The influence of experiences of discrimination on psychological stress: a comparison of seven immigrant groups

The aim of this study was to compare experiences of discrimination and their influence on trust in authorities and psychological distress among immigrants in Finland. A sample of 1146 immigrants, aged between 20 and 36 and representing seven immigrant groups (Russians, Ingrian/Finnish returnees, Estonians, Somalis, Arabs, Vietnamese and Turks), answered a mailed questionnaire based on traditional acculturation research as well as victim research. In accordance with our expectations, discrimination experiences in various realms of life were highly predictive of the psychological well‐being of all immigrants, as well as of lack of trust in the Finnish authorities. However, contrary to our hypotheses regarding the effects of visibility and cultural proximity, group differences in psychological distress did not correspond to the group differences observed in perceived discrimination. These results are discussed in the light of the opposing predictions concerning self‐damage effects of discrimination, made by social identity theory on the one hand and the theory on self‐protecting functions of external attributions (Crocker and Major, 1989) on the other. It is concluded that the low level of stress observed in the most visible and most culturally distant group, despite high levels of perceived discrimination, is better explained by the latter than the former. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Development and validation of the Eating Behavior Inventory

The Eating Behavior Inventory (EBI) is a self-report instrument for assessing behaviors that have been theoretically implicated in weight loss, e.g., self-monitoring of food intake and of weight, refusing offers of food, eating at only one place, shopping from a list, eating in response to emotions. Thirty items were constructed in the form of first-person statements, e.g., I eat in the middle of the night. Each item was to be rated with a 5-point scale according to how often it was true for the respondent. Items were scored such that higher scores always reflected more appropriate (theoretically facilitative of weight control) eating patterns. Validity of individual items and total score was assessed in four studies. Twenty-six of the original items appeared valid and were retained. The resulting total score demonstrated validity in these studies and in two cross-validational comparisons. Internal consistency as measured by split-half reliability and correlations of item scores with total score was acceptable. One month test-retest reliability of item and total scores was satisfactory. Clinical and research applications of the EBI are discussed.An early version of this article was presented at the Taos International Conference on Treatment of Addictive Behaviors, Taos, New Mexico, February 1979.     

Content and predictors of the ethnic identity of Russian-speaking immigrant adolescents in Finland

The content and predictors of the ethnic identity of Russian-speaking immigrant adolescents ( N =170) in Finland were investigated. The ethnic identity of immigrants was found to be composed of two dimensions, one reflecting the cognitive, evaluative and emotional components of their Russian identity and the other reflecting those of their Finnish identity. The ethnic and linguistic self-identifications of adolescents were strongly related to the extent of and the value given to the Russian and Finnish identity, but neither to the frequency of using nor to their proficiency in the respective languages. The immigrants' perceptions of the relationships with parents were strongly related to their Russian identity. This association was, however, very different for girls and boys. In addition, the Russian contact orientation and Russian language use were strong predictors of the adolescents' Russian identity, whereas their Finnish contact orientation and Finnish language use strongly predicted their Finnish identity.     

Psychopathic Traits and Physiological Responses to Aversive Stimuli in Children Aged 9–11 Years

Atypical eletrodermal and cardiovascular response patterns in psychopathic individuals are thought to be biological indicators of fearless and disinhibition. This study investigated the relationship between psychopathic traits and these autonomic response patterns using a countdown task in 843 children (aged 9-10?years). Heart rate (HR) and non-specific skin conductance responses (NS-SCRs) were recorded while participants anticipated and reacted to 105?dB signaled or un-signaled white-noise bursts. Using multilevel regression models, both larger HR acceleration and fewer NS-SCR were found to be significantly associated with psychopathic traits during anticipation of signaled white-noise bursts. However, two divergent patterns appeared for HR and SCR: (1) larger HR acceleration was specific to the callousness-disinhibition factor of psychopathic traits while reduced NS-SCR was only associated with the manipulative-deceitfulness factor; (2) the negative association between the manipulative-deceitfulness factor and NS-SCR was only found in boys but not in girls. These findings replicated what has been found in psychopathic adults, suggesting that autonomic deficits present in children at risk may predispose them to later psychopathy. The divergent findings across psychopathic facets and sexes raised the possibility of different etiologies underlying psychopathy, which may in turn suggest multiple treatment strategies for boys and girls.     

Using the variability of continuous relative phase as a measure to discriminate between healthy and injured runners

Several studies have used variability of continuous relative phase (CRP) to investigate overuse injuries, since low variability is thought to be related to running injuries. This study investigates whether the analysis of CRP variability leads to additional information about possible differences or similarities between healthy and injured runners. Further, a decision about future applications of CRP variability should be based on the ability to implement and interpret data. 18 healthy female runners (CO) and 18 female runners who suffered from iliotibial band syndrome (ITBS) were evaluated by calculating CRP variability for 4 coupling pairs. Besides analyzing continuous variability of CRP, we also averaged it for the whole stance phase and for four predefined stance phase intervals. Confidence intervals were displayed and independent t-tests for comparing the two groups were conducted. During initial and terminal stance phase as well as after heel-off an increase in CRP variability was detected for both groups of runners. In contrast, the foot flat period was characterized by stable joint coordination and a decrease in variability. This paper presents possible interpretations of CRP variability but no statistically significant differences in CRP variability were found between the two groups of runners. Despite the missing statistical significance, a relationship between high CRP variability and injury seems to be conceivable, since the injured runners demonstrated an increased variability for all couplings in the first half of the stance phase. Further application of CRP variability in biomechanical research is essential to determine whether a relationship exists between injury and coordination variability.     

Psychosocial Stressors of Sickle Cell Disease on Adult Patients in Cameroon

Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) is a debilitating illness that affects quality of life. Studies of the psychosocial burden of SCD on patients have been rarely reported in Africa. We used a quantitative method, with face-to-face administered questionnaires, to study indices of psychosocial stressors on adult SCD patients in Cameroon. The questionnaire included a 36-item stress factors scale evaluating general perceptions of stress and five main stressors’ domain: disease factors, hospital factors, financial factors, family factors and quality of personal-life factors. Items pertaining to psychosocial stressors involved four response options with increasing severity: 0, 1, 2 or 3. Non-parametric tests were used for analysis. The majority of the 83 participants were urban dwellers, female, 20–30 years old, single, unemployed, with at least a secondary or tertiary education. Median age at diagnosis was 100 months; 47.8 % had >3 painful vaso-oclusive crises annually. Only 4.8 % had been treated with hydroxyurea. The majority reported moderate to severe difficulty coping with SCD. The “degree of clinical severity” category displayed the highest median score (2.0), while familial stressors showed the lowest (0.8). Being female, married, with low education level, an additional affected sibling and low direct income were significantly associated with specific stressors’ categories. In Cameroon, there is an urgent need to implement policies that ensure affordable access to health-care and practices to reduce SCD morbidity and improve patients’ quality of life.     

Mood-congruent free recall bias in anxious individuals is not a consequence of response bias

The status of mood-congruent free recall bias in anxious individuals was evaluated following incidental encoding of target words. Individuals with high and low levels of trait anxiety completed a modified Stroop task, which revealed an attentional bias for threat-related stimuli in anxious individuals. This group was significantly slower in naming the colour in which threat-related words were displayed compared to neutral words. In a subsequent free recall test for the words used in the modified Stroop task, anxious individuals recalled more threat-related words compared to low-anxious people. This difference was significant even when controlling for the false recall of items that had not been presented during study. These results support the view put forward by Russo, Fox, Bellinger, and Nguyen-Van-Tam (2001) that mood-congruent free recall bias in anxious individuals can be observed if the target material is encoded at a relatively shallow level. Moreover, contrary to Dowens and Calvo (2003), the current results show that the memory advantage for threat-related information in anxious individuals is not a consequence of response bias.     

Preemptive strike: An experimental study of fear-based aggression

The mere presence of a potential threat of attack was found to be sufficient to lead a significant proportion of participants to engage in preemptive attacks toward potential threats; this response occurred even without an incentive for either party to attack the other. We developed a new experimental game—the preemptive strike game (PSG)—to demonstrate this tendency for defensive aggression. We also found that the rate at which participants attacked an individual representing a potential threat was not influenced by their minimal group membership; participants were no less likely to preemptively attack a member of their own minimal group and no more likely to use aggression against members of another minimal group. These findings indicate a need to further examine the role that fear-based defensive aggression, rather than anger-based spiteful aggression, plays in inter-individual and inter-group conflict.     

Perceived normative pressure and majority adolescents' implicit and explicit attitudes towards immigrants

The aim of the present study was to examine if perceived normative pressure (i.e., perception of the normative expectations of family and friends regarding one's intergroup attitudes) had a direct impact on majority youth's (N = 93) explicit attitudes and moderated the relationship between their implicit (measured with the ST-IAT) and explicit attitudes towards Russian immigrants in Finland. The results indicated that normative pressure is positively associated with the explicit attitudes of adolescents, and that the implicit attitudes of the adolescents towards immigrants surface on the explicit level only when they do not perceive a normative pressure to hold positive intergroup attitudes. More specifically, when there is no normative pressure, the explicit attitudes of youth are, at best, neutral, and reflect their implicit attitudes. In contrast, when normative pressure is perceived to be high, the level of explicit attitudes is generally more positive, and the expression of explicit attitudes is not determined by implicit attitudes. The effects of age, sex, quality of past intergroup contact experiences, and intergroup anxiety were controlled for in the analysis. The findings highlight the importance of taking normative pressure into consideration when studying socially sensitive ethnic attitudes among adolescents.     

The Stability of Social Desirability: A Latent Change Analysis

Social desirability has been shown to be stable in samples with higher school education. However, little is known about the stability of social desirability in more heterogeneous samples differing in school education. This study aimed to investigate the stability of social desirability and which factors predict interindividual differences in intraindividual change. As part of a randomized controlled trial, 1,243 job seekers with unhealthy alcohol use were systematically recruited at three job agencies. A total of 1,094 individuals (87.8%) participated in at least one of two follow‐ups (6 and 15 months after baseline) and constitute this study's sample. The Social Desirability Scale‐17 was applied. Two latent change models were conducted: Model 1 tested for interindividual differences in intraindividual change of social desirability between both follow‐ups; Model 2 included possible predictors (age, sex, education, current employment status) of interindividual differences in intraindividual change. Model 1 revealed a significant decrease of social desirability over time. Model 2 revealed school education to be the only significant predictor of change. These findings indicate that stability of social desirability may depend on school education. It may not be as stable in individuals with higher school education as in individuals with lower education.