Showing papers in "Current Psychology in 1987"

Perceived control and health

Abstract: Perceived control (PC) is defined as thebelief that one can determine one’s own internal states and behavior, influence one’s environment, and/or bring about desired outcomes. Two important dimensions of PC are delineated: (1) whether the object of control is located in the past or the future and (2) whether the object of control is over outcome, behavior, or process. A variety of constructs and measures of PC (e.g., efficacy, attribution, and locus of control) are discussed in relation to these dimensions and selected studies are reviewed. The issues, controversies, and limits of the research on perceived control and health are addressed in terms of the antecedents and consequences of perceived control. Investigations should clearly conceptualize the object of perceived control, use measures that match the conceptualization, and when attempting to manipulate control, directly measure perceived control. The relation between PC and health outcomes is complex, and different aspects of PC may interact to affect health outcomes.

Acute neuropsychological consequences of coronary-artery bypass-surgery

Abstract: This study examines a series of coronary artery bypass patients (CABS) for neuropsychological and regional cerebral blood flow (RCBF) changes at 8 days and 8 weeks post surgery. Seventy-three percent were found to have moderate or severe neuropsychological deficits at 8 days post operation and 37% at 8 weeks post surgery. A comparison group of major vascular and thoracic surgery patients was also found to have a significant proportion of neuropsychological deficit following surgery. The RCBF assessments indicated a significant drop in mean RCBF at 8 days post surgery in the coronary artery bypass group which did not persist to 8 weeks. The comparison group showed no changes in RCBF following surgery. The findings suggest different patterns of recovery and origins of the neuropsychological deficit in the two groups and emphasize the need for appropriate control groups in studies examining the cortical effects of extracorporeal circulation.

Explanatory style and health

Abstract: Explanatory style, the habitual way an individual explains the causes of bad and good events, is reliably associated with future health. In this article, we review evidence from three studies which demonstrate a significant relationship between pessimism (the belief that bad events are caused by internal, stable, and global factors and good events are caused by external, unstable, and specific factors) and an increased risk for infectious disease, poor health, and early mortality. We suggest two possible mechanisms which might mediate the link between pessimism and poor health. Finally, we propose that interventions aimed at changing a pessimistic outlook might lower the probability of future illness.

Automaticity and the capture of attention by a peripheral display change.

Abstract: The proposal that peripheral visual changes (cues) tend to summon attention automatically was tested by studying the effect of peripheral cueing on simple detection latency. Delay between cue onset and target onset, the contingent relationship between cue location and target location, and instructions to subjects were manipulated. Results showed that a peripheral display change could capture attention even when the target was far more likely to appear at an uncued location. When subjects were explicitly informed that targets were likely to appear away from the cued location they were able to suppress this effect, but were unable completely to reverse it by rapidly orienting attention towards the uncued side. Hence the process appears to be automatic in the sense that it occurs unless there are explicit instructions to the contrary. With explicit instructions the processing operation can be suppressed, but not completely reversed.

Accepting personality test feedback: a review of the Barnum effect

Abstract: This article attempts a comprehensive and critical review of the by-now fairly extensive literature on the Barnum effect—the approval/acceptance by subjects of bogus personality interpretations supposedly derived from standard tests. Since the last major review eight years ago various methodological extensions have occurred and various rival hypotheses for established findings have been proposed. The present review is divided into three major sections: client and clinician characteristics; feedback statements and test format; and implications for personality assessment and measurement. Nearly 50 studies on the acceptance of personality interpretations are systematically reviewed and criticized.

Aftereffect of visual movement - the role of relative movement - a review

Abstract: It is often believed that the aftereffect of visual movement (MAE) is more-or-less dependent on image movement. Modern explanation of MAE in terms of motion-sensitive mechanisms in the visual pathway assumes this. However, it has long been known that MAE can be influenced by other factors of stimulation, and particularly some that can be labeled asrelative. So, for example, MAE may not be observed unless more than one direction of movement is present in the eliciting stimulation, and MAE in an area may elicit an opposite MAE in an adjoining unadapted area. It is probable that the overemphasis on image movement has arisen because of the common use of multidirectional adapting movement and because of an assumption that patterned areas adjoining the MAE display do not have much effect on MAE. It is speculated that relative movement data for MAE may reflect a mechanism involved in detection of object motion: since image movement and eye movement do not in themselves adequately explain this process, it must be supposed that relative movement, in conjunction with the configuration of the retinal image, is important.

Worksite smoking modification programs: A state-of-the-art review and directions for future research

Abstract: This article reviews the worksite smoking cessation literature. The evidence linking smoking and disease is outlined and reasons to quit smoking are presented. An overview of barriers to quitting smoking, or reasons why people continue to smoke, is also briefly presented. Worksite programs that have been evaluated to date are reviewed and summarized under the categories of self-help/bibliotherapy, multicomponent behavioral group approaches, physician advice, and competition/incentive programs. Methodological issues involved in conducting and evaluating worksite smoking modification programs are discussed in detail. It is concluded that worksite smoking cessation programs hold great promise for attracting and successfully treating smokers who otherwise might not seek treatment, but that there are several threats to successful program implementation and evaluation that need to be considered.

The role of cognition and coping in health behavior outcomes of asthmatic patients

Abstract: This study investigates the meaning of cognitions and coping in well-being, hospital admissions, medication consumption, and absence from work due to asthma in asthmatic patients. Patients completed five questionnaires: the Respiratory Illness Opinion Survey (Kinsman, Jones, Matus, & Schum, 1976), measuring external control, psychological stigma, and optimism; the Asthma Coping Questionnaire (Maes, Schlosser, & Vromans, 1986), measuring coping mechanisms; the Dutch version of the STAI (van der Ploeg, Defares, & Spielberger, 1979), measuring state and trait anxiety; the Questionnaire for Inner Well-Being (Hermans & Tak-van de Ven, 1973), measuring well-being; and the General Questionnaire for Asthmatic Patients (Maes et al., 1986) measuring medical outcome. Stepwise multiple regression showed that cognitions and coping determined a considerable part of the variance in the dependent variables: well-being, hospital admissions, and absence from work due to asthma.

Psychosocial risk factors, natural immunity, and cancer progression: Implications for intervention

Abstract: One of the more important and emerging fields in which psychologists collaborate with other disciplines is psychoimmunology. Centuries of clinical anecdote and decades of psychosomatic hypotheses have gained credibility in the eyes of the medical establishment—and many patients—by the systematic investigation of mechanisms potentially explaining how events intrapsychic and interpersonal could affect physical disease processes. The central nervous system is connected with the immune system by both neuronal and endocrinological pathways. The immune system has been found to mediate the organism’s response to aberrations of its own normal functions, as well as to invading organisms from without. AIDS, arthritis, asthma, lupus, and herpes are some of the illnesses in which research is demonstrating important relationships among psychosocial and immunological factors and disease course. In this article, we first discuss the immunological apparatus in order to provide a base for subsequent discussions of the effects of stress on immune function. Then we discuss malignant diseases and current evidence that disease course is related to both psychosocial stressors and immune function. We next discuss a model of these interactions, and finally we talk about interventions incorporating psychosocial factors aimed at influencing immune status and, thus, disease course.

The concept of psychogenic pain: A psychological investigation of women with pelvic pain

Abstract: Women with pain occurring in the absence of pathology have been reported to have personality and mood disturbances which account for their pain. These studies suffer from both methodological and theoretical difficulties. A common methodological problem is the absence of comparison groups of women with pain of equivalent chronicity yet with diagnosed pathology. This study compares women with and without pathology, matched for pain chronicity, on a range of psychological measures. No differences were observed between “pathology” and “no pathology” groups on global measures of personality or mood. Differences do emerge in specific attitudes and exposure to illness. The implications of these findings for our understanding of pain mechanisms are discussed and the limitations of the notion of “psychogenic” pain are considered.

Verbal and behavioral responses to familiar and unfamiliar music

Abstract: Thirty adult subjects completed an Operant Music Listening Recorder (OMLR) task with two unfamiliar and two familiar music channels (one “popular” and one “classical” in each case), then rated the music on each channel on seven-point scales for liking, quality, and familiarity. The two familiar music channels received significantly higher ratings than the two unfamiliar channels on all three rating scales, and there were no significant main effects or interactions involving musical style. The predictions (a) that subjects would spend more time listening to the familiar channels on the OMLR task, and (b) that measures of listening time would display higher correlations with ratings of liking than with those of quality both received weak support from the direction of the results, but neither was confirmed by statistical significance tests. The results are discussed in terms of the fragmentation between the affective and evaluative components of attitudes toward music.

A content and correlational analysis of seven locus of control scales

Abstract: Seven locus of control scales—two designed for adults and five for children—were administered to about 200 adolescents. A content analysis revealed very little overlap between the scales which had practically no effect on the correlations between them. Correlations between the five children’s locus of control scale scores were highly significant, and nearly all greater than .50, but the two adult scales showed very little significant correlations either with each other, or any of the children’s scales. A number of demographic variables were correlated with total scale scores of which age was the most significant. The results are discussed in terms of the multidimensional nature of the concept, psychometric evaluation of locus of control beliefs in different age groups and the specificity of the concept in general.

The behavioral control of high blood pressure

Abstract: Stress management and relaxation training lower the blood pressure of many mild hypertensives substantially through mechanisms that are as yet unclear but may include behavioral and cognitive change. It is almost certain that the reduction of weight in the obese, drinking in heavy drinkers, and increased exercise in the sedentary also reduces pressure usefully in hypertensives, and opportunites exist for the application of behavioral principles to improve the effectiveness of programs to alter these behavioral risk factors. It is fortunate that behavioral methods for the control of hypertension exist and are making progress since there are increasing doubts about the effectiveness of pharmacological solutions for mild hypertension.

Clinical staff’s attributions about diabetes: Scale-development and staff vs. patient comparisons

Abstract: Clinical staff’s attributions about diabetes management were measured using newly developed scales. Eighty-five physicians and nurses provided data to investigate the psychometric properties of the scales and to examine the patterns of attributions made. Alpha coefficients for the 7 six-item scales were satisfactory, ranging from .51 to .73. A comparison between attributions for positive and negative outcomes of diabetes management produced examples of self-serving bias. Comparisons were made with data from 286 insulin-dependent diabetes patients. Staff tended to rate patients as having less personal control over positive outcomes (t=2.94;df=338;p<.01) and tended to emphasize chance to a greater extent than did the patients (t=−4.32;df=338;p<.001). There was a tendency for staff to rate negative outcomes as being more foreseeable by the patients than the patients did themselves (t=−3.11;df=346;p<.01). Both patients and staff demonstrated bias towards dispositional attributions. The implications of between and within group differences in attribution patterns are discussed.

Psychological effects of prenatal diagnosis: The example of fetal echocardiography

Abstract: This article presents two studies investigating the psychological effects of fetal echocar-diography (FE). The first compared the effects of FE in high risk and obstetrically normal women. High-risk women were more anxious beforehand and had more negative attitudes. Following a normal scan their attitudes and anxiety were equivalent to the controls but a large variation in postscan psychological changes was found. This variation was examined in the second study with a larger sample. Selected background variables predicted prescan anxiety and anxiety reduction following a normal scan. Quality of communication and feedback also determined postscan anxiety level and rated satisfaction in the two-week follow-up questionnaire. Some suggestions for routine medical practice are included.

The type-a behavior pattern and the need to prove oneself - a correlational study

Abstract: This study set out to investigate the relationship between the Type A behavior pattern, the need for approval, and the need to prove oneself. One hundred and two subjects completed four questionnaires: two measuring A-type behavior, one social desirability, and one—especially devised for this study—the belief in the need to prove oneself consistently. Results showed that Type A’s have significantly lower needs for approval than Type B’s, yet appear to show considerably greater interest in comparing their achievements with others. It seems that Type A’s do not have any special need to prove their worth to others, but that they must constantly prove themselves to themselves. Limitations of this preliminary study are discussed.

Arousal and the Bakan vigilance task: The effects of noise intensity and the presence of others

Abstract: The joint effects of social setting and loud noise on task performance are examined In a modified version of the Bakan vigilance task subjects were required to detect a sequence of two identical even digits and to report the two digits preceding the signal Two types of acoustic environment were compared: loud noise at 90 dBC and quiet noise at 60 dBC Two types of social setting were employed: “pair” where two subjects worked in the same room on similar tasks, and “single” where a subject performed the task alone The effects of noise and the presence of another did not interact Loud noise increased the speed of responses to signals early in the task This effect is attributed to noise-induced arousal There was a higher incidence of recall errors in pre-signal digits when subjects were in pairs This effect is attributed to distraction

Repeated Exposure and the Attractiveness of Synthetic Speech: An Inverted-U Relationship

Abstract: Previous experimental investigation of the effects of repeating an unfamiliar stimulus suggests that mere exposure breeds attraction (e.g., Zajonc, 1968). On the other hand, correlational work with naturally occurring stimuli such as names, music, or landscapes suggests that there is also an overexposure effect: the preference function does rise with familiarity at first but then reaches a turning point and diminishes. The study (N=72) demonstrates this inverted-U relationship in an experimental setting. The stimuli were synthetic nonsense speech, permitting exact control of exposure durations and interstimulus intervals. The critical factors for demonstrating the effect are probably (1) the inclusion of a large number of repetitions, and (2) blocked repetition of each stimulus in a homogeneous sequence not interspersed with other more or less frequent stimuli.

Spontaneous alternation behavior in hamsters

Abstract: Male and female golden hamsters spontaneously alternated successive entries of T-maze arms (derived from a + − maze) rather than body turns during a series of eight consecutive trials except when not confined to the arm chosen on each trial. Only unconfined males failed to alternate on their first opportunity. Confinement to an entered arm for 30 seconds had no effect on females but increased alternation in males. Increasing the visual discriminability of the arms had no effect on alternation in either sex. It was concluded that spontaneous alternation behavior in hamsters depended upon whether or not they were confined to a chosen arm and their sex. It is possible that the phenomenon was escape-related.

Pharmacological effects on lateralized behavior

Abstract: Sixteen student volunteers were administered a placebo and 50 mg. of chlorpromazine in tablet form, on separate occasions, two hours before testing. The three tests measured dichotic listening performance, lateral eye movements while answering questions about spatial location and verbal meaning, and lateralized facial expression while relating pleasant and unpleasant life incidents. Results showed that chlorpromazine increased the number of trials showing an ear advantage in dichotic listening. Chlorpromazine reduced lateral and increased vertical eye movements in response to the questions about spatial location and verbal meaning. Under the placebo both negative and positive emotions were expressed more in the left face. Although chlorpromazine did not affect this lateralization of negative emotions, the expression of positive emotions occurred equally often on the two sides of the face under chlorpromazine. Results may be related to an effect of chlorpromazine on the asymmetrical dopamine pathways of the brain. It is suggested that the findings may be related to a left hemisphere deficit in schizophrenia.

Determinants of Seeking Timely and Necessary Pediatric Care

Abstract: Ninety mothers were interviewed in a pediatrician’s waiting room about their reasons for seeking care. We compared their answers, and the pediatrician’s judgment of the visit’s necessity and timeliness to a model which distinguishes appraisal, illness, and utilization stages in seeking medical treatment. Clearly defined symptoms and the use of few home treatments predicted a more rapid assessment that one’s child was ill. No factors predicted how quickly a mother would decide that her child needed professional care, nor how rapidly she would then seek that care. The pediatrician judged visits to be necessary when the child had many physical symptoms, pain, and/or fever, and when the child’s mother was employed. He judged visits to be delayed for mothers who reported that cost of treatment may influence their decisions to seek care. He indicated that only 39% of the visits were both necessary and on time. We discuss ways to encourage appropriate utilization of pediatric visits.

A program to construct stimulus sequences for controlled lag recognition memory experiments

Abstract: Experimental designs in recognition memory research frequently employ a continuous sequence of trials in which each stimulus item is presented on two separate occasions. Subjects are required to indicate for each item whether it is new (first presentation) or old (second presentation), and the lag between the first and second presentation is manipulated as a variable in the design. In order to take advantage of the power and efficiency of this procedure, it is necessary to construct sequences that contain the desired set of intervening lags, while leaving no unproductive gaps in the sequence. Furthermore, in order to reduce confounding due to sequential effects, it is desirable to block experimental conditions within subsections of the sequence. This fortran program obviates the labor involved in devising such sequences by automating the process of construction.

A computer program for the human simulation of an intelligent person-machine interface

Abstract: This article describes a computer program which can be used as an aid in gathering simulated person-machine dialogues. The system was designed to help simulate an intelligent interface to a database system. The program allows two individuals to communicate with each other via two interconnected personal computers. Facilities such as multiple windows on the screen and mouse-mediated pointing are provided. The output of the program is a transcript of the dialogue between the database “expert” and the database “user.” The transcript is annotated by a time indicator, and details about database output and mouse use are also recorded.

Does the format really make a difference? Didactic versus facilitative social skills training

Abstract: One hundred and eleven (111) university undergraduates (25% male) reporting difficulties in making requests or refusing, participated in one of two cognitive behavioral social skills programs which included behavior rehearsal, modeling, coaching, cognitive restructuring, and emphasis on the transferability of skills. The participants were randomly assigned to the facilitative condition, which stressed individualized attention, informality, and emotional understanding and support, with attention to the personal needs of each participant, or to the didactic condition, which was more leader-centered, more formal, and less focused on personalizing the content. Dependent measures included self-reported Conflict Resolution and College Self Expression scores, and judges’ ratings of global verbal and nonverbal request and refusal behavior in standardized role-play scenarios with a live actor. In addition, participants provided anin vivo measure of request and refusal behavior. Results indicated neither self-report nor behavioral outcome differences between the facilitative and didactic approaches. On the other hand both programs produced impressive self-report and behavioral gains in comparison to pre-test scores; these gains were maintained one/two years after the program. The results are discussed as supporting the impact of cognitive behavioral training program elements which are compelling in themselves so that they operate independently of differences in training format. It may be that relationship factors may be less important in the treatment of reasonably functioning undergraduates when behavioral techniques are employed.