Interpersonal Dependency in Child Abuse Perpetrators and Victims: A Meta-Analytic Review

Meta-analysis of studies assessing interpersonal dependency in child abuse perpetrators (N of studies = 7) and victims (N of studies = 9) indicated that perpetrators have higher dependency levels than nonabusing controls (d = 0.43), and child abuse victims have higher dependency levels in early adulthood than people who were not abused as children (d = 0.47). An array of other personality traits and disorders showed comparable associations with abuse suggesting that in both populations increased dependency reflects a generalized increase in pathology and distress. Theoretical implications of these results are discussed, and suggestions for future research on dependency and abuse are offered.     

A Meta-Analytic Review of the Common-Sense Model of Illness Representations

A meta-analysis of empirical studies ( N = 45) adopting Leventhal, Meyer and Nerenz's (1980) Common Sense Model (CSM) of illness representations is presented. The average corrected intercorrelation matrix for the sample of studies showed that the CSM illness cognition dimensions of consequences, control/cure, identity and timeline followed a logical pattern supporting their construct and discriminant validity across illness types. A content analysis classified coping strategies into seven distinctive categories and health outcomes into six categories. Examining the average corrected correlation coefficients across the studies revealed that perceptions of a strong illness identity were significantly and positively related to the use of coping strategies of avoidance and emotion expression. In addition, perceived controllability of the illness was significantly associated with cognitive reappraisal, expressing emotions and problem-focused coping strategies. Perceptions of the illness as highly symptomatic, having a chronic timeline and serious consequences was significantly correlated with avoidance and expressing emotions coping strategies. Further, perceptions that the illness was curable/controllable was significantly and positively related to the adaptive outcomes of psychological well-being, social functioning and vitality and negatively related to psychological distress and disease state. Conversely, illness consequences, timeline and identity exhibited significant, negative relationships with psychological well being, role and social functioning and vitality. The analyses provide evidence for theoretically predictable relations between illness cognitions, coping and outcomes across studies.     

Treatment of Excessive Interpersonal Dependency: A Cognitive-Behavioral Model

Clients with excessive dependency often seek treatment for an Axis I anxiety or mood disorder. Simply providing treatment for the Axis I disorder may fail to address the long-standing personality factors that may underlie the acute anxiety and depression. A four-stage model has been proposed for the treatment of excessive interpersonal dependency. This model describes strategic ways therapy content and style should change over the course of treatment. Despite the apparent utility of the four-stage treatment model, it may be difficult to apply in many sites that now emphasize short-term approaches to treatment. In many cases, therapy can be designed to address themes that are relevant to both dependency and the Axis I syndrome. Therapy can be focused around helping clients make improvements in stabilizing emotional reactions, enhancing views of the self, and improving social functioning. Treatment focused on stabilizing emotional reactions can help clients confront and develop tolerance for feelings of depression and anxiety. Treatment focused on enhancing views of the self can help clients improve their self-esteem, self-reinforcement and reduce self-criticism. Treatment focused on improving social functioning can enhance social skills, reduce social anxiety and challenge feelings of loneliness. In addition, treatment can focus on reducing specific aspects of interpersonal dependency and confronting developmental antecedents that may underlie the dependency.     

Maternal Depression and Child Psychopathology: A Meta-Analytic Review

Although the association between maternal depression and adverse child outcomes is well established, the strength of the association, the breadth or specificity of the outcomes, and the role of moderators are not known. This information is essential to inform not only models of risk but also the design of preventive interventions by helping to identify subgroups at greater risk than others and to elucidate potential mechanisms as targets of interventions. A meta-analysis of 193 studies was conducted to examine the strength of the association between mothers’ depression and children’s behavioral problems or emotional functioning. Maternal depression was significantly related to higher levels of internalizing, externalizing, and general psychopathology and negative affect/behavior and to lower levels of positive affect/behavior, with all associations small in magnitude. These associations were significantly moderated by theoretically and methodologically relevant variables, with patterns of moderation found to vary somewhat with each child outcome. Results are interpreted in terms of implications for theoretical models that move beyond main effects models in order to more accurately identify which children of depressed mothers are more or less at risk for specific outcomes.     

A Meta-Analytic Review of Paternalistic Leadership

Scholars have proposed that paternalistic leaders may demonstrate authoritarianism, benevolence, and morality in their actions. In this study, I conduct a meta-analysis of the relationships between paternalistic leadership and follower work outcomes. I found that authoritarian leadership is related negatively and benevolence and moral leadership are related positively to numerous follower outcomes. Results from relative weight analyses suggest unique contribution of paternalistic leadership over and above transformational leadership and leader member exchange (LMX) in the prediction of follower outcomes. Moreover, I found that LMX partially mediates the relationship between paternalistic leadership and follower outcomes. With respect to moderators, I found mixed evidence for publication status and power distance. Finally, studies that used Cheng et al.’s measurement showed weaker mean corrected correlations and employee samples from law enforcement organisations showed stronger mean corrected correlations for relationships between paternalistic leadership and follower work outcomes.     

学习不良儿童家庭资源的元分析

对过去20年关于学习不良儿童家庭资源的研究结果进行的元分析显示,儿童各种家庭资源的效应值变异程度不大。总体来说,学习不良儿童和一般儿童的家庭资源差异显著。一般儿童的父母文化程度和教养方式优于学习不良儿童的父母文化程度和教养方式。但是,两类儿童的父母期望没有显著差异。     

Executive Function and the Frontal Lobes: A Meta-Analytic Review

Currently, there is debate among scholars regarding how to operationalize and measure executive functions. These functions generally are referred to as “supervisory” cognitive processes because they involve higher level organization and execution of complex thoughts and behavior. Although conceptualizations vary regarding what mental processes actually constitute the “executive function” construct, there has been a historical linkage of these “higher-level” processes with the frontal lobes. In fact, many investigators have used the term “frontal functions” synonymously with “executive functions” despite evidence that contradicts this synonymous usage. The current review provides a critical analysis of lesion and neuroimaging studies using three popular executive function measures (Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, Phonemic Verbal Fluency, and Stroop Color Word Interference Test) in order to examine the validity of the executive function construct in terms of its relation to activation and damage to the frontal lobes. Empirical lesion data are examined via meta-analysis procedures along with formula derivatives. Results reveal mixed evidence that does not support a one-to-one relationship between executive functions and frontal lobe activity. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of construing the validity of these neuropsychological tests in anatomical, rather than cognitive and behavioral, terms.     

Gender-Role Differences in Spatial Ability: A Meta-Analytic Review

Although gender-related differences in highly gender typed cognitive abilities are of considerable interest to educators and cognitive researchers alike, relatively little progress has been made in understanding the psychological processes that lead to them. Nash (1979) proposed a gender-role mediation hypothesis for such differences, with particular emphasis on spatial ability. However, changes in gender equality and gender stereotypes in the decades since merit a re-examination of whether a gender-role association still holds (Feingold 1988). A meta-analysis of 12 studies that examined gender-role identity and mental rotation performance was conducted. These included studies from the United Kingdom, Canada, Poland, Croatia, and the United States of America. The mean effect size for masculinity was r = .30 for men and r = .23 for women; no association was found between femininity and mental rotation. This effect size was slightly larger than that found previously by Signorella and Jamison (1986), and exceeds many other factors known to influence spatial ability. The implications of gender-role mediation of gender differences are discussed and future research directions are identified.     

Perceived Control and the Optimistic Bias: A Meta-Analytic Review

People consistently believe that negative events are less likely to happen to them than to others. Research suggests a relationship between this optimistic bias and perceived control such that the greater control people perceive over future events, the greater their optimistic bias. We conducted a meta-analysis of 27 independent samples to quantify the size of this relationship and examine what variables moderated the relationship. Greater perceived control was significantly related to greater optimistic bias, but this relationship was moderated by participant nationality, student status, risk status, and the type of optimistic bias measure used. We discuss the findings in the context of primary versus secondary control.     

Personalized Psychotherapy for Adult Depression: A Meta-Analytic Review

Personalized medicine is aimed at identifying which characteristics of an individual predict the outcome of a specific treatment, in order to get a better match between the individual and the treatment received. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized trials comparing two psychotherapies directly in a group of depressed patients with a specific characteristic. We focused on the six most examined types of psychotherapy for adult depression. Our searches resulted in 41 studies with 2,741 patients who met inclusion criteria. These 41 studies examined 27 specific characteristics of patients. Power calculations indicated that we would need 4 studies for each characteristic to find a clinically relevant effect size set at g = 0.50 and 16 studies for an effect size of 0.24. Only 3 patient characteristics were found to have sufficient power and to significantly moderate treatment outcomes. Cognitive-behavioral therapy was found to be more effective than other therapies in older adults (g = 0.29), in patients with comorbid addictive disorders (g = 0.31), and in university students (g = 0.46). Risk of bias was considerable in most of the included studies. It was estimated that it will take another 326 years to have sufficient statistical power for showing an effect size of g = 0.50 of the 27 characteristics, and 1,372 years to show an effect size of 0.24. Although several dozens of studies have compared the effects of psychotherapies in specific target groups, we will need to develop more powerful alternatives to comparative outcome studies in order to identify personalized treatments for depression.     

Religion and Prejudice Toward Immigrants and Refugees: A Meta-Analytic Review

ABSTRACT

Religion is often a driving force in negative attitudes; however, in the specific case of migrant-based attitudes, research has produced conflicting findings. That is, religion can paradoxically facilitate either tolerance or intolerance toward this group. In light of these inconsistent findings, we conducted a meta-analytic review to estimate the effect size of this relationship with two major aims—first, to explore differences as a function of how religion was operationalised, and second, to explore differences in the target migrant-type (e.g., differences in religion-based attitudes toward immigrants and refugees/asylum seekers). Our search strategy was applied to PsycINFO, EBSCO Psychology and Behavioural Sciences Collection, Web of Science, PsycEXTRA, and ProQuest Central for peer-reviewed English language studies and made calls for unpublished data through relevant professional bodies. This search strategy yielded 37 records (including 43 studies; N = 472,688). Religion was quantified in two ways: either as categorical religious affiliations (k = 60) or as individual differences in self-reported religiosity (k = 30). The meta-analyses revealed that religion quantified as affiliation, but not religiosity, was related to negative migrant attitudes. Specifically, religiously affiliated samples report more negative attitudes than nonreligious affiliated samples, and this effect was often stronger when the target groups were refugees rather than immigrants. In addition, analyses revealed that Muslims have more negative attitudes toward migrants than Christians. Religiosity was unrelated to negative attitudes. These findings are discussed in light of rising antimigrant attitudes.     

Emotional Competence and Anxiety in Childhood and Adolescence: A Meta-Analytic Review

Anxiety is conceptualized as a state of negative emotional arousal that is accompanied by concern about future threat. The purpose of this meta-analytic review was to evaluate the evidence of associations between emotional competence and anxiety by examining how specific emotional competence domains (emotion recognition, emotion expression, emotion awareness, emotion understanding, acceptance of emotion, emotional self-efficacy, sympathetic/empathic responses to others’ emotions, recognition of how emotion communication and self-presentation affect relationships, and emotion regulatory processes) relate to anxiety in childhood and adolescence. A total of 185 studies were included in a series of meta-analyses (N’s ranged from 573 to 25,711). Results showed that anxious youth are less effective at expressing (r = ?0.15) and understanding emotions (r = ?0.20), less aware of (r = ?0.28) and less accepting of their own emotions (r = ?0.49), and report less emotional self-efficacy (r = ?0.36). More anxious children use more support-seeking coping strategies (r = 0.07) and are more likely to use less adaptive coping strategies including avoidant coping (r = 0.18), externalizing (r = 0.18), and maladaptive cognitive coping (r = 0.34). Emotion acceptance and awareness, emotional self-efficacy, and maladaptive cognitive coping yielded the largest effect sizes. Some effects varied with children’s age. The findings inform intervention and treatment programs of anxiety in youth and identify several areas for future research.     

前瞻记忆老化研究综述

前瞻记忆的老化现象是指相对于年轻人,老年人的前瞻记忆水平有所下降。本文分别对在自然情景、实验室情景以及模拟情景条件下的前瞻记忆老化研究进行探讨和分析,并总结和阐述了当前几个主要的前瞻记忆老化理论及模型。     

Effects of Early Parenting Interventions on Parents and Infants: A Meta-Analytic Review

This systematic review evaluates the efficacy of parenting interventions on parent, infant and parent-infant relationship outcome measures for parents of infants under 12 months old. Parent outcomes examined included competence, and confidence; baby outcomes included infant behaviours of crying, settling, and sleeping problems and parent-infant relationship outcomes included parental responsiveness. Systematic searches of five databases were carried out. In total, 36 randomised controlled trials over the past 35 years were included in the meta-analyses, with a total of 4880 participants. Interventions were carried out either during pregnancy or within the first 12 months after birth and involved teaching specific strategies and provision of information on infant development and behaviour. Mean effect sizes were obtained using a structural equation modelling (SEM) approach to meta-analysis. Heterogeneity was found on parent responsiveness and infant sleep. Potential moderator variables were assessed for these two outcomes using the SEM approach. Results showed that early parenting interventions are effective in improving parental responsiveness (d?=?0.77), and improving or preventing infant sleep problems (d?=?0.24), but not crying problems (d?=?0.27) possibly due to low power. No conclusions could be drawn in regards to parental competence or confidence. Moderator analysis showed that for interventions aimed at improving responsiveness, briefer interventions were more effective than longer ones; and studies published more recently reported smaller effects than older studies. No other moderators influenced the assessed intervention outcomes. The findings of this study provide further evidence for the positive effects of early parenting interventions for infants under 12 months of age, however future research is needed to assess intervention effects on parental competence and confidence.     

Identifying Systematic Disobedience in Milgram's Obedience Experiments: A Meta-Analytic Review

ABSTRACT— A meta-analysis of data from eight of Milgram's obedience experiments reveals previously undocumented systematicity in the behavior of disobedient participants. In all studies, disobedience was most likely at 150 v, the point at which the shocked "learner" first requested to be released. Further illustrating the importance of the 150-v point, obedience rates across studies covaried with rates of disobedience at 150 v, but not at any other point; as obedience decreased, disobedience at 150 v increased. In contrast, disobedience was not associated with the learner's escalating expressions of pain. This analysis identifies a critical decision point in the obedience paradigm and suggests that disobedient participants perceived the learner's right to terminate the experiment as overriding the experimenter's orders, a finding with potential implications for the treatment of prisoners.     

Interpersonal Violence Victimization and Sexual Harassment: A Prospective Study of Revictimization

This study examined associations between past interpersonal victimization (including both child and adult victimization) and sexual harassment (SH); and it examined intervening and moderating variables of the association of past victimization with SH, including posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and job-gender context. In addition, we examined an alternative hypothesis for revictimization that abuse survivors are hyper-sensitive to perceptions of sexual harassment. Employed women residing in Kentucky (U.S.) who had received an order of protection from a male partner and who were followed-up 12 months later (n?=?445, 78 % White, mean age?=?31.98, SD?=?8.60) were selected for this analysis. SH experienced between baseline and follow-up interviews was associated with baseline assessments of child nonsexual assault experiences (r?=?0.24, p?<?0.001) and intimate partner violence victimization (r?=?0.20, p?<?0.000), demonstrating a revictimization effect. PTSS mediated the relationship between child sexual assault, child nonsexual assault and subsequent SH. Further, working in a job with a male supervisor or in a male-dominated workgroup increased associations between child nonsexual abuse and subsequent SH. No support was found for the hyper-sensitivity hypothesis. Findings are consistent with prior research that identifies sexual harassment as a form of interpersonal violence that mental health and victim service providers and researchers should include in their assessment and treatment strategies. Employers should also understand that working in male-dominated work environments compound the risk of sexual harassment for those with prior abuse histories and should be vigilant to reducing these risks.     

Primary Prevention Mental Health Programs for Children and Adolescents: A Meta-Analytic Review

Used meta-analysis to review 177 primary prevention programs designed to prevent behavioral and social problems in children and adolescents. Findings provide empirical support for further research and practice in primary prevention. Most categories of programs produced outcomes similar to or higher in magnitude than those obtained by many other established preventive and treatment interventions in the social sciences and medicine. Programs modifying the school environment, individually focused mental health promotion efforts, and attempts to help children negotiate stressful transitions yield significant mean effects ranging from 0.24 to 0.93. In practical terms, the average participant in a primary prevention program surpasses the performance of between 59% to 82% of those in a control group, and outcomes reflect an 8% to 46% difference in success rates favoring prevention groups. Most categories of programs had the dual benefit of significantly reducing problems and significantly increasing competencies. Priorities for future research include clearer specification of intervention procedures and program goals, assessment of program implementation, more follow-up studies, and determining how characteristics of the intervention and participants relate to different outcomes.     

Self-Serving Attributions for Performance in Naturalistic Settings: A Meta-Analytic Review1

The study of self-serving attributions in sports settings is fertile ground for testing the validity of self-serving attributional phenomena. This paper reports the results of a meta-analytic review of research examining self-serving attributions in the context of sports events. A total of 91 distinct hypothesis tests were located, comprising five dimensions of attribution: ability (N= 21), effort (N= 21), task difficulty (N= 21), luck (N= 21), and a general internal-external dimension (N= 7). The meta-analytic combination of significance levels indicated that the combined results were unlikely to occur if the null hypothesis of no effect were true (for each of the five dimensions of attribution). The internal-external dimension and the ability dimension produced effects of moderate magnitude, whereas effort, difficulty and luck produced effects of small magnitude. Meta-anaiytic focused comparisons revealed that self-serving attributions (ended to be more extreme in the context of larger team sizes, and for attribution measures focused upon the team rather than the individual. Discussion considers the implications of these findings and develops and explanation for the finding that ability is the specific attribution dimension exhibiting the greatest self-serving attribution effects.