Primacy and recency effects in task analyses: Preliminary results

Performance for three independent living tasks were examined via task analyses. Given the relatively small sample size (n = 56) of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, we simulated 1000 replications based upon observed results using Monte Carlo techniques. The results of the current study suggest that: (1) adaptive behavior was more related to task performance than IQ; and (2) after statistically controlling for adaptive behavior, task performance was influenced by the first step. Task performance appear to be over-estimated with the inclusion of the first step.     

Prospective assessment of late-luteal phase dysphoric disorder

This investigation evaluated a method for the prospective assessment of the symptoms of premenstrual syndrome (PMS). The American Psychiatric Association has proposed a diagnostic category for PMS in the DSM-III-R entitled late-luteal phase dysphoric disorder (LLDD). The criteria for this disorder include prospective documentation of at least two symptomatic cycles. Two groups of women were studied, one group that met the DSM-III-R diagnostic criteria for LLDD and a comparison group that did not. Subjects recorded symptoms related to PMS for two menstrual cycles. A clinically significant worsening of symptoms was defined as a symptom increase during the premenstruum of greater than one standard deviation above normal. These effect sizes were then used to determine if the subject met the DSM-III-R criteria for prospective confirmation. Data analysis showed that although the LLDD group showed evidence for PMS in several symptom groups, only a minority (31%) met the requirement of prospective confirmation of significant PMS symptoms for the two cycles recorded. These results were discussed in terms of the need for prospective behavioral assessment of LLDD and the implications of these findings for past and future research.Portions of this paper were derived from the master's thesis of the first author.     

Parents and their children comment on adolescence

The authors completed research on over 700 twelve-year-olds and their parents concerning their attitudes toward the ensuing teenage years. Their responses and written comments reflect and support in large measure the developmental tasks expounded by Robert Havighurst. These include the need to achieve independence, their concern with social relationships, and the acceptance of physical appearance. Parents' concerns about their children becoming teenagers centered on communication and peer pressure.     

Clarifying body-image disturbance: analysis of a multidimensional model using structural modeling

A multidimensional model of body-image disturbance was tested. The model incorporated the concepts of body-size distortion, preference for thinness, body dissatisfaction, and fear of fatness as predictors of restrictive eating. The LISREL 7 program was used to perform a structural modeling analysis of the theoretical model. A total of 175 women participated in the study (54 eating-disordered patients and 121 undergraduate students). The results supported the hypothesized four-dimensional model relative to alternative one-, two-, and three-dimensional models. Body dissatisfaction appeared to be directly affected by both body-size distortion and preference for thinness. Fear of fatness was found to be the best predictor of restrictive eating. The results appeared consistent across the clinical and nonclinical samples. These data may help resolve many of the current controversies in the body-image literature. The results also suggested the need to develop more sound assessment instruments for fear of fatness.     

Caring for a Family Member With Cancer: Past Communal Behavior and Affective Reactions1

An important recent development in the caregiving literature is an increased focus on the role played by the interpersonal relationship between caregiver and care recipient. In this study, a prediction derived from communal relationship theory (Clark & Mills, 1979, 1993; Mills & Clark, 1982) was tested in a sample of patients with recurrent cancer and their family caregivers. Specifically, it was hypothesized that if a relationship had been communal in the past (i.e., characterized by mutual demonstrations of concern for and responsiveness to one another's needs), positive feelings about helping one's partner should continue even when one partner's needs far outweigh those of the other. Consistent with this hypothesis, results indicated that caregivers whose relationship with the patient before illness onset had been characterized by relatively infrequent communal behaviors evidenced more symptoms of depression that did those whose relationship had been characterized by more frequent communal behaviors. In addition, the effects of prior communal behavior on depressed affect were both mediated and moderated by feelings of burden. Caregivers who recalled relatively few communal behaviors in their past relationship felt more burdened by their caregiving role, and burden in turn predicted greater depressive symptomatology. Implications for early identification of caregivers at risk for becoming distressed are discussed.     

Confirmatory factor analysis of eating disorder symptoms in college women

Recent studies have found that the eating disorders can best be conceptualized as multidimensional. Four factors have consistently emerged from factor analytic studies of eating disorder symptoms: dietary restraint, bulimic behaviors, neurotic personality characteristics, and body image/body dysphoria. Confirmatory factor analysis was utilized to determine if this four-factor structure of eating disorder symptoms would be found in a sample of college women. Principal components analysis extracted four factors which were supported with a confirmatory factor analysis procedure. These four factors were negative affect and body dysphoria, bulimic behaviors, restrictive eating, and body image. The negative affect and body dysphoria factor was positively correlated with the other factors (i.e., bulimic behaviors, restrictive eating, and body image). This factor structure was similar to the factor structure found in samples of patients with bulimia and anorexia nervosa, except that the factors were more highly intercorrelated in the nonclinical sample. Results suggest that the measures of eating disorder symptoms used in this investigation are measuring the same multidimensional constructs in clinical and nonclinical subjects.This paper is partially based upon the master's thesis of the first author.     

Social Support, Personality, and Burnout in Nurses

This study sought to find evidence for: (a) a relationship between increased levels of work-related social support and decreased burnout, (b) a relationship between personality traits and burnout, and (c) a significant interaction of social support and extraversion in relation to burnout. Seventy-six staff nurses and their supervisors at a private medical hospital participated as subjects. Two subscales of the Work Environment Scale measured social support. Personality was measured using an instrument known as PROSCAN, and Scale H of the 16PF. Burnout was measured by the Maslach Burnout Inventory. A strong negative correlation between work-related social support and burnout was found. Also, nurses whose supervisors received positive-feedback training showed significant reductions in emotional exhaustion, compared to those whose supervisors did not receive this training. Some dimensions of personality explained a significant amount of burnout. The study also provided further evidence of the interactive effect of social support and extraversion in relation to an emotional distress variable. That is, extraverted nurses required more work-related peer support than did introverts to avoid emotional exhaustion. Suggestions for further research are given.     

Magnetic source images of human brain functions

The advent of large arrays of superconducting magnetic field sensors makes it possible to properly sample the topography of the magnetic field pattern across the human scalp with a temporal resolution of a few milliseconds. These capabilities can be exploited for computing a best estimate of the spatiotemporal evolution of electrical currents within coherently active neural populations distributed across the cerebral cortex. Data from 200 sensors can be interpreted by the method of singular value decomposition to compute a best estimate for the strengths of more than 9,000 current elements that define the magnetic source image moment by moment. Recently, an extension of this technique has been developed to characterize the cortical sources of alpha rhythm. This holds promise for providing a means of identifying the cortical regions that participate in cognitive functions such as mental imagery.