Gender and temporal differences in identifying sources of stress

Much of the methodology in stress research focuses on stress manifestation and organismic reactions to life’s crises. In contrast, the present study sought to identify the major sources of stress and the nature of those sources. The results revealed a consistent pattern in high and low stressors throughout the 3-year period of the study, and differences only of intensity between males and females, not type of stress. Except for individuals’ temporal variations in critical events, the highest stressors for the groups were external, primarily financial and time management. Internal sources, such as personal relationships and self-absorption, were typically the lowest concerns. Everyday problems arising from current life styles seem to be significant sources of stress.     

The effect of gender and time-of-day on time perception and mental workload

Two experiments are reported which investigated how subject gender and time-of-day influenced the estimation of duration and the perception of task-related mental workload. In the first experiment, 24 subjects performed a filled time-estimation task in a constant blacked-out, noise-reduced environment at 0800h, 1200h, 1600h, and 2000h, respectively. In the second experiment, 12 different subjects performed an unfilled time estimation task in similar conditions at 0900h, 1400h, and 1900h. At the termination of all experimental sessions, participants completed the NASA Task Load Index workload assessment questionnaire as a measure of perceived mental workload. Results indicated that physiological response, reflected in body temperature change, followed an expected pattern of sequential increase with time-of-day. However, estimates of duration and the perception of mental workload showed no significant effects for time-of-day. In each of the experiments there were significant differences in time estimation and mental workload response contingent on the gender of the participant. These results are interpreted in light of the previous positive findings for circadian fluctuation in performance efficiency and the equivocal findings of a gender difference in time estimation. A unifying account of these collective results is given based on gender by time-of-day interactional effects. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Human Factors Society, Anaheim, CA, October, 1988.     

The application of relative deprivation theory to justice perception of preferential selection

This study attempted to apply the relative deprivation theory to preferential selection research. Two questions were addressed in this context: First, does preferential selection cause feelings of injustice or deprivation? and, second, can the magnitude of such feelings of injustice be predicted? A questionnaire was designed to assess fairness perceptions of all types of selection outcomes: preferential selection; together with selection involving discrimination against minorities and selections without either forms of discrimination. Results showed that preferential selection caused feelings of injustice. The level of felt injustice associated with preferential selection was identical to that due to discrimination against minorities. Further, the magnitude of felt injustice due to preferential selection could be predicted by the size of the discrepancy in “performance-relevant merits” between the selected minority candidate and the unsuccessful majority candidate. The study also compared effects of the “self-other” comparison process, used in previous relative deprivation research, and a “other-other” comparison process on justice perception. Implications of the results for the application of relative deprivation theory to preferential selection research were discussed.     

Progressive and imaginal relaxation training for elderly persons with subjective anxiety.

Elders exposed to either progressive or imaginal relaxation procedures reported significant relaxation effects and showed improvement on measures of personal functioning. The results of the Physical Assessment Scale of the Relaxation Inventory indicated that relaxation responses were acquired within and across sessions. Large, consistent changes in relaxation occurred in all 4 sessions. The Symptom Checklist-90-R, which measures self-reported personal adjustment, showed significant positive changes following relaxation training and at 1-month follow-up. Elders who imagined muscle tension release profited as much as those engaged in actual muscle tension-release activities. This finding is of importance for older adults who may experience physical limitations that contraindicate muscle-tension-release procedures.     

Aging and shifts of visual spatial attention.

Three experiments examined adult age differences in the efficiency of endogenous (voluntary) and exogenous (involuntary) attention shifts. Younger and older subjects performed a spatial cuing task in which abruptly onset peripheral cues (Experiment 1) or central, symbolic cues (Experiments 2 and 3) were presented before a target stimulus at intervals ranging from 50 to 250 ms. With peripheral cues, the magnitude of cuing effects was at least as great for older as for younger adults and followed a similar time course. Similar results were obtained with symbolic cues, although cuing effects for older adults varied with cue difficulty. The results suggest that cue encoding may decline with advancing age but that the efficiency of the shift process is preserved.     

Motion perception and aging.

The authors used a correlated motion paradigm to investigate the effects of aging and gender on motion sensitivity. In 2 experiments with a total of 50 elderly and 50 young subjects, motion thresholds were significantly higher for elderly women. The correlated motion signal, which was embedded in random motion, may have been coherent to subjects in much the same way a form is in Witkin's Embedded Figures Test (EFT). In Experiment 2, EFT scores were obtained. A significant positive relationship between motion thresholds and EFT performance was found within each age group. Although gender-related perceptual style differences may contribute to motion perception effects, the authors argue that a common neural factor contributes to performance on both the EFT and the correlated motion task.     

The interpretation of life experience and well-being: the sample case of relocation.

Social psychological theories of the self postulate mechanisms through which individuals interpret their life experiences to ensure positive self-evaluation. This framework was applied to a sample of aging women (N = 120, M age = 74.9 years) who had experienced community relocation. The authors measured their reasons for moving (push factors), reasons for selecting the new setting, (pull factors), and interpretive mechanisms, including how they compared with others in their new setting, how they were viewed by significant others following the move, how their behaviors changed following relocation, and whether the above evaluations occurred in life domains central to their sense of self. Regression analyses showed that push-pull factors and interpretive mechanisms accounted for substantial variance in multiple aspects of psychological well-being, particularly environmental mastery, purpose in life, and positive relations with others.     

The psychological present

The present paper compares behavior-analytic and cognitive treatments of the concept of psychological history with regard to its role in current action. Both treatments take the position that the past bears some responsibility for the present, and are thereby obligated to find a means of actualizing the past in the present. Both do so by arguing that the past is brought to bear in the present via the organism. Although the arguments of the two positions differ on this issue, neither provides a complete account. An unconventional treatment of psychological history is proposed, the logic of which is exemplified in anthropological, biological, and psychological perspectives. The unconventional treatment in psychological perspective holds that (a) the organism's interaction with its environment, not the organism itself, changes with experience; and (b) the past interactions of an organism exist as, and only as, the present interactions of that organism. This solution to the problem of psychological history provides obligations and opportunities for analysis that are not available when the more conventional positions of cognitivism and behavior analysis are adopted.