Stigma and beliefs of efficacy towards traditional Chinese medicine and Western psychiatric treatment among Chinese-Americans

In this study we examined community attitudes of efficacy and shame to investigate the factors that may underlie mental health service underutilization among Chinese Americans. We administered an experimental vignette to assess beliefs of efficacy and shame toward using traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) as opposed to Western health services in a sample of 90 Chinese Americans obtained through a national telephone survey. Contrary to predictions, beliefs of efficacy for treating mental disorders were found to be greater for Western psychiatric services when compared with TCM. As predicted however, Chinese Americans perceived greater community attitudes of shame when accessing Western psychiatric services as opposed to TCM to treat a mental disorder. Furthermore, these differences in community attitudes of shame only occurred among respondents who received a psychiatric condition vignette, but not with respondents who were administered a vignette of a physical disorder. These findings suggest that perceived shame may play an important role in help seeking and that integration of TCM with Western psychiatric care may have implications for reducing shame for Chinese Americans.     

Accuracy of retrospective memory and covariation estimation in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder

Assessment methods relying on biased or inaccurate retrospective recall may distort knowledge about the nature of disorders and lead to faulty clinical inferences. Despite concerns about the accuracy of retrospective recall in general and in particular with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) patients, the accuracy of retrospective recall for one's own symptoms assessed in vivo is unknown in this population. This study used a prospective ecological momentary assessment (EMA) methodology to create a criterion against which to assess recall accuracy in OCD patients. Although results indicated that patients’ retrospective recall of OCD symptoms was fairly accurate, they consistently overestimated the magnitude of OCD symptom covariation with non-OCD facets (e.g., sleep duration, contemporaneous stress level, etc.). Findings suggest that even when recall of OCD symptoms is accurate, patients may be inaccurate in estimating symptom covariation. The findings have implications for the research, case conceptualization, and assessment of OCD, and may extend to other disorders.     

Parenting-related childhood learning history and panic vulnerability: a test using a laboratory-based biological challenge procedure

A small but growing literature highlights specific parenting behaviors in increasing panic vulnerability among offspring. The current study examined the association between parenting-related instrumental and observational learning of sick-role behavior during childhood and reactivity to a panic-relevant biological challenge procedure that has evidenced predictive validity in terms of panic onset. Participants were 93 physically and psychologically healthy young adults (39 females; M_age = 23.41 years). As expected, results indicated that instrumental learning experiences involving (panic-relevant) arousal-reactive symptoms predicted increased post-challenge anxiety, arousal, and negative affective valence, even after accounting for variability associated with other theoretically relevant variables (e.g., anxiety sensitivity). Consistent with prior work, this learning history effect was specific to arousal-reactive, as opposed to arousal non-reactive, symptoms. Unexpectedly, observational learning was not related to challenge responding. Findings are discussed in terms of the potential role of parenting in etiologic models of panic development.     

Electrophysiological evidence for the time-course of verifying text ideas

We examined how verb factivity influences the ability of readers to detect and resolve the mismatch of receiving false referents in relation to true referents in discourse contexts. Factive verbs (e.g., know), but not nonfactive verbs (believe), entail the truth of their complements. Recent research by Singer [Singer, M. (2006). Verification of text ideas during reading. Journal of Memory and Language, 54, 574-591] suggests that there are pragmatic costs associated with knowing something that is clearly false and only believing something that is clearly true. However, because Singer measured reading times for full sentences, it could not be determined whether these costs were initiated upon the appearance of the critical target word (i.e., the word that validated or invalidated previous text ideas) or at a later point in the sentences. In the present research we recorded event-related brain potentials while people read the same passages for comprehension and analyzed potentials evoked to the critical target words. Our results demonstrate that the brain distinguishes between true and false target words by at least 200ms after their onset, and that the pragmatic costs identified by Singer lead to interactions between verb factivity and truth in both early (P2) and later occurring brain components (late phase of N400 and late frontal positivity). In general, the results suggest readers had greater difficulty integrating false nouns than true nouns following factive than nonfactive verbs, and that detection of this mismatch also occurred earlier following factive verbs. Our results provide insight into the time-course of the processes that underlie the verification of text ideas, and extend neurocognitive research on anaphoric resolution.     

Sexual orientation across the life span: introduction to the special section

What impact does sexual orientation have on human development over the life span? As questions related to sexual orientation have become increasingly topics of public discussion and debate in recent years, psychological study of the issues has also burgeoned. What was once a new frontier for research has matured into a large, complex, and rapidly growing area of knowledge. Important research is being conducted on many issues, by diverse investigators, from a number of theoretical perspectives, in many parts of the world. The articles in this special section provide only a sampling of current research, but they begin to suggest the vitality and excitement of a field that is coming into its own.     

Heterogeneous inhibition processes involved in different facets of self-reported impulsivity: evidence from a community sample

Whiteside and Lynam (Whiteside, S. P., & Lynam, D. R. (2001). The Five Factor Model and impulsivity: Using a structural model of personality to understand impulsivity. Personality and Individual Differences, 30, 669-689) clarified the multifaceted nature of impulsivity by identifying four distinct facets of self-reported impulsive behaviors: urgency, (lack of) premeditation, (lack of) perseverance, and sensation seeking. Building on work by Bechara and Van der Linden (Bechara, A., & Van der Linden, M. (2005). Decision-making and impulse control after frontal lobe injuries. Current Opinion in Neurology, 18, 734-739), the main objective of this study was to investigate the hypothesis that perseverance and urgency map onto the two distinct inhibitory functions distinguished by Friedman and Miyake (Friedman, N. P., & Miyake, A. (2004). The relations among inhibition and interference control functions: A latent-variable analysis. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 133, 101-135): prepotent response inhibition and resistance to proactive interference. Participants (N = 126) completed the UPPS Impulsive Behavior Scale and three tasks: a recent-negatives task to assess proactive interference in working memory, and two Go/No-Go tasks at different paces, the slower of which also assessed task-unrelated thoughts (TUTs). Consistent with the hypothesis, TUTs were positively correlated with lack of perseverance, and multiple regressions revealed that urgency was specifically related to errors in prepotent response inhibition, and lack of perseverance to errors due to difficulties overcoming proactive interference.     

Engagement in Activities Is Associated With Affective Arousal in Alzheimer's Caregivers: A Preliminary Examination of the Temporal Relations Between Activity and Affect

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the synchronous and temporal relations between engagement in activities and the two primary dimensions of affect—namely, positive and negative affect—using an intensive time-series design called concomitant time series analysis (CTSA). Twenty-four dementia caregivers completed 56 diary measures (4 times per day for 2 weeks) assessing their experience of positive and negative affect as well as engagement in a variety of activities. Total number of activities was significantly correlated with positive affect (r = .40), but not negative affect (r = -.12). Obtained pleasure from activities was significantly correlated with both positive (r = .42) and negative affect (r = - .17). These results may help further develop behavioral models of depression by suggesting that behavioral or self-reinforcing activities are associated primarily (or more saliently) with one's experience of positive affect. Future research examining the effect of behavioral interventions on both positive and negative affect is suggested, as is the examination of factors that may be more strongly associated with negative affect.     

The occurrences and correlates of bullying and harassment in the restaurant sector

The aim of this study was to explore the occurrence of bullying in the restaurant sector and its potential consequences. The sample consisted of 207 superiors and employees in 70 restaurants. The findings indicated that bullying prevails in the restaurant industry, with apprentices as a risk group. Bullying was negatively related to job satisfaction, commitment, employees' perceptions of creative behavior, and external evaluations of restaurant creativity level, and positively related to burnout and intention to leave the job. Some support was found for a mediation hypothesis, where bullying was the predictor, job satisfaction, commitment and burnout were mediators, and intention to leave was dependent variable. One implication of this study is that there is a need to challenge the attitude, common in this sector, that aggression and bullying is a natural and even necessary part of the work environment.     

Rational model and justification model in ‘outcome bias’

The authors of this study suggest that the harm‐punishment link (‘outcome bias’) can be explained by the activation of different judgment processes depending on the outcome severity of an offense: (1) a rational model for mild outcomes in which punishment is necessarily linked to responsibility of the perpetrator; (2) a justification model for severe outcomes in which punishment and responsibility are linked only when assessment order allows the latter to rationalize the former. Participants (126 university students) considered an unintentional road accident with mild or severe outcomes and made judgments of responsibility, punishment, and perceived seriousness of the offense. The results support the authors' hypothesis. In the discussion, the authors suggest different motives of punishment (preventive or compensative justice) which explain why responsibility and punishment are not necessarily linked. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.