Residential density and psychological health: the mediating effects of social support

People report excessive, unwanted social interactions, insufficient privacy, and are observed to be more socially withdrawn under crowded living conditions. If people socially withdraw from one another as a way to cope with crowding, this could lead to an unintended side effect of breakdowns in socially supportive relationships. A breakdown in socially supportive relationships could, in turn, account for some of the pathological consequences of chronic, high density living conditions. An empirical study of 175 male heads of household among inner city residents in India suggests that the adverse effects of residential crowding on psychological health are mediated by a breakdown of social support systems. The study also points to the value of examining social support as an endogenous variable in the stress and health process.     

Relation of sympathy and personal distress to prosocial behavior: a multimethod study

Assessed sympathy and personal distress with facial and physiological indexes (heart rate) as well as self-report indexes and examined the relations of these various indexes to prosocial behavior for children and adults in an easy escape condition. Heart rate deceleration during exposure to the needy others was associated with increased willingness to help. In addition, adults' reports of sympathy, as well as facial sadness and concerned attention, were positively related to their intention to assist. For children, there was some indication that report of positive affect and facial distress were negatively related to prosocial intentions and behavior, whereas facial concern was positively related to the indexes of prosocial behavior. These findings are interpreted as providing additional, convergent support for the notion that sympathy and personal distress are differentially related to prosocial behavior.     

The sensitivity of the Bender-Gestalt Test as a screening instrument for neuropsychological impairment in older adults

We investigated the sensitivity of the Bender (1938) Visual-Motor Gestalt Test (BGT) using the Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Battery (HRB) as the criterion for cortical dysfunction. We studied 95 subjects over age 55 who had been diagnosed as having dementia or pseudodementia. Subjects were classified as mild, moderately, or severely impaired on the HRB and as impaired or unimpaired on the BGT. The results indicated that the BGT is less sensitive (36%) than was expected when used on an impaired geriatric population. The data further indicated that false negatives occurred more frequently with the BGT when individuals had mild neuropsychological impairment. Less frequent misclassifications occurred as the severity of impairment on HRB indices increased.     

Psychometric properties of Loevinger's Sentence Completion Test in an adult psychiatric outpatient sample

Little research has been conducted on Loevinger's Washington University Sentence Completion Test of Ego Development in adult psychiatric outpatients. The measure is a promising method of assessing a construct of personality and character functioning that should be useful in research on psychopathology and in choosing treatment modalities. The data presented in this study address the question of the psychometric adequacy of the measure in this segment of the subject population. Specifically, estimates of interrater reliability, internal consistency, and test-retest reliability are presented for a sample of 42 adult outpatients. In addition, the relationship between total protocol ratings and item sum scores is explored.     

Backward walking: a simple reversal of forward walking?

The purpose of this study was to determine whether backward walking represented a simple temporal reversal of forward walking and, hence, could be controlled by a reversed cycling of the same group of neurons. Electromyographic (EMG), joint angle, joint moment, and joint muscle power patterns were compared for forward and backward walking, in 6 subjects. The joint angle patterns with the time-base of the backward walking reversed were similar, with the exception of the ankle. The moment patterns were similar except for the knee, whereas the joint muscle powers were almost reversed-polarity images of each other. This suggests that somewhat similar muscle activation patterns could be used to produce both modes of locomotion, but the temporal cycling of muscle contraction would be reversed: Concentric muscle activity in forward walking would become eccentric activity in backward walking, and visa versa. The EMG results generally supported these findings.     

Hypnosis, suggestion, and placebo in the reduction of experimental pain

Two experiments compared placebo and hypnotic analgesia in high and low hypnotizable subjects. Experiment 1 demonstrated that hypnotic and placebo analgesia were equally ineffective in low hypnotizables, but that hypnotic analgesia was much more effective than placebo analgesia in high hypnotizables. Experiment 2 replicated these results, but also included low and high hypnotizables who were given a nonhypnotic suggestion for analgesia. Both the low and high hypnotizables in this group reported greater suggested than placebo analgesia and as much suggested analgesia as high hypnotizable hypnotic subjects. Both experiments found substantial discrepancies between the amount of pain reduction subjects expected from the various treatments and the amount of pain reduction they actually reported following exposure to those treatments. In Experiment 2, subjects in all treatments who reduced reported pain engaged in more cognitive coping and less catastrophizing than those who did not reduce pain. Theoretical implications are discussed.     

The effects of depression on structural aspects of the recall of prose

Investigated depressed patients' memory for stories. This indicated that although normal Ss showed particularly good recall for units central to the structure of the story, this did not hold for depressed Ss. In contrast, effects of centrality were comparable in high- and low-IQ Ss and effects of imageability of story units were comparable in both depressed and normal Ss. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that depressed patients do not use structure to organize stories when encoding them. A failure to identify central aspects of material and selectively recall them is likely to be a handicap to everyday functioning.     

Reinterpreting the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator From the Perspective of the Five-Factor Model of Personality

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI; Myers & McCaulley, 1985) was evaluated from the perspectives of Jung's theory of psychological types and the five-factor model of personality as measured by self-reports and peer ratings on the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI; Costa & McCrae, 1985b). Data were provided by 267 men and 201 women ages 19 to 93. Consistent with earlier research and evaluations, there was no support for the view that the MBTI measures truly dichotomous preferences or qualitatively distinct types; instead, the instrument measures four relatively independent dimensions. The interpretation of the Judging-Perceiving index was also called into question. The data suggest that Jung's theory is either incorrect or inadequately operationalized by the MBTI and cannot provide a sound basis for interpreting it. However, correlational analyses showed that the four MBTI indices did measure aspects of four of the five major dimensions of normal personality. The five-factor model provides an alternative basis for interpreting MBTI findings within a broader, more commonly shared conceptual framework.     

Comparing Idiothetic, Ipsative, and Normative Indices of Consistency

ABSTRACT Lamiell's (1981) “idiothetic” index has been praised for raising significant conceptual and methodological issues, but Paunonen and Jackson (1986a) indicated that it might not provide any unique information The current study demonstrates that the unique value of the idiothetic index relative to the ipsative, normative, and normative-ipsative indices is dependent in part upon what information is collected and how it is analyzed Subjects completed inventories on three occasions that assessed seven dispositional variables Interindividual analyses indicated a high correlation between the idiothetic method and two of the other models, whereas intra-individual analyses indicated a much lower degree of correlation Intra-individual analyses indicated that the idiothetic method produced higher temporal stability coefficients The idiothetic index provides information not contained in a normative index and it may be more useful to personality researchers for the assessment of temporal stability and for the assessment of traits with extreme base rates