Coping Styles,Pain Expressiveness,and Implicit Theories of Chronic Pain

Whereas some individuals use active coping strategies and are able to adaptively cope with their pain, others use passive strategies and catastrophic appraisals, which are often associated with increased displays of pain behavior and negative pain-related outcomes. To investigate attribution-based implicit theories as a potential underlying mechanism that might affect coping success, we hypothesized that pain patients with an incremental implicit theory of pain (i.e., view pain as malleable) would have more active coping strategies, lower levels of pain expressiveness, and better pain-related outcomes than those with an entity implicit theory of pain (i.e., view pain as nonmalleable). Patients with chronic back pain undergoing a functional assessment completed a variety of self-report measures and participated in a pain-inducing physiotherapy procedure. The results revealed those with an incremental theory of pain used more active coping strategies, displayed less pain behavior, and reported better pain-related outcomes (e.g., lower levels of depression) than individuals with an entity theory of pain. The findings suggest implicit theories of pain may represent an underlying social-cognitive mechanism linked to important coping, emotional, and expressive reactions to chronic pain. Identifying such a mechanism may provide valuable information for the assessment and treatment of chronic pain.     

Effects of cocaine and alcohol, alone and in combination, on human learning and performance.

The acute effects of cocaine hydrochloride (4 to 96 mg/70 kg) and alcohol (0 to 1.0 g/kg), administered alone and in combination, were assessed in two experiments with human volunteers responding under a multiple schedule of repeated acquisition and performance of response chains. Subjects were intermittent users of cocaine and regular drinkers who were not cocaine or alcohol dependent. Alcohol was mixed with orange juice and ingested in six drinks within 30 min; cocaine was administered intranasally 45 min after completion of drinking. In each component of the multiple schedule, subjects completed response sequences using three keys of a numeric keypad. In the acquisition component, a new sequence was learned each session. In the performance component, the response sequence always remained the same. Results were consistent in both experiments, despite variations in the order in which the drugs were tested alone and in combination. Alcohol administered alone increased overall percentage of errors and decreased rates of responding in the acquisition component, whereas responding in the performance component generally was unaffected. Cocaine administered alone decreased rates of responding but did not affect accuracy of responding in the acquisition component, and enhanced accuracy of responding without affecting rates of responding in the performance component. The combined doses of cocaine and alcohol attenuated the effects observed with alcohol and cocaine alone. These results suggest that, under the conditions investigated in this study, (a) alcohol produces greater behavioral disruption than cocaine or cocaine-alcohol combinations, (b) cocaine and alcohol each attenuate effects of the other, and (c) such attenuation is most pronounced for cocaine attenuating the disruptive effects of alcohol.     

Knowledge about the deleterious effects of smoking and its relationship to smoking cessation among pregnant adolescents

Smoking cessation among pregnant adolescents remains a complex and unresolved issue. The purpose of this study was to examine adolescents' knowledge of the detrimental effects of smoking on pregnant women and fetuses and its relationship to efforts to quit smoking. The sample consisted of 71 pregnant adolescents, and a three-group randomized intervention design-Teen FreshStart (TFS), Teen FreshStart with buddy (TFSB), and usual care control (UCC)-was used. Instruments included a demographic questionnaire, a smoking history questionnaire, and an 11-item scale measuring knowledge of the effects of smoking during pregnancy. For the entire sample, knowledge scores increased significantly (p = .000) from T1 (preintervention) to T2 (postintervention), and the adolescents who quit smoking had significantly higher knowledge at T2 (p = .028) and greater increases (T1 to T2) in their knowledge (p = .019) than did those who did not quit. Together, the TFS and TFSB groups had significantly higher knowledge at T2 (p = .017) and a significantly greater increase in knowledge from T1 to T2 (p = .005) than did the UCC group. This also held true when the TFS and TFSB groups were examined individually. Each had significantly higher knowledge at T2 (TFS, p = .029; TFSB, p = .008) and a significantly greater increase in knowledge from T1 to T2 (TFS, p = .007; TFSB, p = .009) than did the UCC group. Furthermore, despite the small sample sizes, within-group comparisons showed (a) no significant differences between quitters and nonquitters in the UCC group, (b) significantly higher knowledge at T2 (p = .052) and a trend indicating greater increases in knowledge from T1 to T2 (p = .092) for the quitters compared with the nonquitters in the TFS group, and (c) a trend for adolescents in the TFSB group who quit smoking to have greater increases in knowledge compared with those who did not quit (p = .158). These results indicate the need for continued inquiry into the relationship between pregnant teenagers' health knowledge and decisions to stop smoking.     

An inverse relationship between baseline fixed-interval response rate and the effects of a tandem response requirement.

Previous experiments examining the effects of adding a tandem fixed-ratio response requirement on fixed-interval schedule performance have reported inconsistent results. One variable that may account for such inconsistencies is the baseline response rate in the fixed-interval condition. This possibility was investigated in the present study. Rats were given histories with either interresponse times greater than 11 s or fixed-ratio 40 schedules of reinforcement, which engendered either relatively low or high rates of responding, respectively, in the subsequent fixed-interval condition. A tandem ratio response requirement (fixed-ratio 9) was then introduced. The effects of adding this tandem response requirement were inversely related to the baseline fixed-interval response rates; low rates of responding in the fixed-interval condition were markedly increased, whereas high rates of responding were relatively unaffected. This inverse relationship appears to be similar to the rate-dependent relations observed in behavioral pharmacology. These results may provide an explanation for the inconsistent findings reported in previous studies on tandem fixed-interval fixed-ratio schedules and suggest that principles of behavioral pharmacology research may be applicable to the study of the effects of nonpharmacological variables on schedule-controlled behavior.     

Automatic activation of self-discrepancies and emotional syndromes: when cognitive structures influence affect

Different types of self-discrepancies are associated with different negative affects. Two studies were conducted to determine whether automatic activation of specific actual-self: self-guide mismatches, as cognitive structures, would induce distinct emotional states. Subjects possessing significant discrepancies between their actual self and either their ideal self-guide (attributes that someone wishes or hopes the person would possess) or their ought self-guide (attributes that someone believes the person has the duty or obligation to possess) responded verbally to an audiotape while "thinking about other people." Study 1 involved two kinds of priming attributes: self-relevant and yoked (another subject's self-relevant attributes). Activating mismatches induced momentary syndromes of dejection (sadness, decreased arousal) in ideal-discrepant subjects but induced agitation (nervousness, increased arousal) in ought-discrepant subjects. In Study 2, subjects were randomized to either self-relevant/nondiscrepant, self-discrepant, or yoked priming. The findings of Study 1 were replicated for the self-discrepant priming condition alone. Results indicate that (a) mismatches constitute cognitive structures and (b) automatic activation of different mismatches via contextual priming induces distinct types of emotional discomfort.     

Prefrontal cognitive ability, intelligence, Big Five personality, and the prediction of advanced academic and workplace performance

Studies 1 and 2 assessed performance on a battery of dorsolateral prefrontal cognitive ability (D-PFCA) tests, personality, psychometric intelligence, and academic performance (AP) in 2 undergraduate samples. In Studies 1 and 2, AP was correlated with D-PFCA (r=.37, p<.01, and r=.33, p<.01, respectively), IQ (r=.24, p<.05, and r=.38, p<.01, respectively), and Conscientiousness (r=.26, p<.05, and r=.37, p<.01, respectively). D-PFCA remained significant in regression analyses controlling for intelligence (or g) and personality. Studies 3 and 4 assessed D-PFCA, personality, and workplace performance among (a) managerial-administrative workers and (b) factory floor workers at a manufacturing company. Prefrontal cognitive ability correlated with supervisor ratings of manager performance at values of r ranging from .42 to .57 (ps<.001), depending on experience, and with factory floor performance at pr=.21 (p=.02), after controlling for experience, age, and education. Conscientiousness correlated with factory floor performance at r=.23.     

Interpretation and matching bias in a reasoning task

Subjects were required to construct verifying and falsifying cases of conditional rules in which the presence and absence of negative components was varied. Their responses gave some indication of consistent interpretation of the rules, generally conforming to Wason's (1966) idea of a “defective” truth table. Much of their behaviour, however, seemed to be determined by a task variable in the form of a tendency to construct instances which matched, rather than altered, the values named in the rules.