Coping and Personality: Third Time's the Charm?

ABSTRACT In this special issue, a third generation of research is represented which recognizes and demonstrates that individual differences in personality play an important role in the coping process. Although progress is apparent, there are several unresolved issues, including the best way to measure coping and whether "type of coping" matters in naturalistic settings. Three potentially important parameters of coping—range, patterning, and competence—are described, but only the first has received systematic empirical attention. The study of coping might also be advanced by researchers giving more attention to the differences between problem situations in which traits are more easily expressed ("weak" situations) versus those where normative criteria and constraints are explicit ("strong" situations).     

MMPI-Rorschach interrelationships: proposed criteria for evaluating explanatory models

An extensive empirical literature, spanning 50 years and 45 published investigations, leads to the conclusion that the Rorschach and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) bear little or no meaningful relationship to each other. An inherent tension exists between these empirical findings and the widespread clinical practice of integrating MMPI and Rorschach results. At least three perspectives have been advanced concerning the relationship between these two instruments. One view holds that variables from the two measures will demonstrate significant patterns of convergence only in carefully designed research studies that involve specific, well-constructed and theoretically derived predictions. A second view postulates that although variables from the Rorschach and MMPI do not bear a high intercorrelation with each other, these variables may be combined to contribute significantly to the prediction of outcome variance. In this view, the combined use of the two instruments yields clinically useful increases in incremental validity not achievable by the use of either instrument in isolation. A third approach is reflected in the proposition that although the MMPI and Rorschach do not produce significant interrelationships under general conditions, meaningful relationships may be yielded under specific psychometric conditions, for example, under conditions in which the response styles are consistently displayed across those two instruments. This article will review research evidence related to each of these perspectives, with particular emphasis on the importance of clearly specifying the criteria to be applied in evaluating these models. The concepts of parsimony and heuristic value are proposed for these evaluation purposes.     

Models of madness: Science and soul

The historical interplay between psychiatry and religion is placed in a contemporary context here. In their zeal to embrace new discoveries and technologies in neurophysiology, modern psychiatrists are losing sight of spiritual and cultural dimensions. From a biological perspective, there is confusion about what constitutes a cause, a concomitant, or a consequence of mental illness. Computer metaphors are being used to explain mental illness. This article examines such trends and questions whether, in the decade of the brain, psychiatry is in danger of losing its soul.     

Discrimination of methadone and cocaine by pigeons without explicit discrimination training.

Pigeons were trained to peck a key on a variable-interval 2-min schedule of food reinforcement. Prior to each session, either 2.0 mg/kg methadone (n = 3), 3.0 mg/kg cocaine (n = 4), or 5.6 mg/kg cocaine (n = 2) was administered. When each pigeon's rate of pecking was stable, a range of doses of the training drug and saline were administered prior to 20-min extinction sessions separated by at least four training sessions. Rate of pecking during these extinction tests was generally an increasing function of dose, with the lowest rates obtained following saline and low doses and the highest rates obtained following doses near the training doses. Dose functions from pigeons trained with 5.6 mg/kg cocaine were steeper than those from pigeons trained with 3.0 mg/kg cocaine. Pigeons trained with methadone or 3.0 mg/kg cocaine were then given discrimination training, in which food reinforcement followed drug administration and 20-min extinction sessions followed saline administration. Rates of pecking under these conditions quickly diverged until near-zero rates were obtained following saline and high rates were obtained following drug. Discrimination training steepened dose functions for the training drugs, and the effects of several other substituted drugs depended on the pharmacology of the training drug. The pigeons trained with 5.6 mg/kg cocaine were tested with d-amphetamine, methadone, and morphine prior to discrimination training. d-Amphetamine increased rates dose dependently, and methadone and morphine did not. The results suggest that discriminative control by methadone and cocaine was established without explicit discrimination training.     

ITEM GENERATION PROCEDURES AND BACKGROUND DATA SCALES: IMPLICATIONS FOR CONSTRUCT AND CRITERION-RELATED VALIDITY

Background data measures are one of the best predictors of job performance. Nonetheless, questions have been raised about their content and construct validity. The present effort describes a set of procedures for developing construct and content valid background data items. Data gathered in seven field studies and six laboratory studies are presented bearing on the reliability and validity of the measures constructed using these item generation procedures. Findings in these studies indicate that construct-based item generation procedures yield reliable scales evidencing both content and construct validity. Furthermore, these scales are capable of predicting performance in a variety of settings. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings for the development and validation of background data measures are discussed.     

Religious aspects of bereavement

The purpose of this study was to learn more about the role of religious beliefs and practices in bereavement. Subjects were 312 adults each bereaved approximately one year. They were interviewed at the rate of about 50 per year over a 6 year period. Conclusions include: a) The opportunity to say goodbye to the deceased was significantly related to positive coping and outlook; (b) 47% of our subjects reported contact with the deceased following the death but such contact was not related to coping or outlook; c) grieving people are much more likely to turn to women than men for help; d) 77% said their religious beliefs were of considerable help in their grief.     

Prosodic influences on the resolution of temporary ambiguity during on-line sentence processing

We present three experiments designed to investigate the role of prosody during sentence processing. The first investigated the question of whether an utterance's prosodic contour influences its comprehension on-line. We spliced the beginning and end portions of direct object and embedded clause sentences and observed the consequent effects on comprehension using a dual-task procedure to measure processing load. Our second experiment sought to determine-whether the constituent structure of these sentences could be reliably predicted using prosodic information. We found that the duration and F₀ contour associated with the main-clause verb and the following NP reliably distinguished between the direct object and embedded clause constructions. In the final experiment, we manipulated the duration of the main-clause verb and found that subjects used this information to guide their initial parse during on-line sentence comprehension. The need for a model of sentence processing that addresses the use of prosodic information is discussed.The work reported in this paper was supported in part by NTH grant DC00494.     

Culturally Sensitive AIDS Educational Videos for African American Audiences: Effects of Source, Message, Receiver, and Context

The importance of using culturally sensitive educational materials in HIV-related interventions with racial and ethnic minority groups is widely recognized. However, little empirical research has been conducted to assess the relative effectiveness of different techniques for creating culturally sensitive AIDS educational videos. Two field experiments with three samples of African American adults (N = 174, 173, and 143) were conducted to assess how source characteristics (race of communicator), message characteristics (multicultural message vs. culturally specific message), and audience characteristics (racial distrust and AIDS-related distrust) influence proximate (perceptions of the message's credibility and attractiveness) and distal (AIDS-related attitudes, beliefs, and behavioral intentions) output variables for AIDS educational videos. In Study 1, an AIDS video with a culturally specific message was rated as more credible, more attractive, and of higher quality than was a video with a multicultural message. The multicultural message was rated less favorably when delivered by a White announcer than when the announcer was Black. In Study 2, the same pattern was replicated with a second community sample and a campus-based sample. Study 2 also indicated that a multicultural message might be more effective if delivered in a culturally specific context, namely, after audience members watch a culturally specific video. Minimal changes were observed in distal outcome variables. It is argued that influencing proximate output variables is necessary, though not sufficient, for effecting long-term change in AIDS-related attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.