Coping, Conflictual Social Interactions, Social Support, and Mood Among HIV-Infected Persons

This study considers the interrelationships among coping, conflictual social interactions, and social support, as well as their combined associations with positive and negative mood. Research has shown that each of these variables affects adjustment to stressful circumstances. Few studies, however, examine this full set of variables simultaneously. One hundred forty HIV-infected persons completed a questionnaire containing measures of coping, social support, conflictual social interactions, and positive and negative mood. Factor analyses showed that perceived social support and conflictual social interactions formed separate factors and were not strongly related. Compared to perceived social support, social conflict was more strongly related to coping behaviors, especially to social isolation, anger, and wishful thinking. Conflictual social interactions were more strongly related to negative mood than was perceived social support. Coping by withdrawing socially was significantly related to less positive and greater negative mood. The findings point to the importance of simultaneously considering coping, supportive relationships, and conflictual relationships in studies of adjustment to chronic illness. In particular, a dynamic may occur in which conflictual social interactions and social isolation aggravate each other and result in escalating psychological distress.     

Feminist Approaches to Social Science: Epistemological and Methodological Tenets

This paper is a primer for community psychologists on feminist research. Much like the field of community psychology, feminist scholarship is defined by its values and process. Informed by the political ideologies of the 1970s women's movement (liberal, radical, socialist feminism, and womanism), feminist scholars reinterpreted classic concepts in philosophy of science to create feminist epistemologies and methodologies. Feminist epistemologies, such as feminist empiricism, standpoint theory, and postmodernism, recognize women's lived experiences as legitimate sources of knowledge. Feminist methodologies attempt to eradicate sexist bias in research and find ways to capture women's voices that are consistent with feminist ideals. Practically, the process of feminist research is characterized by four primary features: (1) expanding methodologies to include both quantitative and qualitative methods, (2) connecting women for group-level data collection, (3) reducing the hierarchical relationship between researchers and their participants to facilitate trust and disclosure, and (4) recognizing and reflecting upon the emotionality of women's lives. Recommendations for how community psychologists can integrate feminist scholarship into their practice are discussed.     

Associative modulation of the orienting response: distinct effects revealed by hippocampal lesions

The ability of auditory stimuli to modulate rats' tendency to orient to visual targets was assessed. In Experiment 1, trials where an auditory stimulus (A) signaled one visual array (X) were intermixed with unsignaled presentations of a second array (Y). Comparison of the orienting responses (ORs) to X and Y revealed that A produced a transient (unconditioned) and an emerging (conditioned) disruptive influence on the OR to X. In Experiments 2 and 3, trials where A signaled X were intermixed with others where another auditory stimulus (B) signaled Y. Stimulus A's ability to modulate the OR to X was then assessed by presenting A prior to test arrays containing both X and Y. Control rats were more likely to orient to Y than X (Experiments 2 and 3) and rats with excitotoxic lesions of the hippocampus were more likely to orient to X than Y (Experiment 3). These results show that auditory stimuli exert distinct modulatory influences on the OR to visual stimuli with which they are associated.     

Are self-enhancing cognitions associated with healthy or unhealthy biological profiles?

Self-enhancement is variously portrayed as a positive illusion that can foster health and longevity or as defensive neuroticism that can have physiological-neuroendocrine costs. In a laboratory stress-challenge paradigm, the authors found that high self-enhancers had lower cardiovascular responses to stress, more rapid cardiovascular recovery, and lower baseline cortisol levels, consistent with the positive illusions predictions and counter to the predictions of the defensive neuroticism position. A second set of analyses, replicating the "illusory mental health paradigm" (J. Shedler, M. Mayman, & M. Manis, 1993), also did not support the defensive neuroticism hypothesis. The association between self-enhancement and cortisol was mediated by psychological resources; analyses of the cardiovascular results provided no definitive mediational pathway. Discussion centers on the potential stress-buffering effects of self-enhancing beliefs.     

Childhood personality foreshadows adult personality and life outcomes two decades later

In a normative sample of 205 children ages 8-12, tracked into adulthood, we examined the predictive links between four childhood personality traits--Mastery Motivation, Academic Conscientiousness, Surgency, and Agreeableness--and adult personality and adaptation 20 years later. Personality demonstrated modest to moderate continuity over those two decades and showed significant predictive validity for success in adult life, including academic attainment, work competence, rule-abiding versus antisocial conduct, and romantic and friend relationships. Results indicated that personality shows coherent patterns over time in terms of both stability and linkages to adaptive behavior. Explicating the processes underlying such patterns is the next frontier for a truly developmental science of personality.     

Portrait of the self-enhancer: well adjusted and well liked or maladjusted and friendless?

Research has variously portrayed self-enhancement as an indicator of narcissistic defensiveness or as a concomitant of mental health. To address this controversy, the present study used multiple measures of self-enhancement along with multiple measures and judges of mental health, comprehensively assessing their relationship. The results indicated that self-enhancement is positively associated with multiple indicators of mental health and with a more favorable impact on others. Discussion centers on a reconciliation of discrepant portraits of the self-enhancer.     

Weber (slope) analyses of timing variability in tapping and drawing tasks

Timing variability in continuous drawing tasks has not been found to be correlated with timing variability in repetitive finger tapping in recent studies (S. D. Robertson et al., 1999; H. N. Zelaznik, R. M. C. Spencer, & R. B. Ivry, 2002). Furthermore, the central component of timing variability, as measured by the slope of the timing variance versus the square of the timed interval, differed for tapping and drawing tasks. On the basis of those results, the authors posited that timing in tapping is explicit and as such uses a central representation of the interval to be timed, whereas timing in drawing tasks is implicit, that is, the temporal component is an emergent property of the trajectory produced. The authors examined that hypothesis in the present study by determining the linear relationship between timing variance and squared duration for tapping, circle-drawing, and line-drawing tasks. Participants (N = 50) performed 1 of 5 tasks: finger tapping, line drawing in the x dimension, line drawing in the y dimension, continuous circle drawing timed in the x dimension, or continuous circle drawing timed in the y dimension. The slopes differed significantly between finger tapping, line drawing, and circle drawing, suggesting separable sources of timing variability. The slopes of the 2 circle-drawing tasks did not differ from one another, nor did the slopes of the 2 line-drawing tasks differ significantly, suggesting a shared timing process within those tasks. Those results are evidence of a high degree of specificity in timing processes.     

Behavioral and developmental consequences of early rearing experience for captive giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca)

Mother-reared (MR) and peer-reared (PR) captive giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) cubs were compared to evaluate the effects of early removal from mother on behavioral development. Males and females and twins and singletons were compared to assess the effects of social setting on behavioral development. Subjects included 2 PR females, 3 MR females, 3 MR males, and 3 mothers. MR cubs spent more time manipulating bamboo and fell more often than PR cubs. PR cubs spent more time inactive. Male cubs directed more playful behavior at their mothers. Twins spent more time play fighting with their mothers than with their siblings. The results suggest that peer-rearing does not provide young pandas with the same level of social stimulation as mother-rearing.     

Assessing Axis I symptomatology on the SADS-C in two correctional samples: the validation of subscales and a screen for malingered presentations

The Schedule of Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia-Change Version (SADS-C; Spitzer & Endicott, 1978b) is a brief, highly reliable structured interview with clinical applications to diverse populations. This investigation involved reanalyses of data from 2 earlier studies (Rogers, Grandjean, Tillbrook, Vitacco, & Sewell, 2001; Ustad, Rogers, & Salekin, 1998). Focusing on 2 clinical samples from a metropolitan jail, we investigated its subscales via exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. A good model fit was found (comparative fit index =.92; robust comparative fit index =.94) for 4 subscales (Dysphoria, Psychosis, Mania, and Insomnia) with good interrater reliability (M intraclass coefficient =.95) and clinical relevance. As a preliminary screen for feigned mental disorders, 2 detection scales (Symptom Combinations and Symptom Selectivity) were moderately successful. By maximizing negative predictive power, the SADS-C detection strategies proved effective at ruling out feigning for mentally disordered offenders with a high likelihood of genuine disorders.     

Paying attention to emotion: an fMRI investigation of cognitive and emotional stroop tasks

In this research, we investigated the degree to which brain systems involved in ignoring emotionally salient information differ from those involved in ignoring nonemotional information. The design allowed examination of regional brain activity, using fMRI during color-word and emotional Stroop tasks. Twelve participants indicated the color of words while ignoring word meaning in conditions in which neutral words were contrasted to emotionally negative, emotionally positive, and incongruent color words. Dorsolateral frontal lobe activity was increased by both negative and incongruent color words, indicating a common system for maintaining an attentional set in the presence of salient distractors. In posterior regions of the brain, activity depended on the nature of the information to be ignored. Ignoring color-incongruent words increased left parietal activity and decreased parahippocampal gyrus activity, whereas ignoring negative emotional words increased bilateral occipito-temporal activity and decreased amygdala activity. The results indicate that emotion and attention are intimately related via a network of regions that monitor for salient information, maintain attention on the task, suppress irrelevant information, and select appropriate responses.