Pastors,parishioners, and pets

Case examples of how three parishioners in one congregation dealt with pet loss are examined. Each person discusses reasons for owning a pet, relates personal reactions to the loss, explains who was and who would have been supportive during the grief process, and illustrates why such support was needed. Suggestions for how a local minister might provide outreach to parishioners dealing with grief over a pet's death are presented.     

The inventory of socially supportive behaviors: Dimensionality,prediction, and gender differences

The nature of social support as measured by the Inventory of Socially Supportive Behaviors (ISSB) was explored in the study. The results of a principal components analysis suggest that it is appropriate to use the ISSB as a global measure of a unidimensional construct. The components that emerged were interpretable, however, and are consistent with the types of social support that have been cited in the literature. Males and females do not differ in overall social support as measured by the ISSB, but females report receiving more emotional support than males do. Social network variables predicted ISSB scores for males but not for females. The network variable that predicted social support most strongly was the number of people a respondent felt close to and could confide in or turn to for help in an emergency. The meanings and implications of these findings are discussed.     

Psychometric properties of the revised UCLA Loneliness Scale and two short-form measures of loneliness in Zimbabwe.

The cross-cultural reliability in Zimbabwe of the Revised University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Loneliness Scale and two short forms of the Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale were investigated. Subjects comprised a sample of 1,354 adolescents and another sample of 754 adults. The reliability of the Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale was acceptable. The internal consistency of an eight-item short form of the Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale was adequate, but the reliability of a four-item short form was low. Factor analysis of the Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale, which yielded two factors similar to those reported in North America by Zakahi and Duran (1982) supported the construct validity of the Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale in Zimbabwe. The Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale and the eight-item short form were highly correlated, but this association was spuriously elevated by the fact the eight-item short form is part of the full scale. Factor analysis of the eight-item short form suggested that this scale does not consistently reflect the factor structure of the full scale. We concluded that the Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale possesses acceptable reliability and factorial validity in Zimbabwe and that the eight-item version is superior to the four-item form of the Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale as a short loneliness measure. However, additional refinements may be needed to further improve the eight-item short version.     

STRATEGIES TO INCREASE EXERCISE-REPORT CORRESPONDENCE BY BOYS WITH MODERATE MENTAL RETARDATION: COLLATERAL CHANGES IN INTENTION-EXERCISE CORRESPONDENCE

Correspondence between verbal and nonverbal behavior in an exercise room was taught to 4 13-year-old boys diagnosed with moderate mental retardation. Participants were asked prior to each exercise session which exercise machine(s) they intended to use. No contingencies on stating intentions (promising) were applied. Following the exercise session, participants were asked to say (report) which machine(s) they had used. Following the baseline condition, do-report correspondence training was introduced sequentially across participants. During do-report correspondence training, accurate reporting was reinforced. High rates of both do-report and promise-do correspondence were observed. Data were analyzed via a multiple baseline across subjects design and contingency-space analysis. Results are discussed with regard to observed changes in promise-do correspondence subsequent to observed changes in do-report correspondence.     

Coping with Medical Diagnosis: The Effects of At-Risk Versus Disease Labels Over Time1

We randomly assigned college students to conditions in which they learned that they had gum disease, were at risk of having gum disease, or did not have gum disease. Then we examined their coping responses both immediately after the diagnosis and 2 days later. Students that told they had gum disease saw the disease as more prevalent than students in the other conditions; students identified as at risk saw the disease as more common than students who were told they had no disease. In addition, disease and at-risk diagnosis subjects believed that the disease was less serious but, during the 2-day interval between tests, they reported experiencing more bleeding–a symptom of gum disease. All of these responses to diagnosis were similar immediately after diagnosis and 2 days later. The data support a model of how persons react to illness signs (Ditto, Jemmott, & Darley, 1988) and have practical implications for dental professionals involved in diagnosing gum disease.