The Coronary Health Improvement Project (CHIP) for lowering weight and improving psychosocial health

This study extends previous research evaluating the association between the CHIP intervention, change in body weight, and change in psychological health. A randomized controlled health intervention study lasting 4 wk. was used with 348 participants from metropolitan Rockford, Illinois; ages ranged from 24 to 81 yr. Participants were assessed at baseline, 6 wk., and 6 mo. The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and three selected psychosocial measures from the SF-36 Health Survey were used. Significantly greater decreases in Body Mass Index (BMI) occurred after 6 wk. and 6 mo. follow-up for the intervention group compared with the control group, with greater decreases for participants in the overweight and obese categories. Significantly greater improvements were observed in BDI scores, role-emotional and social functioning, and mental health throughout follow-up for the intervention group. The greater the decrease in BMI through 6 wk., the better the chance of improved BDI score, role-emotional score, social functioning score, and mental health score, with odds ratios of 1.3 to 1.9. Similar results occurred through 6 mo., except the mental health variable became nonsignificant. These results indicate that the CHIP intervention significantly improved psychological health for at least six months afterwards, in part through its influence on lowering BMI.     

Generalized relational matching by guinea baboons (Papio papio) in two-by-two-item analogy problems

Analogical reasoning is considered the hallmark of human reasoning, but some studies have demonstrated that language- and symbol-trained chimpanzees can also reason analogically. Despite the potential adaptive value of this ability, evidence from other studies strongly suggests that other nonhuman primates do not have this capacity for analogical reasoning. In our three experiments, 6 of 29 baboons acquired the ability to perform a relational matching-to-sample (RMTS) task in which pairs of shapes composed relational displays. Five of these 6 monkeys then transferred this ability to RMTS tasks using novel exemplars of identity (elements in a pair are the same) and nonidentity (elements in a pair are different) relations. This transfer occurred even on trials in which the incorrect pair shared an element with the sample pair with which it was being compared. The baboons retained this ability 12 months later. The findings from our study of symbol-naive monkeys indicate that although language and symbol training facilitate conceptual thinking in nonhuman primates, such training is not a prerequisite for analogical reasoning.     

Modeling response signal and response time data

The diffusion model (Ratcliff, 1978) and the leaky competing accumulator model (LCA, Usher & McClelland, 2001) were tested against two-choice data collected from the same subjects with the standard response time procedure and the response signal procedure. In the response signal procedure, a stimulus is presented and then, at one of a number of experimenter-determined times, a signal to respond is presented. The models were fit to the data from the two procedures simultaneously under the assumption that responses in the response signal procedure were based on a mixture of decision processes that had already terminated at response boundaries before the signal and decision processes that had not yet terminated. In the latter case, decisions were based on partial information in one variant of each model or on guessing in a second variant. Both variants of the diffusion model fit the data well and both fit better than either variant of the LCA model, although the differences in numerical goodness-of-fit measures were not large enough to allow decisive selection between the models.     

Teachers’ perceived time pressure,emotional exhaustion and the role of social support from the school principal

Social Psychology of Education - Many teachers experience high levels of work-related strain due to time pressure, which over time can lead to various health problems, such as emotional exhaustion....     

Quality of Life in Flemish Families with a Child with an Intellectual Disability: a Multilevel Study on Opinions of Family Members and the Impact of Family Member and Family Characteristics

This study examined family members’ opinions regarding their family quality of life (FQOL). Parents (n = 97) and youngsters (n = 24) of 63 families with a child with an intellectual disability (ID) receiving home-based support completed the Beach Center FQOL Scale. Multilevel models detected substantial variability in FQOL scores and in most subscale scores both within and between families. The observed differences were partly explained by the respondent’s age, the parents’ employment situation, and the support needs of the child with an ID. Role of the family member and gender of the parent could not explain this variability. By including and comparing multiple family members’ opinions, this study contributes to the methodological and conceptual discussions about measuring FQOL.     

The Novacco Anger Scale and Jenkins Activity Survey as predictors of cardiovascular reactivity

This study investigated the relationship among anger, the Type A construct, and cardiovascular reactivity. The Novacco Anger Scale and the Jenkins Activity Survey (JAS) were used to measure anger proneness and Type A characteristics, respectively. Twenty-four college males were selected from the upper and lower quintiles of the JAS distribution. During the study, the subjects were exposed to varying levels of experimentally induced challenge, while measurements were taken of heart-rate and blood-pressure changes. The results showed a modest but significant correlation between scores on the Novacco Anger Scale and the JAS. More importantly, scores on the Novacco Anger Scale correlated significantly with heart rate and systolic blood pressure under all challenge conditions, while those on the JAS were unrelated to cardiovascular excitability. These results raise questions about the usefulness of the JAS as a predictor of CHD risk. They are also consistent with the beliefs of other investigators that anger and hostility are the most important Type A behaviors in predisposing patients to coronary heart disease. Additional implications of the study are discussed.     

On-the-Job Experience and Skill at Detecting Deception1

The role of on-the-job experience in fostering skill at detecting deception was examined. A deception-detection test was administered to three samples of more than 100 subjects each: a group of undergraduates with no special experiences at detecting deceit; a group of new recruits to a federal law enforcement training program, who had some limited on-the-job experience at detecting deceit; and a group of advanced federal law enforcement officers, with years of experience working at jobs in which the detection of deception is very important. Although the officer samples were more confident about their judgments of deceptiveness than were the students, they were no more accurate than the students. None of the three groups showed a significant improvement in deception-detection success from the first half to the second half of the test; however, the advanced officers felt increasingly confident about their performance as they progressed through the test. Correlational analyses of the relationship between accuracy and confidence provided further evidence that experience does not improve people's awareness oi the accuracy or inaccuracy of their judgments. The findings from this research are compared to the results of research on other kinds of professional decision-makers (e.g., clinical psychologists), and several theoretical perspectives on the role of experience in decision making are discussed.