Coping with human immunodeficiency virus: Do optimists fare better?

Individuals who test positive for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) face a difficult adjustment task. It was hypothesized that those who were more optimistic would cope more effectively and experience less distress. Both general and health-specific measures of coping were used. Optimism and distraction were negatively related to state anxiety, whereas emotional preoccupation was positively related to state anxiety. Optimism was not a predictor of depression. Rather, distraction was negatively related to depression, whereas palliative coping, emotional preoccupation, and the interaction of palliative coping and optimism were positively related to depression. The mediation of optimism by coping variables indicated that emotion-oriented coping was a negative mediator of optimism on both state anxiety and depression. Distraction (which includes some social diversion content) was a mediator of the impact of optimism on depression.     

Coping with human immunodeficiency virus: Do optimists fare better?

Individuals who test positive for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) face a difficult adjustment task. It was hypothesized that those who were more optimistic would cope more effectively and experience less distress. Both general and health-specific measures of coping were used. Optimism and distraction were negatively related to state anxiety, whereas emotional preoccupation was positively related to state anxiety. Optimism was not a predictor of depression. Rather, distraction was negatively related to depression, whereas palliative coping, emotional preoccupation, and the interaction of palliative coping and optimism were positively related to depression. The mediation of optimism by coping variables indicated that emotion-oriented coping was a negative mediator of optimism on both state anxiety and depression. Distraction (which includes some social diversion content) was a mediator of the impact of optimism on depression.     

Transition from School to Adult Life: Empowering Youth Through Community Ownership and Accountability

The evolution of transition services for youth with disabilities illustrates the transformation that has occurred from a systems-driven to a youth-centered support approach. This article documents how this shift has occurred. We review research that has influenced the direction of national policies and practices. A chronology of the policies that best represent the seminal foundation for current transition best practices for youth with emotional disturbance (ED) is presented. The field of special education led the way toward articulating the new vision for providing transition support by defining services as the coordination of multiple systems to address life domains (e.g., post-secondary education, employment, independent living, and community adjustment). Promising practices, within the context of the conversion to an ecological model of support that contributes to youth self-determination, include utilization of a youth-centered, strengths-based approach to transition planning, beginning in the middle school years. There remain significant barriers to adoption of the practices that may best support the successful transition of youth. These include lack of coordinated efforts across systems, socioeconomic, and community factors. Committed actions by government, the business sector, and private citizens are essential to address these challenges.     

Creative Mindsets and Their Affective and Social Consequences: A Latent Class Approach

In two studies, we tested the conceptualization of creative mindsets as latent classes, and examined several social and affective consequences of class membership. Business students completed a battery of questionnaires assessing creative personal identity, creative mindsets, social comparisons, pride, gratitude, anger, and sadness. Results from study 1 showed the presence of four latent classes: those holding low levels of both mindsets, those holding high levels of both mindsets, those holding high levels of a growth and low levels of a fixed mindset, and those holding medium levels of a growth and relative high levels of a fixed mindset. The latent class with low levels of both mindsets, growth and fixed, showed the lowest levels of creative personal identity. The latent class characterized by holding high levels of a fixed and growth mindset reported the highest tendency to use social comparison as a way of judging the quality of business ideas. Results from study 2 showed a similar four‐class solution. The low fixed and low growth creative mindset class showed the lowest levels of creative personal identity, higher levels of sadness and lower levels of pride and gratitude than some of the other classes.     

Developmental changes of sleep spindles and their impact on sleep‐dependent memory consolidation and general cognitive abilities: A longitudinal approach

Sleep spindles are related to sleep‐dependent memory consolidation and general cognitive abilities. However, they undergo drastic maturational changes during adolescence. Here we used a longitudinal approach (across 7 years) to explore whether developmental changes in sleep spindle density can explain individual differences in sleep‐dependent memory consolidation and general cognitive abilities. Ambulatory polysomnography was recorded during four nights in 34 healthy subjects (24 female) with two nights (baseline and experimental) at initial recording (age range 8–11 years) and two nights at follow‐up recording (age range 14–18 years). For declarative learning, participants encoded word pairs with a subsequent recall before and after sleep. General cognitive abilities were measured by the Wechsler Intelligence Scale. Higher slow (11–13 Hz) than fast (13–15 Hz) spindle density at frontal, central, and parietal sites during initial recordings, followed by a shift to higher fast than slow spindle density at central and parietal sites during follow‐up recordings, suggest that mature spindle topography develops throughout adolescence. Fast spindle density increases from baseline to experimental night were positively related to sleep‐dependent memory consolidation. In addition, we found that the development of fast spindles predicted the improvement in memory consolidation across the two longitudinal measurements, a finding that underlines a crucial role for mature fast spindles for sleep‐dependent memory consolidation. Furthermore, slow spindle changes across adolescence were related to general cognitive abilities, a relationship that could indicate the maturation of frontal networks relevant for efficient cognitive processing. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NXJzm8HbIw and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuMQY1OIJ0s     

Characteristics of Boys' and Girls' Toys

In Study 1, 292 undergraduates rated 126 toys as to whether they were suitable for boys, girls, or both. From these ratings, we established five categories of toys: strongly masculine, moderately masculine, neutral, moderately feminine, and strongly feminine. Using these categories, we constructed four toysets; each consisted of 15 toys, three from each category. In Study 2, 706 undergraduates individually rated the toys from one of the toysets on 26 scales that measured the toys' characteristics. We found that girls' toys were associated with physical attractiveness, nurturance, and domestic skill, whereas boys' toys were rated as violent, competitive, exciting, and somewhat dangerous. The toys rated as most likely to be educational and to develop children's physical, cognitive, artistic, and other skills were typically rated as neutral or moderately masculine. We conclude that strongly gender-typed toys appear to be less supportive of optimal development than neutral or moderately gender-typed toys.     

Origins of a stereotype: categorization of facial attractiveness by 6-month-old infants

Like adults, young infants prefer attractive to unattractive faces (e.g. Langlois, Roggman, Casey, Ritter, Rieser‐Danner & Jenkins, 1987 ; Slater, von der Schulenburg, Brown, Badenoch, Butterworth, Parsons & Samuels, 1998 ). Older children and adults stereotype based on facial attractiveness ( Eagly, Ashmore, Makhijani & Longo, 1991 ; Langlois, Kalakanis, Rubenstein, Larson, Hallam & Smooth, 2000 ). How do preferences for attractive faces develop into stereotypes? Several theories of stereotyping posit that categorization of groups is necessary before positive and negative traits can become linked to the groups (e.g. Tajfel, Billig, Bundy & Flament, 1971 ; Zebrowitz‐McArthur, 1982 ). We investigated whether or not 6‐month‐old infants can categorize faces as attractive or unattractive. In Experiment 1, we familiarized infants to unattractive female faces; in Experiment 2, we familiarized infants to attractive female faces and tested both groups of infants on novel faces from the familiar or novel attractiveness category. Results showed that 6‐month‐olds categorized attractive and unattractive female faces into two different groups of faces. Experiments 3 and 4 confirmed that infants could discriminate among the faces used in Experiments 1 and 2, and therefore categorized the faces based on their similarities in attractiveness rather than because they could not differentiate among the faces. These findings suggest that categorization of facial attractiveness may underlie the development of the ‘beauty is good’ stereotype.     

Medical education in a community model of care: The future of medical education in a large academic community hospital

Profound changes in the practice of medicine have led to new demands on the profession and on the process of medical education. In recognition of the expanded role of a physician as a professional responsible for the welfare of individuals, Lehigh Valley Hospital has developed an ambitious, innovative Strategic Plan for Education. The plan entitled, Medical Education in a Community Model of Care, emphasizes the organizational importance of education in the hospital's achievement of its mission of community service. The Strategic Plan for Education is community focused. In addition to its primary role of serving its local community, the plan is intended as a educational model for organizations in other parts of the country.Preparation of this paper was supported by a grant from the Dorothy Rider Pool Health Care Trust.     

The relation of white matter hyperintensities to cognitive performance in the normal old: education matters

This study examined whether the severity of cerebral white matter abnormalities (evident on MR images as white matter hyperintensities (WMH)) was related to the cognitive performance of 141 high-functioning older adults. The elderly showed the typical age decrement on measures of processing speed, working memory, and inhibition; however WMH severity was significantly related only to processing speed. The strength of this relationship was, however, influenced by the educational level of the participants, such that processing speed was more associated with WMH severity in less-educated than in well-educated participants. This is consistent with recent concepts of cognitive reserve, but does raise a question as to the underlying source of the cognitive decrement found in the sort of well-educated elders typically used in cognitive-aging studies.