María Teresa Muñoz Sastre

Forgivingness and Satisfaction with Life

The present study was aimed at examining the link between satisfaction with life and forgivingness using a dispositional measurement for forgiveness. The participants were 810 adolescent and adults living in France, and 192 college students living in Portugal. They were presented with the Forgivingness questionnaire (Mullet, E., J. Barros, L. Frongia, V. Usai and F. Neto: 2003, Journal of Personality 71, pp. 1–19), and the Satisfaction With Life Scale (Diener, E., R.J. Emmons, R.J. Larsen and S. Griffin: 1985, Journal of Personality Assessment 49, pp. 71–75). The link between satisfaction with life and all three components of forgivingness (enduring resentment, sensitivity to circumstances, and overall willingness to forgive) was weak, and most of the time non-significant. This result is consistent with previous findings showing that (a) forgiving an offense to an offender does not result in a strong increase in overall satisfaction, and (b) strictly self-referential traits (e.g., self-esteem and loneliness) are typically not linked with forgivingness. Possible reasons why forgivingness and satisfaction with life are not linked are discussed.

Driving anger, emotional and instrumental aggressiveness, and impulsiveness in the prediction of aggressive and transgressive driving

The present study investigates the potential contribution of three predictors of aggressive and transgressive behaviors on the road: driving anger, impulsiveness and aggressiveness. A total of 455 participants (laypersons), of all age and gender, filled self-reported measures evaluating driving anger, impulsiveness, two forms of aggressiveness (instrumental and emotional forms), driving behaviors and aggressive and transgressive behaviors. Main results indicate: (1) a significant gender effect for almost all variables; (2) gender was involved in the prediction of Lapses and Errors; (3) driving anger, impulsiveness and aggressiveness were involved in a complementary manner in the prediction of aggressive and transgressive driving; (4) Aggressiveness and Impeded Progress were the best predictors of violations and aggressive violations. Results support that transgressive driving behaviors are relevant indicators of aggressive driving.

The Fear of Pain questionnaire: Factor structure in samples of young, middle-aged and elderly European people

The present study examined the factor structure of the Fear of Pain questionnaire in three independent samples composed of European young adults, middle‐aged, and elderly people. Seven hundred and thirty one adults (426 females and 305 males) were presented with the French adaptation of the questionnaire (30 items) and with an Exposure to Painful Situations questionnaire that contained the same items as the Fear of Pain questionnaire and where participants were instructed to indicate all the painful situations they have experienced in the past. When tested on the whole set of 30 items, the correlated three‐factor model evidenced in previous studies—Severe pain, Minor pain and Medical pain—poorly fit the data. When tested on a set of 15 two‐item parcels, the fit of this model was much better but the correlations between factors were very high. When tested on a reduced set of 15 items, the model fit the data as well as when it was tested on the set of 15 parcels, and the correlations between the three factors were lower. The study also examined the link between previous exposure to pain and fear of pain. The hypothesis that previous “natural” exposure to pain should generally result in a decrease in fear of pain was supported by the data. For 14 items, the exposure effect was moderate to strong.

When is physician assisted suicide or euthanasia acceptable

Objectives: To discover what factors affect lay people’s judgments of the acceptability of physician assisted suicide and euthanasia and how these factors interact. Design: Participants rated the acceptability of either physician assisted suicide or euthanasia for 72 patient vignettes with a five factor design—that is, all combinations of patient’s age (three levels); curability of illness (two levels); degree of suffering (two levels); patient’s mental status (two levels), and extent of patient’s requests for the procedure (three levels). Participants: Convenience sample of 66 young adults, 62 middle aged adults, and 66 older adults living in western France. Main measurements: In accordance with the functional theory of cognition of N H Anderson, main effects, and interactions among patient factors and participants’ characteristics were investigated by means of both graphs and ANOVA. Results: Patient requests were the most potent determinant of acceptability. Euthanasia was generally less acceptable than physician assisted suicide, but this difference disappeared when requests were repetitive. As their own age increased, participants placed more weight on patient age as a criterion of acceptability. Conclusions: People’s judgments concur with legislation to require a repetition of patients’ requests for a life ending act. Younger people, who frequently are decision makers for elderly relatives, place less emphasis on patient’s age itself than do older people.

Family 'Decline' and the Subjective Well-being of Adolescents

The goal of the present study was to determine to what extent an adolescents subjective well-being is affected when changes in family structure reach a breaking point and the child can no longer stay with his family, but must be institutionalized. The participants were one hundred male and female adolescents, 12 to 19 years of age, 50 of which lived in childrens homes, but were originally from 50 different families, and 50 of which lived at home with their parents. Two questionnaires were administered: (a) the French adaptation of the Life Satisfaction Scale (Blais et al., 1989) and (b) a questionnaire containing statements related to level of satisfaction in several areas, notably family relationships, body image, work and schooling, and leisure acitivites. The difference between the two groups was considerable, with more than one point separating the mean levels of satisfaction of the two groups (20% of the total length of the scale employed). A structural analysis of the results showed the direct or indirect influence of three factors related to placement in a childrens home on life satisfaction: a direct effect of placement in a childrens home, an indirect effect passing through the satisfaction with family life, and an indirect effect passing through the personal growth.

The acceptability of ending a patient’s life

Objectives: To clarify how lay people and health professionals judge the acceptability of ending the life of a terminally ill patient. Design: Participants judged this acceptability in a set of 16 scenarios that combined four factors: the identity of the actor (patient or physician), the patient’s statement or not of a desire to have his life ended, the nature of the action as relatively active (injecting a toxin) or passive (disconnecting life support), and the type of suffering (intractable physical pain, complete dependence, or severe psychiatric illness). Participants: 115 lay people and 72 health professionals (22 nurse’s aides, 44 nurses, six physicians) in Toulouse, France. Main measurements: Mean acceptability ratings for each scenario for each group. Results: Life ending interventions are more acceptable to lay people than to the health professionals. For both, acceptability is highest for intractable physical suffering; is higher when patients end their own lives than when physicians do so; and, when physicians are the actors, is higher when patients have expressed a desire to die (voluntary euthanasia) than when they have not (involuntary euthanasia). In contrast, when patients perform the action, acceptability for the lay people and nurse’s aides does not depend on whether the patient has expressed a desire to die, while for the nurses and physicians unassisted suicide is more acceptable than physician assisted suicide. Conclusions: Lay participants judge the acceptability of life ending actions in largely the same way as do healthcare professionals.

Does Choosing a Treatment Depend on Making a Diagnosis? US and French Physicians’ Decision Making about Acute Otitis Media

Background . The classic sequential processing model of clinical decision making—in which the treatment choice follows and depends on the diagnostic judgment—may in some cases be replaced by a processing model in which the treatment choice depends on an independent assessment of the diagnostic and other cues. The aim of this study was to determine which processing model would better describe physicians’ treatment choices in a simulated clinical task. Methods . Seventy-five US and French primary care physicians were presented twice, in a different order, with the same set of 46 scenarios of 15-month-old children suspected of having acute otitis media (AOM). They rated in one set the probability of AOM and in the other set whether they would treat the child with antibiotics (and how confident they felt in their decision). Linear regression analyses revealed the individuals’ 2 judgment policies. Hierarchical discriminant analysis was used to analyze the variance explained in the treatment choice by, 1st, the diagnostic judgment, 2nd, the cues specific to treatment, and 3rd, the cues specific to diagnosis. Results . Even when choosing treatment, the participants placed greatest weight on diagnostic cues, especially the ear findings. Only 28% used the cues that reflected parental issues. For 36%, the diagnostic cues had an effect on the treatment choice independent of the effect (if any) of the diagnostic judgment. Conclusion . In deciding how to treat AOM, the majority of the participating US and French primary care physicians followed the classic sequential processing model, but a substantial minority used instead an independent processing model.

Skin Bleaching Among Togolese: A Preliminary Inventory of Motives:

The motives underlying the practice of regular skin bleaching among Togolese people were examined, using Apter’s metamotivational theory as the framework. Factor analysis using scree test and a varimax rotation showed eight independent types of basic motives that are characteristic of this theory. Four motives appeared as clearly dominant. Participants practiced skin bleaching on a regular basis mainly (a) to appear important, (b) to look attractive, (c) because they enjoyed their light-colored skin, and (d) because skin bleaching was fashionable. They did not practice skin bleaching as a demonstration of opposition to African culture or to their relatives or as a demonstration of compliance with others’ wishes. They also sometimes practiced skin bleaching as a means of securing a job. Implications in terms of health policy are discussed.

Evolution of the Intuitive Mastery of the Relationship between Base, Exponent, and Number Magnitude in High-school Students.

This study investigated how students familiar with exponentiation intuitively combined information about bases and exponents in expressions of the type an to estimate the magnitude of these expressions. Three base values (5, 7, and 9) and four exponent values (2, 3, 4, and 5) were combined to create twelve expressions. A students task was to depict graphically an estimate of the magnitude of each expression. Qualitative and quantitative analyses conducted on the data revealed at least five different models of magnitude estimation: two additive models (characterizing essentially 13-14- and 16-17-year-olds performance), a multiplicative model, an intermediate model between additivity and multiplicativity (found more or less equally in each group), and, finally, a qualitatively correct model (characterizing exclusively 18-19-year-olds performance).

Acceptability for French People of Physician-Assisted Suicide.

Our aim was to understand better how people judge the acceptability of physician-assisted suicide (PAS). We found that, for people in France of all ages and for elderly people with life-threatening illnesses, acceptability is an additive combination of the number of requests for PAS, the patients age, the amount of physical suffering, and the degree of curability of the illness, not only when judging for hypothetical patients, but also for their spouses and for themselves. PAS can be highly acceptable to people even when the patient does not satisfy all the criteria of legislation about PAS.