Guilt in bereavement: Its relationship with complicated grief and depression

This study investigated the relationship between guilt and well‐being of bereaved persons, and explored potential differences in the associations between guilt‐complicated grief (CG) and guilt‐depression. In total, 1358 Chinese bereaved adults were recruited to fill out questionnaires. Participants (N = 194) who had been bereaved within 2 years of the first survey, filled out the same questionnaires 1 year later. Higher guilt was associated with higher degrees of both CG and depression. The level of guilt predicted CG and depression symptoms 1 year later. Bereavement‐related guilt has a closer association with CG than depression. Responsibility guilt, indebtedness guilt and degree of guilt feeling are more prominent aspects of guilt in CG than in depression. These findings demonstrate the significant role of guilt (perhaps a core symptom) in mental health of the bereaved, having implications for identifying persons with grief complications and depression.     

Shifting preferences for choice‐making opportunities through histories of differential reinforcer quality

Children of both typical and atypical cognitive development tend to prefer contexts in which their behavior results in a choice of reinforcers rather than a single reinforcer, even when the reinforcer accessed is identical across conditions. The origin of this preference has been attributed speculatively to behavioral histories in which choice making tends to be associated with differentially beneficial outcomes. Few studies have evaluated this claim, and those that have, have yielded mixed results. We provided five preschool‐aged children experiences in which choice‐making and no‐choice contexts were differentially associated with higher preference and larger magnitude reinforcers, and we assessed changes in their preference for choice and no‐choice contexts in which outcomes were equated. These conditioning experiences resulted in consistent and replicable shifts in child preference, indicating that preference for choice is malleable through experience.     

Frequency and value both matter in the suboptimal choice procedure

Pigeons chose between two options on a concurrent‐chains task with a single response requirement in the initial link. The suboptimal option ended with food 20% of the time whereas the optimal option ended with food 80% of the time. During a Sig‐Both condition, terminal‐link stimuli on both options signaled whether or not food would occur. During a Sig‐Sub condition, terminal‐link stimuli on the suboptimal option provided differential signals, but stimuli on the optimal option did not differentially signal the food and no food outcomes. Initial‐link choices revealed a clear preference for the optimal option in the Sig‐Both condition, but preference shifted toward suboptimality in the Sig‐Sub condition. These findings show that pigeon suboptimal choice is not singularly driven by signal value, as has been suggested, but also by reinforcer frequency.     

The usefulness of self‐reported psychopathy‐like traits in the study of antisocial behaviour among non‐referred adolescents

The present study addresses the question of whether it is possible to use a self‐report measure of psychopathic traits on non‐referred youth samples to identify a subgroup of problematic youths who are particularly problematic and different from other problem youths. A large sample of eighth‐grade, non‐referred adolescents, and their parents were assessed. Results showed that the adolescents exhibiting a low‐socialized psychopathy‐like personality constellation had a more frequent, violent, and versatile conduct‐problem profile than other low‐socialized and well socialized adolescents. The psychopathy‐like adolescents also differed from other poorly socialized adolescents in ways that suggested that their etiological background was different from adolescents with non‐psychopathy‐like conduct problems. We conclude that self‐report measures can indeed be useful for research purposes in subtyping youths with conduct problems. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Hegemonic Masculinity and the Experience of Prostate Cancer: A Narrative Approach

Prostate cancer is a major health problem—one that inevitably challenges men's notions about themselves and their expressions of masculinity. As part of a larger study investigating linkages between masculinity and prostate cancer, this article focuses on the narratives of three men with prostate cancer—all of whom shed light on contemporary forms of hegemonic masculinity. Multiple interviews were conducted with study participants, capturing experiencesboth prior to and following cancer diagnosis. Analysis of individual narratives showed how social factors such as work and family influenced (and were influenced by) men's experiences with illness. All three men were forced to renegotiate their performances of masculinity—with this renegotiation mostly occurring within the parameters of performance consistent with hegemonic masculinity. However, there was also some evidence of shifts into new socialterritory and new expressions of masculinity. In contrast to more traditional, trait-based approaches to studying men's experiences, a narrative approach allows social scientists to do justice to the temporal realities and contextual complexities of men's lives. Men will be better understood as more attention is paid to the actual shape of individual lives.     

Diagnostics of phonological lexical processing: pseudohomophone naming advantages,disadvantages, and base-word frequency effects

Phonological lexical access has been investigated by examining both a pseudohomophone (e.g., brane) base-word frequency effect and a pseudohomophone advantage over pronounceable nonwords (e.g., frane) in a single mixed block of naming trials. With a new set of pseudohomophones and non-words presented in a mixed block, we replicated the standard finding in the naming literature: no reliable base-word frequency effect, and apseudohomophone advantage. However, for this and two of three other sets of stimuli--those of McCann and Besner (1987), Seidenberg, Petersen, MacDonald, and Plaut (1996), and Herdman, LeFevre, and Greenham (1996), respectively--reliable effects of base-word frequency on pseudohomophone naming latency were found when pseudohomophones were presented in pure blocks prior to nonwords. Three of the four stimulus sets tested produced a pseudohomophone naming disadvantage when pseudohomophones were presented prior to nonwords. When nonwords were presented first, these effects were diminished. A strategy-based scaling account of the data is argued to provide a better explanation of the data than is the criterion-homogenization theory (Lupker, Brown, & Colombo, 1997).     

Clinicians' fidelity to a manual-based family treatment as a predictor of the one-year course of bipolar disorder

This study assessed whether therapist adherence to the family focused treatment model for patients with bipolar disorder and their relatives was associated with patient outcomes at one year after treatment entry. A total of 78 videotaped sessions of FFT consisting of 26 families with a member with bipolar disorder (3 sessions/family) were rated on fidelity using the Therapist Competence/Adherence Scale (TCAS; see Endnote 1, p. 130). Patients' outcomes (relapse status) were assessed using the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) and selected items from the Schedule of Affective Disorders and the Schizophrenia-Change (SADS-C) scale (measured at 3-month intervals for 12 months). Contrary to expectations, therapist fidelity was not related to overall outcome as assessed by the BPRS and the SADS-C. Among patients who did relapse, higher levels of cooperation among therapists predicted a later date for relapse than did lower levels of cooperation. Surprisingly, and in opposition to the study's hypotheses, patients who were hospitalized because of relapses had therapists who were rated as more competent in their ability to conduct the problem-solving module of FFT. Study implications are discussed.     

Expectancy in melody: tests of children and adults

Melodic expectancies among children and adults were examined. In Experiment 1, adults, 11-year-olds, and 8-year-olds rated how well individual test tones continued fragments of melodies. In Experiment 2, 11-, 8-, and 5-year-olds sang continuations to 2-tone stimuli. Response patterns were analyzed using 2 models of melodic expectancy. Despite having fewer predictor variables, the 2-factor model (E. G. Schellenberg, 1997) equaled or surpassed the implication-realization model (E. Narmour, 1990) in predictive accuracy. Listeners of all ages expected the next tone in a melody to be proximate in pitch to the tone heard most recently. Older listeners also expected reversals of pitch direction, specifically for tones that changed direction after a disruption of proximity and for tones that formed symmetric patterns.     

Meaning construction and integration in children with hydrocephalus

Text comprehension processes were investigated in children with hydrocephalus, a neurodevelopmental disorder associated with good word decoding, but deficient reading comprehension. In Experiment 1, hydrocephalus and control groups were similar in processes related to activating word meanings and using context to enhance meaning. The hydrocephalus group was poorer at suppressing contextually irrelevant meanings. In Experiment 2, the hydrocephalus group had difficulty integrating information from an earlier read sentence to understand a new sentence as textual distance between the two propositions increased, suggesting difficulty in reactivation processes related to comprehension. Results are discussed in relation to cognitive and neurocognitive models of comprehension.