Paul W. Goetz

The Development, Evaluation, and Validation of a Financial Stress Scale for Undergraduate Students

Financial stress is commonly experienced among college students and is associated with adverse academic, mental health, and physical health outcomes. Surprisingly, no validated measures of financial stress have been developed for undergraduate populations. The present study was conducted to generate and evaluate a measure of financial stress for undergraduate students. The newly developed scale and measures of demographics, general stress, and health were completed by 177 undergraduates. The reliability, validity, and factor structure of the new scale were evaluated. Results indicate good reliability and validity, suggesting that the measure can be used in research and in applied settings to assess financial stress. Possible implications are discussed.

Are self-deceivers enhancing positive affect or denying negative affect? Toward an understanding of implicit affective processes

Self-deception is an important construct in social, personality, and clinical literatures. Although historical and clinical views of self-deception have regarded it as defensive in nature and operation, modern views of this individual difference variable instead highlight its apparent benefits to subjective mental health. The present four studies reinforce the latter view by showing that self-deception predicts positive priming effects, but not negative priming effects, in reaction time tasks sensitive to individual differences in affective priming. In all studies, individuals higher in self-deception displayed stronger positive priming effects, defined in terms of facilitation with two positive stimuli in a consecutive sequence, but self-deception did not predict negative priming effects in the same tasks. Importantly, these effects occurred both in tasks that called for the retrieval of self-knowledge (Study 1) and those that did not (Studies 2–4). This broad pattern supports substantive views of self-deception rather than views narrowly focused on self-presentation processes. Implications for understanding self-deception are discussed.

What's the use of being happy? Mood states, useful objects, and repetition priming effects.

Two experiments involving 99 undergraduate participants sought to examine the influence of mood states on encoding speed within lexical decision and pronunciation tasks. Mood states were measured naturalistically in Experiment 1 and manipulated in Experiment 2. Stimuli consisted of nouns representing useful (e.g., food) and nonuseful (e.g., lint) objects. Mood states had no implications for initial encoding speed. However, when the same words were presented a 2nd time (i.e., repeated), happy individuals displayed a tendency to encode useful words faster than nonuseful ones. Thus, mood states influenced repetition priming on the basis of stimulus valence. The authors propose that happiness sensitizes individuals to useful or rewarding objects, which in turn creates a stronger memory trace for such stimuli in the future.

Psychosocial Considerations of Mechanical Circulatory Support: Decision Making, Behavioral Evaluation, Quality of Life, Caregivers, and End of Life.

An understanding of the tenets of medical ethics and related fundamentals of medical decision making and communication is critical to the optimal implantation, maintenance, and discontinuation of long-term mechanical circulatory support (MCS). Shared decision making incorporates the perspective of the patient, who is responsible for articulating values, goals, and preferences as they relate to his or her healthcare. For patients with advanced heart failure who are considering the option of MCS, understanding benefits, risks, burdens of available options, and outcomes (survival and health-related quality of life [HRQOL]) and changes in lifestyle, implications for caregivers, and potential for withdrawal of MCS are critical to successful implantation, within the context of patient values, preferences, and goals. An ethical process fully engages patients, their families, and the advanced heart failure team and supports the potential for successful decision making and enhanced outcomes. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss decision making and informed consent, psychosocial and behavioral evaluation prior to surgery, HRQOL outcomes, caregiver burden, and palliative care/end-of-life care for patients who undergo long-term MCS implantation.

Job Satisfaction Among Mental Health Workers

Work characteristics such as job satisfaction have been associated with mental and physical health outcomes in several cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. However, meta-analytic reviews indicate that nearly all of the reported relationships between these two sets of constructs rely on self-report measures. Thus, the magnitude of the reported relationships may be inaccurate and inflated due to common method variance (mono-method bias) and negative affectivity. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) is an objective measure of risk for adverse mental health and physical health outcomes. To our knowledge, there has been no investigation of the relationship between job satisfaction and respiratory sinus arrhythmia. In this investigation, 29 workers in mental health settings who experience higher than average levels of work stress due to the amount and unpredictability of workload completed sociodemographic measures and a job satisfaction measure. RSA was then collected during a resting baseline, a worry induction stressor condition where they were instructed to think about work stressors, and a post-stress recovery condition. RSA reactivity to the stressor was significantly greater for participants with low job satisfaction. The low job satisfaction participants also demonstrated less RSA recovery after the stressor ended. Alternatively, participants with higher job satisfaction reacted less and recovered more completely from the stressor.