Physical Disability and Suicidal Ideation: A Community‐Based Study of Risk/Protective Factors for Suicidal Thoughts

Although the significance of poor physical health for suicide risk is well established, the potential relevance of physical disability, as distinct from diseases and traumas that give rise to disability, has received little attention. Prior evidence suggests the possible utility of the stress process theoretical model for understanding variations in risk for suicide ideation and the contribution of physical disability to such risk. In this article, we examine the independent and joint explanatory significance of physical disability and components of the stress process model for risk of suicide ideation. Data from an ethnically diverse and representative sample of disabled and nondisabled adults (n = 1,768) reveal that physical disability is associated with a greater risk of lifetime suicidal ideation.     

Expectancy priming of smoking cessation messages enhances the placebo effect of tailored interventions.

OBJECTIVE: Previous research (Webb, Simmons, & Brandon, 2005) suggested that smokers' reactions to self-help materials were more positive if they believed that the materials had been personally tailored to their individual characteristics and if they held expectancies that tailored interventions are superior to standard, or generic, interventions. The authors' objective in the current study was to replicate and extend this research by testing the efficacy expectancy priming before intervention delivery. DESIGN: In a 2 x 2 factorial experiment, 210 smokers (M = 23 cigarettes/day) recruited from the community (62% female; 92% Caucasian; mean age = 49) were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 conditions: placebo-tailored intervention/no priming, placebo-tailored intervention/priming, standard intervention/no priming, or standard intervention/priming. The tailoring-related expectancies of participants' in the priming conditions were primed before they were presented with the respective intervention booklets. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Content evaluations, readiness to quit smoking, cessation self-efficacy, smoking-related knowledge, and progress toward quitting (behavior changes). Assessments occurred by mail at baseline and at 1-month postintervention. RESULTS: Similar to the earlier study, the placebo-tailored booklets produced superior evaluations and smoking-related cognitive and behavioral changes. Moreover, the pretreatment expectancy priming successfully altered participants' tailoring-related expectancies and also produced superior evaluations and outcomes. CONCLUSION: Findings support a causal role of tailoring-related expectancies on the efficacy of tailored interventions and suggest that interventions can be enhanced via expectancy priming.     

Non-parametric inference for ordered alternatives in a randomized block design

This paper treats the problem of testing an ordered hypothesis based on the ranks of the data. The statistical procedures for the randomized block design with more than one observation per cell are derived. Multiple comparisons and estimation procedures are also included.     

Smoking onset in adolescence: a person-centered analysis with time-varying predictors.

Predictions from smoking-specific versus contextual models of smoking onset were tested with data from a 4-wave sample with 1,364 adolescents. Predictor variables were derived from stress-coping theory, social influence theory, and problem-behavior theory. In addition to groups of abstainers and experimenters, cluster analysis of smoking data indicated 3 groups who showed onset either in 7th grade (early onset), 9th grade (intermediate onset), or 10th grade (late onset). Almost all study variables discriminated the smoking groups from the abstainers. The onset groups were discriminated by Group X Time interactions showing differential changes in predictors (increases in risk factors and declines in protective factors), which occurred just prior to onset. The results generally support a contextual model of the onset process.     

Believers and Their Disbelief

Several recent Roman Catholics who were known for their devotion have left accounts of their troubled faith. I consider three of these: St. Therese of Lisieux, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Then I tell of the troubled atheism of Jean‐Paul Sartre. Finally, I use texts of Sartre and Teilhard to understand the unsettled nature of belief.     

Genetic and Environmental Influences on the Continuous Scales of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator: An Analysis Based on Twins Reared Apart

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator was administered to a sample of 61 monozygotic twins reared apart (MZA), 49 dizygotic twins reared apart (DZA), and 92 spouses, who participated in the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart (MISTRA) from 1979 to 1995. Twins' scores on the continuous scales were subjected to behavior genetic model-fitting procedures. Extraversion-Introversion and Thinking-Feeling yielded heritabilities of about .60, consisting largely of nonadditive genetic variance. Sensing-Intuition and Judgment-Perception yielded heritabilities of about .40, consisting largely of additive genetic variance. Spouse correlations for three of the four scales were near zero and not statistically significant; one spouse correlation (Sensing-Intuition) was modestly positive and statistically significant.     

A computational analysis of conservation

An approach to modeling cognitive development with a generative connectionist algorithm is described and illustrated with a new model of conservation acquisition. Among the conservation phenomena captured with this model are acquisition, the problem size effect, the length bias effect, and the screening effect. The simulations suggest novel explanations for sudden jumps in conservation performance (based on new representations of conservation transformations) and for the problem size effect (based on an analog representation of number). The simulations support the correlation-learning explanation of length bias (that length correlates with number during number altering transformations). Some conservation phenomena that so far elude computational modeling attempts are also discussed along with their prospects for capture. Suggestions are made for theorizing about cognitive development as well as about conservation acquisition. A variety of classic puzzles about cognitive development are addressed in the light of this model and similar models of other aspects of cognitive development.