Social relationships of men at risk for AIDS

Survey data collected in 1984-85 from a community sample of 637 gay and bisexual men were used to determine the features of social relationships that were most conductive to changes in both psychological health and AIDS-related sexual risk behavior. Multiple regression analyses showed that both the perceived availability of social support and the absence of conflicts in the social network were related to improved psychological health. At the same time, the subjective experience of integration into social networks was associated with increased psychological distress, and validation (the experience of being accepted by others) was related to a higher level of risk activity. These findings are discussed in terms of the social relationships among community members that share a common stressor--in this case the shared problem of being at risk for AIDS.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/30825/1/0000487.pd

Resilience to loss and chronic grief: A prospective study from preloss to 18-months postloss

The vast majority of bereavement research is conducted after a loss has occurred. Thus, knowledge of the divergent trajectories of grieving or their antecedent predictors is lacking. This study gathered prospective data on 205 individuals several years prior to the death of their spouse and at 6- and 18-months postloss. Five core bereavement patterns were identified: common grief, chronic grief, chronic depression, improvement during bereavement, and resilience. Common grief was relatively infrequent, and the resilient pattern most frequent. The authors tested key hypotheses in the literature pertaining to chronic grief and resilience by identifying the preloss predictors of each pattern. Chronic grief was associated with preloss dependency and resilience with preloss acceptance of death and belief in a just world. The death of a spouse is generally assumed to be one of the most stressful experiences that people encounter during the course of their lives (Holmes & Rahe, 1967). However, there are marked individual differences in how much and for how long people grieve (Bonanno & Kaltman, 1999, 2001; Wortman & Silver, 1989, 2001). In addition to what is assumed to be the typical or common reaction, an initial increase in depression that gradually subsides over time, several other patterns of grief have been discussed in the literature. These include prolonged or chronic grieving, the noticeable absence of grief symptoms, and delayed grief responses. Social and personality psychologists have become increasingly interested in these different trajectories, and how they compare with those observed for other marital transitions and othe

Effects of HIV infection, perceived health and clinical status on a cohort at risk for aids

Data from a general population sample of 621 healthy homosexual men are used to evaluate the social and emotional effects of HIV antibody status, clinical signs detected by medical examination, and subjectively perceived symptoms. Participants are unaware of their serologic status at the time of data collection, thus allowing the effects of the virus to be separated from reactions to the knowledge of serologic status.The data show that seropositivity for HIV is not associated with elevated levels of social or emotional impairment. Clinical signs lead to impairment in baseline data, but these effects do not persist at a second wave. This weakening suggests that the effects are mediated by psychological pathways rather than biologic ones. This suspicion is confirmed in further analyses, which show that the effects of clinical signs are mediated by subjectively perceived symptoms.These results show that neither social nor emotional impairment is likely to be a prodromal sign of HIV infection in otherwise healthy homosexual men. The substantial levels of distress found among these men is more directly influenced by psychological determinants than biologic ones. This suggests that physicians should be aware of the psychological toll imposed on gay men who develop health problems in the current atmosphere of uncertainty regarding risk of AIDS.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/27577/1/0000621.pd

Behavior change and compliance: keys to improving cardiovascular health

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/51393/1/Williams R, Behavior Change and Compliance, 1993.pd

Specific interactions leading to transgressive overyielding in cover crop mixtures

Growing mixtures of species instead of sole crops is expected to increase the ecosystem services provided by cover crops. This study aimed at understanding the interactions between species and investigating how they affect the performance of the mixture. Four species were combined in six bispecific mixtures in a field experiment. The performance of each species when grown in a mixture was compared to its performance as a sole crop at different sowing densities, to characterise the influence of intra- and interspecific competition for each species. Intra- and interspecific competition coefficients were quantified using a response surface design and the hyperbolic yield-density equation. Interactions between the four species ranged from facilitation to competition. Most of the mixtures exhibited transgressive overyielding. Without nitrogen (N) fertilisation, high complementarity between species allowed to achieve the highest biomass. With N fertilisation, high dominance of one mixture component should be avoided to achieve good performance. A revised approach in the use of the land equivalent ratio for the evaluation of cover crop mixtures is also proposed in this study. It allows to better identify transgressive overyielding in mixtures and to better characterise the effect of one species on the other within the mixture

Social support and social structure

The burgeoning study of social support in relation to social stress and health would benefit from increased attention to issues of social structure. Three aspects of social relationships, all often referred to as social support, must be more clearly distinguished—(1) their existence or quantity (i.e., social integration), (2) their formal structure (i.e., social networks), and (3) their functional or behavioral content (i.e., the most precise meaning of “social support”)—and the causal relationships between the structure of social relationships (social integration and networks) and their functional content (social support) must be more clearly understood. Research and theory are needed on the determinants of social integration, networks, and support as well as their consequences for stress and health. Among potential determinants, macrosocial structures and processes particularly merit attention.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45658/1/11206_2005_Article_BF01107897.pd

Psychology, 5th ed./ Wortman

XII, 632 hal

Psychology, 5th ed./ Wortman

XII, 632 hal