Dark Storm Clouds and Rays of Sunshine: Profiles of Negative and Positive Rumination About Daily Hassles and Uplifts

Daily negative events (hassles) and positive events (uplifts) have an impact on our subjective well-being, and how we react to those events (e.g., negatively ruminating by reflecting on the difficulties that come with hassles, positively ruminating by reflecting on the good aspects of uplifts) often has additional influence. However, little is known about the use of positive and negative rumination in combination. Using data from 469 adults, we examined retrospective accounts of negative and positive rumination about specific hassles and uplifts in reference to a 24-h period. Although differences in rumination were not observed across various domains (e.g., work, family, health), profiles emerged in relation to valence. Specifically, we identified four profiles of rumination: Non-Ruminators (39 %), Multivalence Ruminators (10 %), Positive Ruminators (26 %) and Negative Ruminators (24 %). Neither age nor gender systematically related to rumination profile. We further examined whether the associations among hassles, uplifts and well-being outcomes differed across these profiles. Results suggested few differences in the structural relations across the profiles, although the strength of associations was stronger for Negative Ruminators than Positive Ruminators. Results are discussed in terms of the robustness of effects of hassles and uplifts on subjective well-being across individual difference variables.     

SINDSCAL source weight transformations are not always necessary or desirable: reply to Hodgkinson

Hodgkinson (1998) argues that we should have transformed the SINDSCAL source weights we used for an analysis presented on page 15 of our paper on the judgement of HIV cases (Irwin, Jones, and Mundo, 1996). In this reply we present theoretical and empirical arguments for why we did not transform the weights. Our statements are presented in the context of a more general discussion of how source weights should be interpreted and used. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Life Events may Contribute to Family Communication About Cancer Risk Following BRCA1/2 Testing

We assessed whether certain life events contributed to the communication about cancer risk within families who have undergone BRCA1/2 testing. We also explored what type of resources participants would have valued to help in supporting family communication about genetic information. Two hundred and forty-six individuals (218 women, 28 men) who received a BRCA1/2 genetic test result 3 to 10 years earlier (mean of 6.4 years) participated in a telephone interview. Participants were asked about the occurrence of a number of life events (cancer diagnosis, death, uptake of prophylactic surgery, and providing care to a family member with cancer) in their family since their BRCA1/2 test result disclosure and, for each occurrence, whether it fostered family communication about cancer risk. A total of 182 participants (74 %) reported that they or one of their relatives received a cancer diagnosis, 176 (72 %) reported that someone died in their family, and 73 (30 %) stated that they or one of their relatives undertook a prophylactic surgery. During this period, 109 participants (44 %) also provided care for a family member who had cancer. Among participants who reported these life events, family communication was fostered by these events in proportions varying from 50 % (death) to 69 % (cancer diagnosis). Our results indicate that life events may contribute to family communication about cancer risk. Further research is needed to determine whether these events provide a “window of opportunity” to reach family members, address their needs and concerns about cancer, update family cancer history, and introduce genetic counseling and risk assessment.     

An Island in a Sea of Development: An Examination of Place Attachment,Activity Type,and Crowding in an Urban National Park

ABSTRACT

As more people move to urban areas there will be increased pressure on existing green spaces to offer places for recreation, contemplation, historic interpretation, exercise, and nature appreciation. Development and a rise in population has led to too few public recreation sites available in many regions of the world resulting in unsustainable pressure being applied to parks. The objective of this study was to examine how place attachment may be related to type and frequency of park use and management issues regarding crowding. Data for this study were obtained via intercept survey of a random sample of visitors (N = 1088) at a park in the Metro Atlanta area, Georgia. Results suggest that place attachment had a significant relationship with frequency of visits and types of activities that visitors engaged in. There was, however, no significant relation between place attachment and crowding. First-time visitors and less frequent visitors felt most crowded, which may support the idea that the most frequent visitors expect it to be crowded and are, therefore, less sensitive to it. This study sheds light on how visitors to an urban park view their experience while recreating, and may inform policies and regulations that will help mitigate the unique management situations that urban parks present.     

Psychometric Properties and Clinical Utility of the Scale for Suicide Ideation with Inpatient Children

The purpose of the current study was to examine the psychometric properties and clinical utility of the Scale for Suicide Ideation (SSI) for children. The SSI was administered to 100 children who were hospitalized. Data were not used from 13 subjects due to the presence of a psychotic disorder or IQ less than 70, leaving 87 participants. The SSI was examined regarding its internal consistency, concurrent validity, construct validity, and factor structure when used with children. Based on the findings, the SSI appears to have adequate psychometric properties and can be used by clinicians and researchers examining children in an inpatient setting. Recommendations for clinicians are included to help make the SSI more functional in use for children.     

Relationship of negative self-schemas and attachment styles with appearance schemas

The purpose was to test, among women, the relationship between negative self-schemas and styles of attachment with men and women and two types of appearance investment (Self-evaluative and Motivational Salience). Predominantly Caucasian undergraduate women (N = 194) completed a modified version of the Relationship Questionnaire, the Young Schema Questionnaire-Short Form, and the Appearance Schemas Inventory-Revised. Linear multiple regression analyses were conducted with Motivational Salience and Self-evaluative Salience of appearance serving as dependent variables and relevant demographic variables, negative self-schemas, and styles of attachment to men serving as independent variables. Styles of attachment to women were not entered into these regression models because Pearson correlations indicated they were not related to either dependent variable. Self-evaluative Salience of appearance was related to impaired autonomy and performance negative self-schema and the preoccupation style of attachment with men, while Motivational Salience of appearance was related only to the preoccupation style of attachment with men.     

Agreement and movement: a syntactic analysis of attraction

This paper links experimental psycholinguistics and theoretical syntax in the study of subject-verb agreement. Three experiments of elicited spoken production making use of specific characteristics of Italian and French are presented. They manipulate and examine its impact on the occurrence of 'attraction' errors (i.e. incorrect agreement with a word that is not the subject of the sentence). Experiment 1 (in Italian) shows that subject modifiers do not trigger attraction errors in free inverted VS (Verb Subject) structures, although attraction was found in VS interrogatives in English (Vigliocco, G., & Nicol, J. (1998). Separating hierarchical relations and word order in language production. Is proximity concord syntactic or linear? Cognition, 13-29) In Experiment 2 (in French), we report stronger attraction with preverbal clitic object pronouns than with subject modifiers. Experiment 3 (in French) shows that displaced direct objects in the cleft construction trigger attraction effects, in spite of the fact that the object does not intervene between the subject and the verb in the surface word order (OSV). Moreover, attraction is stronger in structures with subject-verb inversion (...). These observations are shown to be naturally interpretable through the tools of formal syntax, as elaborated within the Principles and Parameters/Minimalist tradition. Three important constructs are discussed: (1) the hierarchical representation of the sentence during syntactic construction, and the role of intermediate positions by which words transit when they move; (2) the role of specific hierarchical (c-command) but also linear (precedence) relations; and (3) the possibility that agreement involves two functionally distinct components. A gradient of computational complexity in agreement is presented which relates empirical evidence to these theoretical constructs.