Alexithymic characteristics and metabolic control in diabetic and healthy adults.

Diabetes has long been identified as a disease with possible psychological components. Alexithymia--an inability to express emotions verbally, operational thinking, and a lack of fantasy life--is found in a high proportion of psychosomatic patients. We therefore tested the hypothesis that diabetics would be more alexithymic than controls.

Schematic and situational determinants of depressed and nondepressed students' interpretation of feedback.

We examined whether depressed persons' social skill deficits contribute to their negative cognitions and whether this contribution is independent of their negative schemata. Depressed (n = 60) and nondepressed (n = 60) subjects engaged in group discussions. We assessed subjects' social competence schemata with a questionnaire and subjects' actual level of social competence in the discussion through objective ratings made by codiscussants and outside observers.

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

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.

Automated particulate inspection systems: strategies and implications.

The 1980 human performance based validation procedure for automated particulate inspection systems described by Knapp and Kushner is extended to cover the major imported systems now in use. The original publications considered only inspection machine strategies in which the controlling probability in the determination of the inspection security attained was that of rejecting the "must reject" group of containers. For application to the widely used Japanese machines, this paper also considers machines in which the controlling probability in the determination of the inspection security attained is that of accepting the "must reject" container group.

Elevated sleep and waking heart rates in anxious depressions.

Autonomic functioning, as measured by baseline heart rates during daytime (DHR) and during sleep (SLHR), was examined in 28 patients with major depressive disorder (MDD), 13 patients with panic disorder (PD), 28 patients with MDD and coexisting PD (MDD + PD), and 19 controls. DHR and SLHR in patients with PD or MDD did not differ from normals. Only the MDD + PD group showed significantly higher heart rates than controls.

Processing of ambiguous and unambiguous feedback by depressed and nondepressed college students: schematic biases and their implications for depressive realism.

Explored schematic processing as a mechanism for predicting (a) when depressed Ss would be negative relative to nondepressed Ss and (b) when depressed and nondepressed Ss would show biased or unbiased (i.e., "realistic") processing.

The hopelessness theory of depression: attributional aspects.

In this article, we clarify, expand and revise the basic postulates of the hopelessness theory of depression (Abramson, Alloy & Metalsky, 1988a; Abramson, Metalsky & Alloy, 1987, 1988b; previously referred to as the reformulated helplessness theory of depression: Abramson, Seligman & Teasdale, 1978) and place the theory more explicitly in the context of work in descriptive psychiatry about the heterogeneity among the depressive disorders. We suggest that the hopelessness theory hypothesizes the existence in nature of an, as yet, unidentified subtype of depression--'hopelessness depression'--defined, in part, by its cause. We then give a critique of work conducted to test the hopelessness theory and explicate the limitations in research strategy associated with this line of work.

A contemporary approach to male pattern alopecia.

Male pattern alopecia can be significantly improved with punch autografts, scalp reductions, and/or hair-bearing flaps. In the authors' experience, the choice of the appropriate surgical modality is expedited by utilizing the classification of baldness coupled with the quality of the donor hair.

Vulnerability to depressive mood reactions: toward a more powerful test of the diathesis-stress and causal mediation components of the reformulated theory of depression.

To provide a more powerful test of the diathesis-stress component of the reformulated theory of depression (Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978), we extended and refined the Metalsky, Abramson, Seligman, Semmel, and Peterson (1982) study and examined whether the content of college students' attributional styles (hypothesized attributional diathesis) as measured at Time 1 interacted with the outcomes students received on a class midterm exam to predict their subsequent depressive mood responses. In addition, to test the mediation component of the theory, we examined whether the relation between the hypothesized attributional diathesis and failure students' subsequent depressive mood responses to their low midterm grades was mediated by the particular causal attributions these students made for their low grades. The results partially corroborated the current statement (Abramson, Alloy, & Metalsky, 1986; Abramson, Metalsky, & Alloy, 1986a, 1986b) of the diathesis-stress component of the theory.

A cardioacceleratory response to low-dose arecoline infusion during sleep in patients with major depressive disorder: relationship to REM sleep induction.

We studied the cardiovascular effect of 0.5 mg of arecoline, a centrally active cholinergic muscarinic agonist, infused over a 3-minute period during the second non-REM (rapid-eye-movement) sleep cycle in 23 patients with major depression. A clear-cut cardioacceleratory response, beginning at the second minute of the 3-minute infusion, and reaching a peak about 5-6 minutes from the start of the infusion, was noted.

Attributional style and the generality of learned helplessness.

According to the logic of the attribution reformulation of learned helplessness, the interaction of two factors influences whether helplessness experienced in one situation will transfer to a new situation. The model predicts that people who exhibit a style of attributing negative outcomes to global factors will show helplessness deficits in new situations that are either similar or dissimilar to the original situation in which they were helpless. In contrast, people who exhibit a style of attributing negative outcomes to only specific factors will show helplessness deficits in situations that are similar, but not dissimilar, to the original situation in which they were helpless.

Illusion of control for self and others in depressed and nondepressed college students.

Recently, it has been discovered that depressed people are less likely than nondepressed people to succumb to an "illusion of control" and judge that their actions influence outcomes that are objectively uncontrollable. This experiment examined the relationship between depression and susceptibility to the illusion of control for oneself and for others. Depressed and nondepressed college students were asked to judge either how much control they themselves had or how much control a male or female confederate had over a noncontingent, but positive, outcome.

Problem-solving deficits and depressive symptoms among children.

Depressive symptoms among 40 fourth- and fifth-grade students as measured by the Children's Depression Inventory, correlated highly with impaired problem solving at block designs (r = .64) and anagrams (r = .67).

Attributional styles and life events in the classroom: vulnerability and invulnerability to depressive mood reactions.

A core prediction of the reformulated model of learned helplessness and depression (Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978) is that when confronted with the same negative life event, people who display a generalized tendency to attribute negative outcomes to internal, stable, or global factors should be more likely to experience a depressive mood reaction than people who typically attribute negative outcomes to external, unstable, or specific factors. We tested this prediction with a prospective design in a naturalistic setting by determining whether the content of college students' attributional styles at one point in time predicted the severity of their depressive mood response to receiving a low grade on a midterm exam at a subsequent point in time. Consistent with the prediction, students with an internal or global attributional style for negative outcomes at Time 1 experienced a depressive mood response when confronted with a subsequent low midterm grade, whereas students with an external or specific attributional style for negative outcomes were invulnerable to this depressive mood response.

Learned helplessness, depression, and the illusion of control.

Do people previously exposed to uncontrollable aversive events, like naturally depressed people, fail to succumb to an illusion of control in a situation in which events occur noncontingently but are associated with success? Depressed and nondepressed college students were assigned to one of three groups that make up the typical triad used in studies of learned helplessness: controllable noises, uncontrollable noises, or no noises. Following pretreatment, subjects judged how much control they had in a noncontingency learning problem. For half of the subjects, events were noncontingent and associated with failure; whereas for the remaining subjects, events were noncontingent but associated with success.

[Human and animal leptospirosis in irrigated lands].

To study the influence of amelioration on the spread of leptospirosis, the survey of humans, agricultural animals and rodent was made on the territory where the irrigation system was under construction and during 2 years after the beginning of irrigation. This survey failed to establish the occurrence of significant changes in the number of rodents and their species composition, as well as in the number of agricultural animals showing the positive reaction to leptospirosis. No cases of leptospirosis were registered, and during the first years after the beginning of irrigation antibodies in low titers were detected only in 4 out of 536 subjects.

Depression, nondepression, and cognitive illusions: reply to Schwartz.

In his comment, Schwartz argued that the Alloy and Abramson findings call into question the hypothesized causal link between learned helplessness and depression. Schwartz's contention is based on his interpretation of the Alloy and Abramson findings as showing that nondepressives cannot detect noncontingency. Although we argue that Schwartz has misinterpreted our data, we agree with his general contention that nondepressives may be relatively invulnerable to depression.