What's love got to do with it? Social functioning, perceived health, and daily happiness in married octogenarians.

This study examined day-to-day links between perceived health and happiness and between time spent with others and happiness in 47 older adult couples over an 8-day period. Marital satisfaction and time spent with others were explored as potential moderators of links between health and happiness. For both men and women, hierarchical linear modeling revealed daily links between more time spent with others and greater happiness. Daily links between time spent with one's partner and happiness were strongly moderated by marital satisfaction. For both men and women, marital satisfaction buffered day-to-day links between poorer perceived health and a decline in happiness, but time spent with others did not. This study provides support for the role of marital satisfaction in protecting older adults' happiness from daily fluctuations in perceived physical health and for the influence of social connections in promoting happiness in the lives of older adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Does the meaning of neurocognitive change change with age?

Significant declines in longitudinal comparisons of neurocognitive performance are seldom evident until adults are in their 60s or older, but relatively little is known about the existence, or nature, of age-related changes at earlier periods in adulthood. The current research was designed to address this issue by examining characteristics of change in measures from 12 neuropsychological and cognitive tests at different periods in adulthood. Although change was largely positive for adults under about 55 years of age and frequently negative for adults at older ages, the reliabilities of the changes in the neuropsychological and cognitive variables were similar at all ages. Furthermore, there were few systematic relations of age on the reliability-adjusted correlations between the changes in composite scores representing different abilities. These results imply that although neurocognitive declines may not be apparent at young ages because of positive retest effects or other factors, at least in some respects longitudinal changes may have nearly the same meaning across all of adulthood. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychobabble: Why do we do it?

Many expressions originating in contemporary, "instant" therapies have become incorporated into everyday speech. These expressions, otherwise know as "psychobabble," convey connotative meanings rather than precise, denotative ones. It is concluded here that they also function as indexes, thereby serving as markers for identifying group members, and as security operations, thereby enhancing self-esteem. Consequently, psychobabble has personal significance for the speaker/therapist but not for the listener/client. (6 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

What's the latest? Cultural age deadlines for family transitions

Several questions about the degree to which cultural schedules exist for the timing of life transitions, as well as the nature of these schedules, remain unexplored. In this article, we examine age timetables for central family transitions. Do individuals perceive age deadlines for these transitions, and by what ages do they think that men or women should have experienced them? How much consensus exists about these deadlines? Why are they considered important, and what consequences are perceived for men or women who miss them? A key theoretical question with which we are concerned is whether contemporary thinking about these deadlines can be considered "normative." A random sample of 319 adults from the Chicago metropolitan area were interviewed about eleven separate life-course transitions, six of which were from the family sphere. By and large, the majority of respondents perceived deadlines for most of the family transitions discussed. While the deadlines cited were quite variable in range, they were also concentrated within a narrow band of ages. The dimensions underlying individuals' thinking about deadlines were centered primarily on the development of self and personality, or were linked to concerns about the sequencing of roles and experiences over lifetime. However, late timing was generally thought to be acceptable, accompanied by little social tension, and without consequences for the individual's life or the lives of other persons to whom one is intimately connected. While a rough, "normal biography" of family life existed in the minds of our respondents, the deadlines attached to that biography were flexible guidelines for the course of family life, not rigid, normative principles. These findings are discussed in light of recent debates about life-course theory and research.     

Negative self-synchronization: Will I change to be like you when it is bad for me?

The current research examined whether people will attempt to modify internal aspects of the self to make them congruent with others, even when those modifications have negative implications for the self, a phenomenon we refer to as negative self-synchronization. We proposed that negative self-synchronization will occur only for individuals who are securely attached. Across 4 experiments, participants who were high in secure attachment were more likely than those low in attachment security to engage in negative self-synchronization (Experiments 1–4). Attachment style did not moderate positive self-synchronization (Experiments 1 and 2). In addition, priming secure attachment increased negative self-synchronization among insecure participants (Experiments 2 and 3). Conversely, priming insecure attachment decreased negative self-synchronization among secure participants (Experiment 4). Implications of these findings for social synchronization processes, the need to belong, and attachment security are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The other-race effect in eyewitness identification: What do we do about it?

The greater difficulty of other-race relative to own-race facial recognition is one of the most researched issues in eyewitness identification. The authors discuss articles in the March 2001 issue of Psychology, Public Policy, and Law as well as some methodological and interpretational problems regarding demonstrations of the other-race identification effect. In spite of some problems with the literature, they conclude that the other-race identification effect is real and that it is relevant to the criminal justice system. The authors propose a system-variable approach in which other-race identification cases receive special preventive treatment at the time of the identification test rather than after-the-fact attempts to assist triers of fact. These preventive procedures include using same-race lineup constructors, larger numbers of fillers in other-race cases, dual lineup techniques in other-race cases, or a combination of these procedures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Screening flexible sigmoidoscopy by nonphysician endoscopists: it's here to stay, but is it the right test to do?

Vestibular schwannomas have been noted to have increased frequency and aggressivity in female patients, suggesting a possible role of estrogen. This study evaluated the effects of estrogen and tamoxifen on the growth of human vestibular schwannoma tissue implanted in subcutaneous pockets of nude mice. Animals were implanted with 1 of 3 human vestibular schwannomas and observed for 28 days. Mice were then separated into 3 treatment groups: controls, estrogen (receiving 1.7 mg of 17B-estradiol), and estrogen + tamoxifen (receiving 1.7 mg of 17B-estradiol + 10 mg of tamoxifen), and treated for 28 days. Mice treated with estrogen showed increased growth that was statistically significant (P < 0.05) when compared with that of both the controls and the animals treated with estrogen + tamoxifen. Controls and animals treated with estrogen + tamoxifen showed a general trend of decreased volume during the treatment period. These early results support the hypothesis that estrogen modulates the growth of vestibular schwannomas in the nude mouse model and that these effects can be blocked by tamoxifen administration.     

Doctor in the lab: what is it like for a doctor to work with scientists?

As clinical academic medical departments strive to improve the quality of their research, clinicians and scientists are forced into closer liaison. In many cases, clinical departments now have research laboratories directed by "basic scientists" but often staffed, in part at least, by doctors. To someone who has not worked in one, these laboratories may seem uncompromising and forbidding work environments. This article presents a "case report" written from the viewpoints of the doctor, the scientist, and the professor.     

Working with dreams in psychotherapy: What do psychoanalytic therapists report that they do?

Forty-seven psychoanalytic therapists completed a questionnaire about dream work. Overall, results indicated that therapists had very positive attitudes toward dreams, worked with their own dreams, sought out dream training, and felt competent working with dreams. Therapists estimated that they worked with dreams with about half of their clients about half of the time in psychotherapy. They were most willing to work with dreams when clients had recurrent or troubling dreams or nightmares, were psychologically minded, were seeking growth, were interested in dreams, and were willing to work with dreams. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Only time will tell: Cross-sectional studies offer no solution to the age–brain–cognition triangle: Comment on Salthouse (2011).

Salthouse (2011) critically reviewed cross-sectional and longitudinal relations among adult age, brain structure, and cognition (ABC) and identified problems in interpretation of the extant literature. His review, however, missed several important points. First, there is enough disparity among the measures of brain structure and cognitive performance to question the uniformity of B and C vertices of the ABC triangle. Second, age differences and age changes in brain and cognition are often nonlinear. Third, variances and correlations among measures of brain and cognition frequently vary with age. Fourth, cross-sectional comparisons among competing models of ABC associations cannot disambiguate competing hypotheses about the structure and the range of directed and reciprocal relations between changes in brain and behavior. We offer the following conclusions, based on these observations. First, individual differences among younger adults are not useful for understanding the aging of brain and behavior. Second, only multivariate longitudinal studies, age-comparative experimental interventions, and a combination of the two will deliver us from the predicaments of the ABC triangle described by Salthouse. Mediation models of cross-sectional data represent age-related differences in target variables but fail to approximate time-dependent relations; thus, they do not elucidate the dimensions and dynamics of cognitive aging. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

What's the latest? II. Cultural age deadlines for educational and work transitions

The age-normative framework has gained widespread acceptance among students of the life course since the pioneering work of Bernice Neugarten had her colleagues in the 1960s. Investigators have begun to call for new research in this area to determine how these schedules operate in contemporary American society, how they might vary by life sphere, and how they might operate differently for men and women or along other important social divisions. Building on interviews with a random sample of 319 adults in the Chicago metropolitan area, we turn our attention to cultural age "deadlines" for a series of general transitions related to education and work. While a rough, "normal biography" of educational and work life existed in the minds of our respondents, the deadlines attached to that biography were flexible guidelines for how those trajectories might unfold, not rigid, normative principles. We relate these findings to complementary evidence on family transitions, and we consider our findings in light of two lively scholarly debates. One debate concerns the degree to which various life spheres (e.g., family, education, and work) are more or less structured by age, and the other debate concerns the degree to which men's lives are more or less structured by age compared to women's lives.     

Three-year-olds' difficulty with the appearance–reality distinction: Is it real or is it apparent?

Four experiments investigated 3-year-olds' understanding of the appearance–reality distinction using both J. Flavell, F. Green, and J. Flavell's (1986) typical verbal response paradigm and a new, nonverbal response paradigm. Both paradigms require verbal questioning, but the former involves a verbal response and the latter a nonverbal one. In the nonverbal paradigm, children were shown a deceptive object and asked to respond, nonverbally, to 2 different functional requests, 1 concerning the object's apparent property and 1 its real property. In the verbal paradigm, children were asked to state what the object looked like and what it really was. In the verbal paradigm, children were about 30% correct (a rate matching that in the literature), whereas over 90% of the same children were correct in the nonverbal paradigm. Participating in the verbal paradigm first had a detrimental effect on the children's performance in the nonverbal paradigm, but the reverse order had no effect. These results suggest that 3-year-olds can represent two conflicting properties of a deceptive object and thus understand the appearance-reality distinction in the nonverbal domain. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

What ought psychology to do?

The Reverend Jesse Jackson addressed the American Psychological Association on August 20, 1999, in Boston, Massachusetts. His speech concerned social justice and psychology. This article presents the text of an abridged version of his remarks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Positively biased appraisals in everyday life: When do they benefit mental health and when do they harm it?

To promote optimal mental health, is it best to evaluate negative experiences accurately or in a positively biased manner? In an attempt to reconcile inconsistent prior research addressing this question, we predicted that the tendency to form positively biased appraisals of negative experiences may reduce the motive to address those experiences and thereby lead to poorer mental health in the context of negative experiences that are controllable and severe but lead to better mental health in the context of controllable negative experiences that are less severe by promoting positive feelings without invoking serious consequences from unaddressed problems. In 2 longitudinal studies, individuals in new marriages were interviewed separately about their ongoing stressful experiences, and their own appraisals of those experiences were compared with those of the interviewers. Across studies, spouses' tendencies to form positively biased appraisals of their stressful experiences predicted fewer depressive symptoms over the subsequent 4 years among individuals judged to be facing relatively mild experiences but more depressive symptoms among individuals judged to be facing relatively severe experiences. Furthermore, in Study 2, these effects were mediated by changes in those experiences, such that the interaction between the tendency to form positively biased appraisals of stressful experiences and the objectively rated severity of initial levels of those experiences directly predicted changes in those experiences, which in turn accounted for changes in depressive symptoms. These findings suggest that cognitive biases are not inherently positive or negative; their implications for mental health depend on the context in which they occur. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Elevated mortality from nonalcohol-related chronic liver disease among female rubber workers: is it associated with exposure to nitrosamines?

BACKGROUND: Despite several case reports describing liver toxicity of nitrosamines and the fact that some N-nitroso compounds are used to induce cirrhosis of the liver in animal models, this association has not been investigated in epidemiological studies. METHODS: A cohort of 2,875 female rubber workers who were active on January 1, 1976, or hired thereafter, and who had been employed for at least 1 year in one of five plants producing tires or technical rubber goods was followed for mortality from January, 1976, through December, 1991. Work histories were reconstructed using routinely documented "cost center codes" and classified into six work areas. Age and calendar year standardized mortality ratios (SMR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were calculated and stratified by plant, work area, year of hire, and years of employment in the respective work area. RESULTS: The excess mortality from cirrhosis of the liver was most pronounced for nonalcohol-related cirrhosis of the liver (ICD-9 571.4-571.9: 10 deaths, SMR 202; 95% CI 97-372). Mortality from alcohol-related cirrhosis of the liver (ICD-9 571.0-571.3: 3 deaths, SMR 153; 95% CI 31-446) and from other alcohol-related diseases (organic psychoses, injury, and poisoning) was not statistically significantly elevated. All 10 cases of nonalcohol-related cirrhosis had worked in production of technical rubber goods (SMR 279; 95% CI 134-514) and risks increased with earlier years of hire and with longer duration of employment in this work area. DISCUSSION: Although our results must be interpreted with caution, they suggest that the observed excess deaths from cirrhosis of the liver are associated with occupational risk factors. In light of additional evidence from case reports and animal data, exposure to nitrosamines may be a plausible risk factor for the observed excess mortality.     

Choice-supportive source monitoring: Do our decisions seem better to us as we age?

Participants were given several 2-option choices and then asked to review how they felt about their decisions, to review the details of their decisions, or to do an unrelated task. When later asked to attribute features to the previous options, in each condition older adults (64–83 years) attributed significantly more positive and fewer negative features to their chosen options than to foregone options. Younger adults' (18–22 years) attributions were as choice-supportive as those of older adults in the affective review condition but were less so in the other conditions. The age difference was present even when older and younger adults were equated for source identification and recognition accuracy. This study suggests that as people age, their tendency to distort memory in favor of the options they chose increases. In addition, it suggests that affectively reviewing choices increases younger adults' tendency toward choice-supportive memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When is it safe for babies to swim?

What factors are important when health professionals are asked "At what age is it safe to take my baby swimming in a public pool?". In a survey of primary health care doctors, no unified approach was identified but many considered immunisation essential before swimming. There is no evidence to support this view. Careful attention to the infant's body temperature is more important.     

Age-related differences in switching between cognitive tasks: Does internal control ability decline with age?

The present study tested the hypothesis that older adults establish a weaker task set than younger adults and therefore rely more on stimulus-triggered activation of task sets. This hypothesis predicts that older adults should have difficulty with task switches, especially when the stimuli-responses are associated with multiple, competing tasks. Weak task preparation, however, could actually benefit older adults when performing an unexpected task. The authors tested this prediction in Experiment 1 using a repeating AABB task sequence, with univalent and bivalent stimuli intermixed. On some univalent trials, participants received an unexpected task. Contrary to the authors' predictions, expectancy costs were not smaller for older adults. Similar findings were obtained in Experiments 2 and 3, in which the authors used a task-cueing paradigm to more strongly promote deliberate task preparation. The authors found no disproportionate age effects on switch costs but did find age effects on bivalence costs and mixing costs. The authors conclude that older adults do experience extra difficulty dealing with stimuli associated with 2 active tasks but found no evidence that the problem specifically stems from an increased reliance on bottom-up task activation rather than top-down task preparation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)