How to push someone's buttons: A comparison of four anger-induction methods

This study compared the effects of four ways of inducing anger: film, stress interview, punishment, and harassment. Sixty-four healthy participants were randomly assigned to one of these conditions. Effects were examined by means of self-report and physiological measures (blood pressure, heart rate, skin conductance level, and skin conductance response). All four methods produced comparable levels of self-reported anger, while harassment and interview produced the largest cardiovascular effects, and electrodermal activity increased more in reaction to harassment, interview, and punishment conditions compared to film. Thus, physiological reactivity was especially increased by anger-induction methods that included personal contact (harassment and interview). Regarding specificity of self-reported emotions, fear and frustration were the only emotions out of nine non-target emotions that increased in comparable degree to anger following film, interview, and punishment, while harassment produced more self-reported anger than fear. Possible explanations and further recommendations are discussed.     

LEADERS IN READING RESEARCH AND INSTRUCTION

Five reading lesson instruction characteristics were examined in relation to first and second graders' end-of-year instructional reading level: (a) teacher's preferred interaction style (indicated by extent of teacher telling and coaching); (b) teacher's preferred grouping (indicated by extent of whole class and small group instruction); (c) teacher's preferred focus of reading activity (indicated by extent of focus on words/letters and comprehension); (d) degree of student active response; and (e) instruction material (indicated by extent of use of narrative text and worksheets). Sixteen first- and second-grade teachers and 166 of their students were observed during reading instruction three times across the school year. Analyses of covariance were conducted. Complex relationships heretofore not revealed appeared. Different patterns of relationships between instructional characteristics and instructional reading level emerged for higher achievers compared to lower achievers and for first compared to second grade.     

Relationships between Teachers' Occupational Stress and Their Burnout and Distress: Roles of Coping and Negative Mood Regulation Expectancies

Teaching school is a highly stressful occupation. Consequences of this stress are burnout, physical and emotional distress, and choosing to leave the profession. Research on teacher stress and burnout has largely focused on environmental and contextual factors while ignoring personality characteristics of teachers that may have an impact on relationships between job stress and its consequences. The current study has a cross-sectional self-report design, focusing on teachers' negative mood regulation (NMR) expectancies as predictors of their coping, burnout and distress, in response to occupational stress. NMR expectancies are people's beliefs that they can control the negative moods they experience. Participants were 86 primary and secondary school teachers, who filled out questionnaire measures of teacher stress, NMR expectancies, coping, burnout, and distress. Simultaneous regression analyses showed that higher stress on the job did indeed predict greater burnout and distress. Additionally, stronger NMR expectancies predicted more active coping. NMR expectancies also predicted less burnout and distress, independent of stress level and coping. Believing one could control one's negative moods was associated with more adaptive outcomes for teachers. Results argue for the value of examining individual difference variables in research on occupational stress, in particular negative mood regulation expectancies.     

Performance and interaction anxiety: specific relationships with other- and self-evaluation concerns

This study examines whether performance anxiety (PA) is specifically associated with other-evaluation concerns and interaction anxiety (IA) with self-evaluation concerns. Individuals with public speaking fears and high levels of PA or IA were distinguishable from nonanxious controls on measures taken during a public speaking challenge. In addition, high PA individuals exhibited more observer-rated negative speech characteristics in an Other-Evaluation condition compared to a Self-Evaluation condition, but high IA individuals and nonanxious individuals did not. These results provide some evidence for the distinctiveness of these dimensions of social anxiety.     

Evidence for a detrimental relationship between hypertension history, prospective memory, and prefrontal cortex white matter in cognitively normal older adults

Hypertension affects many older adults and is associated with impaired neural and cognitive functioning. We investigated whether a history of hypertension was associated with impairments to prospective memory, which refers to the ability to remember to perform delayed intentions, such as remembering to take medication. Thirty-two cognitively normal older adult participants with or without a history of hypertension (self-reported) performed two laboratory prospective memory tasks, one that relied more strongly on executive control (nonfocal prospective memory) and one that relied more strongly on spontaneous memory retrieval processes (focal prospective memory). We observed hypertension-related impairments for nonfocal, but not focal, prospective memory. To complement our behavioral approach, we conducted a retrospective analysis of available structural magnetic resonance imaging data. Lower white matter volume estimates in the anterior prefrontal cortex were associated with lower nonfocal prospective memory and with a history of hypertension. A history of hypertension may be associated with worsened executive control and lower prefrontal white matter volume. The translational implication is that individuals who must remember to take antihypertensive medications and to monitor their blood pressure at home may be impaired in the executive control process that helps to support these prospective memory behaviors.     

The Utility of the MAPI in the Assessment of Depression

The relationships between the Millon Adolescent Personality inventory (MAPI; Millon, Green, & Meagher, 1982) and depression, as assessed by the Multiscore Depression Inventory (MDI; Berndt, 1968) were examined. Elevations on the MDI subscales were positively related to elevations on MAPI personality style Scale 2 (Inhibited) and Scale 8 (Sensitive) and on six of the eight MAPI expressed concerns scales. MAPI personality style Scale 4 (Sociable) and Scale 5 (Confident) were negatively correlated with the MDI. MAPI code types containing either Scale 2 or 8 were associated with a high MDI full-scale score. The subjects who received a MAPI computer-generated diagnosis of borderline personality disorder also had elevated MDI full-scale scores. The findings of this study appear consistent with the existing body of MAPI research, and the data suggest that the MAPI personality style scales may have both state and trait qualities.     

Reliability and Validity of the Fear of Intimacy Scale in China

Clarence G. Schulz and Rose K. Kilgalen. Case Studies in Schizophrenia. New York: Basic Books, 1970, 288 pages, $8.95. Reviewed by Edward S. Filicky, PhD

D. W. Winnicott. Playing and Reality. New York: Basic Books, 1971, xiii + 169 pages, $6.95. Reviewed by Barney Greenspan, Ph.D.

Dirk L. Schaeffer. Sex Differences in Personality: Readings. Belmont, California: Cole Publishing Company, 1971, 180 pages (paperback), $3.50. Reviewed by Laura Barbanel

B. B. Wolman (Ed.). The Psychoanalytic Interpretation of History. New York: Basic Books, 1971, x, 240 pages. Reviewed by Henry P. Hoey

D. W. Winnicott. Therapeutic Consultations in Child Psychiatry. New York: Basic Books, 1971, 410 pages, $15.00. Reviewed by Shanti Tayal, Ph.D.

Donald M. Uhlin. Art for Exceptional Children. Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown, 1972, 146 pages, $3.50, paperbound. Reviewed by Florence Diamond

J. L. Gewirtz (Ed.) Attachment and Dependency. New York: Halsted Press, 1972, 251 pages, $10.95. Reviewed by Leonard B. Olinger, PhD

R. H. Woody and J. D. Woody. Clinical Assessment in Counseling and Psychotherapy. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1972, 370 pages. Reviewed by Dale D. Simmons, Ph.D.

Paul Ekman, W. V. Friesen, and Phoebe Ellsworth. Emotion in the Human Face. New York: Pergamon, 1972, 191 + xii pages. Reviewed by Clifford H. Swensen

Anthony Storr. Human Destructiveness. New York: Basic Books, 1972, 127 pages, $5.95. Reviewed by Norman Tallent

Henry V. Dicks. Licensed Mass Murder: A Socio-Psychological Study of Some S. S. Killers. New York: Basic Books, 1972, xiii + 283 pages, $7.95. Reviewed by Rolland S. Parker, PhD

T. R. Young. New Sources of Self. Elmsford, New York: Pergamon Press, Inc., 1972, 114 pages, $6.50. Reviewed by Ray A. Craddick

James N. Butcher, (Ed.) Objective Personality Assessment: Changing Perspectives. New York: Academic Press, 1972, 212 pages, $6.95. Reviewed by James H. Johnson

Donald P. Kent, Robert Kastenbaum, and Sylvia Sherwood. Research Planning and Action for the Elderly. New York: Behavioral Publications Press, 1972, 569 pages, $19.95. Reviewed by Margaret Mercer, PhD

Rupert Wilkinson. The Broken Rebel: A Study in Culture, Politics and Authoritarian Character. New York: Harper and Row, 1972, 390 pages, $12.95. Reviewed by Emanuel Berman

Alfred B. Heilbrun. Aversive Maternal Control. New York: John Wiley &; Sons, 1973, 324 pages, $15.95. Reviewed by Albert I. Rabin, PhD

Irla Lee Zimmerman, James M. WooSam, with Alan J. Glasser, Clinical Interpretation of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale. New York: Grune &; Stratton, 1973, 224 pages, $7.95. Reviewed by Ronald E. Smith, PhD

Hilde Bruch. Eating disorders: Obesity, Anorexia Nervosa and the Person Within. New York: Basic Books, 1973, 396 pages, $12.50. Reviewed by David C. Murray

Edith G. Neisser. Mothers and Daughters. Harper and Row, 1973, 396 pages, $10.00. Reviewed by Pamela Osborne Munter

Rudolf Arnheim. The Genesis of a Painting: Picasso's Guernica. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973, 145 pages, 70 illustrations, $5.95, paper. Reviewed by Florence Rand Diamond     

Evaluating Turkish university students’ preferences for mental health therapists: A conjoint analysis approach

Due to fast-paced cultural and societal changes in Turkey, Turkish students now accrue both eastern and western cultural motives, which place Turkish students under stress. However, Turkish students have a stigma toward seeking mental health services. The current study aimed to use conjoint analysis to examine Turkish students’ preferences for mental health therapist variables regarding seeking help for adjustment problems to life in college. Students from two universities in Turkey were recruited on a volunteer basis to participate in this study (N = 235). The results indicated that the training institution, age, professional background, geographical region and gender significantly influence students’ formation of preferences for mental health therapists. The training institution had the most predominant effect on preferences. Implications for promoting help-seeking and mental health service utilization in Turkey are discussed.     

Repetition Priming Across the Adult Lifespan—The Long and Short of It

ABSTRACT

Previous reports suggest that repetition priming (i.e., enhanced processing of a stimulus after experience with that stimulus) is long lasting and impervious to the effects of age, in contrast to the pattern found with explicit memory. However, the nature of repetition priming in aged individuals remains unclear, as conflicting findings have also been reported. We used a longitudinal design to examine how repetition priming is affected by multiple stimulus repetitions (three presentations) and different delay intervals (no delay, 1 day, 1 week, and 1 month) in young adults, as well as in two groups of aging adults (young-elderly and old-elderly). Our findings extend previous reports that priming is long lasting, even when 1 month intervenes between the initial experience with an item and the subsequent priming test of that item (Cave, 1997 Cave, C. B. 1997. Very long-lasting priming in picture naming. Psychological Science, 8: 322–325. [CSA][CROSSREF][Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), and is relatively impervious to the effects of age (Mitchell, et al., 1990 Mitchell, D. B., Brown, A. S. and Murphy, D. R. 1990. Dissociations between procedural and episodic memory: effects of time and aging. Psychology and Aging, 5: 264–276. [INFOTRIEVE][CSA][CROSSREF] [Google Scholar]). In addition, a more detailed characterization of priming and the effects of aging was revealed. Although priming is long lasting, remaining significant even at the month delay for all groups, it did decline over time and the rate of that decline differed with age. Both young-elderly and old-elderly groups showed a marked drop-off at 1 day, whereas young adults did not show a decline until 1 week. All groups benefited from multiple repetitions; however, this benefit disappeared at the month delay (in contrast to recognition memory, where the benefit remained significant). These findings support the assertion that repetition priming and explicit memory reflect the operation of distinct systems, and that these systems may undergo different rates of change in aging.