The Psychophysiology of Orthostatic Panic in Cambodian Refugees Attending a Psychiatric Clinic

Orthostatically triggered panic was examined in female Cambodian refugees. Heart rate, blood pressure (BP), panic, and dizziness responses were assessed during orthostatic challenge in three diagnostic groups: orthostatic panic without comorbid posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), orthostatic panic with PTSD, and other mental disorders without orthostatic panic or PTSD. During orthostatic challenge, the panic group without PTSD showed a significant drop, whereas the group with other mental disorders showed an increase in systolic BP. The group with panic and PTSD showed a blunted systolic BP response during orthostasis that fell between the responses of the other groups. Catastrophic, culturally specific cognitions present during orthostatic challenge were significantly correlated with the amount of reported panic upon standing. Some patients recalled previous traumatic events during the orthostatic challenge. The findings suggest that orthostatically induced panic attacks in Cambodian refugees are generated by an interaction of orthostasis physiology, catastrophic cognitions, and trauma associations.     

Examining the Association Between Body Mass Index and Weight Related Quality of Life in Black and White Women

Obesity not only increases risk for morbidity/mortality, but also impacts the quality of life of obese individuals. In the United States, black women have the highest prevalence of obesity of any other group with approximately 80% of black women over age 20 having a body mass index (BMI)????25?kg/m². We aimed to examine the association between BMI and quality of life in this high risk population compared to this association in white women, using the Impact of Weight on Quality of Life (IWQOL)-Lite questionnaire. Data from 172 black women (mean BMI?=?35.7; age?=?40.5) and 171 white women (mean BMI?=?35.5; age?=?40.4) were collected between 2000 and 2010 analyzed in 2010. The mean IWQOL-Lite total score was 81.6 for black women compared to 66.9 for white women, a statistically significant difference. Hierarchical linear regression models revealed a significant BMI-by-race interaction indicating that the relationship between BMI and IWQOL-Lite score was moderated by race. Our findings suggest notable differences in weight-related quality of life in black and white women. At similar BMIs, black women consistently reported better quality of life than white women on all IWQOL-Lite subscales. The greatest difference in IWQOL-Lite scores between black and white women was seen in the self-esteem subscale. Additional research is needed to understand how to incorporate the weight perspectives of black women into weight management messages and interventions.     

Taking a Historical Turn: Possible Points of Connection Between Social Pyschology and History

The article confronts methodological differences between (and among) social psychologists and historians about how far the social psychologist should be interested only in contemporary or very recent history and how far general conclusions can be drawn about human behaviour across time and space. The article suggests that social psychology need not be present-centric and might take different forms of a ??historical turn??. In turn, it is suggested, historians can benefit from approaches developed by social psychologists. Seven possible points of connection with the discipline of history are put forward in the hope of fostering future collaborations. These are: the nature of modernity; collective memory and the uses of the past; political discourse and ideologies; partisanship; the public sphere; stereotypes; and languages and images. Indeed, just as they can encourage closer collaboration between historians and social psychologists, these themes might also open a wider inter-disciplinary discussion with anthropologists, sociologists, literary scholars, art historians and scholars of political discourse.     

Making sense of surprise: an investigation of the factors influencing surprise judgments

Surprise is often defined in terms of disconfirmed expectations, whereby the surprisingness of an event is thought to be dependent on the degree to which it contrasts with a more likely, or expected, outcome. The authors investigated the alternative hypothesis that surprise is more accurately modeled as a manifestation of an ongoing sense-making process. In a series of experiments, participants were given a number of scenarios and rated surprise and probability for various hypothetical outcomes that either confirmed or disconfirmed an expectation. Experiment 1 demonstrated that representational specificity influences the relationship that holds between surprise and probability ratings. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the inclusion of an enabling event lowers surprise ratings for disconfirming outcomes. Experiment 3 explored the reason for this effect, revealing that enabling events lower surprise by reducing uncertainty, thus enhancing ease of integration. Experiment 4 evaluated the contrast hypothesis directly, showing that differences in contrast are not correlated with differences in surprise. These results provide converging support for the view that the level of surprise experienced for an event is related to the difficulty of integrating that event with an existing representation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).     

Gender and Suicide Method: Do Women Avoid Facial Disfiguration?

This study hypothesizes that women are less likely than men to use suicide methods that disfigure the face. Gender differences in the use of suicide methods that disfigure the face were examined using medical examiner??s files of 621 suicides covering a 10-year period from Summit County, Ohio in the U.S. Results showed that while firearms are the preferred method for both women and men, women were less likely to shoot themselves in the head. A series of logistic regression analyses revealed that gender, age, stressful life events and prior suicide attempts were predictors of methods that disfigure the face/head. Significant differences between men and women in correlates of suicide method emerged when the sample was split by gender. The results support the position that women who commit suicide are more likely than men who commit suicide to avoid facial disfiguration.     

Vigilance decrement during a simulated general aviation flight

This study examined pilots' vigilance during an extended general aviation flight as measured by their capacity to exercise control over the aircraft during a planned flight. Thirty‐one qualified pilots flew a flight simulator from Wagga Wagga to Bankstown, Sydney, a distance of 207 nautical miles. The flight comprised five separate legs, although three legs were subjected to analysis. On the basis of attentional resource theory, it was hypothesised that task performance would differ based on the requirement for memory retrieval. Consistent with the hypothesis, the results revealed a deterioration in those tasks for which there was a substantial requirement for memory retrieval. Further analysis revealed that the deterioration in performance was best predicted by pilots' perception of the workload associated with the flight and their perception of their ability to exercise control over aircraft during normal conditions. The implications are discussed in terms of system design and training. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Will They Stay or Will They Go? Exploring a Customer-Oriented Approach To Employee Retention

Keeping or losing the best workers can be critical to whether an organization can maintain a competitive advantage and whether operations in the organization run smoothly and efficiently. Simply stated, if the best workers are not retained, an organization can be negatively affected from the operational to the strategic level. This article focuses on employee retention from the perspective of a customer-based model. This approach considers employees as internal customers of management and the model provides organizations ways to influence whether employees decide to stay or go. Additionally, the model distinguishes retention practices based upon the value of employees to the organization. Measurement and application issues are identified along with directions for future research.     

Friend or Foe? The Promise and Pitfalls of Using Social Networking Sites for HR Decisions

The Internet has changed many Human Resource (HR) practices, and techniques such as online job postings and testing have become quite common in HR. However, the use of social networking websites such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Twitter for recruiting, hiring, or terminating individuals is relatively new, but their use for these purposes is clearly growing while research on these practices is lacking. Many questions about using these sites for HR practice have yet to be addressed, including questions about the validity and usefulness of information obtained on these sites, applicant perceptions of employers’ use of these sites, and the legality of using these sites, among others. The current study describes issues associated with using social networking websites for recruiting, staffing/selection, and discipline/termination, and provides recommendations for future research studies in this area.