Future-event schemas and certainty about the future: automaticity in depressives' future-event predictions.

The proposition was tested that depressives make predictions about the future based on a pessimistic future-event schema. Participants varying in depression predicted whether positive and negative events would happen to them (or to an average person) in the future by pressing yes or no at a computer terminal as quickly as possible, either under a concurrent attentional load or under no such load. As hypothesized, depressives predicted more negative events and fewer positive events than did mild depressives or nondepressives and showed greater automaticity in their predictions. That is, the attentional load did not increase depressives' response latencies for either negative or positive events, even though it did so reliably for both mildly depressed and nondepressed individuals. Depressives may thus possess a highly developed future-event schema that operates efficiently in enabling future-event predictions.     

Why do people need self-esteem? Converging evidence that self-esteem serves an anxiety-buffering function.

Three studies were conducted to assess the proposition that self-esteem serves an anxiety-buffering function. In Study 1, it was hypothesized that raising self-esteem would reduce anxiety in response to vivid images of death. In support of this hypothesis, Ss who received positive personality feedback reported less anxiety in response to a video about death than did neutral feedback Ss. In Studies 2 and 3, it was hypothesized that increasing self-esteem would reduce anxiety among individuals anticipating painful shock. Consistent with this hypothesis, both success and positive personality feedback reduced Ss' physiological arousal in response to subsequent threat of shock. Thus, converging evidence of an anxiety-buffering function of self-esteem was obtained.     

Repression at encoding: discrete appraisals of emotional stimuli.

In previous research, the emotions associated with repressors' memorial representations were found to be more discrete than those associated with nonrepressors'. In each of the 3 experiments reported here, repressive discreteness was apparent in repressors' appraisals of emotional stimuli at the time they were encoded. In 1 experiment, Ss appraised individual facial expressions of emotion. Repressors judged the dominant emotions in these faces as no less intense than did nonrepressors, but they appraised the blend of nondominant emotions as less intense than did nonrepressors. In the remaining 2 experiments, Ss appraised crowds of emotional faces as well as crowds of geometric shapes. In both crowd experiments, the repressive discreteness was evident in appraisals of crowds of emotional faces but not in appraisals of crowds of geometric shapes. The repressive discreteness effect did not appear to reflect a general repressor-nonrepressor difference in the appraisal of stimulus features. Rather, the results suggested that repressive discreteness may be constrained to appraisals of emotions.     

Mothers with hostile, Type A predisposing child-rearing practices.

The authors examined characteristics of Finnish mothers (N = 924) who use hostile child-rearing practices (i.e., they ignore the child, are punitive and irritable, and perceive the child as a burden), practices that have been shown (R?ikk?nen & Keltikangas-J?rvinen, 1992) to predispose children to Type A behavior. The results of this study indicate that two factors--Type A behavior in the mothers and the mothers' sociodemographic background (low occupational status, low educational level and young age)--increase the probability of the mothers' treating their children in a hostile manner. Also, the mothers of boys in this study reported more hostile child-rearing practices than the mothers of girls did.     

Self-report, peer-report, and teacher-report measures of childhood depression: an analysis by item.

We explored the low correlation among different types of childhood depression measures at the item level. The items from the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI), Peer Nomination Inventory of Depression (PNID), and the Child Behavior Checklist-Teacher Report Form (CBCL-T) were combined, and both first- and second-order factor analyses were conducted. Results indicate that self-report, peer-report, and teacher-report assessments of depression measure generally uncorrelated constructs. Second-order analysis suggests that depression as a global construct is being measured to some degree by items from all three instruments. Canonical analysis was employed to identify items that best predicted CDI, PNID, and CBL-T summary scores simultaneously. Also, the relationship between specific items with similar content was investigated. Results from these analyses generally supported a conclusion that the three types of measures yield scores that are primarily independent and that the use of summary scores is not masking stronger relationships within measures. These findings have implications for clinical practice and construct elaboration.     

An assessment of the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule from the perspective of the five-factor model.

We examined the validity of need scales of the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule (EPPS) by correlating them with a measure of the five basic factors of personality; we also considered test format as a possible source of invalidity. Three hundred thirty (223 women, 107 men) undergraduate students completed both the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI)--a measure of the five factors--and one of two versions of the EPPS. Results show that both ipsative and normative versions of the EPPS could be meaningfully interpreted within the five-factor model, although the ipsative, forced-choice format of the standard EPPS apparently lowered validity coefficients and decreased convergent and discriminant validity. We argue that the five-factor model can provide a useful interpretive context for evaluating many clinical measures.     

Reliability and validity of the Coolidge Axis II Inventory: a new inventory for the assessment of personality disorders.

This group of studies describes the development of a 200 item, self-report, 4-point true-false inventory (Coolidge Axis II Inventory [CATI]) to assess personality disorders according to the criteria established in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd ed., rev. [DSM-III-R]; American Psychiatric Association, 1987). The 13 personality disorder scales of the CATI had a mean test-retest reliability of .90 and a median internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) of .76. There was a 50% concordance rate with clinician's diagnosis for 24 personality disordered patients. The median concurrent validity (raw score sums) between the CATI and the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-II for the 13 personality disorder scales was .58. Preliminary studies also support the reliability and validity of Depression, Anxiety, and Brain Dysfunction scales.     

Classification of adult attachment: an integrative taxonomy from attachment and psychoanalytic theories.

Developmental and psychoanalytic theorists have focused increasingly on empirically determined early childhood antecedents of adult attachments, with several resulting taxonomic models. This article suggests a theoretically based and clinically based model of attachment consistent with both psychoanalytic and attachment theories, resulting in an integrative taxonomy of four adult attachment styles: dependent, avoidant, hostile, and resistant-ambivalent. These styles reflect behavioral manifestations of dependence and anger, as derived from the interaction of primitive relational drives, defenses, and interpersonal experience. In addition to theoretical construction, brief clinical examples are presented to facilitate discussion of the model.