Comparison of bulimics, obese binge eaters, social phobics, and individuals with panic disorder on comorbidity across DSM-III-R anxiety disorders.

Eighty-two women, presenting as normal-weight bulimics, obese binge eaters, social phobics, and individuals with panic disorder, were compared on anxiety, depression, and substance abuse. All were administered the Anxiety Disorder Interview Schedule-Revised and completed the Michigan Alcohol Screening Test, Drug Abuse Screening Test, and Self-Consciousness Scale. A striking proportion of eating disorder subjects were comorbid for one or more anxiety disorders, the most frequent diagnoses being generalized anxiety disorder and social phobia. The results suggest that the place of anxiety in bulimia nervosa goes beyond that discussed within the context of the anxiety reduction model. Conflicting comorbidity findings among this and prior investigations are noted, however, and discussed in terms of the issue of differential diagnosis between eating and anxiety disorders.     

Forms of memory failure in schizophrenia.

Effortful and automatic memory task performances were examined in 36 schizophrenic patients and 18 normal control Ss. Tasks included free recall, recognition, and frequency estimation. Patients demonstrated impairment in recall, in recognition, in semantic encoding, and in frequency estimation. Deficits were observed across tasks despite differences in attentional demands. The results suggest a basic compromise of memory function, which is consistent with recent neuroimaging evidence of structural or physiological abnormalities in frontal and temporal lobe structures in schizophrenia.     

Predictors and consequences of childhood depressive symptoms: a 5-year longitudinal study.

A 5-year longitudinal study investigated the interrelationships among children's experiences of depressive symptoms, negative life events, explanatory style, and helplessness behaviors in social and achievement situations. The results revealed that early in childhood, negative events, but not explanatory style, predicted depressive symptoms; later in childhood, a pessimistic explanatory style emerged as a significant predictor of depressive symptoms, alone and in conjunction with negative events. When children suffered periods of depression, their explanatory styles not only deteriorated but remained pessimistic even after their depression subsided, presumably putting them at risk for future episodes of depression. Some children seem repeatedly prone to depressive symptoms over periods of at least 2 years. Depressed children consistently showed helpless behaviors in social and achievement settings.     

Exposed eye area (EEA) in the expression of various emotions.

Exposed eye area (EEA) was measured in photographs of Indian adults who modeled six emotions--happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise, and disgust--as well as a neutral expression. The data were analyzed with a 2 x 6 (Eyes x Emotions) factorial analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). EEA for neutral expression was used as the covariate measure. The EEAs of the two eyes did not differ significantly during the expression of emotion. The EEAs for fear and surprise were significantly larger, and the EEA for disgust was significantly smaller than those for either other emotions or neutral expression.     

On estimating processing variance: commentary and reanalysis of Kail's "Developmental functions for speeds of cognitive processes".

A recent paper by Kail (1988) in this journal appears to contain a significant error in the data analysis. The "goodness-of-fit" coefficients reported which suggest that overall about 94% of the variance can be accounted for by the model seem to be a substantial overestimation as a result of inappropriate procedures for statistical modeling. Using the data made available to us by Kail, we have reanalyzed these results. The corrected values range from 0.9 to 92.1% for the individual tasks with an overall average between 40 and 60%. We suggest that the support for the original conclusions is considerably weaker than reported.     

Inaccurate reporting and inappropriate variables: a reply to Vecchio's (1990) examination of cognitive resource theory.

In an article in the Journal of Applied Psychology, Vecchio (1990) purported to test cognitive resource theory (Fiedler, 1986; Fiedler & Garcia, 1987). We present evidence that Vecchio's article seriously misrepresented previous work on cognitive resource theory and also contained several flaws in methodology that call into question his conclusions regarding the validity of cognitive resource theory.     

Declines in Major League Batting Performance as a Function of Game Pressure: A Drive Theory Analysis1

Zajonc's (1965) drive theory explanation argues that greater arousal tends to impair performance on difficult tasks. The hypothesis that arousal generated by “pressure situations” during major league baseball games would hinder batting performance—a difficult task—was tested by examining such performance during the 1989 season. Six “pressure situations” were identified, some occurring during the late innings of close games and others occurring throughout the game when there were two outs. Two measures of batting performance (batting average and slugging average) were employed. Results indicated broad support for the hypothesis. Reasons for this pattern are discussed, as are possible alternative explanations for these findings.     

Social support, depressed mood, and adjustment to stress: a genetic epidemiologic investigation.

A survey of 821 same-sex female twin pairs from a population-based registry assessed 8 dimensions of social support and social integration. Twin analyses documented significant common environmental influences on 5 of these 8 measures and significant genetic influences on 5 of the 8. A decomposition of the multiplicative association between support and a measure of stressful life experiences in predicting depressed mood--an association typically interpreted as providing evidence for a stress-buffering effect of social support--shows clearly that it is the environmental and genetic factors that cause support, rather than support itself, that buffer the effects of stress on mood in most cases. We discuss the implications of this result for future research on the relationship between social support and psychopathology.     

Coordination of knowledge in communication: effects of speakers' assumptions about what others know.

Two pairs of studies examined effects of perspective taking in communication, using a 2-stage methodology that first obtained people's estimates of the recognizability to others of specific stimuli (public figures and everyday objects) and then examined the effects of these estimates on message formulation in a referential communication task. Ss were good at estimating stimulus identifiability but were biased in the direction of their own knowledge. The amount of information in a referring expression varied inversely with the perceived likelihood that addresses could identify the target stimulus. However, effects were less strong than anticipated. Although communicators do take others' knowledge into account, the extent to which they do so involves a trade-off with other sorts of information in the communicative situation.     

Affect, personality, and social activity.

These studies examined relations between social activity and state and trait measures of Positive and Negative Affect. In Study 1 Ss completed scales relevant to 3-factor models of personality and a weekly mood and social activity questionnaire for 13 weeks. In Study 2 Ss completed measures of the 5-factor model of personality and a daily mood and social activity survey for 6-7 weeks. In within- and between-Ss analyses, socializing correlated significantly with state measures of Positive Affect and with trait measures of Extraversion/Positive Emotionality. These relations were relatively general across various types of positive affect and social events; however, specific types of social events also were differentially related to affect. In contrast, social activity had no consistent association with measures of Negative Affect or the other personality dimensions. The results support a temperamental view of Extraversion.