Racial/ethnic differences in the influence of cultural values, alcohol resistance self-efficacy, and alcohol expectancies on risk for alcohol initiation

Prior research has reported racial/ethnic differences in the early initiation of alcohol use, suggesting that cultural values that are central to specific racial/ethnic groups may be influencing these differences. This 1-year longitudinal study examines associations between two types of cultural values, parental respect (honor for one's parents) and familism (connectedness with family), both measured at baseline, and subsequent alcohol initiation in a sample of 6,054 (approximately 49% male, 57% Hispanic, 22% Asian, 18% non-Hispanic White, and 4% non-Hispanic Black) middle school students in Southern California. We tested whether the associations of cultural values with alcohol initiation could be explained by baseline measures of alcohol resistance self-efficacy (RSE) and alcohol expectancies. We also explored whether these pathways differed by race/ethnicity. In the full sample, adolescents with higher parental respect were less likely to initiate alcohol use, an association that was partially explained by higher RSE and fewer positive alcohol expectancies. Familism was not significantly related to alcohol initiation. Comparing racial/ethnic groups, higher parental respect was protective against alcohol initiation for Whites and Asians, but not Blacks or Hispanics. There were no racial/ethnic differences in the association between familism and alcohol initiation. Results suggest that cultural values are important factors in the decision to use alcohol and these values appear to operate in part, by influencing alcohol positive expectancies and RSE. Interventions that focus on maintaining strong cultural values and building strong bonds between adolescents and their families may help reduce the risk of alcohol initiation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Developing Faith-Based Health Promotion Programs that Target Cardiovascular Disease and Cancer Risk Factors

Journal of Religion and Health - The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of a faith-based health promotion program on the ideal health behaviors shared between cardiovascular...     

Obsessive-compulsive disorder symptoms and correlates in community exercisers

ObjectivesThe purpose of this study was to examine the potential relationship between OCD symptoms and the constructs of depression, anxiety, self-esteem, and commitment to exercise in community-based exercisers.Design and methodA mixed-methods approach was utilized. A sample of 64 female and 21 male participants (M age = 52.1 years) completed a series of online or written questionnaires related to the noted variables, while a subset of 10 participants participated in a qualitative interview to explain their OCD symptoms and exercise behavior.ResultsPearson correlations indicated all psychological constructs were significantly correlated with each other (absolute r's ranged from .27 to .78, all p's < .001), while a canonical correlation analysis revealed one significant function (Wilk's λ = .360, R_c = .80, p < .001). Set 1 (OCD symptoms) explained 36% of the variance in Set 2 (anxiety, depression, self-esteem and commitment to exercise), while Set 2 explained 64% of the variance in Set 1. Four primary themes were established from the qualitative data, including: 1) being involved in sport or physical activity from a young age, 2) high benefits versus low consequences of regular participation in exercise, 3) involvement in detail-oriented jobs, and 4) easy adjustments to unplanned deviations from an exercise schedule.ConclusionsOverall, this research suggests that community-based exercisers with elevated OCD symptoms simply display a healthy attention to the frequency and detail of their physical activity, which facilitates them staying active across a variety of conditions.     

Spouse marital adjustment and patient dietary adherence in chronic hemodialysis: A Comparison of Afro-Americans and Caucasians

Abstract

This study investigated racial differences in the relationship between spouse marital adjustment and dietary adherence of chronic hemodialysis patients. Sixty-eight adult patients and their spouse were subjects. Fifty-two percent of the patients were Caucasians while 48% were Afro-Americans. Spouses completed the Locke-Marital-Questionnaire (LMQ) and provided demographic data pertaining to their patient spouses. The patients' predialysis potassium levels (indices of food intake compliance) for the previous three months were matched with the respective questionnaires. Afro-American spouses, especially males, evidenced significantly lower marital satisfaction than Caucasian spouses. Afro-American female patients seemed to be most compliant as far as food intake wasconcemed. Although the spouse LMQ score was negatively correlated with interdialysis weight gain. Afro-Americans who generally scored lower on the LMQ did not differ from Caucasians in so far as their adherence to the dietary regimen was concerned. Implications for improving quality of life of hemodialysis couples in general, and Afro-Americans in particular are discussed.     

The Application of a Model of Adaptive Performance to Army Leader Behaviors

To better understand the adaptive capabilities of junior Army leaders, we applied an existing nine-dimension adaptability model to critical incidents of leader behaviors. We examined interview data from two samples of U.S. Army leaders (40 combat veterans and 24 training facilitators). The adaptive behaviors performed most in combat reflected the Deals with Unpredictability and Handles Emergencies dimensions, whereas in training contexts they reflected the Leads Adaptive Teams and Solves Problems Creatively dimensions. The model represented all of the adaptive capabilities; however, the dimensions varied across the samples. To promote adaptability, the leaders recommended developing mental adaptability skills and adaptive teams.     

A brief nap is beneficial for human route-learning: The role of navigation experience and EEG spectral power

Here, we examined the effect of a daytime nap on changes in virtual maze performance across a single day. Participants either took a short nap or remained awake following training on a virtual maze task. Post-training sleep provided a clear performance benefit at later retest, but only for those participants with prior experience navigating in a three-dimensional (3D) environment. Performance improvements in experienced players were correlated with delta-rich stage 2 sleep. Complementing observations that learning-related brain activity is reiterated during post-navigation NREM sleep in rodents, the present data demonstrate that NREM sleep confers a performance advantage for spatial memory in humans.A growing body of animal and human literature suggests that the consolidation of memories occurs optimally during periods of post-learning sleep. Nonrapid eye movement sleep (NREM), in particular, may be beneficial for the offline consolidation of hippocampus-dependent learning. The neurophysiological basis for this hypothesis is derived largely from electrophysiological studies in rodents, demonstrating that patterns of hippocampal place cell activity first seen during waking exploration are later reexpressed during post-learning sleep (Wilson and McNaughton 1994; Kudrimoti et al. 1999; Nadasdy et al. 1999; Ji and Wilson 2007). Behavioral studies in humans meanwhile demonstrate that NREM sleep is beneficial for declarative memory performance, relative to equivalent periods of wakefulness (Plihal and Born 1997; Tucker et al. 2006). However, the memory tasks typically employed in human research are quite different from those used in rodents, with human studies most often focusing on the memorization of verbal or visual stimuli (Plihal and Born 1997; Schabus et al. 2004; Clemens et al. 2005; Ellenbogen et al. 2006; Tucker et al. 2006; Daurat et al. 2008). Thus far, sleep-dependent memory reactivation has not been established to be directly beneficial for memory performance in an animal model, as the protocols employed in this research typically involve well-learned simple tasks which do not easily lend themselves to measurement of learning across time (Wilson and McNaughton 1994; Kudrimoti et al. 1999). Although the hippocampal memory reactivation described in rodents is a possible explanation for the effect of NREM sleep on human declarative memory, widely divergent methodologies employed across species prohibit confidence in this conclusion.Bridging this conceptual gap, a small handful of studies have begun to explore the relationship between spatial navigation and NREM sleep in humans. Notably, a PET study by Peigneux et al. (2004) demonstrated that learning-related hippocampal activity seen while training on a virtual maze task is again expressed during post-learning human sleep. Furthermore, this hippocampal reactivation strongly predicted overnight improvement on the task (Peigneux et al. 2004). Additional studies have suggested a link between sleep and other types of spatial-related learning, including mental rotation performance (Plihal and Born 1999), the ability to reproduce a complex figure (Clemens et al. 2006; Tucker and Fishbein 2008), performance on a computerized version of Milner''s (1965) “bolt head” maze (Tucker and Fishbein 2008), and memory for the location of verbal information on a screen (Daurat et al. 2008).Yet it remains unclear whether sleep, relative to wakefulness, provides a performance benefit for human route-learning in the context of a realistic spatial environment. Navigation through virtual environments is a strongly hippocampus-dependent task (Peigneux et al. 2004; Astur et al. 2005) and provides an experimental model closely paralleling the spatial exploration tasks employed in the rodent literature. However, the few studies reporting effects of sleep on human navigation performance have been contradictory. Using a navigation task similar to that of Peingeux et al. (2004), Orban et al. (2006) failed to detect any effect of post-learning sleep deprivation on maze performance but did find evidence of altered task-related brain activity, concluding that sleep supports “covert” memory reorganization (Orban et al. 2006). In direct contrast, Ferrara et al. found that spatial memory is improved when a retention interval falls across a night of sleep, relative to when route memory must be retained during daytime wakefulness, or across a night of sleep deprivation (Ferrara et al. 2006, 2008).The present study clarifies these issues by examining the effect of a post-learning nap on complex route-learning in a three-dimensional (3D) virtual environment. When controls are tested at a different time of day than sleep participants, circadian confounds may present a substantial problem. Alternatively, overnight protocols employing sleep-deprived subjects necessarily suffer from confounds related to this sleep deprivation during the retention interval. The use of a daytime nap as a sleep intervention avoids these pitfalls by allowing all subjects to be trained and tested at the same circadian time, and in the absence of sleep deprivation. A series of recent studies confirm that a daytime nap is sufficient to induce performance improvements on declarative and procedural memory tasks, relative to wake subjects (Mednick et al. 2003; Backhaus and Junghanns 2006; Nishida and Walker 2006; Tucker et al. 2006; Lahl et al. 2008; Tucker and Fishbein 2008).Participants (n = 53, 34 female) were trained on a virtual maze-learning task at 12:30 pm. Following training, nap participants lay down for a 1.5-h sleep opportunity. These subjects were allowed to obtain as much NREM sleep as possible but were awoken at the first signs of REM (see Table 

Left orbital frontal activation in pathological anxiety

Twelve patients with anxiety disorder were studied with respect to regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) using a 32-detector system with the 133 Xe inhalation technique. Measurements were taken during a rest condition and during anxiety induction. Anxiety relevant to the patient's psychological disorder was induced with a projective test, the meta-contrast technique (MCT). Increased blood flow in the orbital frontal region of the left hemisphere was observed in each of the 11 subjects who showed evidence of experiencing anxiety during the procedure. In a second study four additional anxiety patients were studied with a high-resolution (254-detector)Xe rCBF system. In addition to the anxiety and resting conditions, a neutral verbalization condition was added to control for the verbal aspects of the anxiety induction procedure. The results again showed the experience of anxiety to be accompanied by increased blood flow in the left orbital frontal region, with the patients showing this flow increase to be greater in the posterior, paralimbic, areas of the region. These results are consistent with previous suggestions of left hemisphere involvement in anxiety. They also suggest that imaging methods may allow research into what appears to be exaggerated corticolimbic activity in this disorder.     

A Comparison of Positive Versus Negative Emotional Expression in a Written Disclosure Study Among Distressed Students

This study investigated the effects of expressing through writing either positive feelings, negative feelings, or both about an upsetting event in order to assess which mode of expression facilitated greater emotional and cognitive processing. Undergraduate student participants with self-reported unresolved upsetting experiences were randomly assigned to one of three writing groups. After completing three writing sessions, they were evaluated at baseline, postexperimentally, and at 1-month follow-up. All groups experienced positive benefits; however, participants in the positive writing group showed greater adaptive cognitive changes than the other groups. Thus it appears that the written expression of positive feelings is as therapeutic as the written expression of negative emotions, which may prompt increased cognitive reorganization or benefit finding among a nonclinical sample.     

Rumination and suicidal ideation: The moderating roles of hope and optimism

The current study aimed to investigate whether the correlation between rumination and suicidal ideation is moderated by the presence of hope and optimism. It was hypothesized that both hope and optimism would moderate (weaken) the relationship between rumination and suicidal ideation. Two hundred and ninety-eight participants completed self-report measures of hope, optimism, rumination (brooding and reflection), and depression. Results demonstrated that both hope and optimism weakened the relationship between rumination and suicidal ideation, as well as the relationships between both subscales of rumination and suicidal thinking. These results were found when controlling for symptoms of depression. Results suggest that a ruminative thinking style may be most harmful when an absence of hope or optimism is also present.