Resilience as positive coping appraisals: Testing the schematic appraisals model of suicide (SAMS)

Aims

The Schematic Appraisals Model of Suicide (SAMS) suggests that positive self-appraisals may be important for buffering suicidal thoughts and behaviours, potentially providing a key source of resilience. The current study aimed to explore whether positive self-appraisals buffered individuals from suicidality in the face of stressful life events.

Method

78 participants who reported experiencing some degree of suicidality were recruited from a student population. They completed a battery of questionnaires including measures of suicidality, stressful life events and positive self-appraisals.

Results

Positive self-appraisals moderated the association between stressful life events and suicidality. For those reporting moderate or high levels of positive self-appraisals, raised incidence of stressful life events did not lead to increases in suicidality.

Discussion

These results support the SAMS framework, and suggest that positive self-appraisals may confer resilience to suicide. Positive self-appraisals may be a promising avenue for further resilience research, and an important area to target for suicide interventions.     

Media violence exposure in aggressive and control adolescents: differences in self‐ and parent‐reported exposure to violence on television and in video games

The purpose of present study was to investigate differences in media violence exposure between groups of adolescents with and without Disruptive Behavior Disorders with Aggressive Features, using a case‐controlled design and multimethod assessment. Samples of 27 adolescents aged 13‐17 with Disruptive Behavior Disorder with Aggressive Features and 27 age‐gender‐IQ matched controls completed a semistructured interview about exposure to violence on television and video games; parents completed a corresponding questionnaire measure. Moderate intercorrelations were found between most self‐ and parent‐report television and video game violence exposure measures. Compared to control adolescents, adolescents with Disruptive Behavior Disorder with Aggressive Features had higher aggregate media violence exposure, higher exposure to video game violence, and higher parent‐reported exposure to television violence. Results show that adolescents and parents agree about the adolescent's level of media violence exposure, that exposure to violence on television tends to be accompanied by exposure to violence in video games, and that the association between media violence exposure and Disruptive Behavior Disorder with Aggressive Features is not due to a spurious effect of gender or IQ. Aggr. Behav. 31:000–000, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

People's Perceptions of Women's and Men's Worry about Life Issues: Worrying about Love, Accomplishment, or Money?

The study was designed to examine people's perceptions of women's and men's worry about life issues and self-perceptions of worry. Some undergraduates (n = 498) rated typical women's or men's worry, and others (n = 396) rated significant others' worry based on the Worry Domain Questionnaire (Tallis, Eysenck, & Mathews, 1992). As expected, participants perceived women as worrying more than men do about relationships, when they rated typical or significant others. As well, they rated typical men as worrying more than typical women about achievement and finances. Participants who rated significant others' worry also rated their own worry and parallel findings were expected. However, women tended to report more worry about achievement than men did. Overall, the findings indicate that the better people know their targets, the less likely they are to perceive their worry in gender stereotypical terms. This article is partially based on Wendy-Jo Wood's Master's thesis.     

Racist Events and Ethnic Identity in Low Income, African Americans

This study was designed to determine the relation between racist events and ethnic identity in a group of 100 low-income African Americans. Findings indicated that the more racist events one experienced, the more ethnic behaviors they endorsed and the more they had explored the meaning of their ethnic background. In addition, racist events were also indicative of feeling less close to individuals of other ethnic groups. Results suggest that experiencing racist events may contribute to an increased identification with one's own ethnic background and less affiliation with those of other ethnic backgrounds, with the cumulative effect of racist events over one's lifetime contributing the most to this finding.     

Decision‐making in civil litigation: Effects of attorney credibility,evidence strength,and juror cognitive processing

The current study examined the relationship between juror cognitive processing (measured by need for cognition [NFC]), attorney credibility, evidence strength, and civil litigation verdicts (liability, likelihood of causation, and compensatory damages). Participants (N = 446) viewed a videotaped mock civil trial in which the credibility of the attorneys and the strength of the plaintiff's evidence were manipulated. Plaintiff attorney credibility, defense attorney credibility, and strength of evidence interacted with one another for liability verdicts. In the strong evidence condition, the likelihood of a liable verdict was higher for a credible plaintiff attorney than a non‐credible plaintiff attorney when facing a non‐credible defense attorney. In the ambiguous evidence condition, the likelihood of a liable verdict was higher for a credible plaintiff attorney than a non‐credible plaintiff attorney when facing a credible defense attorney. Plaintiff attorney credibility, however, was found to be more influential on jurors’ decision‐making than case evidence for likelihood of causation and compensatory damage award decisions. Participants’ NFC also interacted with plaintiff attorney credibility. High NFC jurors were more influenced by a credible plaintiff attorney than low NFC jurors. Although these findings are counter to common findings in the NFC literature, they conform to a body of literature that supports the notion that jurors view attorney credibility as a piece of case evidence and not a peripheral cue as is often assumed. Thus, the findings indicate that attorneys do matter to the outcomes of cases. Policy and practice implications for attorneys and the courts are discussed.     

Drug-associated psychoses and criminal responsibility

At present, the law draws a distinction when assigning criminal responsibility to those who commit offences while experiencing psychotic symptoms: if the symptoms are believed to arise because of ingesting drugs (an external cause), the offender is generally convicted of the offence; if the symptoms arise from a mental illness (an internal cause), the offender may be afforded a defence of insanity. In practice, drawing such a distinction can be problematic. There are difficulties for example in determining criminal responsibility when the use of drugs is followed by the emergence of a psychotic illness process that then continues to have an independent existence even in the absence of the ongoing substance use. This article analyses legal, policy, and expert witness perspectives relating to liberal, conservative, and intermediate approaches to this problematic area of jurisprudence.     

The Influence of Hope on the Relationship Between Racial Discrimination and Depressive Symptoms

This study investigated how hope influences the relationship between discrimination and depressive symptoms. Results from participants' (N = 318) responses suggest that increased levels of hope were directly related to decreased levels of depressive symptoms. However, increased levels of hope were also related to a stronger relationship between discrimination and depressive symptoms. Este estudio investigó cómo la esperanza influye en la relación entre discriminación y síntomas depresivos. Los resultados obtenidos a partir de las respuestas de los participantes (N = 318) sugieren que unos niveles más elevados de esperanza estuvieron directamente relacionados con unos niveles más bajos de síntomas depresivos. Sin embargo, los niveles superiores de esperanza también estuvieron relacionados con una relación más fuerte entre discriminación y síntomas depresivos.     

Is heavy drinking really associated with attrition from college? The alcohol-attrition paradox

Student attrition at colleges across the United States poses a significant problem for students and families, higher educational institutions, and the nation's workforce competing in the global economy. Heavy drinking is a highly plausible contributor to the problem. However, there is little evidence that it is a reliable predictor of attrition. Notably, few studies take into account indicators of collegiate engagement that are associated with both heavy drinking and persistence in college. Event-history analysis was used to estimate the effect of heavy drinking on attrition among 3,290 undergraduates at a large midwestern university during a 4-year period, and student attendance at a number of college events was included as covariates. Results showed that heavy drinking did not predict attrition bivariately or after controlling for precollege predictors of academic success. However, after controlling for event attendance (an important indicator of collegiate engagement), heavy drinking was found to predict attrition. These findings underscore the importance of the college context in showing that heavy drinking does in fact predict attrition and in considering future intervention efforts to decrease attrition and also heavy drinking.     

Free-ranging rhesus monkeys spontaneously individuate and enumerate small numbers of non-solid portions

Fundamental questions in cognitive science concern the origins and nature of the units that compose visual experience. Here, we investigate the capacity to individuate and store information about non-solid portions, asking in particular whether free-ranging rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) quantify portions of a non-solid substance presented in discrete pouring actions. When presented with portions of carrot pieces poured from a cup into opaque boxes, rhesus picked the box with the greatest number of portions for comparisons of 1 vs. 2, 2 vs. 3, and 3 vs. 4, but not for comparisons of 4 vs. 5 and 3 vs. 6. Additional experiments indicate that rhesus based their decisions on both the number of portions and the total amount of food. These results show that the capacity to individuate non-solid portions is not unique to humans, and does not depend on structures of natural language. Further, the fact that rhesus' ability to represent non-solid portions is constrained by the same 4-item limit typically ascribed to the system of parallel individuation that operates over solid objects suggests that the visual system recruits common working memory processes for retaining information about solid objects and non-solid portions. We discuss our results with respect to theories of visual processing, as well as to the role that the human language faculty may have played in both the evolution and development of quantification.