Human Nature and Authoritarianism in Seminary Students and Counselor Trainees

Since it appears that a wide divergence of opinion has existed between ministers and counselors in regard to such issues as a basic doctrine of man and the concept of permissiveness in interpersonal relationships, an attempt was made to compare seminary students and counselor trainees on their perceptions of human nature and tendencies toward authoritarianism.     

Parenting stress and competence among mothers of young children with substance use disorders: The roles of trauma and reflective functioning

Posttraumatic stress symptoms are prominent in the lives of parents of young children with substance use disorders (SUD). Parenting experiences, particularly stress and competence, impact parenting behaviors and concomitant child growth and development. Factors that promote positive experiences of parenting, such as parental reflective functioning (PRF), and protect the mother and child from negative outcomes are crucial to understand to develop effective therapeutic interventions. The current US study analyzed baseline data from a parenting intervention evaluation to examine how length of substance misuse, PRF, and trauma symptoms were associated with parenting stress and parenting sense of competence among mothers in treatment for SUDs. Measures included the Addiction Severity Index, PTSD Symptom Scale-Self Report, Parental Reflective Functioning Questionnaire, Parenting Stress Index/Short Form, and Parenting Sense of Competence Scale. The sample included 54 predominantly White mothers with SUDs who had young children. Two multivariate regression analyses found that (1) lower parental reflective functioning and higher posttraumatic stress symptoms were associated with higher parenting stress, and (2) only higher posttraumatic stress symptoms were associated with lower levels of parenting sense of competence. Findings underscore the importance of addressing trauma symptoms and PRF when aiming to improve parenting experiences for women with an SUD.     

Provocation of panic: three elements of the panic reaction in four anxiety disorders

Subjects with agoraphobia (N = 25), panic disorder (N = 25), social phobia (N = 19) or generalized anxiety disorder (N = 10) and controls with no psychiatric history (N = 16) underwent two provocation tests, voluntary hyperventilation and inhalation of 5% CO2 in air, and three experimental control conditions. They were measured on three elements of the panic reaction: somatic symptoms, psychic anxiety and fears of impending doom, and on a standard YES/NO measure of panic attack. The provocation conditions produced increased somatic symptoms and psychic anxiety across all groups relative to the control conditions. The agoraphobic and panic disorder groups showed a significantly greater increase in fears of impending doom from control to provocation conditions than the social phobic and GAD patients. This difference was not observed on measures of somatic symptoms or psychic anxiety. The present results provide some support for the theory that panic attacks result from the catastrophic misinterpretation of anxious symptoms, in this case produced by the two provocation tests.     

Toward a rodent model of the Iowa gambling task

The Iowa gambling task in humans is, in principle, suited for the study of the long-term efficiency of behavior in a biologically relevant context. Key features of this task are uncertainty of outcomes and a conflict between the immediate and the long-term payoff options. Animal models allow us to study the underlying neurobiology of decision-making processes and the long-term efficiency of behavior in more detail and at a greater depth than is possible in humans. Therefore, we set out to develop a model of this task in rodents, using the task’s key features. In this article, we describe the results of the first series of experiments with rats and mice. The data thus far suggest that mice and rats behave in a way similar to humans; that is, they tend to choose the option with the best long-term payoff more often as the test progresses.     

Problem‐Solving Skills and Relationship Attributes Among Women With Eating Disorders

This study examined interpersonal problem solving, relationship conflict, and social support among women with and without subclinical eating disorders. Thirty‐nine women scoring above the clinical cutoff on the Eating Attitudes Test‐26 (D. M. Garner & P. Garfinkel, 1979) and 39 matched controls completed self‐report Relationship Quality, Perceived Social Support, Depression, and Interpersonal Problem Solving inventories. Contrary to predictions, groups did not differ on relationship conflict and social support measures. As hypothesized, disordered eating symptoms were associated with less effective problem solving in eating and weight and interpersonal relationship situations. The discussion focuses on implications for counseling interventions among college women.     

Splitting attention across the two visual fields in visual short-term memory

Humans have the ability to attentionally select the most relevant visual information from their extrapersonal world and to retain it in a temporary buffer, known as visual short-term memory (VSTM). Research suggests that at least two non-contiguous items can be selected simultaneously when they are distributed across the two visual hemifields. In two experiments, we show that attention can also be split between the left and right sides of internal representations held in VSTM. Participants were asked to remember several colors, while cues presented during the delay instructed them to orient their attention to a subset of memorized colors. Experiment 1 revealed that orienting attention to one or two colors strengthened equally participants' memory for those colors, but only when they were from separate hemifields. Experiment 2 showed that in the absence of attentional cues the distribution of the items in the visual field per se had no effect on memory. These findings strongly suggest the existence of independent attentional resources in the two hemifields for selecting and/or consolidating information in VSTM.     

Assessment of Religious and Spiritual Capital in African American Communities

African American faith communities are an important source of social capital. The present study adapted a theory-based social capital instrument to result in religious (e.g., from organized worship) and spiritual (e.g., from relationship with higher power) capital measures. Data from a national sample of 803 African Americans suggest the instruments have high internal reliability and are distinct from general religiosity. Measurement models confirmed factor structures. Religious capital was positively associated with self-rated health status. Religious and spiritual capital were negatively associated with depressive symptoms, but these associations largely became nonsignificant in multivariate models that controlled for demographic characteristics. An exception is for spiritual capital in the form of community participation, which retained a negative association with depressive symptoms. These instruments may have applied value for health promotion research and practice in African American communities.