Blood pressure estimation and beliefs among normotensives and hypertensives.

14 medicated hypertensive, 15 nonmedicated mild hypertensive, 39 normotensive, and 13 hypotensive adults participated in a 1–2 hr laboratory experiment that assessed each S's symptoms, moods, and estimates of systolic blood pressure (SBP) relative to actual SBP levels. Several self-reports and autonomic measures were collected during and after each of 22 tasks. Within-S correlations indicated that all Ss could estimate SBP at levels greater than chance. Further, 68% of the Ss evidenced at least 1 significant symptom–SBP correlation. Although medicated hypertensives believed they could estimate their BP more accurately than other groups, they were actually no more accurate than the other Ss. They also evidenced far fewer empirically derived symptom–SBP and emotion–SBP correlations than any other group. Overall, blood pressure (BP) beliefs were largely inaccurate. If these erroneous beliefs can be eliminated, Ss may be able to estimate BP fluctuations more accurately. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Tracking nonstationary probabilities in adaptive binary arithmeticcoding

Adaptive arithmetic coders sometimes exhibit nonstationary symbol probabilities when coding digital halftone images with neighborhood-template models. If these nonstationary probabilities vary nonrandomly, the variations can be tracked robustly when each context derived from the coding model is expanded by conditioning on previously coded values for that model context.     

Linguistic styles: Language use as an individual difference.

Can language use reflect personality style? Studies examined the reliability, factor structure, and validity of written language using a word-based, computerized text analysis program. Daily diaries from 15 substance abuse inpatients, daily writing assignments from 35 students, and journal abstracts from 40 social psychologists demonstrated good internal consistency for over 36 language dimensions. Analyses of the best 15 language dimensions from essays by 838 students yielded 4 factors that replicated across written samples from another 381 students. Finally, linguistic profiles from writing samples were compared with Thematic Apperception Test coding, self-reports, and behavioral measures from 79 students and with self-reports of a 5-factor measure and health markers from more than 1,200 students. Despite modest effect sizes, the data suggest that linguistic style is an independent and meaningful way of exploring personality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mood changes associated with blood glucose fluctuations in insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus.

Examined relationships between blood glucose (BG) levels and self-reported mood in 34 19–68 yr old insulin-independent diabetes mellitus patients. Four times each day, Ss completed a mood/symptom checklist before a self-measurement of BG until 40 checklists had been completed. Half the items of the checklist described physical symptoms, and half described mood states. Within-S correlations and regressions showed that moods were related to BG for the majority of Ss and that, like physical symptoms, mood–BG relationships were idiosyncratic. Low BG levels were associated with negative mood states; positive mood items were almost always associated with high BG. High BG levels also frequently correlated with negative mood states, although the negative mood items that related to high glucose (anger, sadness) differed from those that tended to relate to low BG. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Accelerating the coping process.

On the basis of previous work, freshmen should evidence improved health after writing about their thoughts and feelings associated with entering college. One hundred thirty subjects were assigned to write either about coming to college or about superficial topics for 20 min on 3 days. One fourth of the subjects in each group wrote during the 1st, 5th, 9th, or 14th week of classes. Physician visits for illness in the months after writing were lower for the experimental than for the control subjects. Self-reports of homesickness and anxiety were higher in the experimental group 2–3 months after writing. By year's end, experimental subjects were either superior or similar to control subjects in grade average and in positive moods. No effects emerged as a function of when people wrote, suggesting that the coping process can be accelerated. Implications for comparing insight treatments with catharsis and for distinguishing between objective and self-report indicators of distress are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Things we said today: A linguistic analysis of the Beatles.

The musical group the Beatles had a profound impact on Western culture during their time together between 1960 and 1970. The three songwriters, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison, together and separately evolved in their lyrical styles over time. Using a new generation of computer text analyses, the Beatles' lyrics were analyzed to address how the group changed as a unit over time, how the various members changed in their writing styles, and the overlap in lyrical styles from one composer to the next. Overall, the Beatles' lyrics became darker, more psychologically distant, and less immediate over time. Paul McCartney's lyrical style proved to be more variable and broad ranging than either Lennon or Harrison. Using latent semantic analyses, Harrison's lyrics were more influenced by Lennon than by McCartney. Finally, the lyrics jointly written by Lennon and McCartney were mathematically more similar to Lennon's linguistic styles than McCartney's. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Behavioral inhibition and electrodermal activity during deception.

Tested the assumption that the act of inhibiting ongoing behavior requires physiological work. In a guilty knowledge test (GKT) paradigm, 30 undergraduates were induced to attempt to deceive the experimenter on 2 separate occasions while electrodermal activity was measured. For 20 of the 30 Ss, overt behaviors (changes in eye movement and facial expression) were recorded during the 2nd GKT. Results indicate that the incidence of these behaviors decreased during Ss' deceptive responses. This behavioral inhibition coincided with increases in skin conductance level. In addition to suggesting nonverbal correlates of deception, findings indicate that long-term behavioral inhibition may be a factor in psychosomatic disease. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Recovered memories in context: Thoughts and elaborations on Bowers and Farvolden (1996).

The recovered memory debate exposes several traditional and recent contradictions within psychology. Building on K. Bowers and P. Farvolden ( see record 83:27619), the nature of recovered memories has profoundly different meanings for therapeutic versus legal settings. Whereas memory can be distorted during the process of retrieval, certain techniques—such as nondirective writing—may be helpful in reducing suggestive influences in recall. Ironically, methods that have been found to produce the most accurate recollections of the past appear only subtly different from those that yield the greatest distortions. The recovered memory debate must ultimately be viewed within a cultural context, both in terms of the phenomenon and its treatment. The authors discuss parallels to other explanatory and therapeutic fads related to states of nonspecific distress. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stalking the perfect measure of implicit self-esteem: The blind men and the elephant revisited?

Recent interest in the implicit self-esteem construct has led to the creation and use of several new assessment tools whose psychometric properties have not been fully explored. In this article, the authors investigated the reliability and validity of seven implicit self-esteem measures. The different implicit measures did not correlate with each other, and they correlated only weakly with measures of explicit self-esteem. Only some of the implicit measures demonstrated good test–retest reliabilities, and overall, the implicit measures were limited in their ability to predict our criterion variables. Finally, there was some evidence that implicit self-esteem measures are sensitive to context. The implications of these findings for the future of implicit self-esteem research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)