Processing impairments in OCD: it is more than inhibition!

The study aimed to address a significant gap in the literature on inhibition impairments in OCD, by concurrently studying facilitation and inhibition processes and the effect of threat on these twin mechanisms. Participants were 20 persons with symptomatic OCD, 11 with remitted OCD, 20 with panic disorder and 20 normal control participants. Participants were required to respond to words that were either neutral or personally threatening, which during an immediately preceding trail, were responded to as targets (facilitation) or inhibited as non-targets (inhibition). OCD participants displayed greater facilitation and reduced inhibition, differences that were related to their diagnostic status but unrelated to symptomatic status. Threat had no effect on facilitation, but exacerbated inhibition problems in the symptomatic OCD and panic groups. This research suggests that underlying differences in both facilitation and inhibition, combined with influences of activated threat-schema on inhibition may play a role in the development and maintenance of OCD.     

The Effect of a Swarm of Local Tornados on Tornado Preparedness: A Quasi‐Comparable Cohort Investigation1

Previous research has indicated that experience with natural disasters appears to affect the extent to which populations act to mitigate and prepare for these events. Such efforts, however, have failed to disclose precisely why this relationship appears viable. Furthermore, rarely have these investigations included pre‐ and post‐tornado data from similar populations. In an effort to investigate further the effects of the mechanisms underlying the relationship between experience with disasters and preparedness actions, relevant data were assessed for 2 samples from the same population before and after the occurrence of a swarm of local tornados. Results indicate that tornado preparedness levels increased significantly following the tornados. Furthermore, appraised threat of tornados and personal responsibility for preparedness actions also increased significantly following the tornados. Implications of these results are discussed.     

Social Comparisons and Adjustment Among Cardiac Patients1

The research examined social comparisons, affiliative choices, and their relation to adjustment among patients in a cardiac rehabilitation program. Consistent with Taylor and Lobel (1989), evaluative and affiliative processes diverged, with patients making downward evaluations (Wills, 1981) but choosing to affiliate with those who were better off than themselves. Consistent with predictions, downward evaluation was associated with better psychological adjustment, supporting the idea that these comparisons meet self-enhancement needs; upward affiliations were associated with hopefulness and inspiration, as well as with the perception that such comparisons provide information that is useful for improving one's own condition. The implications of evaluative comparison and affiliative activities for coping is discussed.     

Are Traditional Gender Role Attitudes Associated With Risky Sexual Behavior and Condom-related Beliefs?

Traditional gender role attitudes, which emphasize an unequal distribution of power in the family and stereotypical norms about masculinity, may be associated with unsafe sexual behavior and beliefs in young men and women. This study was designed to examine associations between gender role attitudes including gender-based family role attitudes and masculinity ideology, sexual behaviors, and condom-related beliefs in a sample of sexually active college students (N = 154). Family role attitudes were related to risky condom-related beliefs but not to risky sexual behavior. Masculinity ideology was related to both sexual behaviors and condom-related beliefs but, in some cases, in a direction opposite to that predicted. These unexpected findings and the utility of examining masculinity ideology among women are discussed.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2002 Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research on Adolescence, New Orleans, Louisiana.     

Process dissociation of sight vocabulary and phonetic decoding in reading: a new perspective on surface and phonological dyslexias

Recent research on developmental dyslexia has suggested a phonological core deficit hypothesis (e.g., Manis, Seidenberg, Doi, McBride-Chang, & Peterson, 1996; Stanovich, Siegel, & Gottardo, 1997) whereby pure cases of developmental phonological dyslexia (dysfunctional phonetic decoding processing but normal sight vocabulary processing) can exist, but pure cases of developmental surface dyslexia (dysfunctional sight vocabulary processing but normal phonetic decoding processing) should not. By applying Jacoby's (1991) and Lindsay and Jacoby's (1994) process dissociation procedure to the reading of regular and exception words, we present a method that serves to estimate readers' reliance on sight vocabulary and phonetic decoding during real word recognition. These reliance estimates are then used in Castles and Coltheart's (1993) regression-based approach to identify normal readers and developmental dyslexics. This new method: (1) allows one to explore normal reading acquisition and both the delay and deviance accounts of developmental dyslexia, (2) provides an alternative to matching dyslexics to both chronological-age and reading-age control groups, and (3) uses only real words. We present evidence that pure cases of developmental surface dyslexia can be obtained with both Castles and Coltheart's measure as well as our own, and that developmental surface dyslexia is not simply a delayed reading deficit. The theoretical importance and utility of estimates of reliance on sight vocabulary and phonetic decoding is discussed.     

A Newton procedure for conditionally linear mixed-effects models

This article reviews Newton procedures for the analysis of mean and covariance structures that may be functions of parameters that enter a model nonlinearly. The kind of model considered is a mixed-effects model that is conditionally linear with regard to its parameters. This means parameters entering the model nonlinearly must be fixed, whereas those entering linearly may vary across individuals. This framework encompasses several models, including hierarchical linear models, linear and nonlinear factor analysis models, and nonlinear latent curve models. A full maximum-likelihood estimation procedure is described. Mx, a statistical software package often used to estimate structural equation models, is considered for estimation of these models. An example with Mx syntax is provided.     

Ethical ideology, animal rights activism, and attitudes toward the treatment of animals

In two studies, we used the Ethics Position Questionnaire (EPQ) to investigate the relationship between individual differences in moral philosophy, involvement in the animal rights movement, and attitudes toward the treatment of animals. In the first, 600 animal rights activists attending a national demonstration and 266 nonactivist college students were given the EPQ. Analysis of the returns from 157 activists and 198 students indicated that the activists were more likely than the students to hold an "absolutist" moral orientation (high idealism, low relativism). In the second study, 169 students were given the EPQ with a scale designed to measure attitudes toward the treatment of animals. Multiple regression showed that gender and the EPQ dimension of idealism were related to attitudes toward animal use.     

Should men treat women? Dilemmas for the male psychotherapist: psychoanalytic and developmental perspectives

A spate of sexual abuse cases predominantly involving male psychotherapists with female patients as their victims raises serious questions about the ethics of cross-gender therapeutic dyads. Although such abusive situations must be highlighted as ethically aberrant, they may well represent a type of intrusive harm or hostile neglect which ensues on a continuum in the psychotherapeutic treatment of many female patients by male clinicians. I argue that the difficulties for men in empathically understanding women stem not only from certain misconceptions about women's development but especially stem from a paucity of understanding concerning men's psychology, a dearth of gender-sensitive information about the differences between boy's and girl's/men's and women's development, and a consequent difficulty for male psychotherapists to engage in the type of productive self-analysis that would ameliorate this gender-biased myopia. Recent psychoanalytically oriented child development/family research and innovative revisions of psychoanalytic theory are used to highlight some of the often overlooked, yet salient aspects of men's development as it is differentiated from women's. Specifically addressed is the possibility of a male, gender-linked vulnerability for a normative traumatic abrogation of the early holding environment with predictable sequelae in later intimate relationships, including the psychotherapeutic encounter. As the "confusion of tongues" between men's and women's development comes to light, is translated, and is empathically understood, new hope may be found for male therapists and their patients. An opportunity for enhanced therapeutic efficacy within an ethical and genuinely caring depth psychology may then be generated.     

Generativity in multiple roles

Interest in the Eriksonian notion of generativity and its role in the lives of mature adults has recently increased. In the present study, we examined generativity separately in the roles of wife, worker, and mother, and examined the utility of our strategy relative to more global measurement strategies in explaining variation in well-being. Two samples of employed mothers were studied, one sample employed in private industry and the other in a university setting. Statistical analyses demonstrated that measurement equivalence existed across the two samples (i.e., that the patterns and magnitudes of factor loadings did not differ significantly). For 8 of 11 indices of well-being examined across the two samples, role-specific measures of generativity explained significantly greater variation than did global measures.