Parental Overprotection,Perceived Child Vulnerability,and Parenting Stress: A Cross-Illness Comparison

The current study sought to investigate differences in parenting capacity variables across four disease groups. Parents (N = 425), the majority of whom were mothers, of children with either cancer, asthma, Type 1 diabetes, or cystic fibrosis, completed measures of parental overprotection, perceived child vulnerability, and parenting stress. After controlling for significant demographic variables, parents of children with cystic fibrosis and asthma reported higher perceived child vulnerability than parents of children with either diabetes or cancer, while parents of children with asthma and diabetes reported higher parenting stress than parents of children with cancer or cystic fibrosis. No differences between disease groups were found for parental overprotection. The current study provides support for an illness-specific approach to understanding parenting capacity variables in the context of childhood chronic illnesses.     

The Body Stripped Down

Abstract— According to terror management theory, cultural beliefs and standards provide protection from fears associated with mortality by convincing individuals that their existence matters more than that of any mere mortal animal. The body threatens the efficacy of such mechanisms by reminding us that we are animals nonetheless, and therefore fated to death. I present research demonstrating that existential concerns contribute to uneasiness with the body, especially regarding sex, and also to pervasive concerns with how the body measures up to cultural standards, most obviously regarding women's appearance. These findings show that in effort to defend against threats associated with the body's physicality, people may deny themselves pleasure and endanger their health.     

The role of depression symptoms in dialysis withdrawal.

Among end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients on hemodialysis, death from withdrawal from life-sustaining dialysis is increasingly common. The present study's objective was to examine depression as a potential risk factor for hemodialysis withdrawal. Two hundred forty ESRD hemodialysis (133 male and 107 female) patients were followed for an average of 4 years after depression symptom assessment. Of these, 18% withdrew from dialysis. Using multivariate survival analysis and after controlling for the effects of age (p < .001) and clinical variables, the authors found that level of depression symptoms was a unique and significant predictive risk factor for the subsequent decision to withdraw from dialysis (p < .05). The potential impact that depression may have on the decision to withdraw from hemodialysis should be considered by health care providers, patient families, and patients.     

Self-regulation and STEM persistence in minority and non-minority students across the first year of college

Social Psychology of Education - Psychological factors have been implicated in STEM persistence but remain poorly understood. In particular, the role of self-regulation—the cognitive,...     

Hope as a Mediator of Bullying Involvement and Emotional Difficulties in Children

This study investigated hope as a mediator between children’s bullying involvement and emotional difficulties in a sample of 1,060 school‐age children (Grades 3–6). Results from structural equation modeling suggested that victimization leads to emotional difficulties both directly and indirectly through hope. Perpetration was indirectly associated with emotional difficulties. Findings highlight the role of children’s cognitive‐motivational process for emotional well‐being in response to bullying involvement. Implications for counseling interventions are discussed.     

The Secret Lives of Liberals and Conservatives: Personality Profiles,Interaction Styles,and the Things They Leave Behind

Although skeptics continue to doubt that most people are “ideological,” evidence suggests that meaningful left‐right differences do exist and that they may be rooted in basic personality dispositions, that is, relatively stable individual differences in psychological needs, motives, and orientations toward the world. Seventy‐five years of theory and research on personality and political orientation has produced a long list of dispositions, traits, and behaviors. Applying a theory of ideology as motivated social cognition and a “Big Five” framework, we find that two traits, Openness to New Experiences and Conscientiousness, parsimoniously capture many of the ways in which individual differences underlying political orientation have been conceptualized. In three studies we investigate the relationship between personality and political orientation using multiple domains and measurement techniques, including: self‐reported personality assessment; nonverbal behavior in the context of social interaction; and personal possessions and the characteristics of living and working spaces. We obtained consistent and converging evidence that personality differences between liberals and conservatives are robust, replicable, and behaviorally significant, especially with respect to social (vs. economic) dimensions of ideology. In general, liberals are more open‐minded, creative, curious, and novelty seeking, whereas conservatives are more orderly, conventional, and better organized.     

Self‐sacrifice as self‐defence: Mortality salience increases efforts to affirm a symbolic immortal self at the expense of the physical self

The increasing occurrence of suicide bombing attacks highlights a question that has received little direct empirical attention in social psychology. Why are people willing to sacrifice their lives to advance an ideological agenda? The current research suggests that willingness to self‐sacrifice reflects efforts to manage death awareness by investing in a symbolic identity that provides some form of immortality. If willingness to self‐sacrifice is a response to death awareness then increasing the salience of death thoughts should lead to an increase in willingness to self‐sacrifice for a death‐transcending symbolic identity (e.g. one's nation). Further, if self‐sacrifice after mortality salience (MS) is a striving for symbolic immortality then having participants imagine an alternative way to transcend death should moderate this effect. Support for these hypotheses was found as MS increased willingness of British participants to self‐sacrifice for England, but only when an alternative route to symbolic immortality was not provided. Implications are briefly discussed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Which factors best account for academic success: Those which college students can control or those they cannot?

This study integrates research linking academic performance with individual differences and class attendance. Whereas individual differences (ability, traits) are not controllable by students, students can control their attendance, study and work. Thus we sought to determine the extent to which “control” and “no control” variables predict academic performance. With N = 338, measures of verbal ability, the five-factor model, GPA, academic goals, and study behavior were used to predict exams, attendance, and independent projects completed. Uncontrollable factors accounted for 37% of the variance in exam scores; controllable factors accounted for an additional 6–10%. We also found an interaction such that, relative to low-ability peers, high-ability students’ attendance most enhanced their exam performance. Attendance was best accounted for by GPA, study and work. Projects were best predicted by low verbal ability and by personality traits.     

Pretherapy Cognitive Dispositions and Treatment Outcome in Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Insomnia

This study consisted of secondary analyses of data from 2 randomized clinical trials to test whether pretherapy cognitions predict CBT outcomes. The sample consisted of 155 primary insomnia patients with sleep maintenance complaints. Of these, 98 were randomized to CBT, 23 were assigned to progressive muscle relaxation training (PMR), and 34 were assigned to a control (sham therapy or wait-list) condition (CON). All patients completed the Dysfunctional Beliefs and Attitudes about Sleep Scale (DBAS), a sleep-related Self-Efficacy Scale (SES) and nightly sleep diaries for 2 weeks prior to receiving their assigned treatment. They then completed sleep diaries throughout an 8-week acute treatment period and during a 2-week period at a posttherapy follow-up. A subset of the sample (n = 67) also completed polysomnography immediately before and after completing their assigned treatment. Preliminary regression analyses conducted with a small subset (n = 15) of the patients receiving CBT showed those with relatively high levels of unhelpful sleep-related beliefs (Type 1 patients), as reflected by their pretherapy responses to the DBAS and SES questionnaires, showed markedly greater reductions in nocturnal wakefulness in response to CBT than did those (Type 2 patients) reporting less pronounced sleep-related beliefs. Given these findings, we used the regression equation derived from our initial analyses to dichotomize our entire sample into Type 1 (n = 82; 52.9%) and Type 2 (n = 73; 47.1%) subgroups. Subsequent comparisons showed CBT-treated Type 1 patients had significantly less wake time after sleep onset during most of the 8-week treatment phase than did the Type 1 and 2 individuals assigned to either PMR or CON. Relative to patients assigned to the PMR and CON conditions, CBT-treated Type 1 patients showed better performance across multiple subjective and objective benchmarks of clinically significant improvement, whereas the CBT-treated Type 2 patients did not. Results suggest that insomnia patients' pretherapy cognitive dispositions predict CBT outcome, and those with a pronounced sense of sleep-related helplessness are best suited for this treatment which targets this cognitive stance.     

Synaesthesia,creativity and art: What is the link?

It has been suggested that individuals with synaesthesia may show heightened creativity as a result of being able to form meaningful associations between disparate stimuli (e.g. colour, sound). In this study, a large sample (N=82) of people with various kinds of synaesthesia were given two psychometric tests of creativity (Remote Associates Test, Alternate Uses Test) and were also asked about the amount of time engaged in creative arts (visual art, music). There was a significant tendency for synaesthetes to spend more time engaged in creative arts and this was, at least in part, dependent upon the type of synaesthesia experienced. For example, synaesthetes experiencing vision from music were far more likely to play an instrument than their other synaesthetic counterparts. There was no relationship between this tendency and the psychometric measures of creativity, but synaesthetes did outperform controls on one of the two psychometric measures (Remote Associates). We conclude that the tendency for synaesthetes to be more engaged in art is likely to have a different mechanism to psychometric measures of creativity, and that there is no direct link between them. Although synaesthetes may well perform better on some measures of creativity, we suggest that synaesthetes have better bottom‐up access to certain associations, but are not necessarily better able to use them flexibly (in divergent thinking).