ABSTRACT
Many scales used in psychological and health research are designed to yield subscores, yet it is common to see total scores reported instead. One challenge of using subscores is they can lack adequate reliability due to their shortened length. However, methods originally developed for educational measurement have shown that augmenting subscores can improve reliability estimates. Augmented subscores blend the individual score with other sources of information. The present study sought to understand (a) the costs of ignoring subscores in favor of total scores and (b) the extent to which augmentation can help alleviate challenges encountered when using subscores. Data were simulated to examine when subscores should be preferred to total scores and the magnitude of improvement from using augmented subscores over non-augmented subscores. Results suggested that when a scale is designed to yield subscores, there is practical benefit to using them. In situations where subscore reliability is low, we recommend using augmentation.
ABSTRACT
Middle-aged adults are a central pillar of society because they comprise large segments of the workforce and bridge younger and older generations. Given the significant role that middle-aged adults play for the greater good of society, more research is warranted to evaluate in which ways adversity could accumulate or pile-up to impact pertinent outcomes. We used data from a sample of middle-aged adults (n = 317, age 50-65 at baseline, 55% women) who were assessed monthly for a period of 2 years to examine whether the accumulation of adversity was predictive of depressive symptoms, life satisfaction, and character strengths (generativity, gratitude, the presence of meaning, and search for meaning). Greater accumulation of adversity was associated with reporting more depressive symptoms, lower life satisfaction, and the lower presence of meaning and the effects remained for depressive symptoms when accounting for concurrent adversity. More concurrent adversity was associated with reporting more depressive symptoms and lower life satisfaction and lower levels of generativity, gratitude, and the presence of meaning. Analyses that targeted specific domains of adversity showed that the accumulation of adversity associated with close family members (i.e., spouse/partner, children, and parents), and financial, and work domains showed the strongest (negative) associations across each outcome. Our findings demonstrate that monthly adversity take its toll on pertinent midlife outcomes and points to future research targeting mechanisms underlying our findings as well as resources that promote positive outcomes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).
Subject(s)
Aging , Depression , Humans , Female , Middle Aged , Aged , Male , Family , Parents , Personal SatisfactionABSTRACT
Whether lateralization of communicative signalling in non-human primates might constitute prerequisites of hemispheric specialization for language is unclear. In the present study, we examined (i) hand preference for a communicative gesture (clapping in 94 captive chimpanzees from two research facilities) and (ii) the in vivo magnetic resonance imaging brain scans of 40 of these individuals. The preferred hand for clapping was defined as the one in the upper position when the two hands came together. Using computer manual tracing of regions of interest, we measured the neuroanatomical asymmetries for the homologues of key language areas, including the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and planum temporale (PT). When considering the entire sample, there was a predominance of right-handedness for clapping and the distribution of right- and left-handed individuals did not differ between the two facilities. The direction of hand preference (right- versus left-handed subjects) for clapping explained a significant portion of variability in asymmetries of the PT and IFG. The results are consistent with the view that gestural communication in the common ancestor may have been a precursor of language and its cerebral substrates in modern humans.