LOSING SAMMY: A CATALYST FOR EXITING AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP

Abstract

Miscarriage is a relatively prevalent occurrence in our society. The reported incidence of this event indicates that 20% of all women experience a miscarriage. Women who have miscarried report friends and family responding in ways that seem to try to reduce the impact and importance of the event. This leaves the grieving woman with a sense of little support or understanding of what she had just experienced. Furthermore, the experiences reported by women who have had a miscarriage are quite different from those reported by other individuals who have experienced other types of loss such as a spouse, partner, parent, or friend. Women who have miscarried report a lack of recognition that they have experienced a loss. Little is known about how society views miscarriage or why individuals respond in such an apparently unsupportive manner to a woman who has had a miscarriage. The present work sought to determine whether miscarriage is an unrecognized loss and to assess the meaning of miscarriage to others. Although the results indicate miscarriage is viewed as a loss, it is a loss with minimal grounded or valuative meaning for others, which suggests that the cultural norm of silence surrounding early pregnancy and miscarriage should be lifted     

Perception of health risks: How smoker status affects defensive optimism

Abstract

People generally underestimate their risk to come down with a life-threatening disease when comparing themselves to similar others. However, to some extent they do take objective risk status or actual risk behavior into account. The present study examined specific conditions of this phenomenon. It was found that smoker status was associated with a somewhat higher perceived risk of getting lung cancer or smoker's cough or having a heart attack, but not of coming down with other diseases. Still, smokers did not admit that they had an above-average risk for these maladies, thus reflecting defensive optimism. In addition, smokers characterized the behavior of an abstract person, a “risk stereotype”, by estimating the number of years of smoking, the daily number of cigarettes, and the cigarettes' nicotine content necessary to be at high risk for lung cancer. There was evidence that smokers used these risk stereotypes as a reference point for evaluating their own relative risk. Smokers also made higher risk estimates if their own behavior approached that of the risk stereotype. On the whole, the results suggest that people use subjective risk factor theories when estimating their own personal health risks.     

Extended Schema Mode conceptualizations for specific personality disorders: an empirical study

The aim of this study was to investigate newly formulated schema mode models for cluster-C, paranoid, histrionic and narcissistic personality disorders. In order to assess 18 hypothesized modes, the Schema Mode Inventory (SMI) was modified into the SMI-2. The SMI-2 was administered to a sample of 323 patients (with a main diagnosis on one of the PDs mentioned) and 121 nonpatients. The SMI-2 was successful in distinguishing patients and controls. Newly formulated modes proved to be appropriate for histrionic, avoidant, and dependent PD. The modification of the Overcontroller mode into the Perfectionistic and Suspicious Overcontroller mode was valuable for characterizing paranoid and obsessive-compulsive PD. The results support recent theoretical developments in Schema Therapy, and are useful for application in clinical practice.     

A cross-cultural comparison of personality: English and Austrian children

The Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire was given to 457 boys and 431 girls in Austria. Factor comparisons indicated that the dimensions of psychoticism, extraversion, neuroticism, and social desirability were identical in Austria and in England. Minimal item changes were required to produce a viable Austrian scoring key with satisfactorily high reliabilities for all dimensions except in the case of P for girls, which was somewhat weaker. Austrian norms indicated that boys score higher than girls on P and E but lower on N and L. Direct cross-cultural comparisons revealed few marked personality differences between Austrian and English children, there being a slight tendency for the former to score higher on psychoticism, extraversion and the lie scale but slightly lower on neuroticism.     

Self-punitive behavior with changing percentages of reinforcement: The proper role of discrimination

Past research on self-punitive behavior has been interpreted as supporting a theoretical éxplanation based on a vicious circle rather than a discrimination hypothesis. Using rats, Melvin (1964) found that self-punitive behavior is not reduced when discrimination is aided by changing the percentage of shock trials from acquisition to extinction. This past research is inconclusive because it is based on a misinterpretation of what is the critical discrimination for extinction, namely the new response-punishment contingency. Using humans, the present study provides evidence that subjects can and do discriminate the change in percentage, but continue to show self-punitive behavior until they make the discrimination that responding results in shock rather than escape.     

Age and sex as factors influencing spontaneous exploration and object investigation by preadult rats (Rattus norvegicus).

This study examined developmental and sex differences in the exploratory and investigatory behaviors of Long-Evans rats (Rattus norvegicus). Littermate sextuplets were divided into sex-matched groups (at 30, 60, and 90 days of age) and were individually videotaped on 2 consecutive nights in an arena that contained stimulus objects. Multiple measures of locomotor exploration and object investigation increased significantly with age but were not influenced by sex. Older rats entered more quickly, were more active, spent more time in the arena, and spent more time investigating inanimate stimulus objects than did younger rats. Sex did not significantly affect most measures of open-field behavior; however, the data suggest that the sexes may begin to diverge by 90 days. These results suggest that preadult rats of both sexes are equipped early in development with similar strategies and repertoires for exploration and investigation.     

Doing as if: The histrionic self-presentation style

The histrionic self-presentation style is introduced as a concept that describes specific individual differences in self-presentation, namely, performing explicit As-If-behaviors in everyday interactions. The As-If-Scale (AIS), a trait measure of histrionic self-presentation, shows good internal consistency and test–retest reliability as well as convergent and discriminant validity in several samples. Construct validation involved determining relations between the AIS and the Big Five, histrionic role concepts, motives, competencies, humor and ambivalence. Furthermore, the AIS yielded incremental validity in predicting behaviors related to histrionic self-presentation over and above the self-monitoring construct. The possible impact of the histrionic style for research on self-presentation and other fields is discussed. It is argued that histrionic phenomena are pervasive within many facets of our western culture and therefore deserve further examination.