David R. Shaffer

ACTIVITY RESTRICTION AND PRIOR RELATIONSHIP HISTORY AS CONTRIBUTORS TO MENTAL HEALTH OUTCOMES AMONG MIDDLE-AGED AND OLDER SPOUSAL CAREGIVERS

In a sample of cancer patients (n = 75) and spousal caregivers (24 men and 51 women), restriction in caregiver routine activities mediated associations between caregiving stress (patient symptom severity) and caregiver depressed affect and resentment. Moreover, the antecedents and affective consequences of caregiver activity restriction were consistent with the theory of communal relationships (e.g., M. S. Clark & J. Mills, 1979, 1993). If a relationship had been communal in the past (i.e., characterized by mutual concern for and responsiveness to one anothers needs), activity restriction was predicted by intimacy and affectional loss (rather than by the severity of patient symptoms) and in turn predicted caregiver depressed affect. Among caregivers in less communal relationships, activity restriction was predicted by severity of patient symptoms (rather than by intimacy and affectional loss) and in turn predicted resentment of care recipients and the caregiving role.

Contributions of parents and peers to children's moral socialization

Abstract This article is concerned with the process of moral development, or specifically, how children acquire a sense of right and wrong from their interactions with two major agents of socialization—parents and peers. The first section of the paper critically examines the literature on parental influences and draws several conclusions about the ways in which parents affect childrens moral character. The focus then shifts to a review of the literature on peer group contributions to moral socialization. The paper concludes by examining the literature on cross-pressures, and offering a perspective on the ways in which parental and peer group influences combine to affect childrens moral development.

Vividness Can Undermine or Enhance Message Processing: The Moderating Role of Vividness Congruency

Previous research on the subject of vividness effects in persuasion has yielded conflicting outcomes that are difficult to interpret. The authors outline a theoretical position that anticipates conditions under which vivid message presentations can either enhance or inhibit message processing and persuasion. The key moderator is vividness congruency, which is defined as the extent to which the vivid elements of a message are congruent with the theme of the message itself. Two experiments were conducted that suggest that this previously unexamined variable is an important moderator of vividness effects. Experiment 1 demonstrated that vividness effects on message recall are contingent on the congruency between message content and vivid elements. Experiment 2 showed that message processing (indexed via an argument quality manipulation) can be reduced by adding vivid but incongruent images to a message, relative to pallid messages. Theoretical and applied implications are discussed.

Mock Jurors Versus Mock Juries: The Role of Deliberations in Reactions to Inadmissible Testimony

The consensus among authors in the area of juridic decision making is that trial jurors often readily disregard judicial instructions to ignore inadmissible evidence. Perhaps, however, the moderating influence of a key methodological variable-the presence or absence of group deliberations-has been overlooked by those making this assertion. It was hypothesized that mock juries (who participate in deliberations) would be more likely to follow judicial instructions to ignore inadmissible testimony than mock jurors (responding individually, without deliberations). Results supported this hypothesis.

Caregiver models of self and others, coping, and depression: predictors of depression in children with chronic pain.

In a sample of 59 chronically ill pediatric patients and their maternal caregivers, both child-reported pain and caregiver-reported depression predicted child-reported depression. Results further suggested that the association between pain and depression in children is ameliorated by caregiver coping strategies and that how caregivers cope is a function of their attachment-related representations of the self and others. Caregivers with a negative model of the self were more depressed. and those with a negative model of others were more prone to use avoidant coping strategies, and, in turn, to be more depressed. However, the extent to which caregivers with negative models of self used more avoidant and less approach coping appeared to depend on whether they perceived that others were likely to respond to their needs.

Endorsement of proactively aggressive caregiving strategies moderates the relation between caregiver mental health and potentially harmful caregiving behavior

This research tested the proposition that the oft-reported relation between caregiver mental health outcomes (i.e., resentment, depression) and potentially harmful caregiver behavior (PHB) would be mediated or moderated by caregiver endorsement of proactively aggressive caregiving strategies (PA). Caregiver resentment was the strongest predictor of PHB in the sample of 417 informal caregivers who resided with their care recipients; in fact, resentment mediated the impact of caregiver depression, thus suggesting that depressed affect was associated with PHB only if depressed caregivers resented their caregiving burdens. As predicted, caregiver endorsement of PA moderated the relation between resentment and PHB, such that links between these two constructs were strongest when caregivers were high in both resentment and PA. Endorsement of PA also mediated the relations between demographic or contextual variables (i.e., income, care recipient dementia) and PHB. Implications of these results for research and intervention are discussed.

Celerity and Cajolery: Rapid Speech May Promote or Inhibit Persuasion through its Impact on Message Elaboration

The present experiment tests credibility-cue and elaboration likelihood (ELM) hypotheses about the effect of compressed speech on message-based persuasion. Participants heard either a proattitudinal or a counterattitudinal message on an involving topic, delivered at a slow (144 words per minute), an intermediate (182 wpm), or a rapid (214 wpm) rate of speech. Consistent with the ELM predictions, rapid speech suppressed the tendency to rebut the counterattitudinal message and enhanced persuasion, whereas the same rapid speech rate inhibited favorable elaboration of the proattitudinal message while undermining its persuasive impact. Thus, a distinctly faster than normal rate of speech on an involving topic can either promote or inhibit persuasion by its impact on message elaboration. The generality of these speech rate effects and the conditions under which rapid speech might serve as a peripheral (i.e., credibility) cue are discussed.

Gender-role congruence and self-referencing as determinants of advertising effectiveness

In an initial experiment, men and women with varied gender-role orientations evaluated gender-stereotyped and nonstereotyped advertisements for “gendered” products that are actually used by both sexes. Consistent with a gender-role congruence model of advertising effectiveness, traditional participants (masculine men; feminine women) responded more favorably to traditional (i.e., gender-stereotyped) than to nontraditional advertisements, whereas nontraditional participants (androgynous individuals; feminine men; masculine women) reacted somewhat more favorably to the nontraditional advertisements. Experiment 2 revealed that when encouraged to self reference, traditional participants became much more responsive to nontraditional advertisements, even more so than were the nontraditional participants. Practical implications of these results are discussed.

Separate processes in the relation of elation and depression to helping: social versus personal concerns

Abstract The Separate Process analysis suggests that individuals in an elated mood are most affected by social concerns associated with a helping request, whereas individuals in a depressed mood are most influenced by the personal hedonic considerations involved with the request. In Experiment 1, subjects received either an elating, neutral, or depressing mood induction, after which they were asked to help either on a task of high interest valence, described as fun, or low interest valence, described as dull. After the request, a confederate volunteered to help and provided either high social inducement to help for the subject by encouraging volunteering, or low social inducement to help by volunteering for the self alone. Suggesting increased social interest, elated subjects were more likely than neutral subjects to help with both high and low interest tasks. Elated subjects also were significantly more likely to volunteer under conditions of high social inducement, but that variable had little impact on negative and neutral mood subjects. The personal concern associated with negative mood was evident in the finding that depression significantly increased helping only when the task had a positive interest valence. Experiment 2 replicated Experiment 1, but operationalized both social and personal concerns in terms of the content of the helping opportunity. Positive mood subjects were significantly more likely than neutral and negative mood subjects to volunteer for a Social task, involving a group discussion. Negative mood subjects, by contrast, were significantly more likely to volunteer for a task having positive hedonic consequences, involving the rating of jokes, than for the Social task.

Informal Care Can Be Better Than Adequate: Development and Evaluation of the Exemplary Care Scale

Purpose: To evaluate a new measure assessing excellent, or exemplary, informal care—an aspect of caregiving that has received little attention. The Exemplary Care Scale (ECS) was developed on the basis of insights from previous research with items generated by the authors in consultation with a multidisciplinary research team. Design: 310 informal caregivers and 283 of their elderly care recipients completed the ECS and other measures pertaining to quality of care and its presumed correlates. Results: Factor analyses indicated that the ECS consists of 2 factors reflecting provision of exceptional care (Provide) and respect for care recipient autonomy, wishes, and the like (Respect). The ECS factor structure was equivalent among caregivers and care recipients. Both factors were empirically distinct from existing measures of poor quality and adequate care. Each ECS factor was associated with other care-related constructs in predictable ways, implying construct validity. Conclusions: The ECS, in conjunction with existing measures, provides a more comprehensive assessment of the quality-of-care continuum and should prove useful to researchers and practitioners interested in quality of informal care provided to chronically ill or disabled people.