Changes over time in head and neck cancer patients’ and caregivers’ illness perceptions and relationships with quality of life

Objective: This study investigated changes in illness perceptions from diagnosis to six months later in patients with head and neck cancer (HNC) and their caregivers. The study also examined whether discrepancy in patient and caregiver perceptions at diagnosis predicted patient health-related quality of life (HRQL) at six months.

Design: Forty-two patient–caregiver dyads completed the Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire (Brief IPQ) at diagnosis and again six months later. Patients also completed a HRQL questionnaire at both time points. Analyses were performed using the Actor–Partner Interdependence Model.

Main Outcome Measure: Total patient HRQL assessed by the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy (FACT-H&N).

Results: Perceptions of emotional impact and illness concern reduced over time in patients and caregivers. Perceptions of treatment control and identity increased in caregivers only. After controlling for the effects of baseline HRQL, and the individual contribution of patient and caregiver illness perceptions, greater discrepancy in perceptions of timeline, personal control, and illness identity among dyads at diagnosis predicted lower patient HRQL at six-month follow-up.

Conclusion: Patients’ and their caregivers’ perceptions of HNC are dynamic over time. Greater discrepancy between patients’ and caregivers’ illness perceptions at diagnosis predict poorer subsequent patient HRQL.     

Emotion regulation mediates the relationship between personality and sleep quality

Objective: Despite a long history of interest in personality as well as in the mechanisms that regulate sleep, the relationship between personality and sleep is not yet well understood. The purpose of this study was to explore how personality affects sleep.

Design: The present cross-sectional study, based on a sample of 1291 participants with a mean age of 31.16 years (SD = 12.77), investigates the impact of personality styles, assessed by the Personality Adjectives Checklist (PACL), on subjective sleep quality, as well as the possible mediation of this relationship by dispositional emotion regulation (ER) styles.

Results: The dispositional use of suppression was a quite consistent predictor of poor subjective sleep quality for individuals scoring high on Confident, Cooperative or Introversive personality traits, but low on Respectful personality traits. Although a positive relationship between reappraisal and subjective sleep quality was found, there was only little evidence for a relationship between the assessed personality styles and the use of cognitive reappraisal.

Conclusion: The present results indicate that in the evaluation of subjective sleep, the impact of personality and ER processes, such as emotion suppression, should be taken into account.     

Aquinas on Quality

For Kant, Aristotle's categories are arbitrary but brilliant and they do not ultimately correspond to extramental reality. For Aquinas, however, they are rational divisions of extramental being. In this perennial and ongoing dispute, the various positions seem to dissolve upon delving into the particulars of any one category. If, however, the categories are divisions of extramental being, it should be possible to offer plausible accounts of particular categories. I offer Aquinas's unstudied derivation of quality as a test case to see how one could hold, and how Aquinas did hold, to a realism about Aristotle's categories at a highly specific level. Although Aristotle divides quality into four species and some further subspecies, unlike Aquinas, he offers no reasons for these divisions. For Aquinas each accident is a particular mode of existing, that is, it is a particular way that an accident exists in a substance. In the case of quality, this mode of existing follows substantial form and its real extramental causes or effects further divide it into four species. Aquinas's account is both compelling and original, inspired by Aristotle but also un-Aristotelian. The paper concludes by comparing Aquinas's account of quality with the best extant account of Aristotle's quality, namely, Paul Studtmann's.     

Clicking away at co-rumination: co-rumination correlates across different modalities of communication

Co-rumination is associated with positive friendship quality (thought to buffer against anxiety and depression) but paradoxically higher levels of anxiety and depression. With the increasing use of technology for communication among adults, there is little known about co-rumination effects across different modalities of communication. In the current study, we examined co-rumination through four methods (i.e. in person, phone calls, text messaging, and social media) in two separate samples - college students and participants from the community. Classic co-rumination effects were found for in-person communications, and we found that co-rumination by telephone as well as by texting, for a college student sample only, mirrors some of these findings for in-person co-rumination. In studies of co-rumination, evaluation of multiple modes of communication is warranted.     

The Mixed Blessings of Material Progress: Diminishing Returns in the Pursuit of Happiness

The progress of nations is widely believed to enhance the happiness of their people. However, whether progress, as currently defined and derived, is increasing happiness and well-being in rich nations is problematic. The paper explores the relationship between economic growth and human development and the use of subjective measures of both life satisfaction and social quality of life as indicators of progress, noting the complex nature of well-being and the differences between personal and social perspectives. It questions whether widely used, simple measures are adequate, and whether greater happiness should, in any case, be regarded as the ultimate goal of progress.     

Undergraduate Education in Political Psychology

This article describes ways in which political psychology can be incorporated into undergraduate course curricula. The challenges of teaching political psychology to undergraduate students are discussed, and possibilities for the content and structure of undergraduate courses in political psychology are examined in the context of active learning. Suggestions for the development of an undergraduate major in political psychology are offered.     

墨家的领导者心理素质思想

领导者心理素质是管理心理学研究的重要内容,先秦墨家的代表作《墨子》一书包含了丰富了领导者心理素质思想。该文拟从领导者的知识结构、道德品质、语言能力、工作态度、为人原则等方面对墨家的领导者心理素质思想作一整理和阐述,并分析其现代意义。     

Outcome effects: The impact of decision process and outcome controllability

An ‘outcome effect’ refers to the phenomenon whereby performance evaluations of decision makers are affected by the outcomes of those decisions. Although some consider such an effect to be a judgmental error, judgment by outcomes may not be dysfunctional when the evaluator does not know how the decision maker chose his or her action. In such situations, outcomes may provide some noisy information about decision quality. We test whether an outcome effect will still occur when the decision methodology and quality are more explicitly identified. Further, we test whether outcome controllability, a previously unexplored moderator variable, will have an impact on the outcome effect. Our first experiment, using undergraduates as subjects, shows that decision quality and controllability have an impact on performance evaluations but that the ubiquitous outcome effect still obtains. These results were replicated with experienced business people, except that controllability only affected their judgments in the case of negative outcomes. Implications of these results are discussed. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effects of different mastery criteria on the skill maintenance of children with developmental disabilities

The acquisition of skills by individuals with developmental disabilities typically includes the attainment of a certain mastery criterion. We conducted a survey of practitioners who indicated the most commonly used mastery criterion as 80% accuracy across three consecutive sessions. Based on these results, we conducted a series of three experiments to evaluate the relation between mastery criterion and subsequent skill maintenance with 4 individuals with various developmental disabilities. Results suggest that 80% accuracy across three consecutive sessions may be insufficient for producing maintenance in some cases.     

Caregivers’ emotional competence and behavioral responsiveness as correlates of early childcare workers’ relationships with children in their care

In the current study, we examined associations among early childcare workers’ emotional competence, observed responsiveness, comfort with socioemotional teaching practices, and the quality of their relationships with children in their care. The participants were 100 early childcare workers (72 center-based Early Head Start teachers and 28 family childcare providers). Results showed that caregivers’ emotion regulation ability was positively associated with caregiver–child relational closeness. Understanding and regulation of emotion were both positively associated with childcare workers’ comfort with socioemotional teaching practices. Their observed responsiveness was positively related to relational closeness and negatively related to relational conflict. Findings are consistent with aspects of the prosocial classroom model, which asserts that educators high in emotional and social competence tend to adopt childcare practices that result in supportive relationships with children. Results provide insight into whether childcare workers’ responsiveness to young children and their perceived socioemotional teaching practices provide a pathway between emotional competence and the quality of caregiver–child relationships.