Perceived stress and everyday memory complaints among older adult women

Abstract

Memory complaints among older adults are often influenced by depression and anxiety, but the association of stress to memory complaints has received little attention. We examined the associations of perceived stress, life events, and activity level to everyday memory complaints among healthy older women, while controlling for the influence of depression and anxiety. Participants (N=54) completed self-report questionnaires on memory complaints, perceived stress, recent life events, activity level, depression, and anxiety. Partial correlation analyses indicated that higher levels of perceived stress were associated with higher levels of memory complaints when controlling for the influence of depression and anxiety, but that life events and activity level were not related to memory complaints. This study highlights that perceived stress, like depression and anxiety, is a psychological factor that influences the appraisal of cognitive ability; however, larger and more heterogeneous samples will be needed to better understand the multifactorial nature of memory complaints in older adulthood.     

Confirmatory and Exploratory Factor Analyses of Parental Authority Questionnaire in Urban India

The present study examined the factor structure of a widely used measure of parenting style in three samples from Northwestern India. College Students (n = 195) completed Parental Authority Questionnaire (PAQ; Buri in J Pers Assess 57:110–119, 1991), and mothers of children attending high-school (n = 275), and middle-school (n = 145) completed its parent-report version Parental Authority Questionnaire-Revised (PAQ-R; Reitman et al. in J Psychopathol Behav Assess 24:119–127, 2002). Preliminary findings revealed that across three samples Cronbach’s alpha values ranged from poor to acceptable, with permissive parenting subscale of the PAQ/PAQ-R having the lowest value, whereas the authoritarian parenting had the highest value. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that none of the models achieved satisfactory fit (i.e., CFI > .90). Exploratory factor analysis revealed that a two factor structure (with first component consisting of authoritative and permissive items, and the second component consisting of authoritarian items) rendered Cronbach’s alpha in the acceptable range. Only PAQ/PAQ-R authoritarian scale was correlated with youth adjustment problems across all three samples, while findings concerning authoritative and permissive scales were mixed. The findings suggest that only PAQ/PAQ-R authoritarian scale is reliable and valid in urban, middle-class, educated families in India, and encourage researchers to develop culturally relevant measures of parenting for this population.     

Balance and dyslexia: An investigation of adults’ abilities

Balance ability in dyslexia is an issue of considerable theoretical and applied significance, but the literature currently lacks consensus. This study applied objective measures to established balance tasks. 17 dyslexic adults and 20 controls matched for age and IQ undertook the heel-to-toe balance test for 1 minute. Further “dual task” tests were also undertaken in which the subject had to balance while undertaking secondary cognitive tasks (counting, slow choice reaction, fast choice reaction). Two factor analyses of variance revealed significant between-group balance differences in the dual task conditions. 24–82% of the dyslexic group showed balance impairment, depending on the criterion chosen. At the group level, the results are directly consistent with the Nicolson and Fawcett (1990) automatisation deficit hypothesis, but the considerable within-group heterogeneity deserves further investigation.     

Natural Selection and Design: Comments on Michael Ruse's New Book

Is the adaptive complexity of living organisms the result of evolutionary processes alone? or does it give evidence of intentional design? Michael Ruse appears to argue that we can have it either way. As a scientist I find the argument from design unnecessary. Yet it has great appeal to humans, whose behavior is largely intentional and who look for patterns in events and for the intentions that may have produced them.     

Patient Adherence With Medical Treatment Regimens: An Interactive Approach

Inadequate patient adherence to treatment regimens is a ubiquitous problem in health care and carries a profound personal, societal, and economic cost. This article illustrates a general theoretical framework we believe to be useful for the interpretation, conception, and design of adherence research. The core tenet of this framework is that factors that influence adherence can be better understood by considering the interactive effects of patients' characteristics, type of adherence intervention, and characteristics of the illness and medical treatment context. This framework represents an extension and application of previous theory and research from personality, social, and clinical psychology concerning the value of an interactionalist perspective. We illustrate the framework using some of our past work involving treatment adherence among patients with chronic renal failure.     

Does service failure influence customer loyalty?

There is a general consensus that customer loyalty to service providers is not solely dependent upon their level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction. However, the identified antecedents of loyalty remain, at best, highly speculative. The aim of this extensive literature review is to give some understanding of the nature of customer loyalty and the antecedent effects of service dissatisfaction. The research reviewed suggests that customer loyalty is an attitudinal state, reflecting value, trust and commitment within supplier–customer relationships. Satisfaction is one of several antecedents of loyalty. A key influence on loyalty is the offer of unique value‐delivering advantages not provided by competitors. Thus firms need to develop positive value‐based exit barriers to achieve loyalty. When service failures occur, the recovery process is likely to have a greater impact on loyalty than the original service failure. The key to successful recoveries was found to be the customer's perception of ‘fairness’. Recovery programmes must get it right first time. Customers who remain dissatisfied after a complaint has been handled are more dissatisfied than if no recovery attempt had been made. Dissatisfaction and customer satiation are major causes of a customer's exit. The solution to customer satiation is dynamic value creation. Collection and monitoring of customer data is needed for success and two‐way communication is vital. Copyright © 2002 Henry Stewart Publications.     

Identity,Perceived Religious Discrimination,and Psychological Well‐Being in Muslim Immigrant Women

The study investigated perceived religious discrimination and three facets of Muslim identity (psychological, behavioural, and visible) as predictors of psychological well‐being (life satisfaction and psychological symptoms) of 153 Muslim women in New Zealand. The results indicated that although visibility (wearing hijab) was associated with greater perceived discrimination, it predicted positive psychological outcomes. Analysis further revealed that the psychological (pride, belongingness, and centrality) and behavioural (engaging in Islamic practices) facets of Muslim identity moderated the relationship between perceived religious discrimination and well‐being. A strong psychological affiliation with Islam exacerbated the negative relationship between perceived religious discrimination and well‐being. Conversely, engaging in Islamic practices buffered the negative impact of discrimination. The research highlights the complexity of Muslim identity in diasporic women.