The psychological reality of word senses

This paper tests psychologists' frequent assumption that dictionaries are psychologically realistic models of polysemy in the mental lexicon. Psychologists have not often explored the nature of polysemy, and lexicographers' methods have not involved scientific sampling of usages or informants. It is argued, however, that the lexicographic technique of citation sorting is an effective way of discovering sense differences. Here this technique was used in three tasks involving usage samples for 24 high- and low-frequency nouns varying widely in degree of polysemy in the dictionary. Analyses of agreement within and between subjects showed that subjects consistently judged and substantially agreed upon the major senses of most nouns, but that few nouns in either frequency group were perceived to have more than three significant senses. Additionally, the possibility that larger usage samples will bias people to make more sense groupings was found not to be true, suggesting that the larger number of senses lexicographers create for high-frequency words are not artifacts of larger usage samples.This research was partially supported by grants from the Spencer and Sloan Foundations to George A. Miller.     

Getting engaged: A case study and a model of the engagement period as a process of conflict-resolution

This paper addresses the problem of why so many marriages end in divorce. It develops a preventative approach to marital breakdown by proposing pre-marital counselling as a resource to be made widely available to couples. The key psychological issues which a counsellor could use as the backbone of any such counselling or therapeutic work are outlined. It is suggested that these issues are part of the psychological ‘working-through’ period during an engagement, when the couple are preparing for marriage. The psychological difficulties that an individual may be struggling with are illustrated via an account of psychodynamic psychotherapy with a young woman during the year of her engagement.     

Emotion perception from a componential perspective

The common conceptual understanding of emotion is that they are multi-componential, including subjective feelings, appraisals, psychophysiological activation, action tendencies, and motor expressions. Emotion perception, however, has traditionally been studied in terms of emotion labels, such as “happy”, which do not clearly indicate whether one, some, or all emotion components are perceived. We examine whether emotion percepts are multi-componential and extend previous research by using more ecologically valid, dynamic, and multimodal stimuli and an alternative response measure. The results demonstrate that observers can reliably infer multiple types of information (subjective feelings, appraisals, action tendencies, and social messages) from complex emotion expressions. Furthermore, this finding appears to be robust to changes in response items. The results are discussed in light of their implications for research on emotion perception.     

Does Parent-Child Interaction Therapy Reduce Maternal Stress,Anxiety, and Depression Among Mothers of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder?

Maternal stress, anxiety, and depression are associated with ineffective parenting strategies for families of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). We present the use of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) with three mother-child dyads to reduce maternal stress, anxiety, and depression and child disruptive behavior in children with ASD. Results included increases in positive parenting skills, and decreases in maternal anxiety, depression, and stress, as well as child behavior problems. PCIT is a promising alternative to more intensive and costly interventions, both at reducing disruptive behaviors and improving maternal health. Implications of PCIT for dyads affected by ASD are discussed.     

Impact of age-relevant goals on future thinking in younger and older adults

This study investigated how personal goals influence age differences in episodic future thinking. Research suggests that personal goals change with age and like autobiographical memory, future thinking is thought to be organised and impacted by personal goals. It was hypothesised that cueing older adults with age-relevant goals should modulate age differences in episodic details and may also influence phenomenological characteristics of imagined scenarios. Healthy younger and older adults completed the Future Thinking Interview [Addis, D. R., Wong, A. T., & Schacter, D. L. (2008). Age-related changes in the episodic simulation of future events. Psychological Science, 19(1), 33–41. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02043.x] adapted to activate age-appropriate goals. Narratives were scored with an established protocol to obtain objective measures of episodic and semantic details. Subjective features such as emotionality and personal significance showed age differences as a function of goal domain while other features (e.g., vividness) were unaffected. However, consistent with prior reports, older adults produced fewer episodic details than younger adults and this was not modulated by goal domain. The results do not indicate that goal activation affects level of episodic detail. With respect to phenomenological aspects of future thinking, however, younger adults show more sensitivity to goal activation, compared with older adults.     

Family Resource Allocation after Firstborns Leave Home: Implications for Secondborns' Academic Functioning

This study assessed secondborn adolescents' perceptions of changes in the allocation of family resources following their firstborn siblings' departure from home after high school, and whether perceived changes were related to changes over 1 year in secondborns' academic functioning. Participants were secondborn siblings (mean age = 16.58, SD = 0.91) from 115 families in which the older sibling had left the family home in the previous year. Allocation of resources was measured via coded qualitative interviews. Most (77%) secondborns reported increases in at least one type of family resource (i.e., parental companionship, attention, material goods), and many reported an increase in multiple types of resources in the year following their older sibling's departure. Consistent with resource dilution theory, perceptions of increases in fathers' companionship, fathers' attention, and mothers' companionship were related to improvements over time in secondborns' academic functioning.     

Psychological Factors that Link Socioeconomic Status to Depression/Anxiety in Patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Our analyses examined whether reserve capacity factors would explain the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and symptoms of depression/anxiety in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). We assessed disease activity, depression/anxiety symptoms, and intrapersonal and interpersonal reserve capacity measures in 128 patients with SLE. Multiple meditational analyses revealed that intrapersonal and interpersonal psychosocial aspects of reserve capacity fully mediated the relationship between SES and depression/anxiety. Lower SES was indirectly associated with higher symptoms of depression and anxiety through the effects of psychosocial resilience. Interventions aimed at improving modifiable reserve capacity variables, such as self-esteem and optimism, may improve anxious/depressive symptomatology in patients with SLE.     

The Psychosocial Impact of Undergoing Prophylactic Total Gastrectomy (PTG) to Manage the Risk of Hereditary Diffuse Gastric Cancer (HDGC)

Individuals identified as at high risk of developing Hereditary Diffuse Gastric Cancer (HDGC) are advised to undergo prophylactic surgery - have their stomach removed - in their early twenties. Research with (older) cancer patients who undergo gastrectomy for curative reasons suggests that gastric resection has a number of physical and psychosocial sequelae. Because it is difficult to extrapolate the findings of studies of older cancer patients to younger healthy patients who are considering prophylactic total gastrectomy (PTG), the aim of this qualitative interview study was to determine the psychosocial implications of undergoing prophylactic surgery to manage genetic risk. Fourteen men and 13 women from the UK’s Familial Gastric Cancer study who had undergone PTG were invited to participate in qualitative interviews. Most reported that undergoing surgery and convalescence was easier than anticipated. There was evidence that age affected experiences of PTG, with younger patients tending to report faster recovery times and more transient aftereffects. All saw the benefits of risk reduction as outweighing the costs of surgery. Surgery was described as having a range of physical impacts (disrupted appetite, weight loss, fatigue, GI symptoms) that had related psychological, social and economic implications. Those considering PTG need to be aware that its impact on quality of life is difficult to predict and negative sequelae may be ongoing for some individuals.