Two Important Distinctions in Social Support: Kind of Support and Perceived Versus Received1

The present study was conducted to examine the effects of social support on adjustment to a first cardiac event. There were two goals: (a) to determine which function of support best facilitated adjustment and (b) to determine whether perceived or received support had a greater impact on psychological health. Sixty-four patients and their spouses were interviewed shortly before hospital discharge and 3 months following discharge. The results indicated that perceived support has a greater impact on adjustment than received support and that received support does not necessarily indicate that needs are being met. The most helpful form of support was best understood by considering the stressor phase, patient and spouse needs, and the adjustment outcome. Consistent with previous research, however, the negative aspects of social relationships were more robust predictors of well-being than the positive aspects of social relationships.     

Judgments of men's and women's feelings during hypothetical social interactions

We studied college students' perceptions of how good/bad and how powerful/powerless men and women feel during hypothetical social interactions. Stimuli were constructed by combining each of 16 behaviors that fell into four categories (negative, low power, sexual, and help) with each of four dyads (male-male, male-female, female-male, female-female). Subjects made judgments about the likelihood of each behavior occurring, and about how actors and recipients felt when engaging in each of 16 behaviors. Three themes pervaded the results. First, subjects perceived men to feel more powerful than women whether behaving as actors or recipients—especially during interactions with women. Second, subjects perceived behaviors to be more likely, and actors and recipients to feel better and more powerful when the interaction pattern was consistent with gender role norms. Third, subjects perceived recipients' affective responses as being more polarized in opposite-sex than in same-sex dyads. Results from this research show that subjects' perceptions about feelings are largely consistent with the literature on social interaction and sex role stereotypes, and are similar for male and female subjects. In addition, our results provide a rich set of hypotheses concerning whether perceptions of feelings reflect actual feelings and are related to interaction participants' actual behavior.     

Gender-Role Cognition in Three-Year-Old Boys and Girls

Although the multidimensionality of gender roles has been well established, few researchers have investigated male and female roles separately. Because of the substantial differences in the ways male and female roles are portrayed in our culture, boys and girls may think and learn about these roles differently. The male role is more clearly defined, more highly valued, and more salient than the female role; thus, children's cognitions about these two roles may be expected to differ. The present study addressed the question of whether there is sex-typical variation in gender labeling, gender-role knowledge, and schematicity. Participants were 120 families; 15% were from minority ethnic groups, and 17% were single-parent families; 25% of the parents had a high school education or less. Results indicated that at 36 months of age, boys were less able to label gender and less knowledgeable about gender roles than were girls. Boys' knew more about male stereotypes than female stereotypes, whereas girls knew considerably more than boys about the female role and as much as boys about the male role. Boys and girls were found to be similar in gender schematicity. Traditionality of parental attitudes regarding child-rearing and maternal employment were not strongly related to children's gender cognition.     

Evaluating the independence of sex and expression in judgments of faces

Face recognition models suggest independent processing for functionally different types of information, such as identity, expression, sex, and facial speech. Interference between sex and expression information was tested using both a rating study and Garner's selective attention paradigm using speeded sex and expression decisions. When participants were asked to assess the masculinity of male and female angry and surprised faces, they found surprised faces to be more feminine than angry ones (Experiment 1). However, in a speeded-classification situation in the laboratory in which the sex decision was either "easy" relative to the expression decision (Experiment 2) or of more equivalent difficulty (Experiment 3), it was possible for participants to attend selectively to either dimension without interference from the other. Qualified support is offered for independent processing routes.     

Four heads are better than one: combining face composites yields improvements in face likeness

Four participants constructed face composites, of familiar and unfamiliar targets, using Pro-Fit, with reference images present or from memory. The "mean" of all 4 composites, created by morphing (4-morph) was rated as a better likeness than individual composites on average and was as good as the best individual likeness. When participants attempted to identify targets from line-ups, 4-morphs again performed as well as the best individual composite. In a second experiment, participants familiar with target women attempted to identify composites, and the trend showed better recognition from multiple composites, whether combined or shown together. In a line-up task with unfamiliar participants, 4-morphs produced most correct choices and fewest false positives from target-absent or target-present arrays. These results have practical implications for the way evidence from different witnesses is used in police investigations.     

When inverted faces are recognized: The role of configural information in face recognition

The identification of upright faces seems to involve a special sensitivity to "configural" information, the processing of which is less effective when the face is inverted. However the precise meaning of "configural" remains unclear. Five experiments are presented, which showed that the disruption of the processing of relational, rather than holistic, information largely determines the occurrence as well as the size of the face-inversion effect. In Experiment 1, faces could be identified either by unique combinations of local information (e.g. a specific eye colour plus hair colour) or by unique relational information (e.g. nose-mouth distance). The former showed no inversion effect, whereas the latter did. A combination of local and relational information (Experiment 2) again produced an inversion effect, although this effect was smaller than that found when only relational information was used. The results were replicated in Experiment 3 when differences in the brightness of local features were used instead of specific colour combinations. Experiment 4 used different retrieval conditions to distinguish relational from holistic processing, and demonstrated again that spatial relations between single features appeared to provide crucial information for face recognition. In Experiment 5, the importance of relational information was confirmed using faces that also varied in the shapes of local features.     

Which psychological resilience attributes are associated with lower aspects of anxiety in boys with an autism spectrum disorder? Implications for guidance and counselling interventions

The effect of psychological resilience as a buffer against anxiety was investigated in a sample of 39 boys with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (ASD) via individual online questionnaire responses to standardised inventories for assessing anxiety and psychological resilience. Ability to handle problems, make good decisions, think before acting and help others were the most powerful buffers against Generalised Anxiety Disorder, while thinking before acting significantly buffered social phobia. Believing that they were able to handle problems was significantly associated with less emotional anxiety about school, work or social activities, being irritable, unable to relax and fatigue. As well as describing the pathways between the components of psychological resilience and anxiety, these findings also suggest several specific directions for training programmes aimed at equipping boys with an ASD with skills to cope more effectively with anxiety.     

Does Time Fly When You are Having Fun? A Day Reconstruction Method Analysis

Duration-based measures of happiness from retrospectively constructed daily diaries are gaining in popularity in population-based studies of the hedonic experience. Yet experimental evidence suggests that perceptions of duration—how long an event lasts—are influenced by individuals’ emotional experiences during the event. An important remaining question is whether observational measures of duration outside the laboratory setting, where the events under study are engaged in voluntarily, may be similarly affected, and if so, for which emotions are duration biases a potential concern. This study assesses how duration and emotions co-vary using retrospective, 24-h diaries from a national sample of older couples. Data are from the Disability and Use of Time supplement to the nationally representative U.S. Panel Study of Income Dynamics. We find that experienced wellbeing (positive, negative emotion) and activity duration are inversely associated. Specific positive emotions (happy, calm) are not associated with duration, but all measures of negative wellbeing considered here (frustrated, worried, sad, tired, and pain) have positive correlations (ranging from 0.04 to 0.08; p < .05). However, only frustration remains correlated with duration after controlling for respondent, activity and day-related characteristics (0.06, p < .01). The correlation translates into a potentially upward biased estimate of duration of up to 10 min (20 %) for very frustrating activities. We conclude that estimates of time spent feeling happy yesterday generated from diary data are unlikely to be biased but more research is needed on the link between duration estimation and feelings of frustration.     

Early Traumatic Stress Responses in Parents Following a Serious Illness in Their Child: A Systematic Review

A systematic review of the literature investigating the early traumatic stress responses in parents of children diagnosed with a serious illness/injury. A literature review was conducted (September 2013) using Medline, PsycINFO, and CINAHL databases. Twenty-four studies related to parents of children hospitalized due to diagnosis of cancer, type 1 diabetes, meningococcal disease, trauma or serious injury, preterm birth and other serious illnesses requiring admission to intensive care were included. Parents were assessed for early traumatic stress symptoms within 3 months of their child’s diagnosis/hospitalization. Prevalence rates of acute stress disorder in parents ranged from 12 to 63 %. Prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder ranged from 8 to 68 %. Variability was related to methodological factors including differences in study design, timing of assessments, measurement tools, and scoring protocols. Psychosocial factors rather than medical factors predicted parent distress. This review integrates and compares early traumatic reactions in parents with children suffering a range of serious illnesses. Findings suggest a high prevalence of acute and posttraumatic stress symptoms in parents. Methodological inconsistencies made comparison of early traumatic stress prevalence rates difficult. Risk factors associated with traumatic stress symptoms were identified.