Assessing stress-buffering effects: a cautionary note

Research on the stress-buffering functions of social support is equivocal. The purpose of this study was to suggest that part of the reason for these contradictory findings may be due to the fact that researchers have misspecified the relationship between stress and support. Instead of always being an effective coping resource, this study tested the view that there are limits to the beneficial effects of assistance provided by others and that beyond a certain level support may actually exacerbate the noxious impact of stress. Data from a recent nationwide survey of older adults support this more complex perspective. More specifically, the data suggest that although emotional support initially reduces the effects of chronic financial strain on depressive symptoms, further increments in emotional assistance are associated with increased psychological distress.     

The Mini-Mult: A cautionary note.

Included the Mini-Mult in a broad questionnaire used to gather data on level of functioning in 5 areas (social, economic, mental, physical, and ability to perform the activities of daily living) from 997 noninstitutionalized 65-93 yr olds. Results indicate that, although the Mini-Mult has validity and the rate of responding to it is good, there are significant sex and race-related differences in answering, and scale scores tend to be somewhat unstable and unduly elevated. It is recommended that, as an instrument in surveys of the community-based elderly, the Mini-Mult must be treated with caution. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rapid smoking: A cautionary note.

Although rapid smoking has proved to be a successful treatment strategy for smokers, its hazard potential has been recently debated. In the present study, 6 Ss (mean age 30.8 yrs) were monitored throughout 8 standard sessions of rapid smoking. Heart rate, blood pressure, and carboxyhemoglobin increases were generally higher than those reported in the few extant physiological studies of rapid smoking, and EKG abnormalities occurred in several Ss during rapid smoking. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Olanzapine in the treatment of hallucinosis in idiopathic Parkinson's disease: a cautionary note

BACKGROUND: Hallucinosis is a dopaminergic dose limiting complication of the treatment of idiopathic Parkinson's disease. Typical neuroleptic medications cannot be used for suppressing hallucinosis because the extrapyramidal side effects worsen parkinsonian motor control. Olanzapine is a novel atypical antipsychotic drug with few reported extrapyramidal side effects which may be more suitable for controlling hallucinosis in these patients. METHODS: Olanzapine was given to five patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease and the dosage was titrated until a clinically meaningful reduction in hallucinosis was achieved. The commercially available 5 mg, 7.5 mg and 10 mg tablets were used. RESULTS: After an initial 9 days of treatment, hallucinosis frequency was significantly reduced, an effect which was maintained with continued treatment. However, during this early phase of treatment, parkinsonian motor disability increased, which resulted in two of the patients discontinuing medication. CONCLUSIONS: Olanzapine is effective in the suppression of hallucinosis in patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease but the currently available dose increments may result in an unacceptable exacerbation of motor disability.     

Assessment and modification of alcoholics drinking behavior in controlled laboratory settings: a cautionary note

A group of 10 prepubertal boys was studied during prolonged exercise (60 min) on bicycle ergometer and on treadmill at two levels of work load (appr. 40% and 60% VO2 max). The hematocrit, serum proteins, Cl- and K+ were followed, and from the blood hematocrit changes the plasma volume changes were calculated. At the exercises of lower intensity of both types a slight hemodilution was found (appr. +5% increase in plasma volume), at higher intensity practically no changes could be demonstrated. These findings are supported by the values of serum protein concentration, where no increase was found, and by the fact that at the lower work loads a rather decreasing trend was found for this blood constituent. These findings are at variance with those in adults under similar conditions. The authors suggest that different changes of plasma volume during exercise in boys than in adults could be related to the disparate lactate production and fate in these age groups.     

Hydroxyl radical formation in diabetic rats induced by streptozotocin

Production of hydroxyl radicals was examined in the diabetic rats induced by streptozotocin to prove its involvement to the pathogenesis of diabetes. Hydroxyl radicals generated in plasma, heart muscle, liver and brain of the hyperglycemic rats were quantitatively assayed by trapping hydroxyl radicals with salicylic acid as 2,3- and 2,5-dihydroxybenzoic acid. The concentrations of 2,3- and 2,5-dihydroxybenzoic acid were significantly increased in all the tissues of the diabetic rats. In the brain and heart muscle of the diabetic rats, the increase of 2,3-dihydroxybenzoic acid was more manifest than that of 2,5-dihydroxybenzoic acid, while in liver 2,5-dihydroxybenzoic acid increased markedly. All the values of 2,3-dihydroxybenzoic acid detected in the tissues of the diabetic rats were quite higher than those in control. Hydroxyl radical production and blood glucose concentration were depended almost linearly on the amount of streptozotocin injected to rats up to 60 mg/kg body weight. It was suggested that 2,3-dihydroxybenzoic acid was produced from hydroxyl radicals themselves, while 2,5-dihydroxybenzoic acid was produced by hydroxylation of salicylic acid not only with hydroxyl radicals, but also by enzymatic reaction of microsomal cytochrome-P450. Hydroxyl radical formation may account for some pathological process especially in the heart muscle and brain.     

Unrealistic optimism about future life events: A cautionary note.

A robust finding in social psychology is that people judge negative events as less likely to happen to themselves than to the average person, a behavior interpreted as showing that people are “unrealistically optimistic” in their judgments of risk concerning future life events. However, we demonstrate how unbiased responses can result in data patterns commonly interpreted as indicative of optimism for purely statistical reasons. Specifically, we show how extant data from unrealistic optimism studies investigating people's comparative risk judgments are plagued by the statistical consequences of sampling constraints and the response scales used, in combination with the comparative rarity of truly negative events. We conclude that the presence of such statistical artifacts raises questions over the very existence of an optimistic bias about risk and implies that to the extent that such a bias exists, we know considerably less about its magnitude, mechanisms, and moderators than previously assumed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Meta-analysis and moderator variables: A cautionary note on transportability.

Despite the recent popularity of meta-analysis as a tool for summarizing empirical results across a number of studies, surprisingly little research has been conducted on the accuracy of these procedures under a variety of population conditions. Of concern in this study was the 90% credibility value (K. Pearlman et al, see record 1980-31533-001) advocated as a rule of thumb regarding the transportability of employment test validities. We investigated the ability of this meta-analytic rule to detect the presence of discretely defined moderator variables, that is, the ability of the rule to detect instances where transportability is inappropriate. An infinite sample size analysis and a mathematical proof demonstrated that the transportability rule may produce erroneous inferences at rates higher than expected. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Using personality testing to reduce adverse impact: A cautionary note.

Adding a personality test to an ability test for employee selection has been suggested as a means of enhancing validity while reducing adverse impact of the selection system. Adverse impact was examined with different weightings of ability and personality testing at varying selection ratios using data from two large applicant samples. This demonstration indicated that the use of personality testing did not compensate for the adverse impact related to cognitive ability testing and that applicant pool characteristics and the nature of the personality measure may be important considerations. Overall, results suggest caution in presuming a reduction in adverse impact by the addition of personality measures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Alternative measures of expressed emotion: A methodological and cautionary note.

Undergraduate raters listened to Camberwell Family Interviews that had been conducted with the spouses of depressed patients and then rated each relative with a rating-scale assessment of expressed emotion (EE). Students' ratings of relatives' criticism, hostility, emotional overinvolvement, and warmth were significantly correlated with trained raters' EE assessments obtained in the conventional manner. Despite this correspondence, further analyses revealed that undergraduates' assessments of relatives did not predict 9-mo relapse rates in patients. These results highlight the importance of establishing both the concurrent and predictive validity of any alternative measure of EE. They also emphasize the dangers of assuming that significant correlates of EE are necessarily significant predictors of relapse. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A cautionary note on modeling growth trends in longitudinal data.

Random coefficient and latent growth curve modeling are currently the dominant approaches to the analysis of longitudinal data in psychology. The application of these models to longitudinal data assumes that the data-generating mechanism behind the psychological process under investigation contains only a deterministic trend. However, if a process, at least partially, contains a stochastic trend, then random coefficient regression results are likely to be spurious. This problem is demonstrated via a data example, previous research on simple regression models, and Monte Carlo simulations. A data analytic strategy is proposed to help researchers avoid making inaccurate inferences when observed trends may be due to stochastic processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Thinking about the social influence model: A cautionary note in response to Dorn.

F. J. Dorn (see record 1984-15985-001) claims that acceptance of the social influence model is related to the needs of society and that the medical profession got into trouble because it paid too much attention to professional identity, but he does not substantiate these claims. The present author argues that the most interesting questions regarding the relationship between professional identity and the social influence model have not even been raised by Dorn. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A cautionary note on measurement error corrections in structural equation models.

It is commonly thought that structural equation modeling corrects estimated relationships among latent variables for the biasing effects of measurement error. The purpose of this article is to review the manner in which structural equation models control for measurement error and to demonstrate the conditions in which structural equation models do and do not correct for unreliability. Generalizability theory is used to demonstrate that there are multiple sources of error in most measurement systems and that applications of structural equation modeling rarely account for more than a single source of error. As a result, the parameter estimates in a structural equation model may be severely biased by unassessed sources of measurement error. Recommendations for modeling multiple sources of error in structural equation models are provided. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)