The Creative Benefits Scale: Connecting Generativity to Life Satisfaction.

Long-term participation in creative activities has benefits for middle-aged and older people that may improve their adaptation to later life. We first investigated the factor structure of the Creative Benefits Scale and then used it to construct a model to help explain the connection between generativity and life satisfaction in adults who participated in creative hobbies. Participants included 546 adults between the ages of 40 and 88 (Mean = 58.30 years) who completed measures of life satisfaction, generativity, and the Creative Benefits Scale with its factors of Identity, Calming, Spirituality, and Recognition. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the connection of age with life satisfaction in older adults and to explore the effects of creativity on this relation. The proposed model of life satisfaction, incorporating age, creativity, and generativity, fit the data well, indicating that creativity may help explain the link between the generativity and life satisfaction.

The effects of chemotherapy on Useful Field of View (UFOV) in younger and older breast cancer patients.

Chemotherapy is thought to cause cognitive deficits in some breast cancer patients, but the relative effects on older and younger breast cancer patients are unknown. The effects of chemotherapy on everyday cognitive tasks have not been examined. Thirty-eight female breast cancer survivors (3 to 45 months post chemotherapy) were compared to 55 age-matched control participants. Participants completed the Useful Field of View (UFOV), a computerized test of visual information processing that has been shown to decline with age, and which has been used to predict older adults' driving performance. Older chemotherapy patients performed more poorly than controls on the UFOV speed of processing, but not on the other two components. They also performed more poorly than younger chemotherapy patients. On the divided attention and selective attention components of the UFOV, older participants performed more poorly than younger participants, but there were no significant differences between chemotherapy patients and controls. These findings are explained in terms of brain changes thought to be caused by chemotherapy, which might have the most impact on older adults, already at risk for behavioral slowing.

A validity study of the Positive Psychology Protective Profile.

The purpose of this study was to conduct an exploratory factor analysis to provide support for the construct validity of the Positive Psychology Protective Profile, a self-report measure based on positive psychology. 985 undergraduates completed the profile, the Beck Depression Inventory, and the College Life Stress Inventory. Scores on the first two factor scores (Positive Outlook, Negative Symptoms) for the profile correlated significantly with scores on depression and stress, whereas scores on the third profile factor (Problem-solving) correlated significantly only with scores on the Beck Depression Inventory. Scores on the Positive Outlook significantly differentiated participants having either chronic illness or recent major illness from those who did not.

Are undergraduate examinees' perceptions of item difficulty related to item characteristics?

The present study assessed whether selected item characteristics--difficulty for the group, corrected item-total correlation, cognitive level, and difficulty for the examinee--relate to judgment of item difficulty. Undergraduate students in two classes (ns = 76, 43) identified what they believed were the five easiest and five most difficult items on a multiple-choice test. Statistically significant correlations were observed for difficulty for the group and the frequency that items were chosen as easy as well as with frequency of items chosen as difficult. Students performed significantly better on items they chose as easy than those chosen as difficult. Items chosen as easy more often called for simple, factual recall than did items chosen as difficult.