Satisfaction with social support and depressive symptoms: a panel analysis

The literature suggests that persons who are dissatisfied with the amount of social support that has been provided to them may subsequently suffer from psychological disorder. At the same time, there is evidence that individuals who initially suffer from emotional disorder may consequently be less satisfied with their social support systems than may persons who enjoy better mental health. The purpose of this study was to test these competing hypotheses with panel data from a community survey of older adults. The findings indicate that changes in satisfaction with support tend to precede changes in depressive symptoms. A number of issues in the analysis of longitudinal data are discussed.     

Gender differences in social support among older adults

The purpose of this study was to determine whether exposure to life stress can help explain gender differences in the use of social support. Findings from a longitudinal study suggest that as the number of stressful life events increase, elderly men and women are equally likely to become more involved in their social network, while gender differences emerge only in response to chronic financial strain. Further analysis indicates that elderly women are more likely than elderly men to report that the support they received increased their feelings of personal control.     

Kierkegaard's ironic ladder to authentic faith

I would like to express my gratitude to Jonathan Rée for his valuable comments on the first draft of this paper, which is a shorter version of a chapter of myA Search for Authenticity, to be published by Routledge, London.     

Financial strain, economic values, and somatic symptoms in later life.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether the impact of financial strain on psychological distress depends on the value that older adults place on economic success. Feelings of personal control were specified as an intervening variable in this process. The data came from a nationwide survey of 819 people in Canada who were 55 years of age and older. The findings reveal that financial problems are associated with diminished feelings of control and that these effects are stronger when elderly people value economic achievement highly. In addition, financial strain and diminished feelings of control are related to increased distress regardless of how highly economic success is valued.     

Attachment in Adult Child-Older Parent Relationships: Research,Theory, and Practice

Greater longevity has increased the years that adult children share with their older parents, yet it creates the potential for family stress situations that may be amenable to counseling intervention. In this article, the authors examined an attachment theory perspective for conceptualizing adult child—older parent issues by introducing the basic constructs of attachment theory and by demonstrating how the theory and its related research can be applied to adult children's struggles with older parental issues.     

PERCEPTIONS OF BEHAVIORAL CONSISTENCY:

Abstract— Actors view behavior relevant for personality traits as more variable than observers do. This study was designed in replicate this actor-observer effect (AOE) in a common-target paradigm, test whether actors, observers, or both are intuitively aware of the AOE, and examine the effects of social projection on people's awareness of the AOE. Within each actor-observer pair, subjects described the actor on a series of trait adjectives and rated the consistency of relevant behavior. They then predicted the other person's ratings. The AOE emerged, and actors, but not observers, were aware of the effect On average, actors correctly predicted that observers rated actors' behavior as more consistent than actors themselves did Correlational analyses showed that actors and observers were equally prone to project their own ratings lo their matched partners     

Buffalo Creek Survivors in the Second Decade: Comparison with Unexposed and Nonlitigant Groups1

This study investigated the second-decade effects of the Buffalo Creek dam collapse and flood that occurred in West Virginia in 1972. One hundred twenty-one survivors who had participated in an earlier lawsuit against the coal company that built the collapsed dam were compared to 78 nonlitigant survivors on self-reported symptoms, clinical ratings, and diagnoses. A nonexposed sample from a geographically and culturally similar neighborhood was investigated as well. Findings showed no differences between the litigant and nonlitigant survivor groups. The survivor groups together showed higher rates of anxiety, depression, and hostility symptoms and diagnoses than the nonexposed sample. The findings were discussed in the context of the nature of the traumatic event, social and cultural influences on recovery, and the constellation of symptoms which differentiated the groups.     

The relaxation word of the day: A simple technique to measure adherence to relaxation

A new procedure of assessing adherence to home practice of relaxation is presented. The technique involved the subject identifying one of four possible relaxation words of the day at the end of a taped relaxation session. The method was employed to assess the relationship between adherence to relaxation and decline of blood pressure during a 10-session/8-week relaxation program involving 17 hypertensive subjects. No statistically significant relationship was found on either a short-term or a long-term basis. An advantage of the assessment technique is that it appears easily integrated into the overall therapeutic objective for relaxation therapy; a disadvantage is that the subject needs to comply not only with the relaxation schedule but also with the monitoring procedure.This research study was funded by NIH Grant HL27159.