Initial development of a brief measure of psychological distress

This paper addresses the preliminary development, construct validity, and psychometric properties of a brief self-report measure of psychological distress. 40 items were originally generated by doctoral level psychologists for use in the preliminary clinical sample. Inpatients from a psychiatric unit (N = 125) completed the items, and a principal-components analysis with a direct oblimin rotation was used to evaluate construct validity. The study indicated a four-factor solution, using the constructs of Depression, Hopelessness, Anxiety, and Anger, with good estimates of reliability. After evaluation of factor structure, item analyses, and reliability estimates, a redacted 19-item scale was identified.     

Assessing posttraumatic cognitive processes: the Event Related Rumination Inventory

Cognitive processes in the aftermath of experiencing a major life stressor play an important role in the impact of the event on the person. Intrusive thoughts about the event are likely to be associated with continued distress, while deliberate rumination, aimed at understanding and problem-solving, should be predictive of posttraumatic growth (PTG). The Event Related Rumination Inventory (ERRI), designed to measure these two styles of rumination, is described and validation information is provided. Using a college student sample screened for having experienced highly stressful life events, data were obtained (N=323) to conduct an exploratory factor analysis that supported the two factors of the ERRI. Separate confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) on two additional samples (Ns=186 and 400) supported a two-factor model. The two ERRI factors were validated by comparison with related variables and by assessing their contributions to predicting distress and PTG in two samples (Ns=198 and 202) that had been combined to conduct the second CFA. Data indicate the ERRI has solid psychometric properties, captures variance not measured by stable differences in cognitive styles, and the separate factors are related to posttraumatic distress and growth as predicted by existing models of PTG.     

The effect of induced anxiety on cognition: threat of shock enhances aversive processing in healthy individuals

Individuals with anxiety disorders demonstrate altered cognitive performance including (1) cognitive biases towards negative stimuli (affective biases) and (2) increased cognitive rigidity (e.g., impaired conflict adaptation) on affective Stroop tasks. Threat of electric shock is frequently used to induce anxiety in healthy individuals, but the extent to which this manipulation mimics the cognitive impairment seen in anxiety disorders is unclear. In this study, 31 healthy individuals completed an affective Stroop task under safe and threat-of-shock conditions. We showed that threat (1) enhanced aversive processing and abolished a positive affective bias but (2) had no effect on conflict adaptation. Threat of shock thus partially models the effects of anxiety disorders on affective Stroop tasks. We suggest that the affective state of anxiety—which is common to both threat and anxiety disorders—modulates the neural inhibition of subcortical aversive processing, whilst pathologies unique to anxiety disorders modulate conflict adaptation.     

Hemispheric lateralization of bilaterally presented homologous visual and auditory stimuli in normal adults, normal children, and children with central auditory dysfunction

Two experiments were conducted to examine the performance of normal adults, normal children, and children diagnosed with central auditory dysfunction presumed to involve the interhemispheric pathways on a dichotic digits test in common clinical use for the diagnosis of central auditory processing disorder (CAPD) and its corresponding visual analog. Results of the first experiment revealed a significant right ear advantage (REA) for the dichotic listening task and a left-visual-field advantage (LVFA) for the corresponding visual analog in normal adults and children. In the second experiment, results revealed a significantly larger REA in the children with CAPD as compared to the normal children. Results also revealed a reversed cerebral asymmetry (RVFA) for the children with CAPD on the visual task. Significant cross-modal correlations suggest that the two tasks may reflect, at least in part, similar interhemispheric processing mechanisms in children. Findings are discussed in relation to differential diagnosis and modality-specificity of CAPD.     

The effects of empathy on search efforts for missing persons

People have difficulty sighting missing persons, partially because people's limited cognitive resources are required for searching. As a result, people sometimes do not devote resources to searching. This research will examine whether empathy increases the resources devoted to searching and search performance. In Experiment 1, we will manipulate empathy toward a formerly missing person and measure willingness to volunteer to search and actual search performance. In Experiment 2, we will manipulate empathy felt toward a missing person. We will measure the time participants spend studying the missing person's photograph. We hypothesize that participants induced to feel empathy will indicate more willingness to search (Exp 1 & 2), put more effort toward searching (Exp 1), and spend more time studying the photograph (Exp 2) than those not induced to feel empathy. If empathy increases search effort and performance, it could be induced in actual missing persons cases to increase recovery rates.     

The Prevalence and Prevention of Crosstalk: A Multi-Institutional Study

It is a common problem in psychology subject pools for past study participants to inform future participants of key experimental details (also known as crosstalk). Previous research (Edlund, Sagarin, Skowronski, Johnson, & Kutter, 2009) demonstrated that a combined classroom and laboratory treatment could significantly reduce crosstalk. The present investigation tested a laboratory-only treatment for the prevention of crosstalk at five universities, along with institutional-level moderators of crosstalk. Results indicated the presence of crosstalk at all universities and that the laboratory-based treatment was effective in reducing crosstalk. Importantly, crosstalk rates were higher (but successfully neutralized) in research pools with higher research credit requirements. Therefore, this research provides valuable guidance regarding crosstalk prevalence and its minimization by researchers.     

Effect of playing violent video games cooperatively or competitively on subsequent cooperative behavior

Research on video games has yielded consistent findings that violent video games increase aggression and decrease prosocial behavior. However, these studies typically examined single-player games. Of interest is the effect of cooperative play in a violent video game on subsequent cooperative or competitive behavior. Participants played Halo II (a first-person shooter game) cooperatively or competitively and then completed a modified prisoner's dilemma task to assess competitive and cooperative behavior. Compared with the competitive play conditions, players in the cooperative condition engaged in more tit-for-tat behaviors-a pattern of behavior that typically precedes cooperative behavior. The social context of game play influenced subsequent behavior more than the content of the game that was played.     

Relative power of harmonics in human frequency-following responses associated with voice pitch in American and Chinese adults

When the fundamental frequency (f0) is removed from a complex stimulus, the pitch of the f0 is still perceived by the listener. Through the use of the scalp-recorded frequency-following response, this study examined the relative contributions of thef0 and its harmonics in pitch processing by systematically manipulating the speech stimulus to remove component frequencies. 12 American and 12 Chinese adults were recruited. There were statistically significant effects of pitch strength and frequency error for the experimental-condition factor. There were significantly larger responses to the harmonics-only conditions than those obtained in the f0-only and control conditions. No statistically significant difference was observed between the two groups of participants. These findings indicate that neural responses associated with individual harmonics dominate the pitch processing in the human brainstem, irrespective of whether the listener's native language is nontonal or tonal.     

Character Assessment: An Examination of Leadership Levels

This paper discusses character assessment from a leadership level perspective. The organization studied is developing a leadership model for the next century. One of the leadership traits identified as essential was character. Approximately one thousand managers in the company were given two character assessment instruments via a Web-based medium. Significant differences were found between early-, mid-, and mature-level managers with an increasing trend in character traits across the levels. This research is consistent with Katz and Kahn's (1976) levels of leadership research.