PTSD Symptoms in College Students Exposed to Interparental Violence: Are they Comparable to those that Result from Child Physical and Sexual Abuse?

Undergraduate students completed the Trauma Symptom Inventory and a childhood history questionnaire that assessed their experience of three types of childhood traumatic events: physical abuse (CPA), sexual abuse (CSA), and interparental violence (CPV). Six posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) subscales previously found to be associated with these types of abuse (anxious arousal, anger/irritability, intrusive experiences, depression, tension reduction behaviors, and defensive avoidance) were examined through multiple regression analyses to determine the extent to which each type of trauma history was most predictive of elevated symptomatology. For several subscales, having exposure to interparental violence was the strongest predictor of elevated symptomatology, suggesting that CPV is at least as powerful as CPA or CSA in producing symptoms of PTSD in adulthood.     

TV or not TV? Does the immediacy of viewing images of a momentous news event affect the quality and stability of flashbulb memories?

The flashbulb accounts of 38 participants concerning the September 11th 2001 terrorist attack reported at both 28 hours and 6 months following the event were examined for quantity, quality, and consistency as a function of the time lapse between first learning of the event and initial viewing of media images. The flashbulb accounts of those who reported seeing images at least an hour after learning of the event differed qualitatively, but not quantitatively, from accounts of participants who reported seeing images at the same time as or within minutes of learning of the event. Delayed viewing of images resulted in less elaborate and generally less consistent accounts across the 6-month interval. The results are discussed in terms of factors affecting flashbulb memory formation and individual differences in connectedness to the event.     

Will you be there for me when things go right? Supportive responses to positive event disclosures

Close relationship partners often share successes and triumphs with one another, but this experience is rarely the focus of empirical study. In this study, 79 dating couples completed measures of relationship well-being and then participated in videotaped interactions in which they took turns discussing recent positive and negative events. Disclosers rated how understood, validated, and cared for they felt in each discussion, and outside observers coded responders' behavior. Both self-report data and observational codes showed that 2 months later, responses to positive event discussions were more closely related to relationship well-being and break-up than were responses to negative event discussions. The results are discussed in terms of the recurrent, but often overlooked, role that positive emotional exchanges play in building relationship resources.     

What you want (and do not want) affects what you see (and do not see): avoidance social goals and social events

Two studies examined the influence of approach and avoidance social goals on memory for and evaluation of ambiguous social information. Study 1 found that individual differences in avoidance social goals were associated with greater memory of negative information, negatively biased interpretation of ambiguous social cues, and a more pessimistic evaluation of social actors. Study 2 experimentally manipulated social goals and found that individuals high in avoidance social motivation remembered more negative information and expressed more dislike for a stranger in the avoidance condition than in the approach condition. Results suggest that avoidance social goals are associated with emphasizing potential threats when making sense of the social environment.     

Individual differences in imagery and reports of aversions

Recent theoretical models highlighting the role of imagery in trauma and aversion learning focus on the role of images in memory (e.g., Brewin, Dalgleish, & Joseph, 1996) and images as substitute stimuli in aversive conditioning (Dadds, Bovbjerg, Redd, & Cutmore, 1997). An unanswered question is whether individual differences in imagery are associated with different rates of traumatisation and aversion states (fear and avoidance of various stimuli). We examine one aspect of this: does high imagery ability correlate with the frequency with which people report aversions? Three samples of university students were tested on the Betts Questionnaire Upon Mental Imagery, the Tellegen Absorption Scale, and a new measure we designed to sample of range of aversions. As hypothesised, vividness of imagery showed positive correlations with number of aversions reported. This relationship held after controlling for general neuroticism and proneness to disgust. Results for absorption showed no relationship. The results are unable to disentangle causal paths but suggest a focus on individual differences in imagery vividness may be fruitful for understanding individual differences in aversion learning.     

Psychometric evaluation of the eating disorder inventory (edi) in a clinical group

Abstract

This study examined the psychometric properties of the Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI) with a clinical sample of 79 female clients seen at an outpatient eating disorder program. The means and standard deviations for the bulimia nervosa subgroup in this study (n = 48) compared favorably with the bulimia group in the EDI Manual Supplement (1986) on all eight subscales, except Drive for Thinness. The present non-student sample had significantly lower scores on this particular subscale than did the norm group (mostly students). Another difference was that the local bulimic subgroup had significantly higher present and minimum weights (as a percentage of the expected average weight according to height). The EDI subscales also displayed respectable internal consistency reliability with this sample. In contrast to previous research, however, only five factors were found in a factor analysis rather than eight corresponding to the original subscales for the EDI. Differences between bulimic and a not-otherwise-specified (NOS) diagnostic groups were also found on both the EDI Ineffectiveness and Bulimia subscales (NOS had lower scores). The results of this study are discussed in terms of the importance of undertaking local standardization of tests in clinical settings.     

Toupee or not toupee? The role of instructional set,centrality, and relevance in change blindness

The influence of instructional set, centrality, and relevance on change blindness was examined. In a one-shot paradigm, participants reported alterations of items across pairs of driving scenes under two different instructional conditions. Alterations involved either relocations or disappearances of the same items and included driving-relevant and driving-irrelevant alterations to items of central and marginal interest. Three main findings emerged: Centrality was not a function of driving relevance/meaningfulness, disappearances of central interest items were identified significantly more often than positional changes to them, and instructions highlighting the importance of the task to driving attenuated change blindness. The possible role of a simple listing strategy in mediating successful identification of alterations is discussed. Together, the findings demonstrate that cognitive factors play an important role in change blindness.     

The assessment of subjective probability distributions: A training experiment

For this experiment 22 Ss were especially trained to assess subjective probability distributions for proportions concerning student characteristics. Two different assessment techniques were used. There were four experimental sessions. From the second session on, Ss received feedback about their performance in the previous session(s). While Ss' associated by far too much confidence with their assessments at the beginning, they learned to assess more realistic distributions. Furthermore, discrepancies between techniques were reduced.Some considerations for a more effective training procedure are made and the concept of giving feedback only according to the tightness of the assessed distribution is critically discussed.