Alan F. Fontana

Support, stress, and recovery from coronary heart disease: A longitudinal causal model.

Measures of support, stress, distress, and cardiac symptoms were obtained from a cohort of 73 male cardiac patients at hospitalization and at 3, 6, and 12 months thereafter. Sets of general and alternative hypotheses regarding the direction of causality among these variables were drawn from the literature on cardiac rehabilitation, stress, and support. Structural equation modeling was used to evaluate the stability and duration of these hypotheses over three time-lags. The results showed strong support for the general hypotheses and minimal support for the alternative hypotheses. Support ameliorated the subsequent experience of stress and distress and had opposing effects to these variables on cardiac symptoms. Support was more influential in the first half of the year than it was in the second half, however, whereas stress was predominant causally in the second half. Implications of this pattern for clinical intervention are drawn and directions for further research are proposed.

Type A behavior pattern, inhibited power motivation, and activity inhibition.

The constructs of the Type A behavior pattern and the Inhibited Power Motive Syndrome (IPMS) have many features in common. The empirical relation between the two constructs was investigated in this study with 45 employed, male medical and surgical patients. Four different measures of the Type A pattern were examined. Results showed that, of the four measures, the Structured Interview and the Hostility Scale were related significantly to the IPMS. Systolic blood pressure reactivity was also related significantly to the IPMS. These relations could be ascribed largely to activity inhibition alone. The contribution of activity inhibition to an understanding of the biological and psychological substrates of the Type A behavior pattern is discussed.

Patients' and therapists' expectations and evaluations of hospital treatment: Satisfactions and disappointments

Abstract Patients and therapists views of 14 treatment modalities were obtained at the beginning and end of treatment. Comparison across groups indicated that patients rated the modalities more favorably than therapists at both time points. Comparison of admission and discharge ratings within groups indicated that patients expectations for the modalities were generally met, whereas therapists expectations, particularly for the primary treatment modalities, were not met. Further, both patients and therapists were satisfied with the restful aspects of hospitalization and viewed them as having been as helpful as the primary treatment modalities.

Persistence of Ethnic Stereotypes and the Relative Importance of Positive and Negative Stereotyping for Association Preferences

The stereotyping of 10 ethnic groups by American college students over a 30-yr. period was examined by comparing data from 1932, 1950, and 1961. There was much variation among the time periods but persisting, “core” stereotypes were found for 8 of the groups. Evaluative stereotyping was highly related to preferences for association with ethnic group members in both 1932 and 1961. Subdivision of evaluative stereotyping into its positive and negative components showed that associative preferences were virtually completely predicted by the negative component. The positive component was unrelated to association preferences and served to weaken the predictive power of the negative component when combined with it. The interpretation is offered that substantial stereotyping and prejudice remain among college students but that students are becoming increasingly sophisticated and subtle in their manifestations of them.

Social insecurity, the Type A behavior pattern, and sympathetic arousal

Social insecurity is a psychological orientation that has been found to be associated significantly with both coronary atherosclerosis and psychological distress. Although sympathetic arousal has been assumed to be a cause of coronary atherosclerosis and an effect of psychological distress, neither of the prior studies included a measure of sympathetic arousal in its design. The present study fills this gap by examining social insecurity in relation to blood pressure, as an index of sympathetic arousal. The results, derived from 50 male, medical/surgical patients, are consistent with the pattern of findings in previous studies in that social insecurity was independent of the Type A pattern and additive to it in its association with blood pressure. Differences between social insecurity and the Type A pattern are discussed in terms of their differential associations with systolic versus diastolic pressure and their differential trait-like and state-like patterns of association with blood pressure.