Parent attributions of emotion to their children and the cues children use in perceiving their own emotions

A number of studies have demonstrated stable individual differences in the cues that generate emotions and other feeling states. These differences are assumed to arise from the cues parents use to identify their children's emotional states. As children learn about their own emotional states, they come to rely on these same cues. To test one implication of their view, the facial expressions of children (N=41) were manipulated and their feelings assessed. Some children reported emotions consistent with their expressions, while others reported emotions appropriate to the situation. In a separate procedure, their mothers were asked to identify the emotional states of children whose expressions were inconsistent with an account of their circumstances. Mothers who paid more attention to their children's expressive behavior had children who were more responsive to their own expressive behavior. In contrast, the mothers who were more responsive to situational cues had children whose emotions arose from the situational cues as well.The authors would like to thank numerous teachers and administrators of the Worcester Public School system in Worcester, Massachusetts, for their assistance.     

Common problems and coping strategies II: Findings with adolescent suicide attempters

This study investigated the most common precipitants of adolescent suicide attempts and the strategies used to cope with such problems. Adolescent suicide attempters were compared with both distressed and nondistressed nonsuicidal adolescents on problems reported and coping strategies utilized. All three groups reported four problems as occurring most frequently: school, parents, friends, or boyfriend/girlfriend. The suicide attempters and distressed controls reported problems with parents more frequently than did nondistressed controls, while this latter group reported problems at school more frequently than did suicide attempters or distressed controls. Suicide attempters used social withdrawal, problem solving, and emotional regulation more than did nondistressed controls, but not more frequently than distressed controls. Distressed controls used wishful thinking and resignation more than did suicide atempters. Results are discussed in terms of the similarities between suicide attempters and nonsuicidal distressed adolescents and the need to more closely investigate specific subgroups of suicide attempters.     

Chest pain without coronary artery disease: An exploratory comparison with panic disorder

Recent reports have indicated similarities between patients with persistent chest pain of nonorganic origin and patients with panic disorder. In order to explore this association further, we administered a structured interview and three self-report measures (State-Trait Inventory, Beck Depression Inventory, and SCL90-R) to three subject groups: (1) a sample with persistent chest pain (CP; n=14) who had been screened and found to have normal coronary arteries, (2) a sample of patients with panic disorder (PD; n=14), and (3) a sample of matched normals (n=14). CP patients were considered to be free of coronary artery disease (CAD) following normal cardiac catheterization and/or normal thallium stress tests and were not diagnosed initially with panic disorder. PD patients were diagnosed with a standardized psychiatric interview and were free of organic causes of panic. Using an exploratory data analytic approach, the results indicated that both CP and PD samples reported increased levels of state and trait anxiety (p <.0001), depression (p <.01), and somatization (p <.0001) compared with normals. CP patients differed from PD patients in their less frequent use of anxiolytic medication (p <.01) and lower levels of reported panic anxiety and phobic avoidance (p <.0001). These data suggest that persistent chest pain in the absence of CAD shares some features with panic disorder, yet differs from panic in key ways as well. The results are discussed in light of the role of anxiety in contributing to symptom labeling.This research was supported by Grant 86G-491 from the American Heart Association, Texas Affiliate, to J.G.B. H.T. is the recipient of USPHS Research Career Development Award K04-HL-0122246.     

Effects of shifts in goal origin on goal acceptance and attainment

Current models of goal setting often fail to consider the potential negative effects of goal programs. Control over goal difficulty levels may be an important source of personal control in the workplace and psychological reactance may result from a shift in control over the setting of goals. The present experiment examined the effects of initial goal origin (assigned or self-set) and shifted goal origin (shifted or not shifted) on goal acceptance and attainment over two trial blocks of a verbal task. Several hypotheses based on psychological reactance theory were tested in a laboratory experiment with 160 college undergraduates. Overall analyses revealed significant interactions for goal acceptance and goal attainment over trial blocks. Simple effect analyses isolated this interaction for both dependent variables in a disordinal crossover pattern for the shifted origin groups over trial blocks, as expected. The discussion focuses on fitting these results into the current program guiding goal-setting research and on suggesting future avenues of research. Some implications for the application of goal setting are also discussed.     

Effects of gender roles and self perceptions on affective reactions to horror films

Responses to graphic horror films have been shown to be modified by a number of personality variables, and in particular, by gender-specific rules for social conduct. In earlier horror research it has been assumed that gender-specific responses are largely determined by biological gender. More recent research has focused on psychological patterns of gender identity that often transcend biological gender lines. This investigation sought clarification by examining the impact of individuals' self-perceived gender role and other personality characteristics on affective responses to horror. Subjects' perceptions of how same- and opposite-gender peers would respond to such materials were also assessed. Consistent with theoretical expectations, the findings revealed strong effects on the estimation of opposite-gender target's reactions as a function of both the rater's gender role characteristics and biological gender. Other personality factors were found to influence responses to horror only marginally, however. The results are discussed in terms of the gender role socialization model of affect.     

A further empirical evaluation of neurolinguistic primary representational systems (PRS)

Neurolinguistic programmers claim that individuals have preferred (primary) representational systems. These may be auditory, visual or kinesthetic and determine how a person views/deals with the world. Systems can be identified by observation of eye movements. In workshops programmers demonstrated strong associations between eye movements following questioning and types of questions and eye movement categories (assumed to identify systems) and other assessments of systems. Studies have evaluated these ‘workshop’ associations and found little support for their general occurrence. In these studies, it is possible that eye movements following questioning were influenced by artifacts which influence predicted association between these and other variables. An attempt was made to exclude these artifacts in this study. Except for subjects who had attended neurolinguistic workshops, results supported those obtained elsewhere. Possibly, associations in workshops occur as a result of expectational-contextual variables.     

Frequency analysis of electromyographically measured covert speech behavior

Eleven subjects were asked to silently read slides of the letters “P” and “T,” and to view meaningless control slides similarly as they were presented visually. One-eighth-second electromyographic excerpts were sampled from the baseline and response periods. The data were then transformed into the frequency domain for inferential analyses. The mean power spectral frequencies for the response period were significantly lower than those for the base-line in the overall analysis. There were, however, no significant changes from baseline as a function of kind of stimulus (T, P, or Control) or muscle activated (lips or tongue). It was concluded that there was a generalized responding, not unique to the processing of the specific stimuli studied. Frequency analysis of EMG measures of covert behavior holds some promise of yielding unique information not available through traditional analysis procedures, but more sensitive methods than those used here would be required to demonstrate this.     

A program for constructing SVT tests: An alternative way of assessing text comprehension

The sentence verification technique (SVT), developed by Royer, Hastings, and Hook (1979), provides developmental and educational researchers with an alternative way of assessing text comprehension based on all of the information contained in a passage. Students must decide if test sentences have the same meaning as sentences that appeared in an original passage. The program described here automates the more laborious aspects of constructing SVT tests. The user must create a passage using a word processor. The program will prompt the user for information as needed. Finally, printable text files (SVT test and answer key) are generated. The program is written in BASIC for IBM and IBM-compatible computers.