Predictive Genetic Testing for Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer: Psychological Distress and Illness Representations 1 Year Following Disclosure

This prospective study evaluates emotional functioning and illness representations in 68 unaffected women (34 carriers/34 noncarriers) 1 year after predictive testing for BRCA1/2 mutations when offered within a multidisciplinary approach. Carriers had higher subjective risk perception of breast cancer than noncarriers. Carriers who did not have prophylactic oophorectomy had the highest risk perception of ovarian cancer. No differences were found between carriers and noncarriers regarding perceived seriousness and perceived control of breast and ovarian cancer. Mean levels of distress were within normal ranges. Only few women showed an overall pattern of clinically elevated distress. Cancer-specific distress and state-anxiety significantly decreased in noncarriers from pre- to posttest while general distress remained about the same. There were no significant changes in distress in the group of carriers except for ovarian cancer distress which significantly decreased from pre- to posttest. Our study did not reveal adverse effects of predictive testing when offered in the context of a multidisciplinary approach.     

Effects of daily events on mood states in major depressive disorder

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is characterized by high negative affect (NA) and low positive affect (PA), but little is known about emotional reactivity in daily life. The authors used experience sampling methodology to investigate changes in NA and PA following minor daily events in MDD compared with healthy participants. Contrary to expectation, MDD participants did not report more frequent negative events, although they did report fewer positive events. Multilevel regression showed that both NA and PA responses to negative events were blunted in the MDD group, whereas responses to positive events were enhanced. NA responses to negative events persisted longer in MDD participants. Depressed participants with a positive family history or longer current episodes showed relatively greater NA responses to negative events.     

Emerging self-exploration by 2-month-old infants

Two-month-olds and newborns were tested in a situation where they had the opportunity to experience different auditory consequences of their own oral activity on a dummy pacifier. Modulation of oral activity was scored and analyzed relative to two types of contingent auditory feedback, either analog or non-analog to the effort exerted by the infant on the pacifier. The dummy pacifier was connected to an air pressure transducer for recording of oral action. In two different experimental conditions, each time the infant sucked above a certain pressure threshold they heard a perfectly contingent sound of varying pitch. In one condition, the pitch variation was analog to the pressure applied by the infant on the pacifier (analog condition). In another, the pitch variation was random (non-analog condition). As rationale, a differential modulation of oral activity in these two conditions was construed as indexing some voluntary control and the sense of a causal link between sucking and its auditory consequences, beyond mere temporal contingency detection and response–stimulus association. Results indicated that 2-month-olds showed clear signs of modulation of their oral activity on the pacifier as a function of analog versus non-analog condition. In contrast, newborns did not show any signs of such modulation either between experimental conditions (analog versus non-analog contingent sounds) or between baseline (no contingent sounds condition) and experimental conditions. These observations are interpreted as evidence of self-exploration and the emergence of a sense of self-agency by 2 months of age.     

Commitment in romantic relationships as a function of partners’ encoding of important couple-related memories

The purpose of the present study was to investigate how significant couple-related events are encoded in the episodic memory of each partner of a romantic relationship and how they relate to each of these partners’ level of commitment in an independent and additive fashion. Each partner of a couple reported a significant couple-related memory and rated their level of need satisfaction experienced during the event of the memory. In addition, each partner was shown his/her partner’s memory and also rated their own level of need satisfaction for this event. Results showed that partners need satisfaction ratings of their own memory positively predicted their own commitment to the relationship directly (for women) as well as through their need satisfaction generally experienced in the relationship (for men). In addition, men’s need satisfaction ratings of their own memory were associated with women’s commitment while controlling for women’s need satisfaction ratings of men’s memory, but no such cross-partner effects were found for women. Overall, the findings shed light on an initial understanding of how a person’s own memory of an event can impact another person’s attitudes even when taking into account this other person’s memory encoding of that same event.     

Salivary testosterone and self-report aggressive and pro-social personality characteristics in men and women

Measures of salivary testosterone and the personality dimensions of aggression and pro-social behavior were obtained in 306 (155 male and 151 female) university students. Each participant provided two samples of saliva and completed ten self-report personality scales from multiple inventories. A factor analysis of the personality scales produced two factors, an aggression factor and a pro-social behavior factor. Men averaged five times the amount of salivary testosterone as women (99 pg/ml vs. 18.5 pg/ml) and rated themselves as more aggressive and less nurturant. Within each sex, testosterone was positively correlated with aggression and negatively correlated with pro-social personality. Structural equation modelling analyses suggested that a direct effect model best described the relationship between salivary testosterone and the latent personality dimensions of aggression and pro-social behavior. © 1996 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Measuring fluid intelligence on a ratio scale: Evidence from nonverbal classification problems and information entropy

Drawing on the g factor and information theory literatures, the relationship between the four subtests of the Culture-Fair Intelligence Test (CFIT) and the entropy of the Ruiz Absolute Scale of Complexity Management (R-ASCM) was investigated. In results based on data collected from 186 university students, the entropy of the R-ASCM mostly loads the first principal component extracted from the CFIT subtests and shows a corresponding strong relationship with the item difficulty of the R-ASCM. Because entropy is a ratio scale of complexity— with a true zero and units called bits—these findings suggest that entropy is the right vehicle for measuring the information contained in nonverbal intelligence tests.