Can we link emotional eating with the emotion regulation skills of adolescents?

Objective: A recent cross-sectional study showed that maternal rejection is associated with emotional eating of obese youngsters seeking treatment, and that this relation is mediated by maladaptive emotion regulation (ER) of the youngsters. We wanted to build on this study and investigate the relation between parental rejection, maladaptive ER and emotional eating in a community sample using longitudinal data.

Design: Participants were 81 youngsters between the ages of 10 and 16 years. Participants completed questionnaires assessing maternal and paternal rejection, ER strategies and emotional eating, at two time moments (M = 71 days between time moments). Latent change models were used to estimate level and change of each variable.

Results: Results showed that the levels of maternal rejection, maladaptive ER and emotional eating were related. The indirect effect of the level of maternal rejection on the level of emotional eating through the level of maladaptive ER was marginally significant. On average, maternal rejection showed no change over time, whereas the other variables decreased. The changes in the variables were not related.

Conclusion: The findings highlight the importance of assessing the emotional bond between mother and youngster and the ER of youngsters with an emotional eating style.     

Do time in abstinence,emotional intelligence and psychopathology predict the sensation of craving in persons with SUD?

IntroductionSubstance use is a global health problem. Craving is one of the main predictors of relapse. If the presence of psychopathology and the deficit of emotional intelligence are combined, the course and outcome of the disease can worsen.ObjectiveThe aim is to analyze the impact of time in abstinence, psychopathology, and emotional intelligence on the sensation of the craving in people with substance use disorders in treatment, comparing two methodologies (hierarchical linear regressions and comparative qualitative analysis).MethodThe participants, after signing the informed consent, were assessed in abstinence, psychopathology (SA-45), emotional intelligence (TMMS-24), and craving.ResultsThe results showed that craving was positively associated with psychopathology, shorter abstinence times, and younger age. Increased emotional attention was associated with increased psychopathology. Craving was explained by less time in abstinence using hierarchical regression models. In QCA models, high levels of craving were predicted by the interaction between high levels of psychopathology, shorter abstinence times, lower emotional repair, and high emotional attention. Low levels of craving were due to less psychopathology, prolonged abstinence, and emotional intelligence.ConclusionThe methodologies are complementary because combining them makes it easier to understand the problem of consumption.     

Life satisfaction and satisfaction in domains of life: is it a simple relationship?

This paper studies the nature of the relationship between life satisfaction and satisfaction in domains of life. The domains-of-life literature assumes that a person’s overall satisfaction with his or her life depends on his or her satisfaction in many concrete areas of life, which are classified into a few main domains of life. This paper addresses the issue of what characteristics the relationship between life satisfaction and satisfaction in domains of life has by focusing on its specification. The domains-of-life literature has commonly assumed that an additive relationship between domains satisfaction and life satisfaction does exist. This paper argues that the use of an additive relationship has substantially restricted our comprehension of the relationship; since it makes impossible to empirically address questions such as: Is life satisfaction just a weighted average of domain satisfactions? How easy is it to substitute satisfaction in one domain by satisfaction in another? Is it reasonable to expect similar additional benefits when we continuously improve satisfaction in one domain? What happens with our life satisfaction when we manage to continuously improve satisfaction in all domains? What happens with the importance of one domain when satisfaction in another domain declines? The paper argues that there could be substantial gains in the understanding of the relationship by assuming alternative specifications. At an empirical level the investigation works with four different specifications: an additive relationship, a semi-logarithm relationship, a logarithm–logarithm relationship, and a constant elasticity of substitution (CES) relationship. Using a database from Mexico, the investigation finds out that an additive specification provides – at least for Mexico – a goodness of fit similar to those of alternative specifications. However, there are some relevant issues in the relationship between domains satisfaction and overall life satisfaction that cannot be studied with an additive specification; hence, the?use of an alternative specification – in particular a CES specification – is preferable if the objective is to understand rather than to predict life satisfaction.     

The relationship between motor performance and parent-rated executive functioning in 3- to 5-year-old children: What is the role of confounding variables?

It is generally agreed that motor performance and executive functioning (EF) are intertwined. As the literature on this issue concerning preschool children is scarce, we examined the relationship between motor performance and parent-rated EF in a sample of 3- to 5-year-old children with different levels of motor skill proficiency, while controlling for age, gender, socio-economic status (SES), and attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptomatology. EF was reported by parents of 153 children (mean age 4 years 1 months, SD 8 months; 75 male) by means of the Behaviour Rating Inventory of Executive Function–Preschool version (BRIEF-P). Parent-reported ADHD symptoms were assessed using the Hyperactivity-Inattention subscale of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire3-4. In addition, the children performed the Movement Assessment Battery for Children-2 (MABC-2). Several weak to moderate relationships were found between the MABC-2 Total Score and the EF subscales. Once other variables such as age, gender, SES, and ADHD symptomatology were taken into account, the only BRIEF-P subscale that was associated with the MABC-2 Total Score was the Working Memory subscale. Compared to their typically developing peers, children who are at risk for motor coordination difficulties (⩽the 16th percentile on the MABC-2) performed poorly on the Working Memory subscale, which confirms the results of the regression analyses. The at risk group also performed significantly worse on the Planning/Organize subscale, however. This is one of the first studies investigating the relationship between motor performance and parent-rated EF in such a young age group. It shows that the relationship between motor performance and EF in young children is complex and may be influenced by the presence of confounding variables such as ADHD symptomatology.     

Asian culture in transition: is it related to reported parenting styles and transitivity of simple choices?

Does culture shape reported parenting styles and cognitive processes like transitive reasoning, of choosing A over B, B over C, and then A over C (transitivity)? Asian‐American, Caucasian‐American, and Indian university students differed significantly in transitivity and in reported parental styles. India participants were more intransitive and, contrary to traditional findings in the literature, reported their parents as more laissez‐faire, individualistic, and competitive than did Caucasian‐Americans. Recent technological and industrial advances in India likely explain some of these obtained differences. Predictions from Adlerian theory and work of Kurt Lewin, that parenting styles would relate to transitivity of choices, were indirectly supported. Stronger evidence was found that culture impacts both reported parental styles and transitivity of simple choices.     

Discourse about discourse: what is it and how does it progress in Alzheimer's disease?

Discourse about discourse or a subject's comments about his/her performance during a discourse task can be defined as modalizing discourse (discours modalisateur; [Nespoulous, 1980]; [Nespoulous et al., 1998]). Since it does not convey the expected content of the discourse task (referential discourse), modalizing discourse has often been considered non-informative, and as such, has received little interest. The present study investigated the modalizing aspect of discourse production and its evolution in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Five AD patients produced a picture-induced narrative across five consecutive assessments. Two measures were derived: the modalizing/referential ratio (M/R ratio) and the percentage of repeated ideas. Results revealed that, compared to a group of 27 normal controls matched for age and education, AD patients: (1) obtained higher M/R ratios that tended to diminish as the number of assessments increased, and (2) produced higher percentages of repeated ideas throughout all assessments. These results suggest that modalizing discourse makes up a large proportion of AD patients' discourse and should be included in further studies to accurately describe their discourse behavior. The implications of modalizing discourse on preserved pragmatic abilities and its inclusion in comprehensive management programs of AD patients are discussed.     

What is chaos and how is it relevant for philosophy of mind?

This paper argues, in agreement with Neuringer, Beggs and others, that if we wish to scientifically characterise human choice, we have to work with a probabilistic or chaos-derived model. This has a number of implications for philosophy of mind. Firstly, it is in theory possible to describe human behaviour with some form of law-like equation; it is just a matter of figuring out what equation best captures the states of our central nervous system. Secondly, it means that our choices are not random but are chaotic: deterministic, but just hard to predict due to internal complexity. According to the current research, our actions are most likely caused by ‘precipitated avalanches’ of neural activity, which are difficult to predict due to chaos.     

Problem-solving variability in older spouses: how is it linked to problem-, person-, and couple-characteristics?

Problem-solving does not take place in isolation and often involves social others such as spouses. Using repeated daily life assessments from 98 older spouses (M age = 72 years; M marriage length = 42 years), the present study examined theoretical notions from social-contextual models of coping regarding (a) the origins of problem-solving variability and (b) associations between problem-solving and specific problem-, person-, and couple- characteristics. Multilevel models indicate that the lion's share of variability in everyday problem-solving is located at the level of the problem situation. Importantly, participants reported more proactive emotion regulation and collaborative problem-solving for social than nonsocial problems. We also found person-specific consistencies in problem-solving. That is, older spouses high in Neuroticism reported more problems across the study period as well as less instrumental problem-solving and more passive emotion regulation than older spouses low in Neuroticism. Contrary to expectations, relationship satisfaction was unrelated to problem-solving in the present sample. Results are in line with the stress and coping literature in demonstrating that everyday problem-solving is a dynamic process that has to be viewed in the broader context in which it occurs. Our findings also complement previous laboratory-based work on everyday problem-solving by underscoring the benefits of examining everyday problem-solving as it unfolds in spouses' own environment.     

How do you choose and how well does it work?: the selection and effectiveness of emotion regulation strategies and their relationship with borderline personality disorder feature severity

There is little research examining whether the selection of emotion regulation strategies is compromised among individuals characterised by emotion dysregulation. In a sample of 149 undergraduates, we examined the selection and effectiveness of 2 emotion regulation strategies (reappraisal or distraction) in response to emotionally evocative stimuli, and their relationship with emotion dysregulation, measured by borderline personality disorder (BPD) feature severity. Stimulus intensity and self-reported negative emotional intensity were also compared as predictors of strategy selection. Results indicated that self-reported negative emotional intensity was a stronger predictor of strategy selection than stimulus intensity, and participants generally selected reappraisal over distraction. However, increases in self-reported negative emotional intensity was associated with an increased likelihood of choosing distraction, particularly among individuals higher in BPD features. In general, distraction exhibited less effectiveness than reappraisal, and higher BPD features did not differentially impact such effectiveness. Our findings indicate that individuals higher in emotion dysregulation prefer to use distraction as self-reported negative emotional intensity increases, a strategy which, overall, may not be as effective as reappraisal. Selection, rather than effectiveness of emotion regulation strategy might be a key feature of individuals characterised by emotion dysregulation.     

Do parents and adolescents differ in their perceptions of rearing styles? Analysis of the EMBU versions for parents and adolescents

In the present study, memories of rearing styles between parents, mother and father, and their son/daughters were explored through the EMBU versions for parents (EMBU-P) and adolescents (EMBU-A). Results show that parents differ in three of the four scales of the EMBU: Emotional Warmth, Control Attempts, and Favoring Subject. Also, mothers score higher on Emotional Warmth, and Control Attempts, but less on Favoring Subject. When parents and adolescents were compared in the common items to both versions, no substantial differences were found, except for the Favoring Subject scale. The sex of the adolescent seems not to play a relevant role in the observed differences. A revision of specialized literature suggested that differences in the fathers' and mothers' perceptions of their rearing styles could be related to differences in personality and marital satisfaction. These hypothetical relationships should be investigated in a parallel study.     

Adults' beliefs about children and mathematics: how important is it and how do children learn about it?

A series of studies was conducted which focused on US adults' beliefs about the relative importance of acquiring mathematical skills for preschool children and about how children acquire these skills. In Study 1, adults rated general information, reading and social skills as all being more important than mathematical skills. They also claimed that parents have the most influence on preschool children's learning regardless of content area. In Study 2, the parents of kindergarten children also rated reading, general information and social skills as all being more important than mathematics in preparing children for the first grade. The more important parents felt mathematics were, the more they reported engaging in a variety of mathematical-related activities with their children. However, the importance they placed on mathematics was not related to their child's actual mathematical performance. In summary, adults seem to value mathematics less than other skills in preparing young children to enter elementary school. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Unification: What is it,how do we Reach and why do we Want it?

This article has three aims. The first is to give a partial explication of the concept of unification. My explication will be partial because I confine myself to unification of particular events, because I do not consider events of a quantitative nature, and discuss only deductive cases. The second aim is to analyze how unification can be reached. My third aim is to show that unification is an intellectual benefit. Instead of being an intellectual benefit unification could be an intellectual harm, i.e., a state of mind we should try to avoid by all means. By calling unification an intellectual benefit, we claim that this form of understanding has an intrinsic value for us. I argue that unification really has this alleged intrinsic value. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Information pick-up by infants: what is it, and how can we tell?

Young infants spend the better portion of their 1st year merely looking around, and what they notice can have critical cognitive consequences. Although looking measures are commonly used to predict what information infants pick up about objects and/or their relationship to other objects, these predictions are often ambiguous. Ultimately, that knowledge can be unambiguously revealed only by giving infants an opportunity to directly act on or use it.     

Perceptions of wisdom: What is it and who has it?

One hundred fifty-five men and 233 women, aged 20 to 79 years, were asked to name both the most wise and the most interpersonally wise persons they knew personally and to give the age and sex of each. Participants were also asked for the areas in which their nominees were particularly wise. Overall, men and women responded similarly. The subjects tended to nominate individuals who were older than they were; the difference between their own age and their nominees' age decreased with increasing age. Subjects nominated males more often than females as wise and this tendency increased with the subjects' age. With the exception of older women, participants nominated females more often than males as interpersonally wise. When asked to report the areas in which their wise nominees were particularly wise, subjects tended to mention specific skill areas (e.g., business or science) for male nominees and interpersonal skill areas for female nominees.Please note that Nancy W. Denney is deceased.     

Defending victims: What does it take to intervene in bullying and how is it rewarded by peers?

Defending is considered important in reducing bullying and victimization in schools. Yet, the prevalence of defending is quite low and there is little insight into aspects that explain why students intervene in bullying situations. The current study used a longitudinal design to simultaneously examine the antecedents and status outcomes of defending behavior. It was expected that affective and social-cognitive factors explain involvement in defending. Moreover, it was proposed that defending would be rewarded with popularity among peers, but only for defenders who were not victimized themselves. Unconflated multilevel path models were used and data came from students in grades 4–6 of Finnish elementary schools (N = 4209 students from 210 classrooms and 38 schools; M_age 11.25; 50% boys). Affective empathy and students' self-efficacy beliefs were predictive of defending behavior over time, whereas cognitive empathy was not. Additionally, defenders increased their popularity among their peers. No substantial differences between victims and non-victims were found. This pattern of results suggests that, irrespective of victim status, specific children are more likely to defend in bullying situations and are rewarded with increased popularity.     

How content and co‐viewers elicit emotional discomfort in moviegoing experiences: Where does the discomfort come from and how is it handled?

Although watching movies is typically enjoyable, they also can elicit discomfort. The present studies investigated what makes some moviegoing experiences emotionally uncomfortable. Using autobiographical memory (Study 1) and scenarios/vignettes methodology (Study 2), young adults remembered watching a movie that had made them uncomfortable or responded to scenarios about watching a particular type of movie with particular co‐viewers (e.g. violent movie with one's spouse). Movies eliciting discomfort were most often dramas (39%) or comedies (26%). Discomfort most often arose from content, particularly fairly explicit sex or violence, and secondarily from the presence of co‐viewers. Often the two interacted, for example, being uncomfortable watching explicit sex with one's parents. In terms of dealing with the discomfort, women were overall more direct and men more avoidant. A sizable minority was glad they had seen the film, in spite of the discomfort, and was open to seeing it again. Arguing from converging evidence, these different methodologies produced consistent results. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The relationship between emotional clarity and suicidal ideation among trauma-exposed adolescents in inpatient psychiatric care: does distress tolerance matter?

ABSTRACT

The present investigation examined associations between low emotional clarity (the extent to which individuals are confused about the specific emotions they are experiencing) and suicidal ideation in a diverse sample of trauma-exposed inpatient adolescents, as well as the moderating role of distress tolerance (DT) in this association. Participants (N = 50; 52.0% female; M = 15.1 years, SD = .51; 44% White) completed measures of emotion dysregulation, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and suicidal ideation/attempts, as well as a behavioral measure of DT. Controlling for age, gender, presence of mood disorder, and past history of attempts, results revealed a significant interaction between DT and low emotional clarity in relation to suicidal ideation. Specifically, lower emotional clarity was related to suicidal ideation at higher, but not lower, levels of DT. Findings suggest that presence of suicidal ideation among traumatized youth with low emotion clarity is most likely when these emotional deficits are coupled with a high tolerance for cognitive/psychological distress. Given that the ability to withstand distress is arguably a key factor in transitioning individuals from ideation to lethal suicidal behavior, attention to the presence of this construct in the context of clinical practice may be warranted.