Showing papers in "Journal of Abnormal Psychology in 1990"

Sex differences and adolescent depression.

Abstract: This study investigates the role of certain psychosocial variables--sex, age, body image/self-esteem, self-consciousness, stressful life events, and the degree to which an individual identifies with the cultural stereotype of masculinity--as correlates and antecedents to depression in adolescents and explores possible intraindividual mediators of the stress-depression relationship in adolescents. A battery of self-report measures was administered to public high school students in Grades 9-12 in their classrooms at two different times 1 month apart. Female adolescents reported more depressive symptoms, self-consciousness, stressful recent events, feminine attributes, and negative body image and self-esteem; no age effects were obtained. Results suggest a model of adolescent depression in which body/self-esteem and stressful recent events are significant contributors.

Regional brain electrical asymmetries discriminate between previously depressed and healthy control subjects.

Abstract: Baseline resting electroencephalogram (EEG) activity was recorded from 6 normothymic depressives and 8 controls using three different reference montages. Power in all frequency bands was extracted by Fourier transformation. Significant Group X Region X Hemisphere interactions were found consistently for alpha band power only. Previously depressed subjects had less left-sided anterior and less right-sided posterior activation (i.e., more alpha activity) than did never depressed subjects. Previously depressed subjects had no history of pharmacological treatment and did not differ from controls in emotional state at the time of testing. The pattern of anterior and posterior asymmetry in the previously depressed subjects is similar to that found in acutely depressed subjects and suggests that this may be a state-independent marker for depression.

Controlled prospective study of postpartum mood disorders: comparison of childbearing and nonchildbearing women.

Abstract: A controlled prospective study was undertaken to determine the extent to which pregnancy and the puerperium are associated with increased risk for minor and major depression, depressive symptom-atology, and poor social adjustment. A large sample of childbearing (CB) women were recruited during the second trimester of pregnancy along with an equal sized, matched sample of nonchild-bearing (NCB) women. Ss were assessed multiple times during pregnancy and after delivery by questionnaire and through personal interview on measures of depression and other mood states and marital and social adjustment. There were no differences between CB and NCB Ss with respect to rates of minor and major depression during pregnancy or after delivery. However, CB women experienced significantly higher levels of depressive symptomatology and poor social adjustment than NCB women during late pregnancy and the early puerperium.

Hostile attributional biases in severely aggressive adolescents.

Abstract: Adolescent boys (N = 128) from a maximum security prison for juvenile offenders were administered a task to assess hostile attributional biases. As hypothesized, these biases were positively correlated with undersocialized aggressive conduct disorder (as indicated by high scores on standardized scales and by psychiatric diagnoses), with reactive-aggressive behavior, and with the number of interpersonally violent crimes committed. Hostile attributional biases were found not to relate to nonviolent crimes or to socialized aggressive behavior disorder. These findings held even when race and estimates of intelligence and socioeconomic status were controlled. These findings suggest that within a population of juvenile offenders, attributional biases are implicated specifically in interpersonal reactive aggression that involves anger and not in socialized delinquency.

Selective processing of threat cues in posttraumatic stress disorder.

Abstract: Vietnam combat veterans with (n = 15) and without (n = 15) posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) performed a modified Stroop task in which they named the colors of neutral words (e.g., INPUT), positive words (e.g., LOVE), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) words (e.g., GERMS), and PTSD words (e.g., BODYBAGS). In contrast to normal controls, PTSD patients took significantly longer to color-name PTSD words than to color-name neutral, OCD, and positive words. Because Stroop interference reflects involuntary semantic activation, it may provide a quantitative measure of intrusive cognitive activity--the hallmark symptom of PTSD.

Evaluating the construct validity of psychopathy in black and white male inmates: three preliminary studies.

Abstract: Although Black inmates represent almost half the population of United States prisons and have been included in several studies of psychopathy, there appear to be no published studies to date addressing the validity of the psychopathy construct in Black inmates. Three studies were conducted to assess the validity of the construct in Black male inmates using Hare's Psychopathy Checklist (PCL). In Study 1, we examined the internal structure of the PCL and the relation of checklist scores to several constructs relevant to psychopathy. We observed differences between Blacks and Whites in the distribution of psychopathy scores, in the relation of psychopathy to measures of impulsivity, and in the congruence of the underlying factor structure of the PCL. In Study 2, Black psychopaths were found to manifest a pattern of passive avoidance deficits similar but not identical to that reported for White psychopaths in Newman and Kosson's study. Study 3 demonstrated that psychopaths of both races receive more criminal charges in a wider variety of offense categories than do nonpsychopaths. The psychopathy construct appears tentatively applicable to Blacks, although its components may be somewhat different than for Whites.

A longitudinal study of antisocial behaviors in early adolescence as predictors of late adolescent substance use: Gender and ethnic group differences.

Abstract: Data from the National Longitudinal \buth Survey (NLSY) were analyzed to study interrelationships between antisocial behaviors in early adolescence (ages 14-15) and late adolescent alcohol and drug use 4 years later (when adolescents were 18-19). Correlations between classes of antisocial behaviors in early adolescence and substance use in late adolescence were of higher magnitude and more uniform for men than for women; for women, property offenses (e.g., vandalism) in early adolescence were more highly associated with alcohol use, alcohol-related problems, and illicit drug use in late adolescence than with either status offenses or transgressions against persons. Multiple regression analyses indicated that early-adolescent substance involvement was a significant predictor of late-adolescent alcohol and drug use. Additional significant predictors included early adolescent general delinquency, male gender, and non-Black ethnicity.

Relation Between Catastrophizing and Depression in Chronic Pain Patients

Abstract: The relation between catastrophizing, depression, and pain was examined in 125 chronic pain patients. The Coping Strategies Questionnaire (CSQ; Rosenstiel & Keefe, 1983) assessed patients' use of cognitive and behavioral strategies to cope with chronic pain. A significant association between catastrophizing and depression was found. In order to address questions of measurement redundancy, 6 clinical psychologists rated the degree to which items on the CSQ reflected depressive symptomatology. All items contained in the Catastrophizing subscale were rated by all psychologists as being reflective of symptoms of depression and were removed from the CSQ. When this subscale was excluded, none of the remaining CSQ subscales were significantly related to depression. The discussion addresses the interpretive difficulties that arise from hypothesizing mediating relations between variables that are conceptually and operationally confounded.

A causal analysis of chronic pain and depression.

Abstract: There is considerable controversy in the literature regarding the extent to which chronic pain and depression are associated and the possible causal relationship of such an association. The present study examines these issues with a sample of 243 patients diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who were mailed questionnaires for six waves of data collection. The results indicated that RA patients experience higher levels of depressive symptomatology than community samples. Using a two-latent-variable, cross-lagged design, covariance structural modeling was conducted on self-report measures of pain and depression over 6-month intervals. Results most strongly supported a causal model in which pain predicts depression during the last 12 months of the study.

Relation of social and academic competence to depressive symptoms in childhood.

Abstract: Relation of depressive symptoms to social and academic competence was examined in 750 4th-grade students. Self-report, peer-nomination, and teacher-rating measures of all three constructs were obtained. The multitrait-multimethod data were examined with confirmatory factor analysis and multivariate analysis of variance. Stronger correlations than have previously been reported were found between depressive symptoms and both kinds of competence. Social and academic incompetence had an additive effect on depressive symptoms. Children who were both socially and academically less competent had more symptoms of depression than children who had only one problem area. Children with only one problem area had more symptoms of depression than did children who were neither socially nor academically less competent. Gender differences in other-rated measures of competence were also evident. Implications for a competency-based model of depression are discussed.

Alcohol and drug abuse-dependence disorders in psychopathic and nonpsychopathic criminal offenders.

Abstract: Co-occurrence of psychopathy (assessed with the Psychopathy Checklist) and lifetime Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd ed.) alcohol and drug disorders (assessed with the National Institute of Mental Health Diagnostic Interview Schedule) was examined in a sample of 360 male inmates. Consistent with previous research that used diagnoses of antisocial personality disorder, psychopaths were more likely than nonpsychopaths to have lifetime diagnoses of alcoholism, any drug disorder, and multiple drug disorders. We also examined the relation between substance abuse and the 2 factors of the Psychopathy Checklist. Substance abuse was significantly related to general social deviance (Factor 2) but was unrelated to core personality features of psychopathy (Factor 1). We present two possible models of psychopathy (unitary syndrome vs. dual-diathesis model) that may account for the association between psychopathy and substance abuse.

Positive life events, attributional style, and hopefulness: testing a model of recovery from depression.

Abstract: A model of a recovery process from depression that is compatible with the hopelessness theory of depressive onset is proposed. This model predicts that depressives who have an enhancing attributional style for positive events (i.e., make global, stable attributions for such events) will be more likely to regain hopefulness and, thereby, recover from depression, when positive events occur. This prediction was tested by following a group of depressed college students longitudinally for 6 weeks. Although neither positive events alone nor attributional style alone predicted reduction in hopelessness, depressives who both showed the enhancing attributional style for positive events and experienced more positive events showed dramatic reductions in hopelessness which were accompanied by remission of depressive symptoms. Thus, attributional style for positive events may be a factor that enables some depressives to recover when positive events occur in their lives.

Are people changed by the experience of having an episode of depression? A further test of the scar hypothesis.

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to identify characteristics of individuals before and after their first depressive episode. Subjects were 49 older persons assessed before and after their first depressive episode on depression-related psychosocial variables. The control group consisted of 351 never-depressed individuals. Consistent with previous findings, patients were more likely to be younger, female, and mildly depressed both before and after the episode. In addition, they were more likely to be employed. Following an episode of depression, the recovered patients described their social skills and health as poorer and their interpersonal dependency as greater than the controls. However, on an experiment-wise basis, the number of significant differences were no greater than expected by chance. The stress activation model was examined but did not appreciably enhance the results. Results suggest that most of the psychosocial variables associated with depression are state dependent.

Psychophysiologic responses to combat imagery of Vietnam veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder versus other anxiety disorders.

Abstract: We used psychophysiologic techniques to assess responses to imagery of psychologically stressful past experiences in medication-free Vietnam combat veterans classified, on the basis of DSM-III-R criteria into posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD; n = 7) or non-PTSD anxiety disorder (anxious; n = 7) groups. Scripts describing each individual's combat experiences were recorded and played back in the laboratory. Ss were instructed to imagine the events the scripts portrayed while heart rate, skin conductance, and frontalis electromyogram were recorded. PTSD Ss' physiologic responses were higher than those of anxious Ss. A discriminant function derived from a previous study of PTSD and mentally healthy combat veterans identified 5 of the 7 current PTSD Ss as physiologic responders and all 7 of the anxious Ss as nonresponders. Results of this study replicate and extend results of the previous study and support the validity of PTSD as a separate diagnostic entity.

Syndrome comorbidity in patients diagnosed with a DSM-III-R anxiety disorder.

Abstract: One hundred thirty patients presenting at an anxiety disorders research clinic were administered a structured interview (i.e., Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule-Revised). Diagnoses were made in accordance with Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (rev. 3rd ed.) criteria. Seventy percent of patients received at least one additional but secondary Axis I diagnosis. The most common additional diagnoses were simple and social phobia, which were assigned to nearly one third of all patients. In addition, 33% of anxiety disorder patients received an additional diagnosis of a depressive mood disorder (i.e., dysthymia or major depression). The distribution of specific additional diagnoses are presented for each principal anxiety disorder category. The scientific and clinical implications of comorbidity are discussed while considering the relatively high patterns of syndrome comorbidity found in the present study, which is consistent with several earlier studies.

Endorsement of dysfunctional beliefs depends on current mood state.

Abstract: In two studies we tested the hypothesis that endorsement of dysfunctional beliefs depends on current mood state for persons who are vulnerable to depression. The first study showed that reports of dysfunctional beliefs vary with spontaneous diurnal mood fluctuations in 47 depressed psychiatric patients. The effect of mood state was highly significant (p<.01); dysfunctional thinking increased when mood was worst and decreased when mood was best. The second study conceptually replicated this finding in a population of asymptomatic subjects

Nonpsychotic postpartum depression among adolescent mothers.

Abstract: This study examined the extent to which childbearing increases vulnerability to clinical depression and depressive symptomatology among primiparous adolescent girls (ages 14 to 18). Childbearing Ss (n = 128) were assessed during pregnancy, 6 weeks postpartum, and 1 year postpartum. Matched nonchildbearing Ss (n = 114) were assessed at corresponding time points. Six weeks postpartum, 6% of the childbearing adolescents met Research Diagnostic Criteria for major depression and 20% for minor depression. These rates were not significantly different from those found for nonchildbearing Ss (4% major depression, 10% minor depression). However, higher rates of somatic symptoms of depression were found among the childbearing Ss than among the nonchildbearing Ss.

Attentional bias in anxiety: selective search or defective filtering?

Abstract: Two experimental tasks were used to investigate the nature of a previously documented bias in attention associated with anxiety. Results from the first task failed to reveal any differences between anxious and nonanxious subjects, either in attention focusing or selective search for letters. The second task, with words as targets and distractors, suggested that selective search was less efficient in anxious subjects when distractors were present. Currently anxious subjects were slower than controls when required to search for the target among distractors of any type, whereas both currently anxious and recovered subjects were slower when the distractors were threatening words. It was therefore suggested that a bias favoring threat cues during perceptual search is an enduring feature of individuals vulnerable to anxiety, rather than a transient consequence of current mood state alone.

The Two Faces of Alcohol Myopia: Attentional Mediation of Psychological Stress

Abstract: Two studies provided evidence that alcohol's relationship to psychological stress is indirect and is mediated by the allocation of attention Study 1 found that, as the attentional demands of a distracting activity increased, so did alcohol's reduction of anxiety Study 2 replicated this effect and found that a highly demanding activity could reduce anxiety even without alcohol This study further implicated the role of attention in anxiety reduction by demonstrating a relationship between changes in anxiety and response latency to a secondary monitoring task Finally, in both experiments, intoxicated subjects who did not perform any activity showed an increase in anxiety From these data, we argue that alcohol affects psychological stress, to an important degree, through its ability, in conjunction with ongoing activity, to affect the amount of attention paid to stressful thoughts

Inherited predisposition to alcoholism: Characteristics of sons of male alcoholics.

Abstract: Sons of male alcoholics (SOMAs) are at markedly heightened genetic risk for the development of alcohol abuse. Study of SOMAs could therefore conceivably increase the efficiency of research aimed at uncovering those heritable factors that predispose to alcoholism. SOMAs manifest observable behavioral, cognitive, and psychophysiological abnormalities while sober and react idiosyncratically to alcohol intoxication. They are most commonly described as conduct disordered and hyperactive, appear heir to a variety of deficits in verbal and abstract cognition, and perform more poorly in the academic environment. SOMAs are characterized by abnormal patterns of cued psychophysiological response, and appear more sensitive to the putatively reinforcing aspects of alcohol intoxication. Various methodological weaknesses permeate the relevant literature. Some straightforward improvements are suggested.

The enhancing effects of anxiety on arousal in sexually dysfunctional and functional women.

Abstract: Effects of anxiety on sexual arousal were examined to determine if sexually dysfunctional and functional women exhibit different patterns of physiological and subjective response Subjects viewed 2 videotape conditions: an anxiety-evoking and neutral-control preexposure stimulus, each paired with a sexual arousal-evoking stimulus Anxiety preexposure enhanced the rate and magnitude of genital arousal for both dysfunctional and functional subjects in relation to the neutral condition Despite increased genital responses, both groups reported less subjective sexual arousal after anxiety preexposure Functional subjects exhibited greater physiological but not subjective arousal than dysfunctional subjects in both conditions Results are discussed in terms of desynchronous patterns of sexual response, mechanisms by which sympathetic activation enhances sexual arousal, and implications for treatment of sexual dysfunction in women

Film-induced negative affect triggers overeating in restrained eaters.

Abstract: We tested the effects of film-induced negative affect (i.e., exposure to a frightening film) in 60 women classified as either restrained or unrestrained eaters on the basis of their responses to the Revised Restraint Scale (Herman & Polivy, 1980). Exposure to the frightening film, in contrast to a neutral film, was associated with increases in anxiety, sadness, and anger. High restraint subjects exposed to the frightening film ate more than did equally restrained subjects exposed to a neutral film or low restraint subjects exposed to either film. Thus, negative affect triggered overeating among restrained eaters. Although unrestrained eaters exposed to the frightening film ate less than those who viewed the neutral film, this difference was not statistically significant. These results suggest that negative affect may prompt overeating in persons who attempt to restrict their caloric intake.

Anhedonia and perceptual aberration in first-episode psychotic patients and their relatives.

Abstract: One hundred eighteen psychiatric patients, each experiencing his or her first lifetime episode of psychosis, 125 of their first-degree relatives, and 155 normal subjects were assessed using the physical anhedonia, social anhedonia, and perceptual aberration scales of Chapman et al. (1976, 1978). We hypothesized that psychotic subjects would obtain higher scores on these scales than their relatives and the controls, and we expected the group of relatives to score more deviantly than the normal controls. The physical anhedonia and social anhedonia scales successfully differentiated the psychiatric patients from the relatives and the latter from the normal subjects. These findings testify to the construct validity of the scales and suggest that they tap a predisposition to psychosis. Unexpectedly, the relatives scored lower on the perceptual aberration scale than did the normal controls, perhaps because the relatives adopted a defensive response set.

Fear imagery and the startle-probe reflex.

Abstract: Blink reflexes to acoustic probes, heart rate, and subjective reports were studied during affective memory imagery. Thirty-six undergraduates memorized 6 pairs of neutral and fearful sentences. After learning each pair, they relaxed and listened to a series of uniform tones, one every 6 s. A change in tone pitch (higher or lower) cued recall of one of the two sentences. At the first cue tone, groups (n = 12) were under different instructions: (a) ignore the sentence and relax, (b) silently articulate the sentence, and (c) imagine the sentence content as a personal experience. At the second cue tone, all subjects performed the imagery task. Startle probes (50-ms, 95-dB white noise) were presented unpredictably during relaxation and recall trials. Probe blink reflexes were larger and cardiac rate faster at fear sentence recall than at neutral sentence recall or relaxation. For probe reflexes, this effect was greater for imagery than for nonsemantic recall tasks.

The Prevalence of Nightmares and Their Independence From Anxiety

Abstract: Although several studies have examined the prevalence of nightmares and their relationship to anxiety, this is the first to have used daily dream logs, rather than retrospective self-reports, to monitor nightmare frequency. 220 undergraduates were administered self-report measures of anxiety and for 2 weeks recorded the number of their nightmares in logs. 47% of Ss reported at least one nightmare during the study period. The dream logs yielded an estimated mean annual nightmare frequency of 23.6, which is 2.5 times as great as the estimate yielded by retrospective reports (p less than .01). Nightmare frequency and anxiety were uncorrelated. The findings indicate that nightmares are more prevalent than has been reported, and their frequency unrelated to self-reported anxiety.

Cognitive specificity and positive-negative affectivity: complementary or contradictory views on anxiety and depression?

Abstract: A principal factor analysis, conducted on a mixed psychiatric outpatient sample (N = 470), identified both common and specific dimensions underlying anxiety and depression Although an initial single-factor extraction accounted for a significant proportion of variance in cognitive and symptom measures of anxiety and depression, a two-factor solution, in which anxiety and depression formed separate dimensions, proved to be the better solution MANOVAS performed on pure depressed, pure anxious, and mixed anxious/depressed subgroups provided evidence of a specific cognitive profile for anxiety and depression The mixed subsample evidenced greater severity, a mixed cognitive and symptom profile, and character traits that may indicate increased vulnerability to psychological disturbance Results are discussed in terms of Beck's (1976) cognitive content-specificity hypothesis and the positive-negative affect model (Watson & Tellegen, 1985)

Facilitation of word recognition by semantic priming in schizophrenia.

Abstract: Schizophrenic (n = 21), bipolar (n = 18), and normal control subjects (n = 21) were compared on a word recognition measure of semantic priming. The task involved the presentation of related, neutral, and unrelated word pairs; the second word (target word) in each pair was presented in a degraded form. Facilitation was defined as the accuracy of target word recognition for the related word pairs minus accuracy for the neutral word pairs. Titration, achieved by manipulating the degradation of the target word, was used to maintain each subject's overall accuracy for related and neutral items at approximately 50%. This procedure minimized the artifactual effects of overall accuracy on the difference score. Schizophrenics exceeded both normal control subjects and bipolar subjects on facilitation. Bipolar subjects did not differ from control subjects. The results support Maher's hypothesis that semantic priming effects are heightened in schizophrenia.

Ecology of depression in late childhood and early adolescence: A profile of daily states and activities.

Abstract: This study investigated daily states and time use patterns associated with depression. Four hundred eighty-three 5th to 9th graders reported on their experience when signalled by pagers at random times. Depressed youth reported more negative affect and social emotions, lower psychological investment, lower energy, and greater variability in affect. These differences were weaker for 5th and 6th graders, suggesting that self-reported feeling states are a poor indicator of depression prior to adolescence. No differences were found in the daily activities of depressed youths nor in the amount of time spent alone, but depressed youths experienced other people as less friendly and more often reported wanting to be alone, especially when with their families. They also spent less time in public places and more time in their bedrooms. Finally, depressed boys, but not girls, spent much less time with friends, particularly of the same sex, suggesting that social isolation is more strongly associated with depression for boys.

Performance of criminal psychopaths on selected neuropsychological tests.

Abstract: Screening batteries of standard neuropsychological tests were administered to 2 different samples (Ns = 90 and 167) of male prison inmates. Scores on the revised Psychopathy Checklist were used to divide inmates in each sample into high, moderate, and low psychopathy groups. There were no group differences in test performance in either of the samples, even when the effects of self-reported psychopathology and substance abuse were taken into account. The overall prevalence of both test-specific and global neuropsychological impairment was low and did not vary significantly across the 3 groups. The results provide no support for traditional brain-damage explanations of psychopathy.

Severity of psychosocial stress and outcome of alcoholism treatment.

Abstract: We examined the relation between stressful life events and drinking outcome among 129 male alcoholics who had completed an alcohol treatment program. Life events were assessed for the year prior to treatment and for the 3 months after treatment and were rated on the Psychiatric Epidemiology Research Interview and the Contextual Rating System. Approximately 40% of the pretreatment stressors were found to be directly or indirectly related to alcohol use. When stressors related to drinking were excluded from consideration, we found that men who returned to drinking after treatment experienced more severe or highly threatening stress before their relapse than men who remained abstinent during the follow-up period. These data suggest that although less severe stress may not increase risk for relapse, acute severe stressors and highly threatening chronic difficulties may be associated with elevated relapse risk.