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M J Gilewski

Publications and source records attributed to M J Gilewski.

7 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1993

Individual differences in cross-sectional and 3-year longitudinal memory performance across the adult life span.

This article reports individual differences analyses of performance on list and prose memory tasks for 250 men and 258 women aged 55-84. Being retested, higher reasoning and vocabulary scores, and female gender predicted better prose recall and list recognition performance. For list recall, retest status, age, years of schooling, and gender, as well as reasoning and vocabulary, were reliable independent predictors. After 3 years, 106 men and 121 women returned for a retest. Analysis of individual differences in 3-year performance indicated that, once Time 1 performance had been partialed, individual change could be predicted by age or reasoning, but neither variable uniquely accounted for change. Analysis of data of individuals who experienced considerable decline or improvement in 3-year scores indicated that decline was consistently associated with advanced age. Ramifications for theoretical models in memory research are discussed.

Aged↗
PubMed1991

Interaction of depression and bereavement on mental health in the elderly.

Three hundred ninety-three elderly adults aged 55 and older were divided into 1 of 9 subgroups in a 3 (bereavement group: survivors of spouses who died by natural death or by suicide and nonbereaved control Ss) x 3 (depression group: none, mild, and moderate-severe) design over 4 times of measurement--1 month, 6 months, 1 year, and 2.5 years after death of spouse. Significant Bereavement x Depression Group effects were obtained on Brief Symptom Inventory scores. The moderate-severe depression/suicide subgroup had the greatest psychiatric complications with bereavement. Results indicated that elderly persons with significant clinical depression at the time of a spouse's death were at significant risk for psychological complications during the bereavement process, and survivors of spouses who had committed suicide were even more at risk within the greatest depression group.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1991

The effects of late-life spousal bereavement over a 30-month interval.

Self-report measures of grief, depression, and general psychopathology were studied in widows and widowers over a 2.5-year period following death of their partner. A comparison sample of men and women was also followed for the same period. Differences in severity of depression and psychopathology previously reported at 2 months postloss (Gallagher, Breckenridge, Thompson, & Peterson, 1983) diminished to nonsignificant levels at 12 and 30 months. However, significant differences between bereaved and comparison subjects on measures of grief were still apparent 30 months after spousal loss. A main effect of gender for depression and psychopathology (but not for grief) was found at 2 and 12 months: Women reported more distress than men regardless of bereavement status. Results indicate that the experience of grief persists for at least 30 months in both older men and women who have lost their spouse.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1990

The Memory Functioning Questionnaire for assessment of memory complaints in adulthood and old age.

The results of psychometric analyses of the Metamemory Questionnaire (MQ; Zelinski, Gilewski, & Thompson, 1980), developed to evaluate perception of everyday memory functioning, are presented for a sample of 343 men and 435 women aged 16 to 89. Exploratory factor analysis yielded 4 correlated factors--General Frequency of Forgetting, Seriousness of Forgetting, Retrospective Functioning, and Mnemonics Usage--which accounted for 36.7% of the variance in responses to the MQ. Factor structure was invariant across age groups (16-54 vs. 55-89 years), 2 independent samples, and over 3 years. Because some of the original MQ scales did not load on the factors, only 64 of the original 92 items were retained for inclusion in the Memory Functioning Questionnaire (MFQ). Internal consistency of MFQ scores is high. The MFQ is therefore reliable for evaluating memory self-appraisals.

Adolescent↗