Specific Patterns of Emotion Recognition from Faces in Children with ASD: Results of a Cross-Modal Matching Paradigm.

Children with ASD show emotion recognition difficulties, as part of their social communication deficits. We examined facial emotion recognition (FER) in intellectually disabled children with ASD and in younger typically developing (TD) controls, matched on mental age. Our emotion-matching paradigm employed three different modalities: facial, vocal and verbal.

Immediate therapist self-disclosure bolsters the effect of brief integrative psychotherapy on psychiatric symptoms and the perceptions of therapists: A randomized clinical trial.

Objective: We report a first randomized clinical trial examining the effect of immediate and non-immediate therapist self-disclosure in the context of a brief integrative psychotherapy for mild to moderate distress.

Method: A total of 86 patients with mild to moderate forms of distress were randomly divided into three 12-session integrative psychotherapy conditions based primarily on [Hill, C. E.

The clinical picture of late-onset PTSD: a 20-year longitudinal study of Israeli war veterans.

Delayed-onset posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been under medico-legal debate for years. Previous studies examining the prevalence and clinical characteristics of delayed-onset PTSD have yielded inconclusive findings. This study prospectively examines the prevalence and clinical picture of late-onset PTSD among Israeli war veterans.

The effect of stress on cognitive structuring: a cognitive motivational model.

In this article, we outline a model of the factors involved in the relationship between stress and cognitive structuring. More specifically, we propose that the desire for certainty, the need for cognitive structure, and perceived efficacy at satisfying one's epistemic needs intervene in the effect exerted by stress on cognitive structuring. We further suggest expanding the model to account for aspects of general information processing and to encompass the effect of various trait-like characteristics on the cognitive response to stress.

The association between cumulative adversity and mental health: considering dose and primary focus of adversity.

Purpose: The study addressed the dose-response model in the association of cumulative adversity with mental health.

Method: Data of 1,725 participants aged 50+ were drawn from the Israeli component of the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe. Measures included an inventory of potentially traumatic events, distress (lifetime depression, depressive symptoms), and well-being (quality of life, optimism/hope).

Who is prone to react to coinciding threats of terrorism and war? Exploring vulnerability through global versus differential reactivity.

This study addressed reactions of Israelis to terrorism and the confrontation with Iraq when these threats coincided in 2003. A sample of 471 participants (age range 19-88) rated affective, cognitive, and behavioral reactions to each threat. Stronger reactions related to higher neuroticism, lower education, and being a woman; reactions to the confrontation with Iraq also related to lower extraversion and being a Holocaust survivor.

The effect of choice between test anxiety treatment options on treatment outcomes.

Evidence regarding the effect of clients' choice of treatment on treatment outcome is inconsistent. This possible effect was examined by presenting participants with two treatments of test anxiety: advanced muscle relaxation and changing of internal dialogue. Clients (N=73) were allocated to three groups: choice (participants chose their preferred treatment), no choice (participants were assigned to their preferred treatment but were led to believe they couldn't choose the treatment they were assigned to), and wait-list control (participants received no treatment until the end of the study).

The contribution of stressful life events throughout the life cycle to combat-induced psychopathology.

This study examines the contribution of prewar life events, war exposure, and postwar life events to combat-induced psychopathology among 425 Israeli War veterans from the Lebanon War. Data was collected at two time points (1983 and 2002). The sample included veterans with and without combat stress reaction (CSR).

The crossover of perceived health between spouses.

The current study examined the crossover of perceived health between spouses and the mediating roles of self-esteem and undermining in this process. Data were collected from a sample of 2,108 couples from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring survey. Using structural equation modeling, the authors tested a crossover model that incorporated three mechanisms: bidirectional crossover of perceived health between spouses, common stressors (income), and indirect mediated effects (social undermining).

Effects of stress on sleep: the moderating role of coping style.

The aim of this prospective quasi-experimental study was to assess the role of coping style as a factor moderating the relationship between stress and sleep. Sleep of 36 students was assessed by means of actigraphy and daily logs during low-stress and high-stress periods. The high-stress period was the week that the students were evaluated for acceptance to graduate programs in clinical psychology.

The effect of stress on the suppression of erroneous competing responses.

Abstract Evidence exists that the intention to perform certain cognitive tasks activates, unintentionally, competing responses and computations that intrude on the performance of the intended tasks. For the intended task to be performed effectively, such intrusions must be controlled. Two experiments were carried out to test the hypothesis that stress heightens the difficulty of exercising effective control over erroneous competing responses, a possible explanation of decrements in the performance of cognitive tasks under stress.

The effect of psychological stress and tolerance of ambiguity on stereotypic attributions.

Abstract Recent research on the relationship between cognition and affect suggests the prediction that psychological stress encourages stereotyping. Yet the empirical evidence regarding this proposition is inconclusive. This study examined the effect of stress on the perception of illusory correlations, which comprise a particular manifestation of stereotypic attributions, and the moderating role of tolerance of ambiguity.

Psychological adaptation of anxiety disorder patients following repeated exposure to emergency situation.

Thirty one patients in treatment for anxiety disorders and 31 controls were interviewed within hours after both the first and second Iraqi missile attacks on Israel during the Gulf war. After the first attack patients did not report higher anxiety levels, nor were they more pessimistic about the war and their fate in the war than the control subjects. Anxiety disorder patients tended to be engaged in cognitive-behavioral tactics for self-calming, while control subjects clearly preferred to cope by interacting with their social and physical environments.

Controlling the uncontrollable: effects of stress on illusory perceptions of controllability.

Individuals' failure to exercise actual control over an event might be compensated for by trying to bolster a generalized, subjective sense of control. Control might then be sought by undertaking acts the effect of which on the environment is illusory. This observation led to the hypothesis that stress, which undermines persons' sense of control, would engender illusory perceptions of controllability.

Predicting women's delay in seeking medical care after discovery of a lump in the breast: the role of personality and behavior patterns.

Experts agree that the detection of breast cancer in the early stages significantly enhances the chance of recovery. Although most women are aware of this, many still delay in seeking medical care. This study examined the relationship between four personality measures--health locus of control, hopelessness, repression-sensitization, and trait anxiety--and women's delay in approaching a doctor after discovering a lump in the breast.

Occupational stress and well-being: do seafarers harbor more health problems than people on the shore?

The popular image of life at sea is one of stress: often difficult physical conditions, dislocation, isolation and less than ideal personal habits. In order to determine whether this stressful way of life is manifested when seamen's health status is assessed by standard measurements, we studied 144 sea captains and marine chief engineers as compared with a group of ordinarily employed men. The referent men were matched for age, ethnic origin, and level of education with the seamen.

Perception of self and parents by second-generation Holocaust survivors.

This study's objectives were to test the emotional stability and self-perceptions of Holocaust survivors' offspring (HSO) and to investigate how HSO perceive their parents. It was assumed that the investigation of these two issues would broaden our understanding of the mediating processes through which the psychological burdens of the survivors might be transmitted to their descendants. Forty-seven subjects, all second-generation Holocaust survivors, were compared with 46 control subjects on measures of emotional stability (anxiety and depressive moods) and measures of self-perception and perception of parents.

Decision making under stress: scanning of alternatives under controllable and uncontrollable threats.

This study tested the proposition that deficient decision making under stress is due, to a significant extent, to the individual's failure to fulfill adequately an elementary requirement of the decision-making process, that is, the systematic consideration of all relevant alternatives. One hundred one undergraduate students (59 women and 42 men), aged 20-40, served as subjects in this experiment. They were requested to solve decision problems, using an interactive computer paradigm, while being exposed to controllable stress, uncontrollable stress, or no stress at all.

Stressors and tasks: how and when should stressors be introduced during training for task performance in stressful situations?

Studies on the training of individuals for task performance in stressful situations have typically evaluated procedures that simultaneously expose trainees to tasks and to stressors. Such procedures might create a mutual interference of the stressor with task acquisition, or conversely, of preoccupation with task acquisition with familiarization with the stressors. Using a sample of 180 males, the present study compared a procedure that temporally separates task acquisition from exposure to stressors ("phased training") with the more typical approach which combines the two ("combined training").

Dilemmas concerning the training of individuals for task performance under stress.

The relative effectiveness of five procedures for the training of individuals to perform tasks under stress was tested in a criterion situation, where subjects were requested to perform a visual search task under the threat of electric shocks. During training on the task, different groups of subjects received shocks of criterion-level intensity; milder than criterion-level intensity; gradually increasing intensity; randomly varying intensity. The last group received no shocks at all.

Patterns of fidelity between training and criterion situations as determinants of performance in stressful situations.

The training of individuals for task performance under stress poses a dilemma concerning the degree to which stressor characteristics of the criterion situation should be represented with a high degree of fidelity during training. High fidelity training is likely to reduce the novelty of the criterion situation and familiarize the trainee with his emotional and physiological reactions to stress. On the other hand, the exposure of the trainee to high stress levels during training might interfere with task acquisition and intensify his fears and emotional sensitivity.

Prediction of success in a stressful career by personality attributes.

Several personality attributes were hypothesized to account for a part of the performance variability in continuous repetitive and real-stress situations. A Personality Inventory For Divers (PIFD) was administered to 518 divers and non-divers. Cross sectional and longitudinal studies supported the validity of the PIFD (p less than 0.