Cohort Differences in Personal Goals and Life Satisfaction in Young Adulthood: Evidence for Historical Shifts in Developmental Tasks

This study investigated the influence of changing socio-historical conditions on personal goals in young adulthood. It was hypothesized that socio-historical changes related to individualization have resulted in shifts in goal pursuit. Participants from three birth cohorts reconstructed their important goals when they were 20 years old. Members of the oldest cohort were born between 1920 and 1925. Members of the middle cohort were born between 1945 and 1950. Members of the youngest cohort were born between 1970 and 1975. Goal content, the degree to which goals were perceived as being shared by members of the same cohort (social sharedness), perceived control over goal attainment, success in attainment, and life satisfaction at age 25 were measured in a retrospective study. Results show consistent shifts over time. Whereas members of older cohorts mentioned goals related to classical developmental tasks, members of younger cohorts mentioned more individualistic, self-related goals and goals related to education. The processes through which goal pursuit influenced life satisfaction also changed. Perceived social sharedness of goals was a direct predictor of life satisfaction for the oldest cohort. For the younger cohorts, perceived control over goal attainment influenced success which in turn influenced life satisfaction. These changes support the contention that developmental tasks and processes are historically variant.     

Reducing emergency medical service use in patients with chronic psychotic disorders: results from the FAST intervention study

Patients with schizophrenia have disproportionately high rates of emergency medical service use, likely contributing to the high cost this illness places on society. The aim of this study was to examine the impact of a theory-based, behavioral intervention on immediate and long-term use of emergency medical services. Older patients with schizophrenia (n=240) were randomized to receive either a behavioral, skills-building intervention known as Functional Adaptation and Skills Training (FAST) or a time-equivalent attention-control condition (AC). Logistic regression analyses indicated that AC participants were nearly twice as likely to use emergency medical services in general (OR=2.54; p=0.02) and emergency psychiatric services in particular (OR=3.69; p=0.05) during the active intervention phase of the study. However, there were no differences between the interventions in terms of emergency service use during the long-term follow-up phase of the study (i.e., 6-18 months post-baseline). The FAST intervention appears efficacious for reducing the short-term risk of using emergency medical services. However, the long-term efficacy of the FAST intervention appears less clear. Future studies may want to provide more powerful maintenance sessions to encourage continued use of skills in patients' real-world settings.     

Elucidating the neural correlates of egoistic and moralistic self-enhancement

Self-enhancement is the biasing of one’s view of oneself in a positive direction. The brain correlates of self-enhancement remain unclear though it has been reported that the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) may be important for producing self-enhancing responses. Previous studies have not examined whether the neural correlates of self-enhancement depend on the particular domain in which individuals are enhancing themselves. Both moralistic and egoistic words were presented to participants while transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was applied to the MPFC, precuneus or in a sham orientation. Participants were asked to make decisions as to the words describing themselves, some of which were positive and some of which were negative. It was found the MPFC TMS significantly disrupted egoistic self-enhancement when TMS was delivered to the MPFC. Judgments involving moralistic words were not influenced by TMS. These data provide further evidence that MPFC is involved in self-enhancement, and that the role of MPFC may be selective in this regard.     

Predictors of Satisfaction Among College-Educated African American Women in Midlife

There has been little theorizing or empirical research on satisfaction among African American women at midlife. This study addresses this gap by examining predictors of satisfaction in 3 cohorts (N = 202) of midlife college-educated African American women. Specifically, 3 domains of satisfaction were examined: overall life satisfaction, personal satisfaction, and work satisfaction. Results revealed that the women were highly satisfied with their work situation, their personal life, and generally with how their life had turned out so far. Overall life satisfaction was predicted by the women's perceptions of personal control, role quality, household burden, and their cohort status. Work satisfaction was best predicted by the women's sense of personal control and role quality. Lastly, household burden and physical well-being emerged as significant predictors of personal satisfaction. Implications of the findings and recommendations for future research are offered.     

Sequential evaluation of behavioral treatments and methylphenidate dosage for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

We used a sequential approach to evaluate the relative and combined effects of different types of behavioral treatments, as well as dosage of methylphenidate (MPH), on the disruptive behavior of 3 students who had been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Results showed that individualized behavioral treatments produced decreases in disruptive behavior equivalent to MPH for all 3 participants and demonstrated the need to evaluate behavioral treatments and medication dosage on an individual basis.     

Associative and repetition priming with the repeated masked prime technique: No priming found

Wentura and Frings (2005) reported evidence of subliminal categorical priming on a lexical decision task, using a new method of visual masking in which the prime string consisted of the prime word flanked by random consonants and random letter masks alternated with the prime string on successive refresh cycles. We investigated associative and repetition priming on lexical decision, using the same method of visual masking. Three experiments failed to show any evidence of associative priming, (1) when the prime string was fixed at 10 characters (three to six flanking letters) and (2) when the number of flanking letters were reduced or absent. In all cases, prime detection was at chance level. Strong associative priming was observed with visible unmasked primes, but the addition of flanking letters restricted priming even though prime detection was still high. With repetition priming, no priming effects were found with the repeated masked technique, and prime detection was poor but just above chance levels. We conclude that with repeated masked primes, there is effective visual masking but that associative priming and repetition priming do not occur with experiment-unique prime-target pairs. Explanations for this apparent discrepancy across priming paradigms are discussed. The priming stimuli and prime-target pairs used in this study may be downloaded as supplemental materials from mc.psychonomicjournals. org/content/supplemental.     

Flanker recall and the flanker validity effect may reflect different attentional processes

High flanker recall in the correlated flanker task suggests a failure of selective attention. We used a dissociation approach to examine the role of attentional processing of the flankers’ identities in the flanker validity effect (FVE). In three experiments, flanker recall decreased as flanker duration decreased, but the FVE was not affected by flanker duration. Masking also produced a dissociation, in that masking decreased flanker recall but the FVE was not affected. Examination of on-line flanker identification suggested that flanker recall was an adequate measure of attentional processing of the flankers’ identities on most trials. The results suggest that attentional processing of the flankers’ identities is not related to the magnitude of the FVE and is not necessary for it to obtain. Because there is a failure of selective attention, the dissociations suggest that flanker recall and the FVE may reflect different attentional processes.     

Error monitoring dysfunction across the illness course of schizophrenia

Response monitoring abnormalities have been reported in chronic schizophrenia patients, but it is unknown whether they predate the onset of psychosis, are present in early stages of illness, or are late-developing abnormalities associated with illness progression. Response-synchronized event-related potentials (ERP) recorded during a picture-word matching task yielded error-related negativity (ERN), correct-response negativity (CRN), and error positivity (Pe) from 84 schizophrenia patients (SZ), 48 clinical high risk patients (CHR), and their age-matched healthy controls (HC; n = 110 and 88, respectively). A sub-sample of 35 early illness schizophrenia patients (ESZ) was compared to 93 age-matched HC and the CHR patients (after statistically removing the effects of normal aging). Relative to HC, 1) SZ, ESZ, and CHR had smaller ERNs, and 2) SZ and ESZ had larger CRNs and smaller Pes. Within the SZ, longer illness duration was associated with larger CRNs but was unrelated to ERN or Pe. CHR and ESZ did not differ on ERN or CRN, although Pe was smaller in ESZ than CHR. These results indicate that while ERN, CRN, and Pe abnormalities are present early in the illness, only the ERN abnormality is evident prior to psychosis onset, and only the CRN abnormality appears to worsen progressively over the illness course. Brain regions subserving response monitoring may be compromised early in the illness and possibly during its clinical prodrome.     

BIS and BAS correlates with psychophysiological and cortical response systems during aversive and appetitive emotional stimuli processing

The present research intended first to confirm psychophysiological and cortical responses to valence- and arousal-manipulated stimuli and second to show how the BIS and BAS (Behavioural Inhibition and Activation System) personality characteristics correlated with these psychophysiological and cortical responses. Multiple measures were recorded, such as psychophysiological (skin conductance response, heart rate, and electromyography) and ERPs (event-related potentials) responses, during viewing IAPS figures, that varied in terms of pleasantness (appetitive vs. aversive) and arousing power (high vs. low intensity). Autonomic variables and two ERP positive deflections (P3 and LPP ERP effects) were found to be modulated by valence and arousal rating, with an increased response for high arousing and negative or positive stimuli in comparison with low arousing and neutral stimuli. Moreover, high BAS subjects were more responsive to positive than negative emotions, whereas high BIS subjects responded in greater measure to negative and arousing emotions. Findings were discussed in light of biphasic model of emotion comprehension.     

Examination of the Psychometric Properties of the Spiritual Fitness Assessment

Using a sample of 196 undergraduate students, the present study investigated the psychometric properties of the Spiritual Fitness Assessment, a measure of spiritual fitness designed for use by health and fitness professionals. Examination of inter-item consistency produced satisfactory alpha coefficients for the total test and its three subscales. Correlations of the SFA with measures of spirituality and spiritual well-being provide support for convergent validity. Significant positive correlations with a measure of self-esteem suggest that the test has satisfactory criterion validity. Correlations with age, sex, and a measure of social desirability indicate that the SFA is significantly, though only moderately, affected by demographic variables and motivated response tendencies. Factor analysis of the SFA items indicate that the test is factorially complex and subscales may need to be refined to better measure their intended constructs. Overall, the results of the study suggest that the test may be useful for evaluations of spiritual fitness. Further research with samples drawn from different populations is needed on the test to better establish its reliability and validity.