Aging-related fears and their associations with ideal life expectancy

Fears regarding various aspects tend to stimulate individuals to escape or to avoid the sources of the threat. We concluded that fears associated with the future aging process, like the fear of aging-related diseases, the fear of loneliness in old age, and the fear of death, would stimulate patterns of avoidance when it comes to ideal life expectancy. We expected fear of aging-related diseases and fear of loneliness in old age to be related to lower ideal life expectancies. We expected fear of death to be related to higher ideal life expectancies. In two adult lifespan samples [N1 = 1065 and N2 = 591; ages ranging from 18 to 95 years, M (SD)1 = 58.1 (17.2) years, M (SD)2 = 52.6 (18.1) years], we were able to support our hypothesis regarding fear of death. We furthermore found significant interactions among the fears, indicating that individuals fearing diseases or loneliness but being unafraid of death opted for the shortest lives. Our results indicate that fears regarding life in very old age might be associated with the wish to avoid this age period; the fear of death was however associated with the wish for particularly long lives, and thus, with distancing oneself from the dreaded event of death. We conclude that fears seem to be associated with how individuals approach old age and with what they wish for in their own future as aged people.

On Growth Rates of Permutations, Set Partitions, Ordered Graphs and Other Objects

For classes ${\cal O}$ of structures on finite linear orders (permutations, ordered graphs etc.) endowed with containment order $\preceq$ (containment of permutations, subgraph relation etc.), we investigate restrictions on the function $f(n)$ counting objects with size $n$ in a lower ideal in $({\cal O},\preceq)$. We present a framework of edge $P$-colored complete graphs $({\cal C}(P),\preceq)$ which includes many of these situations, and we prove for it two such restrictions (jumps in growth): $f(n)$ is eventually constant or $f(n)\ge n$ for all $n\ge 1$; $f(n)\le n^c$ for all $n\ge 1$ for a constant $c>0$ or $f(n)\ge F_n$ for all $n\ge 1$, $F_n$ being the Fibonacci numbers. This generalizes a fragment of a more detailed theorem of Balogh, Bollobás and Morris on hereditary properties of ordered graphs.

Social networks and support in long-term psychiatric patients

SynopsisThis paper describes quantitative and qualitative aspects of social support in a sample of 40 long-term schizophrenic day patients attending a rehabilitation unit. The influence of symptomatology and experience of life stressors on network and support characteristics was also investigated. The primary networks of these patients were found to be small, comprising on average 7 members, of whom only 3 were seen regularly. Despite this, subjects rated their perceived support as adequate. The secondary networks were of the order of 32. It emerged that greater prevalence of negative symptoms was significantly associated with lower ideal levels of support and this group of patients was significantly less likely to seek support in the event of a life stressor. This may be a protective mechanism to insulate the person from the effects of stressful relationships but at the same time means that they are isolated from potential supports. The clinical implications are discussed in terms of offering optimum support for this marginalized group.

The electrical resistivity of the two phases of sodium at low temperatures

At low temperatures the crystal structure of sodium changes by the martensitic mechanism from body-centred cubic to close-packed hexagonal. By measurements on specimens which partially transform on cooling and by measurements on specimens whose composition has been changed by suitable straining, the resistivity of the two phases has been approximately determined between 15 and 50 °K. The hexagonal close-packed phase has a lower ideal resistivity than that of the body-centred cubic phase (by about 40% at 20 °K), whereas the residual resistivity is effectively independent of the structure. Some theoretical implications are discussed.