The relation between catastrophizing and the communication of pain experience

The Communal Coping Model of pain catastrophizing proposes that pain catastrophizers enact pain behaviors in order to solicit support or empathy from their social environment. By this account, pain catastrophizers might be expected to engage in behavior aimed at maximizing the probability that their pain will be perceived by others in their social environment. To test this prediction, 40 undergraduates were videotaped during a cold pressor procedure. A separate sample of 20 (10 men, 10 women) undergraduates were asked to view the video sequences and infer the pain ratings of the cold pressor participants. Correlational analyses revealed that higher levels of pain catastrophizing of the cold pressor participants were associated with observer inferences of more intense pain, r=.39, p<.01. The relation between cold pressor participants' level of pain catastrophizing and observer inferences of pain intensity was mediated by the cold pressor participants' pain behavior. Although pain catastrophizing was associated with observers' inferences of more intense pain, cold pressor participants' level of pain catastrophizing was not associated with observers' accuracy in inferring self-reported pain. Implications of the findings for theory and clinical practice are addressed.     

“Why am I like this?” Consumers discuss their causal beliefs and stigma

The stigma associated with mental illness has several negative consequences for consumers (e.g., discrimination in employment and accommodation, reduced help-seeking, increased social isolation) and impacts their quality of life. Consumers’ beliefs around the causes of mental illness are thought to influence stigma and self-stigma. This study aims to investigate the types of causal beliefs consumers endorse about their own mental illness, mental illness in general, and consumers’ beliefs about causes endorsed by the public. Moreover, this study explores the impact that these beliefs have on factors that influence stigma and self-stigma. A thematic framework guided the analysis of semi-structured interviews with 23 consumers who self-identified as having mental illness. Consumers endorsed multiple causes simultaneously and causes differed between their own mental illness, thinking about mental illness in general, and the causal beliefs perceived to be held by the public. The majority of consumers thought that mental illness in general was caused by a combination of biogenetic, psychological, and environmental factors. Consumers endorsed fewer causal beliefs when considering their own mental illness, with all consumers stating that environmental factors contributed to their illness. Consumers thought that the public had a narrower range of causal beliefs and tended to think the public believed personal weakness/choice caused mental illness. Findings extend previous research and show that consumers’ causal beliefs may have an impact on several factors (e.g., control and management of illness, self-blame, feelings of responsibility, perceptions towards self) which are thought to influence treatment, recovery, and stigma.     

Hemispheric processing of predictive inferences during reading: The influence of negatively emotional valenced stimuli

Although a left hemisphere advantage is usually evident during language processing, the right hemisphere is highly involved during the processing of weakly constrained inferences. However, currently little is known about how the emotional valence of environmental stimuli influences the hemispheric processing of these inferences. In the current study, participants read texts promoting either strongly or weakly constrained predictive inferences and performed a lexical decision task to inference-related targets presented to the left visual field-right hemisphere or the right visual field-left hemisphere. While reading these texts, participants either listened to dissonant music (i.e., the music condition) or did not listen to music (i.e., the no music condition). In the no music condition, the left hemisphere showed an advantage for strongly constrained inferences compared to weakly constrained inferences, whereas the right hemisphere showed high facilitation for both strongly and weakly constrained inferences. In the music condition, both hemispheres showed greater facilitation for strongly constrained inferences than for weakly constrained inferences. These results suggest that negatively valenced stimuli (such as dissonant music) selectively influences the right hemisphere’s processing of weakly constrained inferences during reading.     

Theory and methods for research on ethical issues in dementia care.

ABSTRACT. Swedish research on ethical issues in dementia care is almost exclusively done by nursing scientists. Many of these studies are rightfully acclaimed as exemplary research. But the strong focusing on the nurse and her relation to the patient tends to bias the ethical issues—the attitudes of other persons involved or affected are also in need of investigation. Further, there is a predilection for content analysis at the expense of causal analysis. In this paper an eclectic approach to the study of ethical issues in dementia care is advocated. More interdisciplinary communication and co-operation is also needed—especially between nursing scientists and moral philosophers. To facilitate such communication and co-operation a model for analysis of ethical issues is presented and discussed. To illustrate my ideas I use three articles by researchers from the department of advanced nursing in Umeå: Ekman & Norberg (1988), Norberg & Asplund (1990) and Åkerlund & Norberg (1989–90).     

The maximum likelihood approach to the identification of neuronal firing systems

The concern of this work is the identification of the (nonlinear) system of a neuron firing under the influence of a continuous input in one case, and firing under the influence of two other neurons in a second case. In the first case, suppose that the data consist of sample values Xt, Yt, t = 0, +/- 1, +/- 2,... with Yt = 1 if the neuron fires in the time interval t to t + 1 and Yt = 0 otherwise, and with Xt denoting the (sampled) noise value at time t. Suppose that Ht denotes the history of the process to time t. Then, in this case the model fit has the form Prob[Yt = 1/Ht] = phi(Ut-theta) where (formula; see text) where gamma t denotes the time elapsed since the neuron last fired and phi denotes the normal cumulative. This model corresponds to quadratic summation of the stimulus followed by a random threshold device. In the second case, a network of three neurons is studied and it is supposed that (formula; see text) with Xt and Zt zero-one series corresponding to the firing times of the two other neurons. The models are fit by the method of maximum likelihood to Aplysia californica data collected in the laboratory of Professor J.P. Segundo. The paper also contains some general comments of the advantages of the maximum likelihood method for the identification of nonlinear systems.     

Particulate matter in ambient air and mortality: toxicologic perspectives

U.S. regulations that set standards for acceptable concentrations of respirable particulate matter (PM) in outdoor air, particularly total fine particulate matter (PM(2.5)), are based largely on the belief that current concentrations cause death and illness, and that reducing these concentrations will save lives. Because the mortality risk estimates from important observational epidemiologic studies are extremely weak, derived from studies unable to control for relevant confounding causes, and inconsistent by location, toxicologic and clinical information is necessary to judge the likelihood and degree to which such findings are causal. Toxicologic data on typical forms of pollution-derived PM strongly suggest that current ambient concentrations in the U.S. are too small to cause significant disease or death. We review here the results of inhalation studies using concentrated ambient particles, diesel engine exhaust particulate matter, and sulfate and nitrate salts, and find no evidence that moderate concentrations are lethal. The expectation that lives will be saved by reducing ambient PM(2.5) in the U.S. is not supported by the weight of scientific evidence, although other bases for regulating PM may be justifiable.     

Third variable analysis: Application to causal sequences among nutrient intake,maternal weight,birthweight, placental weight,and gestation

We applied a set of procedures, aimed at enhancing the strengh of inferences about the direcion of causal paths among variables measured at the same time, to foetal and maternal indices recorded at birth and collected for study of the Dutch famine of 1944/5. The analysis of three-variable sets yielded strong inferences about the relations among caloric intake, maternal weight, birthweight, placental weight, and length of gestation. These procedures constitute not only a useful preliminary to the construction of multivariate path models, but produce useful results in their own right.