Ruminative Thoughts and Their Relation to Depression and Anxiety1

Although past research has shown a correlation between ruminative response style and depression (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991), the basic relationships among amount of ruminative thoughts, depression, and anxiety has not been established. Scores from the Beck Depression Inventory-Second Edition (BDI-II; Beck, Steer, & Brown, 1996), the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI; Beck & Steer, 1993), and the McIntosh and Martin (1992) Rumination Scale were analyzed for 199 participants. The correlation between rumination and depression was .33, between rumination and anxiety was .32, and between depression and anxiety was .56. The partial correlation between rumination and depression (controlling for anxiety level) was .20, and the partial correlation between rumination and anxiety (controlling for depression level) was .17. The finding that rumination is not unique to depression but is also associated with the specific negative affect of anxiety alone might also suggest new treatments of these two prevalent disorders.     

Ethnicity and gender in late childhood and early adolescence: group identity and awareness of bias

The current study examined awareness of gender and ethnic bias and gender and ethnic identity in 350 African American, White/European American, and Latino/Hispanic students (Mage = 11.21 years, SD = 1.59) from the 4th, 6th, and 8th grades of diverse middle and elementary schools. The study collected (a) qualitative data to best capture the types of bias that were most salient to children and (b) daily diaries and individual measures to examine the multiple components of children's gender and ethnic identities. Results revealed ethnic, gender, and grade-level differences in awareness of ethnic and gender bias. Overall, more children were aware of gender bias than ethnic bias. This effect was most pronounced among White/European American youths. Among those in 4th grade, African American and Latino youths were more likely to be aware of ethnic bias than were White/European American youths. Analyses also examined how awareness of bias was related to gender and ethnic identity. For example, children who had a salient and important gender identity, and a devalued ethnic identity, were less likely than other children to be aware of ethnic bias.     

Loneliness and mental health in a representative sample of community-dwelling Spanish older adults

Research seems to support loneliness as a risk factor for mental health problems in the elderly. Most studies analyzing the effects of loneliness on older adults' mental health have relied on convenience samples. In this study, the prevalence and predictors of feelings of loneliness were studied in a representative sample of 272 community-dwelling Spanish older adults. The potential of feelings of loneliness to significantly contribute to the explanation of mental health of the elderly was also explored. The percentage of people reporting feelings of loneliness was 23.1%. Being a woman, being older, living alone, having fewer economic resources, having lower perceived health, and being dissatisfied with the frequency of contact with relatives and friends were found to be significant predictors of feelings of loneliness. Loneliness contributed significantly to the explanation of mental health, even when other significant variables were statistically controlled. The results of this study suggest that loneliness is a relevant factor for the analysis and understanding of mental health in the elderly.     

A Case Study of Liberation Among Latino Immigrant Families Who Have Children with Disabilities

Latino immigrant families with children with disabilities experience multiple sources of oppression during their settlement process in the United States. Unfair social structures and dominant cultural values and norms and the way they influence the immigrants' personal life stories generate a cycle of oppression very difficult to break. This paper presents a case study of how a group of Latino parents carried out a process of liberation fueled by the generation of empowering community narratives (critical awareness leading to transformative action) that resulted from a community-university partnership. Participants initiated a process that led them to discover their own stories of oppression and create new stories; to deconstruct the dominant cultural narratives and modify existing ones; and to understand contexts for power sharing. This joint reflection and increased awareness propelled group members to take action by founding a grassroots organization to redress some of the injustices that were partly responsible for their oppression, thus generating shifts at the personal, relational, and collective levels. In light of the theory of liberation, we discuss the participants' development of critical awareness that led them to take action to address their unmet needs.     

Effects of symptom presentation order on perceived disease risk

People are quick to perceive meaningful patterns in the co-occurrence of events. We report two studies exploring the effects of streaks in symptom checklists on perceived personal disease risk. In the context of these studies, a streak is a sequence of consecutive items on a list that share the characteristic of being either general or specific. We identify a psychological mechanism underlying the effect of streaks in a list of symptoms and show that the effect of streaks on perceived risk varies with the length of the symptom list. Our findings reveal a tendency to infer meaning from streaks in medical and health decision making. Participants perceived a higher personal risk of having an illness when presented with a checklist in which common symptoms were grouped together than when presented with a checklist in which these same symptoms were separated by rare symptoms. This research demonstrates that something as arbitrary as the order in which symptoms are presented in a checklist can affect perceived risk of disease.     

Using Wellness and Resilience to Predict Age Perception in Older Adulthood

The authors surveyed 210 adults ages 56 to 97 to better understand which variables affect perceptions of aging. A correlational design was used to determine whether wellness and resilience predicted positive age perception and internalized ageism among this group. Both variables were found to significantly predict age perception, and the data supported an interaction effect between age and resilience when predicting internalized ageism. Results may inform counselors, counselor educators, and other professionals who work with older adults.     

Sublexical and Lexical Influences on Gender Assignment in French

Two experiments showed that French native speakers rely on sublexical and lexical cues to allocate gender during word recognition. Sublexical cues were based on whether the word ending was typical for a particular gender rather than neutral with regard to gender. Lexical cues were based on whether the associated definite article was informative (for words beginning with a consonant) or uninformative (for words beginning with a vowel). Classification of single nouns and verification of grammatical combinations of indefinite article and noun led to longer times when both sublexical and lexical cues were uninformative compared with when one or both cues were informative. Verification of ungrammatical combinations of indefinite article and noun yielded separate effects of both cues, though only when monitoring for both semantic and syntactic unacceptability in meaningful phrases did people attend to both cues independently. It was argued that people became more cautious in their gender assignments as task requirements became deeper. If strategic changes as a function of task demands are incorporated, the results are compatible with connectionist models proposing that gender decisions are computed from strength of past associations of the word and gender-specifying elements.     

Edward Aloysius Pace

Summary Edward Aloysius Pace, pioneer of experimental psychology among American Catholics, was the first American Catholic and the first Catholic priest to study with Wilhelm Wundt. Upon his return from Leipzig, where he received his PhD in 1891, he established a psychological laboratory and department of psychology at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. This department became the model for most of the early departments of psychology at Catholic colleges and universities as well as the training center of many teachers who staffed the new departments at these Catholic colleges and universities. From Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, the experimental psychology of Wundt radiated to Catholic circles throughout the United States.The best account of Pace's life is to be found in Hart C (ed), Aspects of the New Scholastic Philosophy (New York: Benziger 1932, pp 1–9); a series of philosophical essays dedicated to Pace by the American Philosophical Association on the occasion of his seventieth birthday     

Yale Children's Inventory (YCI): An instrument to assess children with attentional deficits and learning disabilities I. Scale development and psychometric properties

The Yale Children's Inventory (YCI), a parent based rating scale, and the scales derived from it have been developed to identify and measure multiple dimensions of learning disabilities with particular emphasis on attentional deficits. Scale construction was based on factor analytic procedures. Measures of internal consistency, test retest reliability, and coefficients of congruence support the reliability and stability of the 11 scales. A discriminant function classified normal and learning disabled children with a relatively high rate of accuracy. The relationship and content of the three relevant YCI scales were compared to the DSM-III diagnostic categories for ADD. As operationalized, DSM-III criteria for hyperactivity formed a cohesive factor, while criteria for attention and impulsivity were not distinguishable from each other since they loaded together on a single factor. In contrast, the equivalent YCI scales for attention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity were found to be distinct.