Research update

CrossCurrents

Anger compatible with rational thinking

Although anger is usually associated with irrational thinking, new research indicates that anger can actually contribute to rational and analytic thinking. Researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara, enrolled 550 college undergraduates in three experiments. Participants were asked to assess the validity of persuasive arguments after anger was induced in some of them by either asking them to recall past events that made them angry or by exposing them to criticism. In one experiment, participants were presented with statements making the counterintuitive argument that college students have good financial habits. Angry participants proved better than those in neutral moods at differentiating between weak and strong arguments, indicating better analytical thinking. In a second experiment, participants evaluated an argument advocating the introduction of mandatory comprehensive exams as a graduation requirement for college seniors. Anger elicited analytic reasoning in individuals who ordinarily processed information non-analytically. In a third experiment, the financial habits argument was repeated, and participants were told that the source of the argument was either the Agency for Financial Responsibility or the Agency for Medical Responsibility. Here, the angry participants were more likely to ignore the irrelevant source, indicating analytical thinking and selective use of appropriate heuristic cues. The authors note that intense anger accompanied by high levels of arousal could limit analytic reasoning, and such arousal was absent in this study.

Personality and Psychology Bulletin, May 2007, v. 33: 706–720. Wesley G. Moons and Diane M. Mackie, Department of Psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara, California.

 

Parental substance abuse affects adult children’s anxiety disorders

Adults with social phobia and panic disorders are more likely to experience relapse if their parents had substance use disorders, according to a study from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Researchers recruited 618 participants from the Harvard/Brown Anxiety Research Project, from 11 different clinical treatment facilities in New England. Participants were interviewed at baseline and every six or 12 months over 12 years. One hundred and eleven (18%) participants reported that at least one of their parents had a history of substance use disorders (92 mothers and 24 fathers). Among mothers with substance use disorders, 68 per cent had alcohol abuse/dependence, 15 per cent had drug abuse/dependence and 16 per cent had both. Among fathers with substance use disorders, 63 per cent had alcohol abuse/ dependence, 20 per cent had drug abuse/dependence and 17 per cent had both. Twenty-three per cent of participants reported that one of their parents had an anxiety disorder. Among participants who had recovered from social phobia, the likelihood of relapse was 4.1 times greater among those who had a parent with a history of substance use disorder. Participants who had recovered from panic disorder were 3.4 times more likely to suffer a relapse if one parent had a substance use disorder. The authors recommend that clinicians assess parental substance use when treating individuals with social phobia, and that they consider long-term maintenance therapy to prevent relapse.

Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy,2007, online, doi: 10.1186/1747-597X-2-13. Maria E. Pagano et al., Department of Psychiatry, Division of Child Psychiatry, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio.

 

Parents often source of alcohol for young adolescents

Parents and guardians are a primary source of alcohol for young adolescents, according to a three-year study from the University of Minnesota. Researchers used data on 3,709 students from four waves of Project Northland Chicago, involving 63 Chicago schools. The students were followed from the beginning of grade 6 to the end of grade 8. Survey questions asked students how many times they had consumed alcohol and where they had obtained it. Seventeen per cent used alcohol at the start of grade 6, rising to 41 per cent by the end of grade 8. For students at the beginning of grade 6, parents and guardians were the most common source of alcohol (33%), followed by other adults over age 21 (16%). By the end of grade 8, other adults (23%) had surpassed parents and guardians (19%) as the most important source of alcohol. By grade 8, adolescents in the study were also increasingly likely to obtain alcohol from someone under age 21, by taking it from their own or a friend’s home, or by obtaining it from commercial sources. Boys were more likely than girls to obtain alcohol from commercial sources. The authors suggest that their findings underscore the importance of educating parents about providing alcohol to children. The findings also point to the need to take into account the changing pattern of alcohol sources over the course of early adolescence in designing prevention programs.

Preventive Medicine, June 2007, v. 44: 471–476. Mary O. Hearst et al., Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

 

Psychiatry residents often fail to obtain informed consent

Psychiatry residents tend not to take adequate steps to obtain informed consent for treatment from their patients, according to research from Columbia University in New York City. The study involved 108 psychiatry residents at seven New York–area training programs who were asked to respond to three vignettes, providing a total of 324 vignettes. These vignettes involved the evaluation and treatment recommendation of a patient with major depression being prescribed medication, and patients with borderline personality disorder and neurotic character traits starting psychotherapy. The researchers found that the residents’ responses met minimal criteria for an informed consent discussion in only three per cent of the vignettes, and in only one per cent of the vignettes did their responses meet the criteria for optimal informed consent. However, when the criteria were loosened to give residents credit for responding to patients’ inquiries rather than initiating the discussions, 53 per cent of the vignettes met the criteria for adequate informed consent. Although residents were equally likely to obtain informed consent from the three different patients, they were less likely to give the neurotic patient information regarding alternative treatments. They were also less likely to disclose relevant information about themselves to the psychotherapy patients compared with the patient receiving medication. The authors conclude that their findings may have resulted from the residents’ failure to understand that informed consent is an active process, and recommend that greater efforts be made to teach residents about the informed consent process.

Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, April 2007, v. 68: 558–565. Bret R. Rutherford et al., Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University, New York, New York.

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