The dimensions by which adults of differing ages experience emotion were studied by self-administering questionnaires administered to older adults (n = 828) recruited from Elderhostel programs, middle-aged (ages 30-59) children of Elderhostel attenders (n = 231), and young adult (ages 18-29) subjects recruited from college classes or through Elderhostel participants (n = 207). Elders were higher in emotional control, mood stability, and emotional maturity through moderation and leveling of positive affect and lower in surgency, psychophysiological responsiveness, and sensation seeking. These findings are consistent with the hypothesized increase in self-regulatory capacity with age. These cross-sectional differences cannot, however, be distinguished from cohort-related explanations; they require considerable replication across different types of subjects and further characterization of the dimensions in terms of their functions for self-regulation.
Congenital amusia is a disorder characterized by life-long, selective deficits in the perception of music. This study examined pitch-perception abilities in a group of 10 adults with this disorder. Tests were administered that assessed fine-grained pitch perception by determining thresholds both for the detection of continuous and segmented pitch changes, and for the recognition of pitch direction. Tests were also administered that assessed the perception of more complex pitch patterns, using pitch-sequence comparison tasks. In addition, the perceptual organization of pitch was also examined, using stream segregation tasks that assess the assignment of sounds differing in pitch to one or two distinct perceptual sources. In comparison with 10 control subjects, it was found that the participants with congenital amusia exhibited deficits both at the level of detecting fine-grained differences in pitch, and at the level of perceiving patterns in pitch. In contrast, no abnormalities were identified in the perceptual organization of pitch. The pitch deficits identified are able to account for the music perception difficulties in this disorder, and implicate deficient cortical processing.
Immigrants account for 20% of the population and 60% of total population growth in Canada (Statistics Canada 2001). The majority of immigrants are accepted for entry to Canada under the Skilled Worker Program in order to fill employment shortages in the labour market (CIC 2007). Recent research has revealed that an increasing number of immigrants who gain entry under this programme face significant barriers to employment. As a result, many remain unemployed or accept employment outside of and below their field of education and training. However, the impacts such employment circumstances have on the health of immigrants have not yet been examined. This paper presents the results of a collaborative research project that explores the health impacts of under/unemployment among skilled immigrants in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. In-depth interviews are used to examine the experiences of employment and perceptions of subsequent health impacts among 22 recent immigrants. The participants most frequently identified mental health impacts due to a lack of income, loss of employment-related skills, loss of social status and family pressures. These health concerns are also extended to family members. In addition to mental health, physical health is perceived to be affected by employment circumstances through high levels of stress and strenuous working conditions. These findings shed light on the nature of the links between employment and health relationship as well as determinants of immigrant health. Additional research is required to examine the long-term effects of under/unemployment.
The self-reports of 207 young-adult (ages 18-30), 231 middle-aged (ages 31-59), and 828 older-adult (age 60 and over) Ss were used to study the structure of affect. Affects were represented by terms included in various circumplex arrays of emotions as presented by previous investigators. A set of 46 affects was subjected to exploratory analysis, and a final set of 38 affects was subjected to confirmatory factor analysis. The goodness of fit of each group's factor loadings to the hypothesized factors of positive affect, depression, anxiety-guilt, contentment, hostility, and shyness was not up to the desired .90 level, and some significant differences in factor structure were observed for each age-group comparison. There were few age differences in levels of positive affect. Depression was most frequent among younger Ss and least frequent among older Ss. Younger Ss were most often anxious and shy. Older Ss were most often content and least often hostile.
Confirmatory factor analysis was used to test the structure of 5-item affect rating scales designed to measure positive affect and negative affect. A proposed circumplex affect structure was the source of scales constructed to represent a cluster of positive terms, including pleasantness and activation; the negative terms represented anxiety, depression, and hostility. The hypothesized simple-structured positive and negative trait affect factors, with a moderate correlation between them, were found in all cases. Equivalent structure was confirmed for younger adults, middle-aged, and older adults of good health and above-average education. Although the hypothesized simple-structured positive and negative factors emerged for all other groups, three other tests of factor equivalence failed to be confirmed: trait and state factors in the older adult group were not identical. Factors derived from healthy and frail elders were structurally different. Variability among frail elders and variability over 30 days within the same person, when factored, also showed nonequivalence. Although the scales are extremely useful in assessing affect, comparisons across some subject groups should be made with caution.
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