A standardized behavioral group treatment program for obsessive-compulsive disorder: preliminary outcomes

This paper provides outcome data about the efficacy of a behavioral group therapy program for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Thirty-six patients completed a 7-week outpatient treatment program which provides: (1) education about OCD and its treatment, (2) instruction in a cognitive and behavioral approach to the self-treatment of OCD and (3) guided behavioral treatment. Significant improvement in obsession, compulsion, and depression scores were observed at completion of the group and at 3 month follow-up. Significant improvement in obsessions and compulsions was observed for both patients taking anti-obsessional medications and those who did not.     

Providing social support may be more beneficial than receiving it: results from a prospective study of mortality

This study examines the relative contributions of giving versus receiving support to longevity in a sample of older married adults. Baseline indicators of giving and receiving support were used to predict mortality status over a 5-year period in the Changing Lives of Older Couples sample. Results from logistic regression analyses indicated that mortality was significantly reduced for individuals who reported providing instrumental support to friends, relatives, and neighbors, and individuals who reported providing emotional support to their spouse. Receiving support had no effect on mortality once giving support was taken into consideration. This pattern of findings was obtained after controlling for demographic, personality, health, mental health, and marital-relationship variables. These results have implications for understanding how social contact influences health and longevity.     

Unfair treatment and self-regulatory focus

Ample correlational evidence exists that perceived unfair treatment is negatively related to well-being, health, and goal striving but the underlying process is unclear. We hypothesized that effects are due in part to contextual priming of prevention focus and the negative consequences of chronic prevention-focused vigilance. Indeed, reasonable responses to unfair treatment—to avoid situations in which it occurs or if this is not possible, confront it head on—fit prevention self-regulatory focus response patterns. Results from three experiments support this notion. Priming stigmatized social category membership heightened students’ prevention (not promotion) focus (n = 117). Priming non-stigmatized social category membership (i.e., white) did not change prevention focus (n = 46). Priming prevention (not promotion) increased perceptions of unfair treatment (and aroused prevention-relevant fight or flight responses) in response to a negative ambiguous job situation among low and moderate income adults (n = 112).     

McEwen-Induced Modulation of Endocrine History: A Partial Review

In endless facets of physiology, there are points of homeostatic balance, such that too much or too litttle of something can both be deleterious (i.e., an "inverse U" pattern). This is particularly true when considering glucocorticoids (GCs), the adrenals steroid secreted during stress. In the first part of this paper, I review a number of realms in which a paucity and an excess of GCs are both damaging. Some findings are classical (for example, concerning GC effects upon body weight), while some are quite recent and have considerable implications for both physiology and pathophysiology (for example, inverse U's of GC actions in the realm of immunity and neuronal survival). The second part of the review considers the far thornier issue of how such inverse U's of GC actions are generated on a cellular and molecular level. One solution that has evolved, primarily in the hippocampus within the nervous system, involves the presence of two different types of receptors for GCs within the same cells; so long as the two receptors have very different affinities and mediate opposing effects on some cellular endpoint, an inverse U will emerge. The second solution, found in a number of peripheral tissues, involves GCs having opposing effects on the amount of some signal being generated (e.g., an immune cytokine) and the sensitivity of target tissues to that signal; under conditions that appear to be physiologically relevant, inverse U's emerge from this pattern as well. The final section of this review considers the enormous role played by Bruce McEwen in the emergence of this literature. I suggest that while much of this obviously has to do with the facts that have come from his group, another substantial contribution is from his steadying and supportive personality, the veritable embodiment of homeostatic balance.     

Prospective patterns of resilience and maladjustment during widowhood

Using prospective longitudinal data on an older sample beginning prior to the death of a spouse, G. A. Bonanno et al. (2002) distinguished 5 unique trajectories of bereavement outcome: common grief, chronic grief, chronic depression, depression followed by improvement, and resilience. These trajectories having been identified, the aims of the current study were to examine differences in how respondents in each group reacted to and processed the loss. Specific hypotheses were tested regarding differences in coping, meaning making, context, and representations of the lost relationship. Results suggest that chronic grief stems from the upheaval surrounding the loss of a healthy spouse, whereas chronic depression results from more enduring emotional difficulties that are exacerbated by the loss. Both the resilient and the depressed-improved groups showed remarkably healthy profiles and relatively little evidence of either struggling with or denying/avoiding the loss.     

Developmental and sex-related differences in preschoolers' affective decision making

This study investigated developmental and sex-related differences in affective decision making, using a two-deck version of Children's Gambling Task administered to 3- and 4-year-old children. The main findings were that 4-year-old children displayed better decision-making performance than 3-year-olds. This effect was independent of developmental changes in inductive reasoning, language, and working memory. There were also sex differences in decision-making performance, which were apparent only in 3-year-old children and favored girls. Moreover, age predicted awareness of task and the correlation between the latter and decision-making performance was significant, but only in 4-year-old children. This study thus indicates that there is a remarkable developmental leap in affective decision making, whose effects are apparent around the age of 4, which according to our results, also marks the age when the correlation of declarative knowledge and decision-making performance becomes significant.     

The evolutionary significance of depressive symptoms: different adverse situations lead to different depressive symptom patterns

Although much depression may be dysfunctional, the capacity to experience normal depressive symptoms in response to certain adverse situations appears to have been shaped by natural selection. If this is true, then different kinds of situations may evoke different patterns of depressive symptoms that are well suited to solving the adaptive challenges specific to each situation. The authors called this the situation-symptom congruence hypothesis. They tested this hypothesis by asking 445 participants to identify depressive symptoms that followed a recent adverse situation. Guilt, rumination, fatigue, and pessimism were prominent following failed efforts; crying, sadness, and desire for social support were prominent following social losses. These significant differences were replicated in an experiment in which 113 students were randomly assigned to visualize a major failure or the death of a loved one.     

Religion and emotional compensation: results from a prospective study of widowhood

Based on recent applications of attachment theory to religion, the authors predicted that the loss of a spouse would cause widowed individuals to increase the importance of their religious/spiritual beliefs. This hypothesis was examined using the Changing Lives of Older Couples sample from which preloss measures of religiosity were available for widowed individuals and matched controls. A total of 103 widowed individuals provided follow-up data, including reports of religious beliefs and grief, at 6 months, 24 months, and 48 months after the loss. Results indicated that widowed individuals were more likely than controls to increase their religious/spiritual beliefs. This increase was associated with decreased grief but did not influence other indicators of adjustment such as depression. Finally, insecure individuals were most likely to benefit from increasing the importance of their beliefs. Results are discussed in terms of the potential value of applying psychological theory to the study of religion.