My Disaster Recovery: a pilot randomized controlled trial of an Internet intervention

Abstract

This pilot study tested the efficacy of the My Disaster Recovery (MDR) website to decrease negative affect and increase coping self-efficacy. Fifty-six survivors of Hurricane Ike were recruited from a larger study being conducted at the University of Texas Medical Branch at the first anniversary of the storm. Restricted randomization was used to assign participants to the MDR website, an information-only website, or a usual care condition. Group×time interactions indicated that MDR reduced participant worry more than the other conditions. A similar trend was also identified for depression. Both websites were accessed a small to moderate amount and participants reported mixed satisfaction for both websites. Although the effect sizes for worry and depression were in the moderate to large range, small sample size and timing of the intervention qualify the findings. These preliminary findings encourage further evaluation of MDR with a larger, demographically diverse sample and indicate that the MDR website might be helpful in reducing worry and depression.     

Predictors of Differential Responding on a Sentence Completion Task in Traumatized Children

Information-processing theories posit that persons who have experienced trauma may have disturbed emotional processing and therefore exhibit an excess of negative responses to otherwise neutral cues. The role of this mechanism in traumatized children has yet to be fully investigated. This study examined the relationship of varied clinical characteristics and theoretically relevant moderating variables to increased trauma related responding on a non-idiographic sentence completion task. One hundred and eighty-nine children (ages 6–17) residing at a residential home between 1996 and 2011 who had experienced physical, emotional and/or sexual abuse were administered a sentence completion task and the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children (TSCC) shortly after their admission. Three independent raters determined whether sentence completion responses were trauma related (TRR), non-trauma related, or ambiguous. Trauma related responses were then reviewed for either avoidant/denial style responding or loss related responding. The TSCC posttraumatic stress subscale (PTS) was the only subscale that was uniquely related to TRR. A significant interaction between abuse type and PTS was found with sexual abuse moderating the effect of PTS on TRR. Additionally, age at assessment was positively correlated with both TRR and loss related responding. Time since removal from home was negatively correlated with TRR. Gender differences were found for TRR and loss related responding. These findings highlight the empirical relevance of the sentence completion task in clinical research. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for research, assessment, and intervention.     

Attachment Theory as a Framework for Understanding Responses to Social Exclusion

We argue that attachment theory may provide a useful framework for understanding individuals' reactions to social exclusion. Attachment theory suggests that social exclusion should prompt an individual to seek comfort from an accepting attachment figure. However, most experimental studies constrain individuals from seeking out an attachment figure to quell their distress, and may interfere with the process of recruiting internalized attachment figures. When the goal of recruiting attachment figure support is blocked, individuals may adopt deactivating strategies, such as emotional numbing, to reduce their distress. Alternatively, individuals may adopt hyperactivating strategies, such as ingratiating behaviors, to seek proximity to attachment figure substitutes. We conclude with recommendations for future avenues of exclusion research stemming from attachment theory.     

Unreinforced Conditional Selection by Two-Year-Olds in A Six-Comparison Matching Task

The Psychological Record - Four normally developing 2-year-old children were exposed to a story in which six novel characters appeared and were named. To assess learning of the character name...     

An investigation of phonology and orthography in spoken-word recognition.

The possible influence of initial phonological and/or orthographic information on spoken-word processing was examined in six experiments modelled after and extending the work Jakimik, Cole, and Rudnicky (1985). Following Jakimik et al., Experiment 1 used polysyllabic primes with monosyllabic targets (e.g., BUCKLE-BUCK/[symbol: see text]; MYSTERY-MISS,/[symbol: see text]). Experiments 2, 3, and 4 used polysyllabic primes and polysyllabic targets whose initial syllables shared phonological information (e.g., NUISANCE-NOODLE,/[symbol: see text]), orthographic information (e.g., RATIO-RATIFY,/[symbol: see text]), both (e.g., FUNNEL-FUNNY,/[symbol: see text]), or were unrelated (e.g., SERMON-NOODLE,/[symbol: see text]). Participants engaged in a lexical decision (Experiments 1, 3, and 4) or a shadowing (Experiment 2) task with a single-trial (Experiments 2 and 3) or subsequent-trial (Experiments 1 and 4) priming procedure. Experiment 5 tested primes and targets that varied in the number of shared graphemes while holding shared phonemes constant at one. Experiment 6 used the procedures of Experiment 2 but a low proportion of related trials. Results revealed that response times were facilitated for prime-target pairs that shared initial phonological and orthographic information. These results were confirmed under conditions when strategic processing was greatly reduced suggesting that phonological and orthographic information is automatically activated during spoken-word processing.     

The pessimistic induction,the flight to reference and the metaphysical zoo

Scientific realism says of our best scientific theories that (1) most of their important posits exist and (2) most of their central claims are approximately true. Antirealists sometimes offer the pessimistic induction in reply: since (1) and (2) are false about past successful theories, they are probably false about our own best theories too. The contemporary debate about this argument has turned (and become stuck) on the question, Do the central terms of successful scientific theories refer? For example, Larry Laudan offers a list of successful theories that employed central terms that failed to refer, and Philip Kitcher replies with a view about reference in which the central terms of such theories did sometimes refer. This article attempts to break this stalemate by proposing a direct version of the pessimistic induction, one that makes no explicit appeal to a substantive notion or theory of reference. While it is premature to say that this argument succeeds in showing that realism is probably false, the direct pessimistic induction is not subject to any kind of reference-based objection that might cripple a weaker, indirect version of the argument. Any attempt to trounce the direct pessimistic induction with a theory of reference fails.     

Effects of gender and sexuality on judgements of victim blame and rape myth acceptance in a depicted male rape

Relatively few studies have investigated judgements towards male rape, and no published studies have investigated gay men's judgements towards this offence. The current study investigated the effects of gender and sexuality on victim blame and male rape myth acceptance in the depicted rape of a gay man. It was predicted that heterosexual men would make the most anti‐victim judgements, while gay men would make the most pro‐victim judgements. One hundred and fifty members of the UK population read a scenario that depicted a male rape, and then completed a questionnaire that measured blame and rape myths. As predicted, heterosexual men endorsed more rape myths and blamed the victim more than heterosexual women or gay men. Gay men made the most pro‐victim judgements overall. Results are discussed in relation to homophobia and traditional gender roles. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reliability and validity of measures of anger/hostility in singapore: Cook & Medley Ho Scale, STAXI and Buss-Durkee hostility inventory

As part of a larger research programme concerned with the role of anger/hostility in heart disease in Singapore, three commonly used measures of anger/hostility (Cook & Medley Ho Scale, STAXI, Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory) were examined for reliability and validity in an Asian population. A total of 968 Singaporean Chinese, Malay and Indian respondents completed one or more of these measures together with measures of symptom and illness experience. In addition, blood pressure and heart rate measures were taken for 201 respondents. Overall, the Ho and STAXI measures had reasonably high internal consistency and test-retest reliability. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability for the Buss Durkee measure were high for the total score but variable for the component scales. Correlation and regression showed that the Ho and STAXI appeared to be tapping a common core of variance, which can be characterized as trait anger. Correlations of the Ho and STAXI with health measures produced modest but statistically significant correlations for measures of symptom and illness experience and generally low and non-significant correlations for heart rate and blood pressure.