Kathleen Holt

A Pattern Analysis of Students' Achievement Goals.

Cluster analysis procedures were used to classify 257 5th- and 6th-grade students on the basis of their mastery, ego, and work-avoidant goal orientations. The results identified 3 clusters of students with different achievement profiles in science. Students who exhibited a pattern in which mastery goals were stronger than the other 2 goals, showed the most positive achievement profile. In contrast students who were high on both mastery and ego goals did not perform as well academically; students low on both mastery and ego goals showed the most negative achievement profile. Additional analyses revealed that the cluster analysis provided a more distinctive and internally consistent set of findings than did pattern analyses that were based on median split procedures

Resilience in maltreated children: Processes leading to adaptive outcome

Evidence for resilience, competent functioning despite severe adversity, was investigated in school-age, disadvantaged maltreated ( N = 127) and nonmaltreated ( N = 79) children attending a summer camp program. Multiple areas of adaptation (social adjustment, risk for school difficulty, psychopathology) were assessed from self, peer, and camp counselor perspectives and school records. A composite index of adaptive functioning was developed, and levels of competence were delineated. Personality dimensions and personal resources, including cognitive maturity, self-esteem, ego-resiliency, and ego-control, were evaluated as mechanisms promoting individual differences in successful adaptation. Maltreated children as a group evidenced lower overall competence when compared to nonmaltreated children. An equal proportion of maltreated and nonmaltreated children, however, demonstrated high levels of competence, whereas more maltreated children than nonmaltreated children evidenced low levels of competence. Ego-resiliency, ego-control, and self-esteem were each found to predict individual differences in competent functioning. Evidence for the differential role of ego-control in promoting competence for maltreated versus nonmaltreated children was found. The results are discussed in terms of mechanisms contributing to resilient outcomes in maltreated children and the implications of the study of resilience for the field of developmental psychopathology.

Risk of child abuse or neglect in a cohort of low-income children

The purposes of this research were to identify risk factors for reported child abuse or neglect and to examine the roles of stress and social support in the etiology of child maltreatment. Mothers of newborn infants with biomedical and sociodemographic risk factors were recruited from community and regional hospitals and local health departments in 42 counties of North and South Carolina selected for geographic distribution and for large numbers of such newborns. For every four such mothers, the next mother to deliver an otherwise normal newborn was sought. Mothers were interviewed shortly after giving birth, and state Central Registries of Child Abuse and Neglect were reviewed when each infant was 1 year of age. Eight hundred forty-two of 1,111 recruited mothers were successfully interviewed in their homes between March 1986 and June 1987. Seven hundred forty-nine North Carolina births who resided in the state more than 6 months were eligible for inclusion in the analysis. Logistic regression with backward elimination procedures was used in the analysis. Maternal education (p < .01), number of other dependent children in the home (p < .01), receipt of Medicaid (p < .01), maternal depression (p < .05), and whether the maternal subject lived with her own mother at age 14 years (p < .05) were the best predictors of a maltreatment report. Further examination revealed an interaction effect between stressful life events, as measured by life event scores, and social well-being (p < .01). For children born at risk for social and/or medical problems, extreme low income (participation in public income support programs), low maternal education, maternal depression, the presence of any other young children in the home, and a mothers separation at age 14 years from her own mother significantly predict child maltreatment reports in the first year of life. In addition, stressful life events, even if perceived positively, may increase or decrease the risk of maltreatment reports, depending upon the presence of social support.

Racial Disparity in Hypertension Control: Tallying the Death Toll

PURPOSE Black Americans with hypertension have poorer blood pressure control than their white counterparts, but the impact of this disparity on mortality among black adults is not known. We assessed differences in systolic blood pressure (SBP) control among white and black adults with a diagnosis of hypertension, and measured the impact of that difference on cardiovascular and cerebrovascular mortality among blacks. METHODS Using SBP measurements from white and black adults participating in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1999–2002, we modeled changes in mortality rates resulting from a reduction of mean SBP among blacks to that of whites. Our data source for mortality estimates of blacks with hypertension was a meta-analysis of observational studies of SBP; our data source for reduction in mortality rates was a meta-analysis of SBP treatment trials. RESULTS The final sample of participants for whom SBP measurements were available included 1,545 black adults and 1,335 white adults. The mean SBP among blacks with hypertension was approximately 6 mm Hg higher than that for the total adult black population and 7 mm Hg higher than that for whites with hypertension. Within the hypertensive population, a reduction in mean SBP among blacks to that of whites would reduce the annual number of deaths among blacks from heart disease by 5,480 and from stroke by 2,190. CONCLUSIONS Eliminating racial disparity in blood pressure control among adults with hypertension would substantially reduce the number of deaths among blacks from both heart disease and stroke. Primary care clinicians should be particularly diligent when managing hypertension in black patients.

Maintaining Consistency between Self-Serving Beliefs and Available Data: A Bias in Information Evaluation

It was hypothesized that individuals evaluate data relevant to outcome attributions in a manner that enables them to maintain logical consistency between the available evidence and their self-serving attributions for the outcome. Subjects were led to succeed or fail on a bogus social sensitivity test and then were given information concerning two studies, one of which concluded that the test was valid and the other that the test was not valid. As predicted, success subjects evaluated the high-validity conclusion study more favorably and the low-validity conclusion study less favorably than did failure subjects. Furthermore, exposure to the mixed evidence after the performance feedback led to increased selt-ratings of social sensitivity among success subjects, but had no effect on failure subjects. The implications of these results for understanding how individuals generate and maintain self-serving beliefs were discussed.

Impact of Primary Care Patient Visits on Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Preventive Care in the United States

Background: The causes of racial and ethnic disparities in preventive care are not fully understood. We examined the hypothesis that fewer primary care visits by minority patients contribute to these disparities. Methods: We analyzed claims for Medicare beneficiaries 65 and older who participated in the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey, 1998 to 2002. Five preventive services were included: colorectal cancer testing, influenza vaccination, lipid screening, mammography, and Papanicolaou smear screening. In separate multivariate analyses, we examined the effect of minority status (self-report of African American race or Hispanic ethnicity) on having a claim in the past 12 months for each preventive service after successive control for number of primary care visits and other patient characteristics. Results: The final sample included 15,962 subjects. In age-adjusted analyses, minorities had statistically lower rates of claims for each of the 5 procedures. After controlling for number of primary care visits, the effect of minority status was slightly attenuated but remained statistically significant for receipt of each procedure. After adding low income, low educational level and supplementary insurance, health status, and year, minority status was significantly associated only with colorectal cancer screening (odds ratio [OR] 0.79; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.67 to 0.94) and influenza vaccinations (OR 0.56; 95% CI 0.49 to 0.64). Conclusions: The frequency of primary care visits seems to contribute minimally to racial and ethnic disparities in preventive services. Other patient characteristics, particularly those associated with poverty, explain much of these disparities.

Mammography self-report and mammography claims: Racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic discrepancies among elderly women

Background:National self-report surveys show minimal racial disparity in mammography, whereas analyses of administrative data show large disparity. Methods:Using the 1998–2002 Medicare Current Beneficiary Surveys, which contain participants’ self-report and claims data, we developed multivariable adjusted models examining factors associated with self-reported mammography and self-reported mammography verified by billing records. Results:No racial/ethnic disparities were found in self-reported mammography. Verified mammography, however, revealed significant disparities for race, education, income, insurance, and health status. Conclusions:Race, education, income, insurance, and health status are associated with a lower likelihood of self-reported mammography verified by the existence of claims data. These data caution against exclusive reliance on self-report survey data to assess disparity in mammography.

Arthritis Patients' Reactions to Unavoidable Social Comparisons

Seventy-two women with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) were randomly assigned to view a depiction of a woman having either very mild or very severe RA and coping either quite weal or quite poorly with the illness. Subjects rated the womans arthritis severity, her coping with RA, their own arthritis severity, and their own coping with RA. These ratings provided an indirect assessment of how subjects evaluated themselves relative to the stimulus woman. In addition, subjects compared their RA severity and coping directly with the stimulus womans. In the direct comparisons, subjects who saw the good coper did not acknowledge her coping superiority, despite having done so on the indirect assessment. No effects were obtained for the severity condition. These findings suggest that individuals extract self-enhancing information from social comparisons, even when the comparison target and dimension are constrained and the targets status is superior

EFFECT ON SOIL PROPERTIES OF CONVERSION OF YELLOW RIVER DELTA ECOSYSTEMS

Using remote sensing and geographic information system technologies, we analyzed changes in ecosystem boundary conditions in the Yellow River Delta. We investigated variations in soil water, bulk density, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, and organic matter, as well as concentrations of soluble Ca2+, K+, Mg2+ and Na+, under different ecosystem conversions. Results indicated that from 1992 to 2006, boundary characteristics became more complicated and ecosystem conversion was mainly from farmland to a mixed ecosystem supportingTamarix chinensis-Phragmites communis. These ecosystem conversions may be attributed to a combination of urban expansion, oil exploration and extraction, water interception, and soil salinization. Ecosystem conversion also affected soil properties. Organic matter differed among the ecosystems, as did the concentrations of the soil base cations. Ca2+ concentration was higher than concentrations of other cations, and significant differences existed in Ca2+ and Mg2+ concentrations among ecosystems. While the concentration of K+ and Mg2+ showed similar concentrations, mostly increasing, among different ecosystem conversions, Na+ concentrations decreased. In summary, the concentrations of soluble minerals were significantly influenced by ecosystem conversions.

From experience: Demystify creativity, enhance innovation

Creativity need not be a chance occurrence. The authors of this article believe there is a technology that facilitates creativity. It is a technology that can be learned and applied and managed. They describe the specific steps that they followed in helping a group of R&D professionals learn, apply, and manage the creative processes in the lab. It is a story of practical steps that dealt with the everyday realities of managing in a large corporation.