Changes in depressive-symptom experiences among older women.

Changes in depressive-symptom experiences over a 5-year period were investigated in a community sample of 251 women between the ages of 51 and 92 years. Findings from a confirmatory factor analysis of the SCL-90-R Depression and Additional Symptoms scales (Derogatis, 1983) indicate that two phenomenally different syndromes underlie symptom-reporting patterns. A depressive syndrome, more classic in form, shows decreasing levels with increasing age, although a depletion syndrome, marked by feelings of enervation and a loss of interest in things, shows increasing levels with advancing age. The relative independence of the two syndromes, as well as their differing relations to four more delimited forms of distress that were identified in the analyses, have important implications for future research on the age-depression relation.     

The Therapeutic Reactance Scale: A Measure of Psychological Reactance

This article describes the development of the Therapeutic Reactance Scale, which was developed to measure psychological reactance as defined by Brehm (1966). The scale was factor-analyzed into verbal and behavioral reactance subscales. Reliability and validity data are also presented.     

Dimensions of perfectionism and irrational thinking

Several authors have suggested that perfectionism is associated with irrational thinking. The purpose of the present research was to test the hypothesis that various dimensions of perfectionism are related significantly to core irrational beliefs. In Study 1, 102 subjects completed the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (MPS) and the Irrational Beliefs Test (IBT). The MPS provides assessments of self-oriented, other-oriented, and socially prescribed perfectionism. Analyses revealed that self-oriented perfectionism was correlated positively with the IBT high self-expectations and perfect solutions subscales. Socially prescribed perfectionism was correlated significantly with a variety of irrational beliefs including high self-expectations, demand for social approval, dependency, blame proneness, and anxious overconcern. Other-oriented perfectionism was correlated with few irrational beliefs. In Study 2, 130 subjects completed the MPS and the Survey of Personal Beliefs, a new measure of core irrational beliefs. Analyses confirmed that all three perfectionism dimensions were associated with core irrational beliefs. It is concluded that the results constitute general support for the hypothesis that cognitive aspects are important in both personal and social components of perfectionism and that perfectionists are characterized by increased levels of irrational beliefs that may contribute to maladjustment. The findings are discussed in terms of the associations among perfectionism, irrational beliefs, and maladjustment.Gordon L. Flett, Ph.D is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at York University. Paul L. Hewitt, Ph.D is a clinical psychologist at Brockville Psychiatric Hospital. He is also an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Ottawa. Kirk R. Blankstein, Ph.D, is an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at Erindale College, University of Toronto. Spomenka Koledin is a former student at Erindale College, University of Toronto. Currently, she is a graduate student in the Master of Arts programme at York University.     

Pilot personality and crew coordination: implications for training and selection

The performance of pilots can be construed as a product of skill, attitude, and personality factors. Although a great deal of effort within the aviation community has been focused on ensuring technical expertise, and new efforts highlight attitudes associated with crew coordination, personality factors have been relatively unexplored. Further, it is argued that past failures to find linkages between personality and performance were due to a combination of inadequate statistical modeling, premature performance evaluation, and/or the reliance on data gathered in contrived as opposed to realistic situations. The goal of the research presented in this article is to isolate subgroups of pilots along performance-related personality dimensions and to document limits on the impact of crew coordination training between the groups. Two samples of military pilots were surveyed in the context of training in crew coordination. Three different profiles were identified through cluster analysis of personality scales. These clusters replicated across samples and predicted attitude change following training in crew coordination.     

Personality, stress, smoking, and genetic predisposition as synergistic risk factors for cancer and coronary heart disease.

Risk factors for cancer have been found in the past to act synergistically in a number of studies. However, these studies were not always designed to test the hypothesis of synergism, and have sometimes failed to equate for important variables, which might influence the results. The present study tests the hypothesis that psychosocial variables and physical ones (personality/stress, smoking, and genetic predisposition) interact in a synergistic fashion in the causation of lung cancer and coronary heart disease (CHD).     

Does anxiety or cardiovascular reactivity have a causal role in hypertension?

Anxiety, stress, and cardiovascular reactivity (CVR) are variously believed to play a role in sustained hypertension. Although acute anxiety or stress elicits acute pressor responses, there is little support for their significant role in sustained hypertension. Anxiety correlates poorly with CVR, and blood pressure levels and anxiolytics do not sustain blood pressure lowering in subjects with hypertension-associated anxiety. Chronic anxiety disorders tend to be characterized by relatively low blood pressure and prevalence of sustained hypertension. Blood Pressure Regulation in hypertension is normal, and normo- and hypertensives have similar ambulatory blood pressure variability. Laboratory CVR fails to predict variability in natural environments, hyperreactors do not exhibit increased variability in natural environments, and the increased variability and ambulatory reactivity that is "accounted for" by laboratory responses is small. These findings do not support the belief that hypertension is related to a summation of heightened pressor responses over time. Antihypertensives normalize elevated blood pressures but do not alter CVR in the laboratory or variability in natural environments, probably because of a dual central regulation of resting and reactive blood pressures. Psychological stress responses result from selective neuronal activation rather than from generalized sympathetic neural responses or dysregulation. Differences in blood pressure responses during various emotions are only quantitative, with no specificity of sympathoadrenal or emotional responses to stressors. It may be time to regard reactive cardiovascular responses as physiological, rather than as psychological, and to require much stronger evidence to confirm causal roles of anxiety, stress, and reactivity in sustained hypertension.