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The present study explores the relations among gender, impulsivity and three health-risk behaviors relevant to young adults (tobacco use, alcohol problems and gambling problems) in a sample of 197 college-age individuals. We sought to determine whether impulsivity is associated with health-risk behaviors in the same ways for men and women. For tobacco use and gambling problems, men were at higher risk than women, and impulsivity was not significantly associated with higher risk. Higher levels of motor impulsivity in men accounted for a significant amount of the gender difference in risk for alcohol problems. That is, impulsivity as measured by the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (version 11), mediated the association between gender and risk for alcohol problems. For impulsivity as measured by Stop Signal Reaction Time (i.e. response inhibition), gender moderated the association between impulsivity and alcohol problems. Specifically, lower levels of impulsivity were associated with greater risk for alcohol problems in both men and women, but the effect was stronger in men. We speculate that this seemingly paradoxical result might be the result of coping drinking to deal with negative affect associated with behavioral overcontrol. These findings suggest that prevention efforts might well focus on identifying individuals at high risk for alcohol problems, especially males, by assessing response inhibition.

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Depression is a major health concern in India, yet indigenous Indian perspectives on depression have often been disregarded in favor of Western conceptualizations. The present study used quantitative and qualitative measures modeled on the Explanatory Model Interview Catalogue (EMIC) to elicit beliefs about the symptoms, causes, treatments, and stigma associated with depression. Data were collected from 92 students at a university in the Himalayan region of Northern India and from 97 students at a university in the Rocky Mountain region of the United States. U.S. participants in this study were included primarily to approximate a "Western baseline" (in which professional conceptions of depression are predominantly rooted) from which to elucidate Indian perspectives. Compared to U.S. participants, Indian participants were more likely to view restive symptoms (e.g., irritation, anxiety, difficulty thinking) as common features of depression, to view depression as the result of personally controllable causes (e.g., failure), to endorse social support and spiritual reflection or relaxation (e.g., yoga, meditation) as useful means for dealing with depression, and to associate stigma with depression. Efforts aimed at reducing depression among Indians should focus more on implementing effective and culturally acceptable interventions, such as yoga, meditation, and increasing social support.

Despite growing enthusiasm for dimensional models of personality pathology, the taxonic versus dimensional status of schizotypal personality disorder (PD) remains a point of contention in modern psychiatry. The current study aimed to determine empirically the latent structure of schizotypal PD. We examined the latent structure of schizotypal PD in the Psychiatric Morbidity Survey in Great Britain and the second wave of the U.S.-based National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) survey. We analyzed composite indicators created from participant responses using the mean above minus mean below a cut (MAMBAC), Maximum Covariance (MAXCOV), and latent mode factor analysis (L-Mode) taxometric procedures. We also analyzed item-level responses using two latent variable mixture models--latent class analysis and latent class factor analysis. Taxometric and latent variable mixture analyses supported a dimensional, rather than taxonic, structure in both epidemiological samples. The dimensional model better predicted psychosis, intellectual functioning, disability, and treatment seeking than the categorical model based on DSM-IV diagnosis. People meeting criteria for schizotypal PD appear to exist on a spectrum of severity with the rest of the population. The possible dimensionality of schizotypal PD adds to growing support for a dimensional structure of PDs including other Cluster A disorders.

People with bipolar disorders report a lower quality of life than the general population, and few mutable factors associated with health-related quality of life (HRQoL) among people with bipolar disorders have been identified. Using a cross-sectional design, these analyses examined whether self-efficacy was associated with mental and physical HRQoL in a sample of 141 patients with bipolar disorder who completed baseline assessments for two randomized controlled trials. Multiple linear regression analyses indicated that higher levels of self-efficacy were associated with higher mental and physical HRQoL, after controlling for demographic factors and clinical factors (including mood symptoms, co-morbid medical conditions, and substance use). Future research should examine whether targeted treatments that aim to improve self-efficacy (such as self-management interventions) lead to improvements in HRQoL among people with bipolar disorder and other serious mental illnesses.

The Interpersonal Theory of Depression suggests that depressed individuals have behavioral patterns that alienate people in their environment, thereby reducing social support and maintaining their depression. Excessive reassurance seeking has been implicated as such a behavior. A model was tested in which excessive reassurance seeking mediates the relationships between sociotropy and increases in negative interpersonal life events as well as sociotropy and depressive symptoms. Participants consisted of 110 undergraduate students. Measures were given at two time points 6 weeks apart assessing sociotropy, excessive reassurance seeking, negative interpersonal life events, and depressive symptoms. Results suggested that excessive reassurance seeking mediated the predicted relationship between sociotropy and negative interpersonal life events, but did not mediate the relationship between sociotropy and depressive symptoms. The implications for these findings in the interactional nature of depression are discussed.