Amiram Vinokur | University of Michigan (original) (raw)

Papers by Amiram Vinokur

Research paper thumbnail of Internet-based intervention to promote organ donor registry participation and family notification1,2

Research paper thumbnail of Educational Web-Based Intervention for High School Students to Increase Knowledge and Promote Positive Attitudes Toward Organ Donation

Health Education & Behavior, 2006

A sample of 490 high school students from 81 schools in Michigan participated in an experiment in... more A sample of 490 high school students from 81 schools in Michigan participated in an experiment in which they were randomly assigned to either a control or an experimental Web site. The experimental Web site provided exposure to educational material about the process of organ donation and organ transplantation. The control Web site provided educational material on methods to avoid the common cold. The pre-and posttests of knowledge of issues related to organ donation and of attitude toward donation demonstrated statistically significant increases for the experimental group compared with the control group. A structural equation path model suggested that these increases in knowledge and prodonation attitude mediated the effects of the experiment on contacting the Michigan donor registry. The increase in knowledge and in prodonation attitude increased the likelihood of contacting the registry. The potential for this and similar other Web interventions to enhance students' health edu...

Research paper thumbnail of Effects of partially shared persuasive arguments on group-induced shifts: A group-problem-solving approach

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1974

Research paper thumbnail of Impact of the JOBS intervention on unemployed workers varying in risk for depression

American Journal of Community Psychology, Feb 1, 1995

Reports the results of the JOBS H randomized field experiment that included a sample of L801 rece... more Reports the results of the JOBS H randomized field experiment that included a sample of L801 recent job losers, 671 of which participated in a modified version of the JOBS I intervention for unemployed workers (Caplan, Vinokur, Price, & van Ryn, 1989). The intervention focused on enhancing the sense of mastery through the acquisition of job-search and problem-solving skills, and on inoculation against setbacks. JOBS II was intended to prevent poor mental health and to promote high quality reemployment. The study tested whether the efficacy of the intervention could be increased by screening and oversampling respondents who were at higher risk for a significant increase in depressive symptoms. Results demonstrated that the intervention primarily benefited the reemployment and mental health outcomes of the high-risk respondents. This suggests the feasibility of enhancing the efficacy of this preventive intervention by targeting it for high-risk unemployed workers who could be identified prospectively.

Research paper thumbnail of A psychosocial comparison of drunken drivers and alcoholics

Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 1977

selected driving, personality, and psychosocial variables 'of 306 convicted male drunk drivers wi... more selected driving, personality, and psychosocial variables 'of 306 convicted male drunk drivers with those of 289 alcoholics and 269 controls. She drunk driver group fell between the other,groups on many parameters but resembled the control groUp on as many others. While some 40% of the drunk drivers appeareA to be alcoholics, they .rshowed significantly less psychosocial incapacity than'the alcoholic comparison group. Conversely, the nop-alcoholids in the drunk driver group appeared significantly more maladjusted than the. control group.

Research paper thumbnail of Keeping the Past Alive: Israeli Memories at the Turn of the Millennium

We asked in an open-ended way in 1999-2000 what national and world events Israeli Jews consider m... more We asked in an open-ended way in 1999-2000 what national and world events Israeli Jews consider most important from the past 60 years. Ten events were identified as foremost, including three from the time of independence and one that was quite recent. All the major memories are associated with efforts of the state through commemorations and in other ways to create a unitary collective memory. Five social background variables help account for which events are mentioned as most important: birth cohort, education, gender, ethnic origin, and religiosity. Other specific factors such as personal Holocaust experience and voting preferences are also considered.

Research paper thumbnail of Detecting the high risk driver: The development of a risk questionnaire

Research paper thumbnail of How Downsizing the Russian Military Affects Officers and Their Wives (1995-1997, Russian Federation)

ICPSR Data Holdings, 2011

Research paper thumbnail of Keeping the Past Alive: Memories of Israeli Jews at the Turn of the Millennium

We asked in an open-ended way in 1999-2000 what national and world events Israeli Jews consider m... more We asked in an open-ended way in 1999-2000 what national and world events Israeli Jews consider most important from the past 60 years. Ten events were identified as foremost, including three from the time of independence and one that was quite recent. All the major memories are associated with efforts of the state through commemorations and in other ways to create a unitary collective memory. Five social background variables help account for which events are mentioned as most important: birth cohort, education, gender, ethnic origin, and religiosity. Other specific factors such as personal Holocaust experience and voting preferences are also considered.

Research paper thumbnail of An altruistic reanalysis of the social support hypothesis: Results from a prospective study of mortality

Research paper thumbnail of Factors Influencing the Psychological Well Being of Elderly Americans

PsycEXTRA Dataset

Background Both motor and non-motor symptoms could contribute to significant deterioration of psy... more Background Both motor and non-motor symptoms could contribute to significant deterioration of psychological well-being in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). However, its assessment has been only indirectly evaluated using tools based on health-related quality of life (HRQoL), such as the PDQ-39 scale. Objectives To evaluate psychological well-being in PD using a specific tool of assessment, the Psychological Well-being Scale (PWS), and its clinical correlates. Methods This article reports data of patients' perception of health state, as measured by means of the PWS, from an epidemiological, cross-sectional study conducted in Italian PD patients (FORTE Study). We tested possible relationship between well-being and clinical characteristics including fatigue, depression, sleep disruption and HRQoL. Results 272 patients completed the PWS questionnaire. Significant and clinically-relevant correlations were found between PWS total score and Parkinson's Fatigue Scale, Beck Depression Inventory, UPDRS Section I, PD Sleep Scale and PDQ-39 for HRQoL scores. Only clinically negligible correlations were found between PWS and motor scores.

Research paper thumbnail of Disentangling the relationships between job burnout and perceived health in a military sample

Stress and Health, 2009

The reciprocal and longitudinal effects of job burnout and perceived health were examined in a sa... more The reciprocal and longitudinal effects of job burnout and perceived health were examined in a sample of Air Force personnel (N = 1,009) deployed to the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and supporting locations. We estimated a structural equation model that described the relationships between the job burnout and perceived health and their effects on each other over time. The data fi t the model exceedingly well as demonstrated by the goodness of fi t measures (normed fi t index, non-normed fi t index, comparative fi t index = 0.97, 0.99, 0.99, respectively, and root mean square error of approximation = 0.01). As hypothesized, burnout and perceived health are negatively associated with each other (r =-0.33). Over a one-year follow-up period, perceived health predicted a decrease in job burnout (b =-0.20) and job burnout predicted a decrease in perceived health (b =-0.10). The predicted effect of perceived health on job burnout was shown to be signifi cantly larger than the effect of burnout on health. This latter fi nding is interpreted to result from the conceptualization and measurement of job burnout as limited to a single life domain and also to the possibility that job burnout fl uctuates with changing working conditions over time more than perceived health.

Research paper thumbnail of Perceptions of violence and fear of school attendance among junior high school students in Israel

Social Work Research, 2002

Research paper thumbnail of Providing Social Support May Be More Beneficial Than Receiving It

Psychological Science, 2003

This study examines the relative contributions of giving versus receiving support to longevity in... more This study examines the relative contributions of giving versus receiving support to longevity in a sample of older married adults. Baseline indicators of giving and receiving support were used to predict mortality status over a 5-year period in the Changing Lives of Older Couples sample. Results from logistic regression analyses indicated that mortality was significantly reduced for individuals who reported providing instrumental support to friends, relatives, and neighbors, and individuals who reported providing emotional support to their spouse. Receiving support had no effect on mortality once giving support was taken into consideration. This pattern of findings was obtained after controlling for demographic, personality, health, mental health, and marital-relationship variables. These results have implications for understanding how social contact influences health and longevity.

Research paper thumbnail of Close relationships and adjustments to a life crisis: The case of breast cancer

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1996

When life crises occur, significant others are thought to help alleviate distress and resolve pra... more When life crises occur, significant others are thought to help alleviate distress and resolve practical problems. Yet life crises may overwhelm significant others, eroding their ability to provide effective support. The accuracy of these contrasting accounts of relationship functioning was evaluated in a study of 102 breast cancer patients and their significant others, interviewed at 4 and 10 months after diagnosis. Results largely confirmed the negative account of relationship functioning. Although significant others provided support in response to patients' physical impairment, they withdrew support in response to patients' emotional distress. Moreover, support from significant others did not alleviate patients' distress or promote physical recovery. These results reveal limits to the effectiveness of close relationships in times of severe stress. Supportive social relationships are thought to help people cope with stressful events. Close relationships such as marriage are thought to be particularly beneficial, as there is evidence that merely being in a close relationship predicts better adjustment to stressors (

Research paper thumbnail of Determinants of perceived social support: Interpersonal transactions, personal outlook, and transient affective states

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1987

Research paper thumbnail of Risky Shift is Eminently Rational": Erratum

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1972

Reports an error in the original article by Eugene Bernstein, Harold Miller, Amiram Vinokur, Stua... more Reports an error in the original article by Eugene Bernstein, Harold Miller, Amiram Vinokur, Stuart Katz, and Joan Crowley (Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 1971(Dec), 20(3), 462-471). The tenth line of the first paragraph in the second column on page 463 should read: "The relation between pr and the utilities also shows what changes in utilities are necessary for

Research paper thumbnail of Desirable versus undesirable life events: Their relationship to stress and mental distress

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1975

The research of Holmes, Rahe, and their associates disclosing that life events and stress are rel... more The research of Holmes, Rahe, and their associates disclosing that life events and stress are related to the onset of physical illness is extended to the psychological domain in the present study. Using a modified version of their life events checklist, it is shown that an accumulation of life events is correlated with selfreported tension and distress, with emotional disturbances manifested by depression, paranoid thinking, suicidal proclivity, and anxiety, as well as with behavioral indications of stress such as drinking and traffic accidents. Most importantly, it is shown that these relationships do not hold for desirable life events but primarily for undesirable events. Thus, the authors suggest that the quality of the events in terms of their desirability is the crucial determinant of stress and the above-mentioned relationships rather than simply the life change produced by the events, as suggested in earlier studies. Methodological and theoretical implications for future research are discussed, emphasizing the importance of studying additional stress-relevant dimensions such as anticipation of the events and control over their outcome.

Research paper thumbnail of Group decision making by experts: Field study of panels evaluating medical technologies

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1985

Decision-making processes and their outcomes were investigated in six consensus development confe... more Decision-making processes and their outcomes were investigated in six consensus development conferences at the National Institutes of Health in which panels of experts evaluated new medical technologies. One hundred seventy-seven selfadministered questionnaires were obtained from participants in these conferences. Questionnaire data were analyzed along with data derived from content analyses of the six consensus statements (CS) produced by the conferences. Results of these analyses provide considerable support for the hypotheses that the quality of the outcome (i.e., the CS) is determined by the existence of an interaction process, a decision procedure, and a chairperson, which facilitate the exchange of relevant information. Strong disagreements among the panelists appear to inhibit such exchange and harm the quality of the CS. Personal satisfaction appears to be more strongly related to the quality of the process and of the information disseminated than to the quality of the outcome. A clear relation was found between the panelists' status and expertise, their participation in the process, and their contribution to the CS. The pattern of these findings is quite similar to that obtained in laboratory studies. The role of preconference organizational factors, such as the selection of conference questions, panel, and speakers, and the characteristics of the technology are discussed. 70 This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Research paper thumbnail of Relative importance of prior and immediate events: A causal primacy effect

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1982

Research paper thumbnail of Internet-based intervention to promote organ donor registry participation and family notification1,2

Research paper thumbnail of Educational Web-Based Intervention for High School Students to Increase Knowledge and Promote Positive Attitudes Toward Organ Donation

Health Education & Behavior, 2006

A sample of 490 high school students from 81 schools in Michigan participated in an experiment in... more A sample of 490 high school students from 81 schools in Michigan participated in an experiment in which they were randomly assigned to either a control or an experimental Web site. The experimental Web site provided exposure to educational material about the process of organ donation and organ transplantation. The control Web site provided educational material on methods to avoid the common cold. The pre-and posttests of knowledge of issues related to organ donation and of attitude toward donation demonstrated statistically significant increases for the experimental group compared with the control group. A structural equation path model suggested that these increases in knowledge and prodonation attitude mediated the effects of the experiment on contacting the Michigan donor registry. The increase in knowledge and in prodonation attitude increased the likelihood of contacting the registry. The potential for this and similar other Web interventions to enhance students' health edu...

Research paper thumbnail of Effects of partially shared persuasive arguments on group-induced shifts: A group-problem-solving approach

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1974

Research paper thumbnail of Impact of the JOBS intervention on unemployed workers varying in risk for depression

American Journal of Community Psychology, Feb 1, 1995

Reports the results of the JOBS H randomized field experiment that included a sample of L801 rece... more Reports the results of the JOBS H randomized field experiment that included a sample of L801 recent job losers, 671 of which participated in a modified version of the JOBS I intervention for unemployed workers (Caplan, Vinokur, Price, & van Ryn, 1989). The intervention focused on enhancing the sense of mastery through the acquisition of job-search and problem-solving skills, and on inoculation against setbacks. JOBS II was intended to prevent poor mental health and to promote high quality reemployment. The study tested whether the efficacy of the intervention could be increased by screening and oversampling respondents who were at higher risk for a significant increase in depressive symptoms. Results demonstrated that the intervention primarily benefited the reemployment and mental health outcomes of the high-risk respondents. This suggests the feasibility of enhancing the efficacy of this preventive intervention by targeting it for high-risk unemployed workers who could be identified prospectively.

Research paper thumbnail of A psychosocial comparison of drunken drivers and alcoholics

Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 1977

selected driving, personality, and psychosocial variables 'of 306 convicted male drunk drivers wi... more selected driving, personality, and psychosocial variables 'of 306 convicted male drunk drivers with those of 289 alcoholics and 269 controls. She drunk driver group fell between the other,groups on many parameters but resembled the control groUp on as many others. While some 40% of the drunk drivers appeareA to be alcoholics, they .rshowed significantly less psychosocial incapacity than'the alcoholic comparison group. Conversely, the nop-alcoholids in the drunk driver group appeared significantly more maladjusted than the. control group.

Research paper thumbnail of Keeping the Past Alive: Israeli Memories at the Turn of the Millennium

We asked in an open-ended way in 1999-2000 what national and world events Israeli Jews consider m... more We asked in an open-ended way in 1999-2000 what national and world events Israeli Jews consider most important from the past 60 years. Ten events were identified as foremost, including three from the time of independence and one that was quite recent. All the major memories are associated with efforts of the state through commemorations and in other ways to create a unitary collective memory. Five social background variables help account for which events are mentioned as most important: birth cohort, education, gender, ethnic origin, and religiosity. Other specific factors such as personal Holocaust experience and voting preferences are also considered.

Research paper thumbnail of Detecting the high risk driver: The development of a risk questionnaire

Research paper thumbnail of How Downsizing the Russian Military Affects Officers and Their Wives (1995-1997, Russian Federation)

ICPSR Data Holdings, 2011

Research paper thumbnail of Keeping the Past Alive: Memories of Israeli Jews at the Turn of the Millennium

We asked in an open-ended way in 1999-2000 what national and world events Israeli Jews consider m... more We asked in an open-ended way in 1999-2000 what national and world events Israeli Jews consider most important from the past 60 years. Ten events were identified as foremost, including three from the time of independence and one that was quite recent. All the major memories are associated with efforts of the state through commemorations and in other ways to create a unitary collective memory. Five social background variables help account for which events are mentioned as most important: birth cohort, education, gender, ethnic origin, and religiosity. Other specific factors such as personal Holocaust experience and voting preferences are also considered.

Research paper thumbnail of An altruistic reanalysis of the social support hypothesis: Results from a prospective study of mortality

Research paper thumbnail of Factors Influencing the Psychological Well Being of Elderly Americans

PsycEXTRA Dataset

Background Both motor and non-motor symptoms could contribute to significant deterioration of psy... more Background Both motor and non-motor symptoms could contribute to significant deterioration of psychological well-being in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). However, its assessment has been only indirectly evaluated using tools based on health-related quality of life (HRQoL), such as the PDQ-39 scale. Objectives To evaluate psychological well-being in PD using a specific tool of assessment, the Psychological Well-being Scale (PWS), and its clinical correlates. Methods This article reports data of patients' perception of health state, as measured by means of the PWS, from an epidemiological, cross-sectional study conducted in Italian PD patients (FORTE Study). We tested possible relationship between well-being and clinical characteristics including fatigue, depression, sleep disruption and HRQoL. Results 272 patients completed the PWS questionnaire. Significant and clinically-relevant correlations were found between PWS total score and Parkinson's Fatigue Scale, Beck Depression Inventory, UPDRS Section I, PD Sleep Scale and PDQ-39 for HRQoL scores. Only clinically negligible correlations were found between PWS and motor scores.

Research paper thumbnail of Disentangling the relationships between job burnout and perceived health in a military sample

Stress and Health, 2009

The reciprocal and longitudinal effects of job burnout and perceived health were examined in a sa... more The reciprocal and longitudinal effects of job burnout and perceived health were examined in a sample of Air Force personnel (N = 1,009) deployed to the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and supporting locations. We estimated a structural equation model that described the relationships between the job burnout and perceived health and their effects on each other over time. The data fi t the model exceedingly well as demonstrated by the goodness of fi t measures (normed fi t index, non-normed fi t index, comparative fi t index = 0.97, 0.99, 0.99, respectively, and root mean square error of approximation = 0.01). As hypothesized, burnout and perceived health are negatively associated with each other (r =-0.33). Over a one-year follow-up period, perceived health predicted a decrease in job burnout (b =-0.20) and job burnout predicted a decrease in perceived health (b =-0.10). The predicted effect of perceived health on job burnout was shown to be signifi cantly larger than the effect of burnout on health. This latter fi nding is interpreted to result from the conceptualization and measurement of job burnout as limited to a single life domain and also to the possibility that job burnout fl uctuates with changing working conditions over time more than perceived health.

Research paper thumbnail of Perceptions of violence and fear of school attendance among junior high school students in Israel

Social Work Research, 2002

Research paper thumbnail of Providing Social Support May Be More Beneficial Than Receiving It

Psychological Science, 2003

This study examines the relative contributions of giving versus receiving support to longevity in... more This study examines the relative contributions of giving versus receiving support to longevity in a sample of older married adults. Baseline indicators of giving and receiving support were used to predict mortality status over a 5-year period in the Changing Lives of Older Couples sample. Results from logistic regression analyses indicated that mortality was significantly reduced for individuals who reported providing instrumental support to friends, relatives, and neighbors, and individuals who reported providing emotional support to their spouse. Receiving support had no effect on mortality once giving support was taken into consideration. This pattern of findings was obtained after controlling for demographic, personality, health, mental health, and marital-relationship variables. These results have implications for understanding how social contact influences health and longevity.

Research paper thumbnail of Close relationships and adjustments to a life crisis: The case of breast cancer

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1996

When life crises occur, significant others are thought to help alleviate distress and resolve pra... more When life crises occur, significant others are thought to help alleviate distress and resolve practical problems. Yet life crises may overwhelm significant others, eroding their ability to provide effective support. The accuracy of these contrasting accounts of relationship functioning was evaluated in a study of 102 breast cancer patients and their significant others, interviewed at 4 and 10 months after diagnosis. Results largely confirmed the negative account of relationship functioning. Although significant others provided support in response to patients' physical impairment, they withdrew support in response to patients' emotional distress. Moreover, support from significant others did not alleviate patients' distress or promote physical recovery. These results reveal limits to the effectiveness of close relationships in times of severe stress. Supportive social relationships are thought to help people cope with stressful events. Close relationships such as marriage are thought to be particularly beneficial, as there is evidence that merely being in a close relationship predicts better adjustment to stressors (

Research paper thumbnail of Determinants of perceived social support: Interpersonal transactions, personal outlook, and transient affective states

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1987

Research paper thumbnail of Risky Shift is Eminently Rational": Erratum

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1972

Reports an error in the original article by Eugene Bernstein, Harold Miller, Amiram Vinokur, Stua... more Reports an error in the original article by Eugene Bernstein, Harold Miller, Amiram Vinokur, Stuart Katz, and Joan Crowley (Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 1971(Dec), 20(3), 462-471). The tenth line of the first paragraph in the second column on page 463 should read: "The relation between pr and the utilities also shows what changes in utilities are necessary for

Research paper thumbnail of Desirable versus undesirable life events: Their relationship to stress and mental distress

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1975

The research of Holmes, Rahe, and their associates disclosing that life events and stress are rel... more The research of Holmes, Rahe, and their associates disclosing that life events and stress are related to the onset of physical illness is extended to the psychological domain in the present study. Using a modified version of their life events checklist, it is shown that an accumulation of life events is correlated with selfreported tension and distress, with emotional disturbances manifested by depression, paranoid thinking, suicidal proclivity, and anxiety, as well as with behavioral indications of stress such as drinking and traffic accidents. Most importantly, it is shown that these relationships do not hold for desirable life events but primarily for undesirable events. Thus, the authors suggest that the quality of the events in terms of their desirability is the crucial determinant of stress and the above-mentioned relationships rather than simply the life change produced by the events, as suggested in earlier studies. Methodological and theoretical implications for future research are discussed, emphasizing the importance of studying additional stress-relevant dimensions such as anticipation of the events and control over their outcome.

Research paper thumbnail of Group decision making by experts: Field study of panels evaluating medical technologies

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1985

Decision-making processes and their outcomes were investigated in six consensus development confe... more Decision-making processes and their outcomes were investigated in six consensus development conferences at the National Institutes of Health in which panels of experts evaluated new medical technologies. One hundred seventy-seven selfadministered questionnaires were obtained from participants in these conferences. Questionnaire data were analyzed along with data derived from content analyses of the six consensus statements (CS) produced by the conferences. Results of these analyses provide considerable support for the hypotheses that the quality of the outcome (i.e., the CS) is determined by the existence of an interaction process, a decision procedure, and a chairperson, which facilitate the exchange of relevant information. Strong disagreements among the panelists appear to inhibit such exchange and harm the quality of the CS. Personal satisfaction appears to be more strongly related to the quality of the process and of the information disseminated than to the quality of the outcome. A clear relation was found between the panelists' status and expertise, their participation in the process, and their contribution to the CS. The pattern of these findings is quite similar to that obtained in laboratory studies. The role of preconference organizational factors, such as the selection of conference questions, panel, and speakers, and the characteristics of the technology are discussed. 70 This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Research paper thumbnail of Relative importance of prior and immediate events: A causal primacy effect

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1982