This study investigated the extent to which the link between perceived social support and affect reflected support recipients' trait perceived support as well as three distinct social processes: the objective supportiveness of providers, the unique relationships among recipients and providers that were stable over occasions, as well as the unique relationships that varied across occasions. Ten recipients interacted with each of the same four providers on five separate occasions, for a total of 200 interactions. Recipients and independent observers rated recipient affect and provider support. Greater perceived support was related to greater positive affect for recipients' trait perceived support, as well as for relationships that were stable over occasions and relationships that varied across occasions. No social support effects were found for negative affect. Perceived similarity was a consistent predictor of recipients' support perceptions. Implications for social support models and interventions were discussed.

Research suggests that select processing speed measures can also serve as embedded validity indicators (EVIs). The present study examined the diagnostic utility of Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Fourth Edition (WAIS-IV) subtests as EVIs in a mixed clinical sample of 205 patients medically referred for neuropsychological assessment (53.3% female, mean age = 45.1). Classification accuracy was calculated against 3 composite measures of performance validity as criterion variables. A PSI ≤79 produced a good combination of sensitivity (.23-.56) and specificity (.92-.98). A Coding scaled score ≤5 resulted in good specificity (.94-1.00), but low and variable sensitivity (.04-.28). A Symbol Search scaled score ≤6 achieved a good balance between sensitivity (.38-.64) and specificity (.88-.93). A Coding-Symbol Search scaled score difference ≥5 produced adequate specificity (.89-.91) but consistently low sensitivity (.08-.12). A 2-tailed cutoff on the Coding/Symbol Search raw score ratio (≤1.41 or ≥3.57) produced acceptable specificity (.87-.93), but low sensitivity (.15-.24). Failing ≥2 of these EVIs produced variable specificity (.81-.93) and sensitivity (.31-.59). Failing ≥3 of these EVIs stabilized specificity (.89-.94) at a small cost to sensitivity (.23-.53). Results suggest that processing speed based EVIs have the potential to provide a cost-effective and expedient method for evaluating the validity of cognitive data. Given their generally low and variable sensitivity, however, they should not be used in isolation to determine the credibility of a given response set. They also produced unacceptably high rates of false positive errors in patients with moderate-to-severe head injury. Combining evidence from multiple EVIs has the potential to improve overall classification accuracy. (PsycINFO Database Record

Objectives Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory disease resulting in substantial pain. The physical and emotional effects of RA are well known, but little attention has been given to the potential cognitive effects of RA pain, although intact executive functioning in patients with chronic illness is crucial for the successful completion of many daily activities. We examined the relationship between pain and executive functioning in patients with RA, and also considered the influence of positive and negative affect in the relationship between pain and executive functioning. Methods A sample of 157 adults with RA completed measures of pain and positive and negative affect and were tested for working memory and selective attention using the Letter Number Sequencing subtest from the WAIS-III and the Stroop Color Word Test tests, respectively. Results: Consistent with prior research, pain was inversely related to executive functioning, with higher pain levels associated with poorer performance on executive functioning tasks. This relationship was not moderated or mediated by negative affect; however, positive affect moderated the relationship between pain and executive functioning. For patients high in positive affect there was a significant inverse relationship between pain and executive functioning, whereas there was no such relationship for patients low in positive affect. Discussion These findings are discussed in the context of cognitive research on the effects of positive affect on executive functioning as well as functional neuroanatomical research suggesting neurocognitive mechanisms for such moderation.

Taken together, our findings provide initial support for the use of the EWFT as a measure of emotion word generation ability in young adults. This measure may prove to be useful in the assessment of affective language production in patient populations.