The roles of dispositional optimism and pessimism in hiv disease progression

Relationships between dispositional optimism and pessimism and the course of HIV infection, determined by changes in viral load and CD4 counts, were studied in a longitudinal cohort of 412 patients on antiretroviral therapy (ART). Multiple regression analyses controlling for baseline levels of disease status, ethnicity, and depressive symptoms demonstrated that higher pessimism at baseline was associated with higher viral load at follow-up (average of 18 months later). Optimism at baseline had a curvilinear relationship with CD4 counts at follow-up. Moderate levels of optimism at baseline predicted the highest CD4 counts at follow-up. Although optimism and pessimism were associated with specific health behaviors (e.g., ART adherence, cigarette use, drug use, dietary practices), none of these behaviors mediated the optimism/pessimism effects. The biologic and behavioral mediators of associations of personality variables with the course of treated HIV infection deserve continued investigation.     

A COMPARISON OF SEMANTIC‐ AND MNEMONIC‐BASED VOCABULARY‐LEARNING STRATEGIES

Fourth‐ and fifth‐grade students were taught the meanings of new vocabulary items according to one of three instructional strategies. Two of the strategies were semantic‐based (contextual analysis and semantic mapping), and the other strategy was mnemonic‐based (the keyword method). Consistent with recent research findings, the keyword method facilitated students’ recall of the vocabulary items’ definitions, and this was true in both higher‐ and lower‐achieving subject populations. In the higher‐achieving sample, the keyword method was also superior to the contextual analysis strategy on two vocabulary‐usage tests, one that was administered on the day immediately following instruction and one that was administered a week later. Mean performance on a one‐week delayed definition‐matching test was statistically equivalent in the three conditions, although in the higher‐achieving sample a reliably higher proportion of keyword subjects than contextual analysis subjects attained perfect scores on that test. No significant difference between the two semantic‐ based strategies was found on any of the dependent measures. Implications of the results and suggestions for future research are included in the discussion.     

Studies in Affective Reaction: II. Dependence of Affective Ratings upon the Stimulus-Situation

Meehl, Paul E. Clinical vs. Statistical Prediction: A Theoretical Analysis and Review of the Evidence. Minneapolis: Univ. Minnesota Press, 1954. Pp. 149. Reviewed by Henry Winthrop.     

The relationship between clients' conformity to masculine norms and their perceptions of helpful therapist actions

T. J. G. Tracey et al.'s (2003) common factors model derived from therapists and psychotherapy researchers has provided a parsimonious structure to inform research and practice. Accordingly, the current authors used the 14 common factor categories identified in Tracey et al.'s model as a guide to code clients' perceptions of helpful therapist actions (e.g., intervention, way of being) in short-term psychotherapy. Next, they conducted a cluster analysis to establish meaningful subgroups of clients based on clients' perceptions of helpful therapist actions. Finally, they explored if clients in these subgroups differed in their report of conformity to masculine norms. Clients (N = 161) from a university counseling center were recruited for the current study. Results revealed 3 clusters of clients based on their perceptions of helpful therapist actions: Insight (44%), Relationship (30%), and Information (26%). In contrast, Tracey et al. found 3 clusters: Bond (which includes Insight and Relationship), Information, and Structure of therapy (not found in the current study). Clients in the Insight and Relationship clusters reported more conformity to masculine norms as compared with clients in the Information cluster. There were no sex differences across clusters.     

Justice as a Family Value: How a Commitment to Fairness is Compatible with Love

Many discussions of love and the family treat issues of justice as something alien. On this view, concerns about whether one's family is internally just are in tension with the modes of interaction that are characteristic of loving families. In this essay, we challenge this widespread view. We argue that once justice becomes a shared family concern, its pursuit is compatible with loving familial relations. We examine four arguments for the thesis that a concern with justice is not at home within a loving family, and we explain why these arguments fail. We develop and defend an alternative conception of the justice‐oriented loving family, arguing that justice can—and, for the sake of justice, should—be seen as a family value.     

Loudness adaptation: fact or artifact?

In the present study, the authors tested the hypothesis that contrast effects confound the Ipsilateral Comparison Paradigm (ICP). Bidirectional referents were used in which base tones of 50 or 70 dB alternated with referents of greater or lesser intensity in a 3.5-min listening period. The contrast hypothesis leads to the expectation that the bidirectional referents would produce opposing effects that should nullify time-based loudness changes in the common base tone. Contrary to that expectation, base-tone loudness declined significantly over time in the context of the bidirectional referents, and the loudness of the referents also declined significantly over time. Thus, the results of the study testified to the validity of the ICP as a contrast-free measure of broad-based loudness adaptation.     

Evidence for detection of one duration sample and default responding to other duration samples by pigeons may result from an artifact of retention-test ambiguity

S. C. Gaitan and J. T. Wixted (2000) proposed that when pigeons are trained on a conditional discrimination to associate 1 duration sample with 1 comparison and 2 other duration samples with a 2nd comparison, they detect only the single duration, and on trials involving either of the 2 other duration samples, they respond to the other comparison by default. In 2 experiments, the authors show instead that pigeons lend to treat the retention intervals (such as those used by Gaitan and Wixted) as intertrial intervals, and thus, they tend to treat all trials with a delay as 0-s sample trials. The authors tested this hypothesis by showing that divergent retention functions do not appear when the retention interval is discriminably different from the intertrial interval.     

Four dimensions of self-defining memories (specificity, meaning, content, and affect) and their relationships to self-restraint, distress, and repressive defensiveness

This study examines four dimensions of self-defining memory (specificity, meaning, content, and affect) and their relationship to self-restraint, distress, and defensiveness. The development and validation of a protocol for measuring specificity, meaning, and affect in self-defining memories is discussed. Specificity is operationalized as the temporal and detailed specificity of the narrative. Meaning refers to the participant's stepping back from the narrative to derive higher personal meaning or a life lesson. Affect reflects subjective emotion upon recall. Agreement between two raters scoring 1040 memories was kappa=.83 for specificity and kappa=.72 for meaning. The protocol is compatible with Thorne and McLean's scoring system for content (the types of events in memories). The current study compared individual differences in the four dimensions of 10 self-defining memories collected from 103 undergraduates to scores of self-restraint, distress, and repressive defensiveness, as measured by the Weinberger Adjustment Inventory. Memory specificity was inversely related to repressive defensiveness, while greater memory meaning was linked to moderate and high levels of self-restraint. Memory content and affect predicted individuals' degree of subjective distress. Based on these findings, the authors discuss the place of self-defining memories in Conway and Pleydell-Pearce's Self-Memory System model of autobiographical memory and personality, more generally.