Older adults produced more off-topic speech (OTS) than younger adults during autobiographical interviews in previous studies, a finding attributed to age-related deficits in inhibiting irrelevant information. In this study, older adults produced more OTS than younger adults for autobiographical topics, but not for picture descriptions. A 2nd sample of younger and older participants rated older adults' story quality more positively than that of younger adults, a problematic finding for the inhibitory deficit explanation. Rater age affected ratings of how focused the speech was on the topic, suggesting age differences in criteria for OTS. These findings are consistent with the Pragmatic Change hypothesis, which maintains that older adults adopt communicative goals that emphasize the significance of life experiences rather than conciseness in their personal narratives.

Overall, these results extend prior findings, supporting incremental benefits of MATCH over usual care over a 2-year period.

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Extending analyses from a large school-based sample of children and adolescents (N = 1,126; Chorpita, 2002), this study examined anxiety and depression assessment with 5 ethnic groups in Hawaii. Ethnic differences in anxiety and depression symptoms, along with 2 temperamental characteristics-negative affectivity (NA) and positive affectivity (PA)-were examined within the context of the tripartite model of anxiety and depression (Clark & Watson, 1991). Minimal between-group differences in temperamental characteristics were found. Good fit was found for a multisample model relating NA and PA to anxiety and depressive dimensions consistently across all groups. However, significant mean level differences among ethnic groups were found for several specific anxiety dimensions, suggesting that factors outside of the tripartite model explain observed ethnic differences. Further support for the generalizability of the tripartite model was also found.

The present study includes data from a sample of 88 Native Hawaiians living in a rural community on an outer island. Alcohol, tobacco, and other drug (ATOD) use, and violent behavior were examined, including age at first experience, lifetime and 30-day frequency of experience, and interference related to substance use, along with other resilience indicators such as self-reported health, happiness, and ethnic identity. The data suggested that age at first use of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs appeared to occur within the same period of time, at approximately age 16. With respect to violent behavior, educational attainment was higher for individuals whose age at first victimization was later. Two relationships were found between ATOD use and violent behavior. First, the data suggest that the age at first use of alcohol was significantly correlated with lifetime frequency of violence exposure including witnessing, perpetrating, and being a victim of violence. Second, age at first victimization was correlated with current marijuana use, while age at first perpetration of violence was correlated with current crystal methamphetamine use. Lastly, individuals reporting very strong ethnic pride had significantly fewer lifetime instances of witnessing, perpetrating, and being the victim of violence. Thirty-day frequencies of perpetrating and being the victim of violence were also significantly different between respondents who reported very strong ethnic pride and those who reported being less proud, suggesting that ethnic pride is an important protective factor against experiencing violent behavior and may encourage resilience in this group.