The Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale revisited: More perfect with four (instead of six) dimensions

The Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (FMPS; Frost, Marten, Lahart & Rosenblate, 1990) provides six subscales for a multidimensional assessment of perfectionism: Concern over Mistakes (CM), Personal Standards (PS), Parental Expectations (PE), Parental Criticism (PC), Doubts about actions (D), and Organization (O). Despite its increasing popularity in personality and clinical research, the FMPS has also drawn some criticism for its factorial instability across samples. The present article argues that this instability may be due to an overextraction of components. Whereas all previous analyses presented six-factor solutions for the FMPS items, a reanalysis with Horn's parallel analysis suggested only four or five underlying factors. To investigate the nature of these factors, item responses from N = 243 participants were subjected to principal component analysis. Again, parallel analysis retained only four components. Varimax rotation replicated PS and O as separate factors, whereas combining CM with D as well as PE with PC. Consequently, the present article suggests a reduction to four (instead of six) FMPS subscales. Differential correlations with anxiety, depression, parental representations and action tendencies underscore the advantage of this solution

Minority Stress Theory: Application, Critique, and Continued Relevance

The minority stress model has been influential in guiding research on sexual and gender minority health and well-being in psychology and related social and health sciences. Minority stress has theoretical roots in psychology, sociology, public health, and social welfare. Meyer provided the first integrative articulation of minority stress in 2003 as an explanatory theory aimed at understanding the social, psychological, and structural factors accounting for mental health inequalities facing sexual minority populations. This article reviews developments in minority stress theory over the past two decades, focusing on critiques, applications, and reflections on its continued relevance in the context of rapidly changing social and policy contexts

The Qualitative Interview in Psychology and the Study of Social Change: Sexual Identity Development, Minority Stress, and Health in the Generations Study.

Interviewing is considered a key form of qualitative inquiry in psychology that yields rich data on lived experience and meaning making of life events. Interviews that contain multiple components informed by specific epistemologies have the potential to provide particularly nuanced perspectives on psychological experience. We offer a methodological model for a multi-component interview that draws upon both pragmatic and constructivist epistemologies to examine generational differences in the experience of identity development, stress, and health among contemporary sexual minorities in the United States. Grounded in theories of life course, narrative, and intersectionality, we designed and implemented a multi-component protocol that was administered among a diverse sample of three generations of sexual minority individuals. For each component, we describe the purpose and utility, underlying epistemology, foundational psychological approach, and procedure, and we provide illustrative data from interviewees. We discuss procedures undertaken to ensure methodological integrity in process of data collection, illustrating the implementation of recent guidelines for qualitative inquiry in psychology. We highlight the utility of this qualitative multi-component interview to examine the way in which sexual minorities of distinct generations have made meaning of significant social change over the past half-century

Social change and relationship quality among sexual minority individuals: Does minority stress still matter?

Objective: This study examined whether positive changes in social attitudes and policies surrounding sexual minority relationships have translated to diminished deleterious effects of minority stress on relationship quality. Background: Sexual minority emerging adults now come of age at a time of greater equality and acceptance than previous generations. Research has demonstrated consistent negative effects of stigma—theorized as minority stress—on relationship quality for sexual minority individuals. However, given the improving social climate, questions remain regarding whether minority stress has the same deleterious effects on the romantic relationships of sexual minority emerging adults. Method: Five-hundred forty-nine individuals in relationships drawn from a US national probability sample completed a survey containing validated measures of minority stressors and relationship satisfaction. Responses from emerging adults (aged 18–25) were compared to two cohorts who came of age during the HIV/AIDS crisis (aged 34–41) and post Stonewall (aged 52–59). Results: Emerging adults were more satisfied with their relationships than older cohorts. Experiences of everyday discrimination were associated with decreased relationship satisfaction for all cohorts; however, felt stigma, stigma concealment, and internalized stigma were associated with lower relationship satisfaction for older but not younger cohorts. Conclusion: Findings illustrate the continued but shifting role of minority stress and provide the first evidence that social and policy changes may have translated into more positive relationship experiences for sexual minority emerging adults

Sexual Identity and Birth Cohort Differences in Social Support and Its Link with Well-Being among Sexual Minority Individuals

This study examined sexual identity and birth cohort differences in social support and its association with well-being, using a longitudinal national probability sample of 706 cisgender and non-binary sexual minority individuals from the USA. The data allowed for extensive descriptions of perceived social support and support networks across subgroups. Findings demonstrated that sexual identity and birth cohort differences in overall sizes of support networks and levels of perceived social support were small. Furthermore, fixed effects analyses indicated that changes in the size of respondents’ social support networks were not related to well-being, with a one-person change being associated with a.04 SD change in well-being or less, depending on the indicator of well-being being tested. Moreover, changes in perceived social support were only limitedly related to changes in respondents’ well-being, a 1-point change in the scale of perceived social support being associated with a.11 SD change in life-satisfaction. Associations were smaller for overall well-being or psychological distress, the other two indicators of well-being used. Together, these findings could imply that cross-sectional research has overestimated the relevance of social support for the well-being of sexual minority individuals, but also that general social support is insufficiently tailored to the support needs of the sexual minority population

Differences in sexual identity dimensions between bisexual and other sexual minority individuals: Implications for minority stress and mental health

Bisexual individuals experience poorer mental health than other sexual minority individuals. One explanation for this is that biphobia predisposes bisexual individuals to have a more ambiguous sexual identity and fewer opportunities for stress-ameliorating forms of coping and support. This study explores sexual identity and sexual identity dimensions - prominence, valence, integration, and complexity - in bisexual and other sexual minority individuals. We describe differences in sexual identity dimensions between bisexual and other sexual minority individuals and test two explanations for mental health disparities between them: whether sexual identity dimensions directly impact mental health and whether they moderate the impact of stress on mental health. Data came from a longitudinal study of a diverse sample of sexual minority individuals (N = 396, 71 bisexual respondents) sampled from community venues in New York City. Sexual identity was prominent for both bisexual and other sexual minority individuals, but bisexual individuals reported lower valence and integration of sexual identity in their identity structures. The hypothesis that sexual identity dimensions moderate the impact of minority stress on mental health was not supported. After several longitudinal assessments, however, we concluded that identity valence (but not integration or complexity) and depressive symptoms were bidirectionally associated so that differences in valence between bisexual and other sexual minority individuals explained, in part, disparities in depressive symptoms

Minority Stress and Physical Health Among Sexual Minorities

New research shows that lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals (LGB) are at increased risk for physical health problems due to prejudice-related stress. Findings from a new report were presented at the American Psychological Association’s annual conference in Washington, DC on August 5, 2011. The researchers found that LGB people who had experienced prejudice-related major life events were about three times more likely to have suffered a serious physical health problem over a one-year follow-up period than those who had not experienced such events. The effects of prejudice-related events remained statistically significant even after controlling for the experience of other stressful events, as well as other factors known to affect physical health, such as age, gender, employment, and lifetime health history

Strain driven fast osseointegration of implants

BACKGROUND: Although the bone's capability of dental implant osseointegration has clinically been utilised as early as in the Gallo-Roman population, the specific mechanisms for the emergence and maintenance of peri-implant bone under functional load have not been identified. Here we show that under immediate loading of specially designed dental implants with masticatory loads, osseointegration is rapidly achieved. METHODS: We examined the bone reaction around non- and immediately loaded dental implants inserted in the mandible of mature minipigs during the presently assumed time for osseointegration. We used threaded conical titanium implants containing a titanium2+ oxide surface, allowing direct bone contact after insertion. The external geometry was designed according to finite element analysis: the calculation showed that physiological amplitudes of strain (500–3,000 ustrain) generated through mastication were homogenously distributed in peri-implant bone. The strain-energy density (SED) rate under assessment of a 1 Hz loading cycle was 150 Jm-3 s-1, peak dislocations were lower then nm. RESULTS: Bone was in direct contact to the implant surface (bone/implant contact rate 90%) from day one of implant insertion, as quantified by undecalcified histological sections. This effect was substantiated by ultrastructural analysis of intimate osteoblast attachment and mature collagen mineralisation at the titanium surface. We detected no loss in the intimate bone/implant bond during the experimental period of either control or experimental animals, indicating that immediate load had no adverse effect on bone structure in peri-implant bone. CONCLUSION: In terms of clinical relevance, the load related bone reaction at the implant interface may in combination with substrate effects be responsible for an immediate osseointegration state

The Benefits and Challenges of Health Disparities and Social Stress Frameworks for Research on Sexual and Gender Minority Health

Research on the health of sexual and gender minority populations has been predominantly framed within the context of health disparities and social stress. Findings produced from research employing health disparities and social stress frameworks have spurred significant advancements in basic and applied science on sexual and gender minority health, and have been useful in arguing for the removal of discriminatory social policies. Critiques of these frameworks suggest their dominant role in the research literature risks an artificially narrow portrayal of relevant lived experience, and further pathologizes and stigmatizes sexual and gender minority populations. Methodological challenges involve the measurement of explanatory variables within comparative research designs. By taking stock of these benefits and challenges, suggestions can be made for future research designed to maximize the benefits of health disparities and social stress frameworks for understanding and improving the health of sexual and gender minority populations in ways that are responsive to critiques while recognizing variability in lived experience

Digital hoarding behaviours: measurement and evaluation

The social and psychological characteristics of individuals who hoard physical items are quite well understood, however very little is known about the psychological characteristics of those who hoard digital items and the kinds of material they hoard. In this study, we designed a new questionnaire (Digital Behaviours Questionnaire: DBQ) comprising 2 sections: the Digital Hoarding Questionnaire (DHQ) assessing two key components of physical hoarding (accumulation and difficulty discarding); and the second measuring the extent of digital hoarding in the workplace (Digital Behaviours in the Workplace Questionnaire: DBWQ). In an initial study comprising 424 adults we established the psychometric properties of the questionnaires. In a second study, we presented revised versions of the questionnaires to a new sample of 203 adults, and confirmed their validity and reliability. Both samples revealed that digital hoarding was common (with emails being the most commonly hoarded items) and that hoarding behaviours at work could be predicted by the 10 item DHQ. Digital hoarding was significantly higher in employees who identified as having ‘data protection responsibilities’, suggesting that the problem may be influenced by working practices. In sum, we have validated a new psychometric measure to assess digital hoarding, documented some of its psychological characteristics, and shown that it can predict digital hoarding in the workplace