Parental Attributions of the Causes of Their Children's Behavior

We investigated causal attributions parents made regarding their children's best and worst behavior while the children were taking methylphenidate (MPH) for Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Twenty-six parents were surveyed each week for six weeks using the Parent Attribution Scale-Revised. This scale measures parents' attributions of the causes for their children's behavior when taking MPH to treat symptoms of ADHD. When attributing causes for best behavior, the parents rated their children's effort most often followed by their own effort and the positive medication effects. When attributing causes for worst behavior, the parents rated their children's lack of effort most often followed by inadequate medication effects and their own lack of effort. Our study suggests that parents rate effort most often when making attributions for their children's best and worst behavior. When making attributions for best behavior only, parents saw no difference between their own efforts and the effects of medication. When making attributions for worst behavior only, parents were more likely to blame their children's lack of effort and the ineffectiveness of medication more often than their own lack of effort.     

The effect of self- vs. external-monitoring and locus of control upon the pacing and general adjustment of psychiatric inpatients

Ninety-six psychiatric inpatients with a history of problematic pacing were identified as internal or external (Rotter Internal-External Locus of Control Scale) and assigned to one of four monitoring categories: (1) self-monitoring, in which participants recorded their pacing on wrist counters, (2) external-monitoring, in which ward staff informed participants of their pacing, (3) social demand, in which participants were pressured not to pace, but without specific feedback concerning their pacing and (4) no treatment. Dependent measures included the number of cycles paced, distance paced, and staff rated general social adjustment (MACC scale). As hypothesized, internals showed greater reductions in pacing and increases in general adjustment scores in the self-monitoring condition and externals reducing pacing and improved general adjustment on the external monitoring condition. Both of the treatment conditions created greater positive change than the social demand condition.     

Postural determinants of frontal-position advantage in listening to speech

Previous work has shown that when a subject is seated with body, head, and eyes oriented in the same direction, speech coming from the front is better perceived than speech coming from other directions. The question asked was which segments of the body are critical in determining the advantage of the frontal position. It was found that the effect does not depend exclusively on the orientation of the head relative to the source, since the advantage is reduced not only when the head is deviated laterally towards a competing source, but also when the gaze or the trunk and the limbs are deviated in that direction. Frontal position advantage is thus not a purely acoustical or auditory phenomenon, but depends, at least partly, on interactions at deeper levels.     

An examination of gender differences for job satisfaction,mental health,and occupational stress among senior U. K. civil servants

This study found that gender differences exist within senior U.K. civil servants. Females within the civil service were significantly more job dissatisfied, and suffered from poorer mental and physical ill health. They also showed more concern about their role at work, the factors associated with their particular job, the job's relationship to the home environment, and the constraints of the job. Males were more affected by how much control they felt they had at work, and by their hard-driving and achievement oriented behavior.     

Differences in psychosocial responses to pain between sufficiently and insufficiently active adults with arthritis

Objective: Adults with arthritis struggle to meet the physical activity recommendation for disease self-management. Identifying psychosocial factors that differentiate adults who meet (sufficiently active) or do not meet (insufficiently active) the recommendation is needed. This study sought to examine differences in psychosocial responses to arthritis pain among adults who were sufficiently or insufficiently active.

Design: This prospective study included adults with medically diagnosed arthritis (N = 136, M_age = 49.75 ± 13.88 years) who completed two online surveys: (1) baseline: pain and psychosocial responses to pain and (2) two weeks later: physical activity.

Main outcome measures: Psychosocial responses examined in this study were psychological flexibility in response to pain, pain anxiety and maladaptive responses to pain anxiety.

Results: A between-groups MANCOVA comparing sufficiently active (n = 87) to insufficiently active (n = 49) participants on psychosocial responses, after controlling for pain intensity, was significant (p = .005). Follow-up ANOVA’s revealed that sufficiently active participants reported significantly higher psychological flexibility and used maladaptive responses less often compared to insufficiently active participants (p’s < .05).

Conclusions: These findings provide preliminary insight into the psychosocial profile of adults at risk for nonadherence due to their responses to arthritis pain.     

Predictors of Recent Mental Health Service Use in a Medical Population: Implications for Integrated Care

This study investigated the relationship between physical and mental health and psychosocial variables and recent (within the last 12 months) mental health service use among 240 medical patients recruited from general and specialty outpatient clinics at an academic medical center. Results indicated 43.3% of the participants had recently received mental health services in the form of psychotropic medication (75%), psychotherapy (2%), or a combination of these treatments (20.2%). Among patients with moderate to severe symptoms of anxiety or depression, approximately two-thirds were receiving mental health treatment. Moreover, four variables (healthcare provider referral for mental health services, perceived need for mental health services, prior use of mental health services, and frequency of medical appointments) were significant unique predictors of recent mental health service use. This suggests collaborative/integrated medical care may increase needed mental health service use.     

Organizational Justice,Change Anxiety,and Acceptance of Downsizing: Preliminary Tests of an AET-Based Model

This study tested an AET-based model that integrates cognitions (justice perceptions) and emotions (change anxiety) to explain the effects of change program characteristics on employees' acceptance of downsizing and other work attitudes. Seventy-one employees from an organization that was undergoing downsizing participated in the study. Path analyses and a Q index of .992 offered preliminary support for the proposed model by showing that procedural justice and change anxiety explained the effects of change management procedures on acceptance of downsizing, while interactional justice and change anxiety explained the effects of the quality of change communications on trust in the change managers. Although distributive justice did not have the predicted direct effect on employee morale, it helped explain the effects of procedures on acceptance of change and morale by helping reduce anxiety about the change. Together, these findings support the utility of an AET-based framework in helping understand employee responses to downsizing.     

The distribution of attention within objects in multiple-object scenes: prioritization by spatial probabilities and a center bias

This study investigates how the attentional distribution within objects is affected by spatial probabilities, bias toward objects' centers (Alvarez & Scholl, 2005), and object motion. In a multiple-object tracking task, observers tracked line objects while simultaneously detecting probes appearing on the objects. Experiments 1 and 2 manipulated the probabilities of probes appearing at the centers and ends of objects. Overall, probe detection was better at centers than at ends, but it was also affected by probe location probabilities; when probe locations were 100% certain, the center advantage was eliminated. Experiment 3 manipulated rotational, translational, and size-change components of object motion. The center advantage still occurred with stationary objects, and its magnitude was not affected by different motion types. These results indicate that attention is biased toward the centers of objects in multiple-object scenes, both for stationary and moving objects. They also imply that attentional prioritizations based on spatial probabilities can accompany moving objects.     

The development of children's preferences for equality and equity across 13 individualistic and collectivist cultures

A concern for fairness is a fundamental and universal element of morality. To examine the extent to which cultural norms are integrated into fairness cognitions and influence social preferences regarding equality and equity, a large sample of children (N 2,163) aged 4–11 were tested in 13 diverse countries. Children participated in three versions of a third‐party, contextualized distributive justice game between two hypothetical recipients differing in terms of wealth, merit, and empathy. Social decision‐making in these games revealed universal age‐related shifts from equality‐based to equity‐based distribution motivations across cultures. However, differences in levels of individualism and collectivism between the 13 countries predicted the age and extent to which children favor equity in each condition. Children from the most individualistic cultures endorsed equitable distributions to a greater degree than children from more collectivist cultures when recipients differed in regards to wealth and merit. However, in an empathy context where recipients differed in injury, children from the most collectivist cultures exhibited greater preferences to distribute resource equitably compared to children from more individualistic cultures. Children from the more individualistic cultures also favored equitable distributions at an earlier age than children from more collectivist cultures overall. These results demonstrate aspects of both cross‐cultural similarity and divergence in the development of fairness preferences.