Explicating the Dispositional Basis of the OCRDs: a Hierarchical Perspective

We examined the dispositional component of the obsessive-compulsive and related disorders (OCRDs) in a large adult sample. Our battery included two hierarchical measures of personality, which allowed us to examine relations with both higher-order domains and lower-order facets of the five-factor model. In addition, our study included multiple indicators of each OCRD, which enabled us to model them as latent factors. Principal factor analyses of these indicators revealed six dimensions: Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Hoarding, Excoriation, Body Dissatisfaction, Trichotillomania, and Body Preoccupation. Body Dissatisfaction, OCD, and Hoarding showed the strongest links to personality, with the other symptoms displaying more moderate associations. Neuroticism was the strongest and broadest predictor of the OCRDs at the domain level, exhibiting significant positive relations with every symptom dimension except Body Preoccupation in both bivariate and multivariate analyses. Conscientiousness showed negative associations with Body Dissatisfaction and Hoarding, and was positively related to Body Preoccupation. Finally, openness was negatively linked to OCD at both the bivariate and multivariate level. In comparison to domain-level analyses, the lower-order facets jointly contributed an additional 11.8% (Excoriation) to 17.6% (OCD) of the criterion variance, with a mean increment of 14.2%. Three neuroticism facets—anger, self-consciousness, and impulsiveness—displayed robust positive associations with two or more OCRD symptom factors, but no lower-order trait contributed significantly in every analysis. Overall, our results indicate that—similar to most other forms of psychopathology—OCRD symptoms have a common component of elevated neuroticism.     

Online Victimization,Womanism, and Body Esteem among Young Black Women: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach

Digital media use represents a central part of young adults’ daily life, within which social interactions increasingly center on visual content. While visual content, such as representations of self, may facilitate positive social interactivity, it may also increase susceptibility to harmful social interactions, such as appearance-related online victimization. Black women’s bodies are often the target of gendered racial microaggressions and sexual victimization which can contribute to body image concerns. Still, the online victimization–body esteem link among Black women remains unexamined. This study used structural equation modeling to examine the associations between four categories of online victimization (i.e., general online victimization, online individual racial victimization, online vicarious racial victimization, online sexual victimization) and body esteem. We further examined whether womanism, an identity-based factor, moderated the relationship between online victimization and body esteem. A sample of 1,595 young Black women completed an online survey. Results showed that online sexual victimization was significantly negatively associated with body esteem and that high levels of womanism buffered the harmful impact of general online victimization on body esteem. Future research is needed to examine Black women’s and gender expansive people’s experiences with online gendered racial victimization along with other forms of online intersectional oppression.

     

Knowing what we do not know about sexual orientation change efforts

Comments on the original article, "Guidelines for psychological practice with lesbian, gay, and bisexual clients," by the American Psychological Association (see record 2011-19419-001). The present authors notes that the APA has provided a very helpful document for those who do clinical work with individuals experiencing same-sex attractions. Psychologists no doubt need to be familiar with the literature described in these guidelines as a part of ethical practice. However, the present authors register concern regarding how the guidelines address sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE). They focus their critique on how the guidelines portray two issues pertaining to SOCE-effectiveness and harm-and conclude with a proposal to move the discussion forward via science. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Dispositional and stressor-related emotion regulation in the context of a chronic, life-limiting stressor

In the context of efforts to regulate emotion during chronic stressors, both dispositional response tendencies (affect intensity, negative and positive expressivity) and stressor‐related coping through emotional approach (processing and expressing emotions) are relevant to adjustment. In women with metastatic breast cancer (N = 103), contributions of self‐reported emotional processing and expression related to cancer, as well as dispositional expressivity to adaptive outcomes across 3 months were examined. In the context of high dispositional expressivity, an increase in emotional expression predicted improvements in depressive symptoms and life satisfaction. Emotional processing at study entry predicted increased depressive symptoms and intrusive thoughts, and declining life satisfaction among highly expressive women. Increasing emotional processing predicted improved depressive symptoms in the context of high expressivity. Increases in emotional approach coping were associated with a more arduous cancer experience. Findings highlight the importance of the person‐situation fit in linking emotion‐related constructs to adjustment during unremitting stressors.     

Gender-based rejection sensitivity and academic self-silencing in women

Building on prior work on rejection sensitivity, we propose a social-cognitive model of gender-based rejection sensitivity (Gender RS) to account for individual differences in how women perceive and cope with gender-based evaluative threats in competitive, historically male institutions. Study 1 develops a measure of Gender RS, defined as anxious expectations of gender-based rejection. Studies 2-5 support the central predictions of the model: Gender RS is associated with increased perceptions of gender-based threats and increased coping by self-silencing--responses that reinforce feelings of alienation and diminished motivation. Study 2 shows that Gender RS is distinct from overall sensitivity to rejection or perceiving the world through the lens of gender. Study 3 shows that Gender RS becomes activated specifically when gender-based rejection is a plausible explanation for negative outcomes. Study 4 provides experimental evidence that Gender RS predicts lower academic self-confidence, greater expectations of bias, and avoidance of opportunities for further help from a weakness-focused expert evaluator. Study 5 tests the Gender RS model in situ, using daily diaries to track women's experiences during the first weeks in a highly competitive law school. Implications for women's coping with the subtle nature of contemporary sexism are discussed as well as the importance of institution-level checks to prevent the costs of gender-based rejection.     

Flexible serial response learning by pigeons (Columba livia) and humans (Homo sapiens)

Experimental tasks designed to involve procedural memory are often rigid and unchanging, despite many reasons to expect that implicit learning processes can be flexible and support considerable variability. A version of the serial response time (SRT) task was developed, in which the locations of targets were probabilistically determined. Targets appeared in locations according to both a structured sequence and a cue validity parameter, and the time to respond to each target was measured. Pigeons (Columba livia) and humans (Homo sapiens) both showed response time facilitation at the highest tested value for cue validity, and the magnitude of that facilitation gradually weakened as cue validity was decreased. Both species showed evidence that response times were largely determined by the local predictabilities of individual cue locations. In addition, humans showed some evidence that explicit knowledge of the sequence affected response times, specifically when cue validity was 100%.     

The relation of personality types to physiological,behavioural, and cognitive processes

Three personality types, labeled resilient, over‐controlled, and under‐controlled, were identified through cluster analysis of classroom observations of 63 children, and used to understand biological, cognitive, and behavioural processes that influence academic achievement and aggression. Resilient children were found to be high in trait cortisol and high in academic achievement. Under‐controlled and over‐controlled children showed the greatest change in cortisol levels under stress, low levels of academic achievement, and attributed hostility to others in ambiguous situations. Under‐controlled children also exhibited high levels of externalizing behaviour in the classroom. The findings suggest that the single processes or traits assessed in this study do not mediate the associations of personality types to academic achievement and behaviour. The implications of the findings for the personality type construct and for personality processes are discussed. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.