Anxious attachment and psychological distress in cardiac rehabilitation patients

This study investigated the relevance of anxious attachment to the differentiation of psychologically distressed and non-psychologically distressed cardiac patients. Attachment is a biologically based behavioral system in which proximity to a special other is sought or maintained to achieve a sense of safety and security. Anxious attachment, as the name denotes, fails to achieve the function of attachment in the sense of individuals having little or no confidence in the availability of their attachment figures. Empirically, three scales (feared loss of the attachment figure, proximity seeking and separation protest) capture the features of anxious attachment as elaborated by Bowlby. These scales were administered to 178 cardiac rehabilitation patients drawn from the cardiac rehabilitation program of the Calgary General Hospital. The results indicate that feared loss and proximity seeking differentiated psychologically distressed from non-psychologically distressed patients. The implications of this finding for the understanding of psychologically distressed cardiac patients are discussed.     

The impact of sexual harassment simulations on women's thoughts and feelings

Sex Roles - Women's thoughts and feelings in response to interpersonal and environmental sexual harassment simulations from co-workers with equal or greater organizational status were explored....     

Interpersonal Correlates of Narcissism in Adolescents

Researchers investigated the relationship between measures of interpersonal behavior and narcissism. Eight octant measures of interpersonal behavior were constructed, and validity and reliability estimates were obtained. High school and junior high school students (N = 333) completed five measures of narcissistic vulnerability, eight octant measures of interpersonal behavior, and a measure of social desirability. Canonical correlational analysis indicated a specific pattern of interpersonal behaviors for individuals with differing levels and types of narcissistic vulnerability. A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) indicated that scores on several of the scales were found to differ significantly by sex and by treatment for emotional, behavioral, or educational difficulties. Implications for counseling are considered.     

A Playroom Observation Procedure to Assess Children with Mental Retardation and ADHD

Forty-two children (ages 6 to 12 years old) with moderate mental retardation to borderline intellectual functioning were studied in a laboratory playroom setting to determine whether children identified as ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) or controls differed on activity and attentional measures. Children with ADHD were further divided into ADHD + conduct problems (ADHD + CD) and ADHD-only subgroups (with an ADHD-combined group comprising children of both subgroups). An interval recording system was used to code observations of independent play and a restricted academic task. Results indicated that the ADHD-combined group was significantly more vocal and engaged in a significantly greater number of toy changes than controls during independent play. Significant group differences were also noted during the restricted academic task, with the ADHD-combined and ADHD + CD groups more off-task and engaging in a greater number of toy touches than controls. Discriminant analyses found independent play measures to predict group membership in 70 percent of cases (ADHD-combined vs. controls), but in only 64 percent of cases using measures from the restricted academic task. No significant findings resulted when the ADHD subjects were further divided into two subgroups. Despite some inconsistent findings, such laboratory-based observations may be of value in the diagnosis of ADHD in children with moderate mental retardation to borderline intellectual functioning.     

The Hairlessness Norm: The Removal of Body Hair in Women

This study aimed to investigate the frequency andmeaning of the removal of body hair in women.Participants were 129 female university students (meanage = 22.3 years) and 137 female high school students (mean age = 14.3 years). Almost all (>95%)were Caucasian. It was found that, as predicted, the vastmajority (92%) of women remove their leg and/or underarmhair, most frequently by shaving. This was irrespective of their feminist beliefs, but wasnegatively related to self-esteem in university students.The reasons cited for hair removal were primarilyconcerned with a desire for femininity andattractiveness. However, the reasons provided for starting toremove body hair differed between the groups, in thatthey were relatively more normative for the universitystudents than for the high school students. It was concluded that women's stated reasons forstarting the practice of hair removal reflectprimarilytheir vantage point as an observer. In fact, removingbody hair is a practice so normative as to go mostly unremarked, but one which contributessubstantially to the notion that womens' bodies areunacceptable as they are.     

SOCIAL REACTIONS, COPING STRATEGIES, AND SELF-BLAME ATTRIBUTIONS IN ADJUSTMENT TO SEXUAL ASSAULT

The present study investigated the impact of social reactions of others to sexual-assault victims on disclosure of their victimization. A convenience sample of adult sexual-assault victims (N = 155) completed a mail survey in which they reported information about their sexual assaults and postassault experiences. As expected, all negative social reactions were strongly associated with increased psychological symptoms, whereas most positive social reactions were unrelated to adjustment. The only social reactions related to better adjustment were being believed and being listened to by others. Victims experiencing negative social reactions also reported poorer adjustment even when other variables known to affect psychological recovery were controlled. Avoidance coping mediated the association of negative social reactions with adjustment. Implications of these findings for research and treatment of sexual-assault survivors are discussed.     

Reaction time measurement errors resulting from the use of CRT displays

Three sources of potential error in reaction time measurement may occur when raster scan CRT displays are used to present stimuli: phosphor persistence, sweep delay, or transmission delay. For most applications, only the third source of error is likely to be significant.     

Semantic differential studies of children's language development: Some methodological problems

A semantic differential study of development of antonym meanings revealed methodological problems (e.g., concept-scale interaction and developmental changes in scale-checking style) not fully considered in previous semantic differential investigations of child language development. Twenty adjectives were rated on 10 scales by subjects from grades K to 5 (approximately 6 through 11 years old) and adults. Analyses by means, polarity ratings, and average sums of squared differences failed to yield consistent developmental trends. Subjects' choices of scale ratings did show clear age-related differences: Grades K and 1 chose extreme ratings almost exclusively; grades 2 through 4 showed an increase in neutral choices and decreases in extreme ratings; grades 4 and 5 and adults chose extreme ratings least often, neutral choices most often, and more intermediate ratings than any younger subjects. Results show that scale choice is a crucial factor in designing semantic differential studies with children, there is a low correlation between mean scores and ratings given by individual children, and shifts in scale-checking style should be considered when interpreting apparent developmental changes in children's semantic differential ratings.