An empirical study of the diathesis-stress theory of disease

One thousand, one hundred and twenty-one Jewish concentration camp survivors were compared with 367 Jewish controls who had not been in a concentration camp, and had not lost any family members in such a camp. Of interest was the mortality of camp and comparison groups, on the hypothesis that the stress of being in a camp would adversely affect inmates. It was found that former camp inmates were over twice as likely to die of cancer, coronary heart diesease, or other causes as the comparison subjects of similar age and sex composition, and that severity of stress was correlated with mortality in the expected direction. Diathesis, determined by means of a special interviewer-administrated questionnaire, was found to interact synergistically with stress in producing high mortality.     

Optimism and coping as determinants of psychosocial adjustment to rheumatoid arthritis

Psychosocial adjustment in 66 patients with chronic rheumatoid arthritis, with a mean duration of 12 years with the disease, were evaluated in a prospective design, with 62% of the sample followed up 16 months later. It was predicted that dispositional optimism would predict adjustment over time and that perceived support and perceived control would be related to psychosocial adjustment at the time of concurrent measurement. At Time 1, psychosocial adjustment was associated with greater optimism and perceived support and less disability. Optimism at Time 1 was the only significant predictor of changes in adjustment at Time 2 controlling for Time 1 adjustment and Time 2 disability. It was found that optimism temporally precedes increases in psychosocial adjustment. In terms of coping strategies, wishful thinking was related to poorer social adjustment, whereas problem-focused coping was marginally related to positive adjustment. Neither coping strategy predicted adjustment across time. Optimism at Time 1 did predict problem-focused coping at Time 2. Perceived social support regarding a specific circumstance at a given point in time enables one to persist in solving a task. Interventions to enhance the quality of life of individuals coping with progressive deteriorative disease must look at the influence of their behavior and attitude on those who provide care for them.     

Reflections on change in science and religion

Science and the Catholic church are both conservative, slow-to-change institutions. However, science has institutionalized procedures that ensure that ample amounts of criticism of currently accepted theories and methodologies will always be present. This arrangement of continuous conjectures and refutation in science ensures often slow but steady change. Because supporters often think of religions as trafficking in timeless truths, criticism of church beliefs and practices (even when intended to stimulate reflection and improvement) is frequently seen as being disloyal to the institution. Because of the growing crises caused by world overpopulation, I argue that the Catholic church's opposition to all artificial methods of birth control now lacks whatever moral force it might have had when originally promulgated. By highlighting theological perspectives that might be appropriate for the ecological realities of the 21st century, I hope the church will see the wisdom of reevaluating many of its positions in the light of rapidly approaching ecological imperatives.     

Human sensitivity to temporal proximity: The role of spatial and temporal speed gradients

Estimates of temporal proximity (sometimes called time-to-collision) from random-dot flow patterns are shown to be based upon retinal speed, rather than upon changes in dot density. Neither the spatial nor the temporal gradient of motion is essential to the task, but estimates can be made from either alone. Performance is unaffected by the addition of rotational motion, suggesting that observers axe capable of extracting the radial component of motion, which contains all the relevant information, from complex stimuli.     

Diaphragmatic spasm: A neglected cause of dyspnoea and chest pain

The study included 17 patients, 12 women and 5 men, with a recurrent symptom complex involving chest pain and dyspnoea characterized by inability to get a full breath. Some attacks had subsided spontaneously. Others had lasted hours or days. When examined by fluoroscopy during an attack, each subject was found to have a nearly maximally contracted (flat) diaphragm. In some of them the attack was promptly interrupted by a small intravenous injection of sodium amytal. In others it could be aborted by a conscious effort at full expiration. The syndrome associated with diaphragmatic spasm is discussed in comparison with other noncardiac sources of chest pain and dyspnoea.     

Text-contingent color aftereffects: A reexamination

Five experiments reexamined color aftereffects contingent on the semantic properties of text (Allan, Siegel, Collins, & MacQueen, 1989). The influence of different assessment techniques and the effect of eye movements and overlapping contour information on the induction of color aftereffects by word and nonword letter strings were determined. Experiment 1 showed that no aftereffect was found when a traditional method of assessing color aftereffects was used. Experiments 2 and 4 demonstrated color aftereffects forboth words and nonwords, but only when subjects fixated the same locus during induction and testing and only when assessed with the technique described by Allan et al. (1989). If, however, eye movements were made during induction, no color aftereffect was obtained (Experiment 3). Induction to nontext patterns with properties similar to those of text but with fewer overlapping contours resulted in a strong color aftereffect (Experiment 5). These results suggest that the color aftereffect contingent on text is very weak and is not dependent on semantic factors, but that it is a product of induction to local color and orientation information.     

The effect of gap depth on the perception of whether a gap is crossable

Four experiments were performed in order to examine the effect of gap depth on human observers’ perception of whether or not a gap is crossable. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that as the gap’s depth increased, observers tended to increasingly underestimate the maximum width of a gap they could step across. Experiments 3 and 4 clarified this finding: The observed covariation of perceived gap crossability and gap depth depended on the observer’s direction of gaze, rather than on the physical depth of the gap. The optical relations to which observers might be attending are discussed, as well as the possibility that cognitive-affective processes might have contributed to observers’ underestimation of their actual capabilities.