Social support, depressed mood, and adjustment to stress: a genetic epidemiologic investigation.

A survey of 821 same-sex female twin pairs from a population-based registry assessed 8 dimensions of social support and social integration. Twin analyses documented significant common environmental influences on 5 of these 8 measures and significant genetic influences on 5 of the 8. A decomposition of the multiplicative association between support and a measure of stressful life experiences in predicting depressed mood--an association typically interpreted as providing evidence for a stress-buffering effect of social support--shows clearly that it is the environmental and genetic factors that cause support, rather than support itself, that buffer the effects of stress on mood in most cases. We discuss the implications of this result for future research on the relationship between social support and psychopathology.     

Difficulty and familiarity norms for 192 single-solution word fragments

Normative data are presented for the probability of successfully completing 192 single-solution word fragments. Normative data on the familiarity of college students with the solution words are also given, along with estimates of word frequency from existing norms. Regression analyses were performed in order to predict fragment completion difficulty from familiarity, frequency, and several structural characteristics of the fragments. Familiarity, whether or not first and/or last letters appeared in the fragment, and the ratio of letters to missing letters in the fragment were included in the regression equation as significant predictors of difficulty for this fragment set.     

Superior Students' Occupational Preferences and Their Fathers' Occupations

The relationship between the occupational preferences of 147 superior students and their fathers' occupations was traced over the 4-year period that the students attended high schools in Wisconsin. Analysis of the data indicated that both male and female superior students tended to state vocational preferences at the professional level early in high school and to maintain this preference throughout. Their occupational preferences were generally at a higher level than those of their fathers. There was no trend away from general preferences for work at a professional level toward naming of specific occupations within that level. The results suggest that theories of vocational development that imply that stages are passed through during later adolescent periods do not apply to the superior student population of this study.     

Divorced mothers' gender role ideology,locus of control,and disciplinary patterns

This study examined gender role ideology, locus of control, and disciplinary patterns of divorced mothers. Data were gathered from 135 divorced mothers and their elementary school-aged children. Eighty-five percent of the subjects were white and 15% were nonwhite (African American, Hispanic, and Native American). Stepwise regression analyses were used to determine variations in child-rearing patterns explained by locus of control and gender ideology. Child-rearing patterns included four parental attitudes. The basic hypothesis that gender role ideology and locus of control are personal resources that influence child-rearing patterns of divorced mothers received clear support. These findings suggest that the relation between single parenthood and child socialization patterns are complex and that sociocognitive beliefs play an important role in single mothers' child-rearing choices.     

A stochastic model for inter-keypress times in a typing task

A mathematical model for the inter-keypress times (IKT) in a typing task is proposed. The model, which includes a diffusion process terminated by a single response threshold, was evaluated using data obtained from typists. The differences in performance for successive cross-hand and within-hand keypresses were examined using IKT distributions and hazard functions, and it was shown that the empirical hazard functions could be fit by the theoretical hazard function derived from the convolution of normal and inverse Gaussian random variables. Some possible applications of the model for the evaluation of fatigue and strategic effects in typing are suggested.     

Further thoughts on second-order family therapy--this time it's personal

A series of articles has recently appeared in which implications of second-order cybernetics for the practice of family therapy have been discussed. In this article, we attempt to advance the discussion by addressing ideas that we think have not been adequately emphasized thus far. Specifically proposed are ideas about conditions that might facilitate the emergence of consciously pragmatic strategy informed by the kind of systemic wisdom that delicately balances natural systems without the benefit of human planning. It is argued that a shift in the personal habits of knowing and acting that typically organize individual human experience is required. After attempting to specify what this shift might involve, implications of these ideas for the practice of family therapy and for human action in general are discussed.     

The effects of observation on emotional arousal and affiliation

This study assessed the influence of anticipated experimenter surveillance during the performance of a painful or potentially embarrassing act on affiliative preferences before engaging in that act. As predicted, there was an overall preference for isolation when the act to be performed was embarrassing, and this tendency increased with anticipated surveillance. There was an overall preference for affiliation under fear arousal, and this preference also increased with anticipated surveillance. Contrary to previous research, whether or not the potential affiliate was a subject in the experiment (i.e., in a similar or dissimilar emotional state) did not affect these tendencies. Possible ways of accounting for these findings are discussed.