Pediatric Parenting Stress and Its Relation to Depressive Symptoms and Fear of Hypoglycemia in Parents of Young Children with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus

Parents of young children with type 1 diabetes (T1DM) maintain full responsibility for their child’s daily diabetes self-care and thus may be vulnerable to experiencing parenting stress. This study examined several psychological correlates of pediatric parenting stress in parents of young children with T1DM. Parents of 39 young children with T1DM (ages 2–7 years) completed measures of pediatric parenting stress, mealtime behavior problems, depressive symptoms, and fear of hypoglycemia. For parents of young children, higher stress frequency and difficulty were associated with higher parental depressive symptoms and fear. Regression analyses identified that 58% of the variance in stress frequency was associated with parental depressive symptoms. For stress difficulty, 68% of the variance was associated with parental depressive symptoms and fear. Pediatric parenting stress is common in parents of young children with T1DM. Stress and the psychological correlates measured in this study are amenable to intervention and should be regularly assessed in parents of young children with T1DM.     

Information Matrices and Standard Errors for MLEs of Item Parameters in IRT

The paper clarifies the relationship among several information matrices for the maximum likelihood estimates (MLEs) of item parameters. It shows that the process of calculating the observed information matrix also generates a related matrix that is the middle piece of a sandwich-type covariance matrix. Monte Carlo results indicate that standard errors (SEs) based on the observed information matrix are robust to many, but not all, conditions of model/distribution misspecifications. SEs based on the sandwich-type covariance matrix perform most consistently across conditions. Results also suggest that SEs based on other matrices are either not consistent or perform not as robust as those based on the sandwich-type covariance matrix or the observed information matrix.     

In pursuit of the sorcerer's power: sacred diagrams as technologies of potency

Drawing upon research for a dissertation on lived religion in Myanmar as it pertains to various religious cults and followers whose devotions are directed towards Buddhist sorcerer saints (weizzā), this article examines the technologies at work in potency practices involving the production and use of in (cabbalistic squares) and sama (diagrams and drawings using specific Burmese syllables). In particular, the paper will examine how such devices are used by the devout traversing the weizzā path and explain how in and sama are employed to transform one's self into a full-fledged weizzā. The paper will conclude with a discussion on how such an examination can help us reshape our understanding of Burmese Buddhism in contemporary Myanmar.1 ?1. All Burmese and Pāli translations are mine unless stated otherwise. In the body of this article, Burmese words and phrases will be transcribed phonetically. Proper names and the titles of works in Pāli and Buddhist technical vocabulary in Pāli will be transliterated according to the Pāli Text Society convention with diacritics. Pāli words that have been domesticated in English to a certain extent, such as ‘sangha,’ will not receive diacritics except when used as technical vocabulary.      

The time course of grief reactions to spousal loss: evidence from a national probability sample

Most studies of widowhood have focused on reactions during the first few years postloss. The authors investigated whether widowhood had more enduring effects using a nationally representative U.S. sample. Participants were 768 individuals who had lost their spouse (from a few months to 64 years) prior to data collection. Results indicated that the widowed continued to talk, think, and feel emotions about their lost spouse decades later. Twenty years postloss, the widowed thought about their spouse once every week or 2 and had a conversation about their spouse once a month on average. About 12.6 years postloss, the widowed reported feeling upset between sometimes and rarely when they thought about their spouse. These findings add to an understanding of the time course of grief.     

Hand-scoring error rates in psychological testing

Despite the comprehensive treatment of test validity in most technical manuals, test authors appear to routinely assume that clients and professionals will score their instruments without error. Recently Allard and Faust challenged this assumption by suggesting that error rates "may not be rare or benign" and demonstrated that tests with more complex scoring procedures were associated with a greater number of scoring errors. This study investigated error rates that resulted from hand scoring seven psychometric tests commonly employed in psychological practice. Significant and serious error rates were identified for both psychologist and client scorers across all tests investigated. Scoring complexity was found to predict the base rate of scorer errors. The findings suggest that greater development in and attention to test-scoring procedures is required to restrict the likelihood of scorer error.     

Daily supportive equity in close relationships

Receiving support in committed relationships has frequently been associated with negative psychological outcomes in the recipient, such as increased distress. The authors hypothesized that these negative effects could be offset by support recipients' reciprocation of support, that is, by creating a sense of supportive equity. To investigate this hypothesis, the authors obtained daily reports of mood and of received and given emotional support from both partners in 85 couples throughout a 4-week period. Reciprocity in support transactions was associated with higher levels of positive mood and lower levels of negative mood. In line with previous research, receiving support without reciprocation was associated with increases in negative mood. Giving support, regardless of receipt, was associated with a decrease in negative mood.     

Personality characteristics of smokers and ex-smokers

The present paper examines the relationship between personality and smoking status in a random sample of 1257 adults. A broad sample of personality constructs were assessed to cover the major dimensions of personality. These included the EPQ, MMPI MacAndrew and Ego Strength scales, the Vando augmenter-reducer scale, the trait subscale of the STAI and the Rosenberg self-esteem scale. Factor analysis suggested that trait anxiety, neuroticism, self-esteem and ego strength could be grouped into a construct analogous to Esysenck's notion of neuroticism. Extraversion, augmenting-reducing, and the MacAndrew scale were grouped into a construct called extraversion. Results showed that smokers were the most extraverted group. Gender differences in the relation between smoking and neuroticism were found. Male smokers were much more neurotic than non-smokers and men who quit smoking, whereas there were no group differences in neuroticism for women. Both male and female smokers were high on psychoticism.     

The Motivated Expression of Embarrassment Following a Self-Presentational Predicament

ABSTRACT Two experiments tested hypotheses derived from an interpersonal model of embarrassment. According to this model, people who have suffered a self-presentational predicament are motivated to convey to others that they feel embarrassed as a way of repairing their social image and lowering subjective embarrassment in such situations. In Experiment 1, participants who performed an embarrassing task subsequently expressed greater embarrassment if the researcher did not already know that they were embarrassed than if she was aware of their embarrassment. Experiment 2 showed that embarrassed participants who thought that the researcher did not interpret their blushing as a sign of embarrassment subsequently engaged in alternative self-presentational tactics to improve their damaged social image.     

Physical Attractiveness and Altruism in Two Modified Dictator Games

Several studies find that male individuals are more altruistic toward attractive women, suggesting altruism may serve as a courtship display. Many studies exploring this phenomenon have used vignettes and facial images. We tested the sexual selection hypothesis as an explanation for altruistic behavior, where players played the dictator game with “live” participants. Two studies were conducted (Study 1, n = 212; Study 2, n = 188) where we manipulated stakes and anonymity between participants to explore the relationship between the dictator’s allocations and their perceived attractiveness of the recipient. We found no relationship between attractiveness and altruism. Dictators were consistently fair when allocating stakes, irrespective of the recipients’ attractiveness.