Grant Benham

1 Department of Psychology and Anthropology, The University of Texas-Pan American, Edinburg, Texas 2 Department of Psychology, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee ... * Correspondence to: Grant Benham, Department of Psychology and Anthropology, ...

Increasingly, researchers have begun to explore the potential of the Internet to reach beyond the traditional undergraduate sample. In the present study, we sought to compare the data obtained from a conventional undergraduate college-student sample to data collected via two online survey recruitment platforms. In order to examine whether the data sampled from the three populations were equivalent, we conducted a test of equivalency using inferential confidence intervals-an approach that differs from the more traditional null hypothesis significance testing. The results showed that the data obtained via the two online recruitment platforms, the Amazon Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing site and the virtual environment of Second Life, were statistically equivalent to the data obtained from the college sample, on the basis of means of standardized measures of psychological stress and sleep quality. Additionally, correlations between the sleep and stress measures were not statistically diff...

Sensory hypersensitivity is one manifestation of the central sensitization that may underlie conditions such as fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. We conducted five studies designed to develop and validate the Sensory Hypersensitive Scale (SHS); a 25-item self-report measure of sensory hypersensitivity. The SHS assesses both general sensitivity and modality-specific sensitivity (e.g. touch, taste, and hearing). 1202 participants (157 individuals with chronic pain) completed the SHS, which demonstrated an adequate overall internal reliability (Cronbach's alpha) of 0.81, suggesting the tool can be used as a cross-modality assessment of sensitivity. SHS scores demonstrated only modest correlations (Pearson's r) with depressive symptoms (0.19) and anxiety (0.28), suggesting a low level of overlap with psychiatric complaints. Overall SHS scores showed significant but relatively modest correlations (Pearson's r) with three measures of sensory testing: cold pain tolerance (-0.34); heat pain tolerance (-0.285); heat pain threshold (-0.271). Women reported significantly higher scores on the SHS than did men, although gender-based differences were small. In a chronic pain sample, individuals with fibromyalgia syndrome demonstrated significantly higher SHS scores than did individuals with osteoarthritis or back pain. The SHS appears suitable as a screening measure for sensory hypersensitivity, though additional research is warranted to determine its suitability as a proxy for central sensitization.

Background/Objective: A growing body of research has demonstrated a link between obesity and sleep. Few studies, however, have explored that relationship exclusively among vulnerable populations, especially Latinos. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between obesity and sleep duration among Latino manufacturing workers in South Texas. Methods: Surveys were administered to 228 Latino workers from eight manufacturing plants. Participants with a body mass index (BMI) ≥ 30 were classified as obese. Sleep variable was measured as the self-reported average hours of sleep on weekdays classified into those who slept less than 6 hours a night vs. those sleeping 6 hours or more. Logistic regression was used to examine the association between obesity and sleep controlling for gender, education, age, marital status, income, physical activity levels, self-reported health status, and self-rated stress and quality of sleep. Results: The majority of participants were men (72%)...

The primary aim of the current study was to examine the association between self-perceived stress and skin-barrier recovery. From an initial sample of 410 students, 19 high-stress and 12 low-stress Hispanic women completed a behavioural survey and were assessed for recovery of skin barrier following a tape-stripping procedure. No association was found between self-perceived stress and skin barrier recovery at either the 30-min or 3.15-h recovery period. Supplemental analysis showed a positive correlation between skin barrier recovery and self-reported sleep quantity at both recovery periods. Barrier repair reflects a single, minimally invasive, measure of wound healing; thus, our findings do not necessarily contradict the notion that stress measures can be used to predict wound healing more broadly defined. Supplemental analysis demonstrated an intriguing relationship between barrier recovery and the number of hours slept, but these findings are considered tentative and will require replication with more rigorous measures of sleep quantity and quality.

A growing body of literature supports the notion that psychological stress negatively impacts physical health. In parallel to this programme of stress/health investigations, researchers are demonstrating the deleterious health effects of poor sleep. The current study simultaneously examines the association of both stress and sleep with health. Two hundred and eighteen subjects completed an anonymous survey packet that included stress, sleep and health measures. Psychological stress (as assessed by both life-events and by self-perceived stress), daytime sleepiness and poor sleep quality, but not sleep quantity, were all negatively associated with health. A regression model that integrated both stress measures was a statistically significant predictor of health. Adding the sleep measures to the stress-health model accounted for a statistically significantly greater proportion of the variance in health scores, with the stress + sleep model accounting for 39–56 per cent of the variance in health scores depending on the health measure used. These results suggest that studies of stress and health may benefit from the inclusion of sleep measures and that, from a practical standpoint, poor sleep might be best understood not simply as a sequela of psychological stress but rather as a factor that should be actively addressed as part of the treatment programme. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Previous studies have indicated that statistically significant increases in Secretory immunoglobulin A (S-IgA) can be achieved in as little as 5min as a result of mental stress. However, the temporal resolution of these changes is low and therefore the rate and pattern of changes during the stress task and during subsequent recovery is unclear. A within-subjects design was used to examine levels of S-IgA before, during and after a short (8 min) mental stress task. S-IgA was measured from saliva samples obtained every 2 min during the entire 30-min session. Significant increases in S-IgA concentration were observed as early as the task instruction period, with additional increases during the stress task itself. The data also show a rapid recovery of S-IgA, with a return to baseline levels within 6 min. Results suggest that S-IgA changes can occur very rapidly and that the observed increases are short-lived. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Research suggests that the immune system may be adversely affected by chronic stress. There is some evidence that relaxation-based practices may effect an increase in immune functioning, but recent findings suggest that acute stress may lead to similar increases. Given this, we used a counterbalanced within-subjects design to directly compare the effects of a stressful mental arithmetic task and a relaxation-based task on secretory immunoglobulin A (S-IgA). Thirty participants were seen in small groups of two or three where they were administered both a mental arithmetic (stress) task and a relaxing hypnosis task. Four-minute timed saliva samples were obtained immediately following the two experimental tasks and following two baseline periods. Results demonstrated that, compared with baseline, S-IgA concentration and secretion rate were significantly higher following both the relaxation-based task and stress task. Additionally, our data showed that the increases were short-lived, decreasing significantly within 8 min following the completion of each task. Our results indicate that both stress-reducing and stress-inducing tasks can increase S-IgA levels, and these results are discussed with reference to the potential differential mechanisms and clinical significance of such changes. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Everyone has seen a depiction of hypnosis similar to this one in movies and on television. Indeed, say the word “hypnosis,” and many people immedi-ately think of pocket watches. But it is now much more common for hypnotists simply to ask a subject to stare at a small, ...

The Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale, Form C (SHSS:C), developed and named 37 years ago, is arguably the “gold standard” of hypnotic susceptibility scales. However, it has been the impression of several researchers that means obtained on the SHSS:C are higher now than in previous years. The authors comprehensively review studies using the SHSS:C over a 4-decade period. The findings demonstrate a significant linear trend between year and SHSS:C scores, with higher obtained means in more recent work. The authors also report a similar analysis of research with the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility, Form A. Although the mechanisms underlying this trend can only be speculated upon at present, these findings underscore the importance of using local control groups in research on hypnotizability.