Factor structure and initial validation of a brief measure of perceived emotional and physical distress tolerance in post-9/11 US Veterans

Distress tolerance (i.e., perceived or actual capacity to tolerate aversive internal states) has received considerable research attention as a transdiagnostic risk-factor underlying the development and maintenance of psychopathology. Lower levels of emotional distress tolerance have been linked to psychopathology (e.g. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder) within Military populations; however, the association of physical distress tolerance to psychopathology in this population has been under-researched. This research gap may be due in part to a paucity of comprehensive, temporally stable and brief measures of distress tolerance that have been validated within Military populations, which may hinder further examination and refinement of the construct. Addressing this problem, the current study evaluates the psychometric properties of a novel and brief measure of emotional and physical distress tolerance in a sample of United States post-9/11 Veterans. Participants were 307 Veterans (M_age = 38.9, 67.7% male) who completed the 10-item Distress Tolerance Inventory at baseline and annual follow-up. Exploratory structural equation modeling was used to examine the optimal latent factor structure and longitudinal invariance of the DTI measurement model, along with correlational analyses to examine the convergent properties of the DTI subscales. The DTI reflected a longitudinally invariant two-factor structure (emotional and physical distress tolerance), with excellent internal consistency and preliminary evidence of convergent validity. Thus, the DTI represents a brief, reliable and temporally stable measure of physical and emotional distress tolerance.     

Development of rule-based eye-hand-decoupling in children and adolescents

In the present study, we characterize how the ability to decouple guiding visual information from a motor action emerges during childhood and adolescence. Sixty-two participants (age range 8–15 yrs.) completed two eye-hand coordination tasks. In a direct interaction task, vision and motor action were in alignment, and participants slid their finger along a vertical touch screen to move a cursor from a central target to one of four peripheral targets. In an eye-hand-decoupled task, eye and hand movements were made in different planes and cursor feedback was 180° reversed. We analyzed whether movement planning, timing and trajectory variables differed across age in both task conditions. There were no significant relationships between age and any movement planning, timing, or execution variables in the direct interaction task. In contrast, in the eye-hand-decoupled task, we found a relationship between age and several movement planning and timing variables. In adolescents (13–15 yrs.), movement planning and timing was significantly shorter than that of young children (8–10 yrs.). Eye-hand-decoupled maturation emerged mainly during late childhood (11–12 yrs.). Notably, we detected performance differences between young children and adolescents exclusively during the eye-hand decoupling task which required the integration of rule-based cognitive information into the motor action. Differences were not observed during the direct interaction task. Our results quantify an important milestone for eye-hand-decoupling development in late childhood, leading to improved rule-based motor performance in early adolescence. This eye-hand-decoupling development may be due to frontal lobe development linked to rule-based behavior and the strengthening of fronto-parietal networks.     

Antiferromagnetic order and the structural order–disorder transition in the Cd6Ho quasicrystal approximant

It has generally been accepted that the orientational ordering of the Cd₄ tetrahedron within the Cd₆ R quasicrystal approximants is kinetically inhibited for R?=?Ho, Er, Tm and Lu by steric constraints. Our high-resolution X-ray scattering measurements of the Cd₆Ho quasicrystal approximant, however, reveal an abrupt (first-order) transition to a monoclinic structure below T _S?=?178?K for samples that have ‘aged’ at room temperature for approximately one year, reopening this question. Using X-ray resonant magnetic scattering at the Ho L ₃-edge we have elucidated the nature of the antiferromagnetic ordering below T _N?=?8.5?K in Cd₆Ho. The magnetic Bragg peaks are found at the charge forbidden H?+?K?+?L?=?2n?+?1 positions, referenced to the high-temperature body-centred cubic structure. In general terms, this corresponds to antiferromagnetic arrangements of the Ho moments on adjacent clusters in the unit cell as previously found for Cd₆Tb.     

The interplay between counterfactual reasoning and feedback dynamics in producing inferences about the self

Counterfactual reasoning research typically demonstrates contrast effects—nearly winning evokes frustration, whereas nearly losing evokes exhilaration. The present work, however, describes conditions under which assimilative responses (i.e., when judgements are pulled towards a comparison standard) also occur. Participants solved analogies and learned that they had either nearly attained a target score or nearly failed to attain it. Participants in the no trajectory condition received this feedback in the absence of any prior feedback, whereas those in the trajectory condition received feedback after having received prior feedback conforming to either an ascending or descending pattern. Participants then provided perceptions of their verbal intelligence. Assimilation effects were observed in the trajectory conditions but attenuated in the no trajectory conditions. Discussion focuses on the role of feedback dynamics in determining responses to close-call counterfactuals.     

The Executive Decline Hypothesis of Cognitive Aging: Do Executive Deficits Qualify as Differential Deficits and Do They Mediate Age-Related Memory Decline?

This paper reports the results of two studies which investigated whether aging is associated with a differential deficit in executive function, compared with deficits in general cognitive ability (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised performance). Further, the studies investigated the specificity of the executive decline hypothesis of memory and aging by examining whether declines in executive function mediate age-related memory decline over and above the variance in memory accounted for by general cognitive ability. The results of Study 1 showed no consistent evidence of a differential decline in executive function among a sample of participants aged between 18 and 75 years. The results of Study 2 indicated a differential decline in one indicator of executive function, the Modified Card Sorting Test, among an older sample aged between 60 and 89 years. Both studies demonstrated that measures of executive function accounted for age-related variance in free recall, recognition, and serial recall, even after controlling for general cognitive ability. However, in Study 1, once variance attributed to speed of processing was taken into account, executive function did not contribute further to the age-related variance.     

The Corruption of Culture and Education by the Nation State: The Case of Liberal Jews' Discourse on Jewish Continuity

Allow me to conclude my remarks on the state and its probable role in the future with the assertion that, while the state is a human creation, human beings are the creation of God. 1 Nationalism is a very distinctive species of patriotism … which in fact prevails in the modern world, and nowhere else. Nationalism is a species of patriotism distinguished by a few very important features: the units which this kind of patriotism, namely nationalism, favors with its loyalty, are culturally homogeneous, based on a culture striving to be a high [literate] culture; they are large enough to sustain the hope of supporting the educational system which can keep a literate culture going; they are poorly endowed with rigid internal subgroupings; their populations are anonymous, fluid and mobile, and they are unmediated; the individual belongs to them directly, in virtue of his cultural style, and not in virtue of membership in nested sub-groups. Homogeneity, literacy, anonymity are the key traits. 2     

BRITISH JEWISH PREACHERS IN TIME OF WAR (1800–1918)

Beginning in the eighteenth century, occasions related to war became a significant new venue for Jewish preaching. The declaration of war or its conclusion, a government‐proclaimed Day of National Fasting and Prayer or of Thanksgiving, a major victory or defeat of the nation’s armed forces – all generated sermons by Jewish preachers, who not infrequently publicized what they said beyond the synagogue walls. These sermons reflect the patriotic identification of Jews with the nation where they resided, the desire to demonstrate this loyalty to the larger society, the homiletical application of classical texts and historical precedents to new situations, the challenge presented by war to assumptions about human progress, the theological conundrum of enemy nations praying for victory to the same God, the poignant agony of Jews fighting against other Jews. This article reviews Jewish sermons delivered by British preachers mobilizing the rhetorical resources of Jewish and general literatures to express absolute identification with the Crown, the Government and the Empire, as well as sermons that express deep discouragement about the devastating cost of war in material, cultural, psychological and religious terms.     

THE ARTIFICIALITY OF GERMAN IN MODERN YIDDISH POETRY

One of the chief debates in Yiddish linguistics and literary criticism concerns the issue of daytshmerish (Germanesque). Specifically, scholars question the incorporation of lexical elements from New High German into the literary language of modern Yiddish. After examining the arguments of the major Yiddish linguists and literary critics who pronounced on this subject, this article will highlight examples of this so‐called “borrowing” in the poems of the American Yiddish “sweatshop” poet Morris Rosenfeld (1862–1923). In particular, it will show the way in which these Germanic elements, specifically lexical ones, function on a stylistic level in Rosenfeld’s poetry and contribute to his general poetics.     

The Effect of Rater Expectations on the Evaluation of a Hypothetical Subordinate

In a laboratory study of the effect of rater expectations on the evaluation of a hypothetical subordinate's performance, 159 undergraduates role played the part of a sales manager who had been given high, low, or no expectations about a subordinates's potential along with hypothetical concrete or abstract performance data. Hypotheses regarding the interaction of performance data and expectations on evaluations were not supported. Although evaluations of the subordinate's performance did not vary across conditions, the student raters recommended larger raises for the subordinate for whom they had low expectations than for the subordinate for whom they had high expectations. The key predictor of a recommended raise appeared to be the extent to which the subordinate met or exceeded rater expectations. These results were reconfirmed with an independent cross-validation sample of 168 subjects.     

Mind-wandering and dysphoria

Mind-wandering shares a number of important similarities with thinking in depression. This experiment examines whether mind-wandering provides a useful marker of cognition in dysphoria during a word learning task. Dysphoria was associated with more accessible mind-wandering when attempting to encode verbal items. In addition, in the dysphoric population, periods when the mind wandered led to greater decoupling from task-relevant processing as indexed by slower response times, and greater physiological arousal, as indexed by faster heart rates. In the general population, periods of mind-wandering when attempting to encode information were associated with poor retrieval and high skin conductance. Finally, the extent to which mind-wandering was associated with poor retrieval was associated with an individuals’ latency to retrieve specific autobiographical memories from outside the laboratory. These results provide strong evidence for the utility of mind-wandering as a marker for depressive thinking and suggest a number of important implications for therapy for depression.