ACCURACY AND DISTORTION IN MEMORY FOR HIGH SCHOOL GRADES

Abstract— The relation between accuracy and distortion of autobiographical memory content was examined by verifying 3,220 high school grades recalled by 99 college students. Accuracy of recall declined monotonically with letter grade, from 89% for grades of A to 29% for grades of D. The positive correlation between achievement and accuracy of recall is attributed to more frequent rehearsals of affectively positive content and to greater accuracy of reconstructive inferences based on homogeneous, generic memories. Most errors inflated the verified grade, and the degree of asymmetry of the error distribution is used as an index of the degree of distortion. Distortions are attributed to reconstructions in a positive, emotionally gratifying direction. Contrary to expectation, the percentage of accurate recall and the degree of asymmetry of the error distribution were uncorrelated. This finding indicates that the process of distortion does not cause forgetting of the veridical content Rather, distortion reflects bias in reconstructive inferences that occur after the veridical content has been forgotten for other reasons     

Women’s Decision Making about Risk-Reducing Strategies in the Context of Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer: A Systematic Review

Women who have a mutation in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes have up to an 87% lifetime risk of breast cancer and up to a 40% lifetime risk of ovarian cancer. Cancer prevention and early detection strategies are often considered by these women to address this heightened risk. Risk-reducing strategies include risk-reducing mastectomy and oophorectomy, breast and ovarian cancer screening, and chemoprevention. This systematic literature review summarizes the factors and contexts that influence decision making related to cancer risk-reducing strategies among women at high-risk for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. In the 43 published research articles reviewed, three main types of factors are identified that influence high-risk women’s decisions about risk-reducing strategies: a) medical and physical factors, b) psychological factors and c) social context factors. How these factors operate in women’s lives over time remains unknown, and would best be elucidated through prospective, longitudinal research, as well as qualitative research.     

The Problems with Forbidding Science

Scientific research is subject to a number of regulations which impose incidental (time, place), rather than substantive (type of research), restrictions on scientific research and the knowledge created through such research. In recent years, however, the premise that scientific research and knowledge should be free from substantive regulation has increasingly been called into question. Some have suggested that the law should be used as a tool to substantively restrict research which is dual-use in nature or which raises moral objections. There are, however, some problems with using law to restrict or prohibit certain types of scientific research, including (i) the inherent imprecision of law for regulating complex and rapidly evolving scientific research; (ii) the difficulties of enforcing legal restrictions on an activity that is international in scope; (iii) the limited predictability of the consequences of restricting specific branches of scientific research; (iv) inertia in the legislative process; and (v) the susceptibility of legislators and regulators to inappropriate factors and influence. Rather than using law to restrict scientific research, it may be more appropriate and effective to use a combination of non-traditional legal tools including norms, codes of conduct, restrictions on publication, and scientist-developed voluntary standards to regulate problematic scientific research.     

Randomized controlled evaluation of an early intervention to prevent post-rape psychopathology

A randomized between-group design was used to evaluate the efficacy of a video intervention to reduce post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental health problems, implemented prior to the forensic medical examination conducted within 72 h post-sexual assault. Participants were 140 female victims of sexual assault (68 video/72 nonvideo) aged 15 years or older. Assessments were targeted for 6 weeks (Time 1) and 6 months (Time 2) post-assault. At Time 1, the intervention was associated with lower scores on measures of PTSD and depression among women with a prior rape history relative to scores among women with a prior rape history in the standard care condition. At Time 2, depression scores were also lower among those with a prior rape history who were in the video relative to the standard care condition. Small effects indicating higher PTSD and Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) scores among women without a prior rape history in the video condition were observed at Time 1. Accelerated longitudinal growth curve analysis indicated a videoxprior rape history interaction for PTSD, yielding four patterns of symptom trajectory over time. Women with a prior rape history in the video condition generally maintained the lowest level of symptoms.     

Be mindful in love: Exploring the interpersonal effects of spouse mindfulness on employee work and family outcomes

Mindfulness has received increasing attention from scholars and practitioners, and considerable research has demonstrated the intrapersonal effects of mindfulness at work or at home. Research to date, however, has overlooked potential interpersonal effects of mindfulness across the work and family domains. Drawing on the spillover-crossover model and the mindfulness literature, we investigate the effects of spouse mindfulness at home on employee work and family outcomes. We test our model using dyadic experience-sampling data collected from 125 focal employees and their spouses over 10 consecutive workdays. The results indicated that, at the within-person level, spouse mindfulness at home was positively associated with employee authentic emotional sharing at home, which, in turn, was positively associated with employee positive effect at home but negatively associated with employee negative affect at home. The results also indicated that spouse mindfulness at home had a positive indirect effect on family satisfaction at home and work engagement during the next morning through enhancing employee authentic emotional sharing at home. We discuss the implications of these findings and directions for the mindfulness research.     

A Cognitive-Behavioral Approach to Chronic Pain Management

More than one third of Americans suffer from recurring or persistent pain. Because this condition can result in depression, social isolation, disruption of intimate relationships, and prolonged disability, chronic pain sufferers may seek counseling. This article provides counselors with an introduction to the role of psychosocial processes in the experience of pain and offers assessment and intervention recommendations based on a cognitive-behavioral therapy approach to pain management.