotation, generalized discriminant analysis, variants of generalized principal components analysis, simple structure rotation for one of the latter variants, and set component analysis. For most of these methods the algorithms appear to be new, for the others the existing algorithms turn out to be special cases of the newly derived general algorithms.This research has been made possible by a fellowship from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences to the author. The author is obliged to Jos ten Berge for stimulating this research and for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.     

The anthropological tradition in the philosophy of medicine

The tradition of anthropological medicine in philosophy of medicine is analyzed in relation to the earlier interest in epistemological issues in medicine around the turn of the century as well as to the current interest in medical ethics. It is argued that there is a continuity between epistemological, anthropological and ethical approaches in philosophy of medicine. Three basic ideas of anthropologically-oriented medicine are discussed: the rejection of Cartesian dualism, the notion of medicine as science of the human person, and the necessity of a comprehensive understanding of disease. Next, it is discussed why the anthropological movement has been superseded by the increasing interest in medical ethics. It is concluded that the present-day moral issues cannot be interpreted and resolved without clarification of the underlying anthropological images.     

Techniques for rotating two or more loading matrices to optimal agreement and simple structure: A comparison and some technical details

Matrices of factor loadings are often rotated to simple structure. When more than one loading matrix is available for the same variables, the loading matrices can be compared after rotating them all (separately) to simple structure. An alternative procedure is to rotate them to optimal agreement, and then compare them. In the present paper techniques are described that combine these two procedures. Specifically, five techniques that combine the ideals of rotation to optimal agreement and rotation to simple structure are compared on the basis of contrived and empirical data. For the contrived data, it is assessed to what extent the rotations recover the underlying common structure. For both the contrived and the empirical data it is studied to what extent the techniques give well matching rotated matrices, to what extent these have a simple structure, and to what extent the most prominent parts of the different loading matrices agree. It was found that the simple procedure of combining a Generalized Procrustes Analysis (GPA) with Varimax on the mean of the matched loading matrices performs very well on all criteria, and, for most purposes, offers an attractive compromise of rotation to agreement and simple structure. In addition to this comparison, some technical improvements are proposed for Bloxom's rotation to simple structure and maximum similarity.This research has been made possible by a fellowship from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences to the author. The author is obliged to René van der Heijden for assistance in programming the procedures in the simulation study reported in this paper, and to Jos ten Berge, three anonymous reviewers and an associate editor for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.     

Three-mode orthomax rotation

Factor analysis and principal components analysis (PCA) are often followed by an orthomax rotation to rotate a loading matrix to simple structure. The simple structure is usually defined in terms of the simplicity of the columns of the loading matrix. In Three-mode PCA, rotational freedom of the so called core (a three-way array relating components for the three different modes) can be used similarly to find a simple structure of the core. Simple structure of the core can be defined with respect to all three modes simultaneously, possibly with different emphases on the different modes. The present paper provides a fully flexible approach for orthomax rotation of the core to simple structure with respect to three modes simultaneously. Computationally, this approach relies on repeated (two-way) orthomax applied to supermatrices containing the frontal, lateral or horizontal slabs, respectively. The procedure is illustrated by means of a number of exemplary analyses. As a by-product, application of the Three-mode Orthomax procedures to two-way arrays is shown to reveal interesting relations with and interpretations of existing two-way simple structure rotation techniques.This research has been made possible by a fellowship from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences to the author. The author is obliged to Jos ten Berge and two anonymous reviewers for useful comments on an earlier version of this paper.