Mood in chronic disease: Questioning the answers

The main research questions concerning mood and chronic disease are about the extent, sources, and consequences of emotional distress. Answers to these questions are informative both to psychological theory and to the design of interventions aimed at improving outcomes for patients. However, as a result of practical and ethical limitations in research designs, the answers obtained are rarely definitive and typically need to be interpreted carefully. This article illustrates some of the problems using studies of patients with cancer, myocardial infarction, stroke, and other disabling conditions. The first group of studies illustrates problems in the timing of mood measurement including both timing within an interview, and issues concerned with identifying equivalent timing in the stages of disease and its treatment. The remaining studies are used to illustrate the limits of non-experimental longitudinal, and of experimental designs. It is concluded that research in this area requires the use of more than one research paradigm to achieve dependable answers.     

Between Metaphysics and Nonsense: Elucidation in Wittgenstein's Tractatus

There are currently two readings of Tractatus , the metaphysical and the therapeutic. I argue that neither of these is satisfactory. I develop a third reading, the elucidatory reading. This shares the therapeutic interpretation's emphasis on the idea that Wittgenstein's remarks are intended to work on the reader, but instead of seeing these remarks as directed (problematically) at revealing their own nonsensical status, I take the remarks to be aimed at bringing a certain order to the reader's perception of language. The point of this order, and the only test of it, is that it enables the philosophical problems to disappear. In particular, it dispels philosophical puzzlement concerning the status of logic, the relation between language and the world, and the relation between thought and language.     

Work and Pregnancy: Individual and Organizational Factors Influencing Organizational Commitment,Timing of Maternity Leave,and Return to Work

The authors surveyed 86 pregnant women (73%White, 8% Asian, 7% African American, 6% Hispanic, and1% Native American) to examine individual andorganizational factors associated with organizationalcommitment and planned timing of their maternity leavesand return to work after childbirth. Women whoseorganizations offered guaranteed jobs after childbirthplanned to work later into their pregnancies and toreturn to work sooner after childbirth. Women whoperceived supportive work-family cultures were morecommitted to their organizations and planned to returnmore quickly after childbirth than women who perceived less supportive cultures. Also, women with lesstraditional attitudes toward parenting planned to worklater into their pregnancies and return to work soonerafter childbirth.     

Electromyographic and vasomotor activity in tension, migraine, and combined headache patients: The influence of postural variation

Electromyographic (EMG) and temporal artery vasomotor activity was evaluated in three groups of headache patients (tension, migraine and combined) and nonheadache control subjects while in reclining, sitting and standing positions. Analysis of the EMG data revealed that at all measurement sites (bilateral frontalis, bilateral trapezius) the three headache groups demonstrated significantly higher levels than the nonheadache group but did not differ from each other. A secondary analysis of the trapezius EMG data revealed that a large percentage of headache patients had “normal” EMG levels in the reclining position but showed abnormalities in the sitting and standing positions. Analysis of the left temporal artery vasomotor activity revealed that all three headache groups vasoconstricted to a significantly greater extent than the nonheadache group in the sitting and standing positions. However, a diagnosis by position interaction was found for the right temporal artery with the migraine group demonstrating a unique pattern of activity.     

The Primacy of the “Shoulds”: Where Is the Evidence?

A central tenet of rational emotive behaviour therapy (REBT) has always been that irrational beliefs which express demands through absolutistic shoulds, musts or oughts are the basic cause of emotional disturbance. This premise is characteristic of Ellis' theory but is not always supported by other REBT writers or other writers within the cognitive therapy field. This paper reviews a range of research findings which appear to call into question Ellis' tenet of the primacy of the shoulds and which, in turn, raise theoretical and methodological difficulties in the measurement of beliefs. This along with the current theoretical debate regarding irrational belief processes may preclude the possibility of testing the proposition that demandingness is the primary irrational or dysfunctional belief.     

Establishing a Descriptive Database for Teachers with Aggressive Students

While establishing a database that describes students' aggressive behaviors and the conditions present at the time of occurrence, we discovered a variety of definitions of aggression in the literature. This lack of consistency limits the information provided to teachers working with the frequent problem of violence. We propose an inclusive and verifiable definition of aggression gleaned from experience and the literature. The definition incorporates verbal, paraverbal, nonverbal, and physical aggression. Validation is presented from the literature, and from 39 practicing teachers who used the definition to categorize 659 target behaviors. The teachers' level of agreement with the authors' categorization was 93% (median).     

Community College Advising Model

Traditionally, community college advisement of new students has taken either a group or individual approach. An appropriate advising model affords the opportunity to draw from the assets of both approaches; that is, if grouping is done, individual attention may be given to students by using pertinent student and curriculum factors. The model presented prescribes a specific course of action for a particular kind of student but remains flexible in its application.