从儿童赌博任务看热执行功能的发展

为考察热执行功能的发展,本研究通过儿童赌博任务检测了60名3～4岁儿童(男女各半)的情感决策。实验结果表明,3岁和4岁儿童在此任务上存在显著的年龄差异,4岁组在各试验组的分数呈上升趋势,他们在试验组2、尤其在试验组4和5中选择有利纸牌的次数显著多于3岁儿童,这反映出情感决策在3～4岁期间发展迅速。此外,儿童在此任务上的成绩存在很多可变性,可能掩盖了性别差异,因而,尽管男孩在最后两个试验组的成绩优于女孩,但性别差异在统计上并不显著。     

卷入欺负行为儿童道德概念垂直空间隐喻的心理表征

采用内隐联想测验和纸笔测验考察了卷入欺负行为儿童和未卷入儿童道德概念垂直空间隐喻心理表征的差异。实验1发现,直接欺负者和受欺负者在不相容任务(道德是下,不道德是上)的反应时明显快于相容任务(道德是上,不道德是下);间接欺负者、欺负-受欺负者和未卷入者在相容任务中的反应时明显快于不相容任务。实验2发现,直接欺负者和受欺负者倾向于把道德词放在垂直空间的下方,而把不道德词放在上方;间接欺负者、欺负-受欺负者和未卷入者倾向于把道德词放在上方,把不道德词放在下方。直接欺负者和受欺负者之所以形成了完全不同于其他三者的隐喻联结("道德是下,不道德是上"),原因可能是他们对道德概念的认知存在偏差,并且认知方式也不符合常规。     

风险取向类型与爱荷华赌博任务成绩的影响

神经科学领域的研究者们设计了测量情感决策的经典爱荷华赌博任务并提出了体细胞标记假说来解释其研究结果,但迄今为止这一假说还没有得到一致认可。许多研究提出了可能影响爱荷华赌博任务成绩的其他因素。本研究试图在前人研究的基础上采用实验法探讨风险取向类型这一人格因素是否影响正常个体的爱荷华赌博任务成绩。实验结果显示,不同风险取向类型的个体在爱荷华赌博任务中的成绩和表现截然不同。典型风险趋向型个体在爱荷华赌博任务中的表现类似于某些神经系统患者,倾向于更多地选择不利纸牌,其任务成绩显著差于典型风险回避型个体。这一研究结果表明：风险取向类型是影响正常个体爱荷华赌博任务成绩的重要因素之一。     

奖惩频率对3～5岁幼儿完成博弈任务的影响

通过对情感决策的常用研究工具——标准爱荷华博弈任务进行了得失总量不变而频率改变的修改,并使之适合于年幼的3～5岁儿童,可以比较幼儿在不同奖惩频率任务中的表现,从而考察奖惩频率对幼儿情感决策的影响。对120名3～5岁幼儿在四种不同类型的任务中的表现进行分析后,所得实验结果如下:(1)儿童对惩罚和奖励频率的变化比较敏感:正向博弈任务中,"有利纸牌不变,不利纸牌的惩罚总量不变,只增加不利纸牌的惩罚频率"可以使3～5岁儿童完成博弈任务的成绩有显著提高;逆向博弈任务中,"不利纸牌不变,有利纸牌的奖惩总量不变,而有利纸牌奖励频率的增加"能促使4～5岁幼儿更多更快地做出正确选择。(2)幼儿的情感决策能力在3～4岁时期发展迅速,而在4～5岁时仍然有较快发展。     

奖惩对注意缺陷多动障儿童情感决策的影响

采用简化版儿童赌博任务,其中操纵了奖励和惩罚的强度,探察两种亚型(注意缺陷型和混合型)ADHD儿童的情感决策能力,同时采集儿童在任务中的皮肤电活动以探析ADHD儿童在情感决策中的生理机制.结果发现,在不同的奖惩强度下,ADHD儿童情感决策模式不同,在即刻奖励条件下,ADHD儿童情感决策的能力明显弱于正常对照组儿童,倾向于不利选择,所产生的预测性皮电振幅也明显低于正常对照组;在即刻惩罚条件下,ADHD儿童的情感决策能力未见异常.两种亚型ADHD儿童的表现模式相似.上述结果证明,ADHD儿童仅存在对奖励的异常敏感性,并确实影响了其决策能力,而其回避惩罚的能力正常.两种亚型ADHD儿童存在的问题相似.     

奖惩对注意缺陷多动障碍儿童情感决策的影响

采用简化版儿童赌博任务,其中操纵了奖励和惩罚的强度,探察两种亚型（注意缺陷型和混合型）ADHD儿童的情感决策能力,同时采集儿童在任务中的皮肤电活动以探析ADHD儿童在情感决策中的生理机制。结果发现,在不同的奖惩强度下,ADHD儿童情感决策模式不同,在即刻奖励条件下,ADHD儿童情感决策的能力明显弱于正常对照组儿童,倾向于不利选择,所产生的预测性皮电振幅也明显低于正常对照组;在即刻惩罚条件下,ADHD儿童的情感决策能力未见异常。两种亚型ADHD儿童的表现模式相似。上述结果证明,ADHD儿童仅存在对奖励的异常敏感性,并确实影响了其决策能力,而其回避惩罚的能力正常。两种亚型ADHD儿童存在的问题相似     

儿童2岁时的行为抑制性对其7-14岁学校适应的预测

采用实验室观察和教师报告,考察2岁儿童的行为抑制性对其7岁、11岁和14岁时学校适应的预测作用。结果表明儿童2岁时的行为抑制性可以：（1）显著正向预测其7岁时教师报告的任务定向、同伴交往能力;负向预测其7岁时教师报告的攻击和学习问题。（2）显著正向预测男孩11岁时教师报告的受欺受辱和害羞焦虑。（3）显著正向预测其14岁时教师报告的任务定向能力,负向预测其14岁时教师报告的攻击、学习问题和受欺受辱。     

攻击型受欺儿童的社会行为与心理调节

本文通过对488名上海市小学四五六年级学生,采用同伴提名、教师评定、自我评定以及假设情境测验等方法,确定了攻击型受欺者,并考察了性别差异、社会行为特点、心理调节等方面。研究发现,在中国的文化背景下可以通过同伴提名的方法来确定攻击型受欺者,在性别上同样存在明显差异;攻击型受欺儿童明显具有同伴拒绝、缺乏自信心、有孤独感等社会行为特征;攻击型受欺者在社会认知上存在心理失调,表现在社会归因和应对风格上;同伴友谊是影响同伴受欺状况的重要因素。     

动机与情境对不同自控水平儿童学业求助的影响

本实验以小学儿童为被试,研究了在不同动机取向和情境条件下的不同自我控制水平儿童的学业求助行为。结果表明：（１）单独无自尊压力的解难题情境比群体压力情境导致更多的求助行为。（２）低自控儿童比高自控儿童产生更多的执行性求助,但主要表现在单独无自尊压力的情境下。（３）在群体压力情境下,自我卷入的儿童比任务卷入的儿童表现出更多的求助行为。（４）在单独无自尊压力的情境下,任务卷入的儿童比自我卷入的儿童表现出     

成瘾人群的决策障碍：研究范式与神经机制

药物成瘾者和赌博成瘾者常常偏好即刻的奖赏而忽视将来的消极结果。在进行决策任务时, 他们倾向于做出不利的选择, 偏好短时的获益而不顾长期的损失, 这是一种决策障碍的表现。延迟折扣任务(DDT)、爱荷华赌博任务(IGT)和剑桥赌博任务(CGT)是研究决策障碍的三种常用方法和范式, 分别考察成瘾人群的冲动性决策、决策短视和决策时的冒险行为。近十几年来的研究表明, 前额叶皮层(PFC)在人类的决策活动中起重要作用。其中, 腹内侧前额叶(VMPFC)、眶额叶(OFC)、背外侧前额叶(DLPFC)等皮层的功能变化与成瘾人群的决策障碍有密切关系。     

Internalizing Symptoms and Affective Reactivity in Relation to the Severity of Aggression in Clinically Referred,Behavior-Disordered Children

We examined the affective correlates of aggression in children referred to a partial hospitalization program for the treatment of behavior disorders who did not have a mood or anxiety disorder. Parent and teacher ratings of the children’s impulsivity, internalizing symptoms, affective reactivity, and aggression were examined for their interrelationships and then entered into regression analyses to predict the child’s level of aggression in the home, at school, and in the treatment program. Intercorrelations among three affective reactivity factors were modest. Both internalizing symptoms and affective reactivity contributed to aggression severity beyond impulsivity and demographics. Only child irritability predicted treatment program aggression. Because of their potential role in understanding children’s behavioral disturbances, internalizing symptoms and negative emotionality merit careful assessment and treatment in treatment programs serving hard-to-manage children with behavior disorders.     

Child and Parent Perceptions of Relational Aggression Within Urban Predominantly African American Children’s Friendships: Examining Patterns of Concordance

Increasing research documents the negative short- and long-term effects of relational aggression on children’s behavior and social–emotional functioning. Although parents likely play an important role in the way children learn to cope with and attempt to resolve relational aggression, there is little research on this issue. The present study explored children and parents’ beliefs concerning relational aggression and the children’s use of coping strategies when experiencing relational aggression in close friendships. Fifty-four low-income, urban, predominantly African American children and a parent/guardian participated in the current study. Findings suggest that the children and their parents were largely discordant in their perceptions of relational aggression and the way the children cope with being a victim of relational aggression. Although the vast majority of parents perceived that their children would come to them for support when experiencing relational aggression, the girls were most likely to report going to teachers, whereas boys were most likely to go to another adult. These results enhance our understanding of how parents and children view relationally aggressive behaviors and may inform the development of strategies to help children cope with relational aggression.     

Evaluating the Iowa Gambling Task as a direct assessment of impulsivity with low-income children

This study examined performance on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT; Bechara, Damasio, Damasio, & Anderson, 1994) as a measure of low-income school-aged children’s affective decision-making and considered its utility as a direct indicator of impulsivity. One hundred and ninety-three 8–11 year olds performed a computerized version of the Iowa Gambling Task, a validated measure of decision-making. Multi-level modeling was used to examine children’s performance over the course of the task, with age, gender, and teachers’ ratings of child impulsivity (BIS-11; Patton, Stanford, & Barratt, 1995) used to predict children’s Iowa Gambling performance. Higher impulsivity scores predicted a decrease in slope of Iowa Gambling performance, indicating students rated higher on impulsivity chose more disadvantageously across the task blocks. Results support evidence of the validity of the Iowa Gambling Task as a measure of impulsivity in low-income minority children.     

Children’s sequential information search is sensitive to environmental probabilities

We investigated 4th-grade children’s search strategies on sequential search tasks in which the goal is to identify an unknown target object by asking yes–no questions about its features. We used exhaustive search to identify the most efficient question strategies and evaluated the usefulness of children’s questions accordingly. Results show that children have good intuitions regarding questions’ usefulness and search adaptively, relative to the statistical structure of the task environment. Search was especially efficient in a task environment that was representative of real-world experiences. This suggests that children may use their knowledge of real-world environmental statistics to guide their search behavior. We also compared different related search tasks. We found positive transfer effects from first doing a number search task on a later person search task.     

同伴拒绝、同伴接纳与农村留守儿童的心理适应：亲子亲合与逆境信念的作用*

以424名农村儿童为被试,基于留守儿童和非留守儿童之间的比较,在同伴关系的背景下探讨了亲子亲合与个体逆境信念对儿童攻击、学业违纪与孤独感的作用。结果表明：(1)同伴拒绝能显著增加儿童的攻击、学业违纪与孤独感,同伴接纳则显著降低儿童的学业违纪与孤独感,亲子亲合、积极的逆境信念能够显著降低儿童的孤独感;(2)亲子亲合对同伴拒绝与儿童攻击、学业违纪之间关系的调节效应在双亲外出儿童与非留守儿童群体中存在差异：高亲合条件下,同伴拒绝与非留守儿童的攻击、学业违纪之间存在显著关联,但是在双亲外出儿童中,这些关联不再显著;(3)亲子亲合能够调节同伴接纳与儿童孤独感之间的关系：在低亲合条件下,同伴接纳能够显著降低儿童的孤独感,但是二者在高亲合条件下不再存在关联。结果提示,农村留守儿童与父母间的紧密情感联结对于促进其心理适应具有保护作用,同伴接纳对儿童的亲情缺失具有补偿作用。     

Examining the relationship between family context and children’s physical activity beliefs: The role of parenting style

Objectives

Previous research studies examining parental influences on children’s physical activity (PA) have focused primarily on parents’ own PA behavior, as well as their PA-related beliefs and socially supportive behaviors. The present study, although aligned with this mainstream parental influence research, was grounded in a broader child development perspective to examine the influence of parenting style on children’s PA beliefs and quality of parent-child communication.

Method

Self-report questionnaires were administered to 173 children ranging in age from 9 to 12 years to assess their perceptions of parenting style, parent-child communication patterns, as well as their own perceptions of fitness competence, value, and goal orientation.

Results

Children’s constellation of beliefs and attitudes regarding PA as well as their perceptions of the parent-child communication process did vary as a function of the type of parenting style they perceived their parents to use. High challenge parenting style was linked to higher perceived fitness competence and value on the part of the children. High support parenting style was linked to more positive perceived parent-child communication patterns.

Conclusion

Parenting style may be a critical underlying family process variable that impacts children’s development of a positive constellation of beliefs about PA. Future work is needed to link parenting style and children’s PA beliefs to their PA behavior.     

Affective Decision-Making and Externalizing Behaviors: The Role of Autonomic Activity

We tested a conceptual model involving the inter-relations among affective decision-making (indexed by a gambling task), autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) symptoms in a largely impoverished, inner city sample of first through third grade children (N=63, 54% male). The present study hypothesized that impaired affective decision-making and decreased sympathetic and parasympathetic activation would be associated with higher levels of ADHD and ODD symptoms, and that low sympathetic and parasympathetic activation during an emotion-inducing task would mediate the relation between affective decision-making and child externalizing symptoms. In support of our model, disadvantageous decision-making on a gambling task was associated with ADHD hyperactivity/impulsivity symptoms among boys, and attenuated sympathetic activation during an emotion-inducing task mediated this relation. Support for the model was not found among girls.     

学前儿童努力控制的发展轨迹与父母养育的关系：一项多水平分析

通过3年追踪研究, 采用问卷法考察了474名学前儿童努力控制发展变化的轨迹, 以及初始父母养育方式对其发展水平和发展速率的影响。多水平分析的结果表明：(1)学前儿童的努力控制呈线性增长, 其发展水平和增长速度均存在明显的个体差异, 努力控制初始水平较高的儿童, 其增长速度也较快。(2)初始的父母鼓励与接纳对儿童努力控制的最后发展水平有促进作用, 而父母的拒绝与惩罚则起反作用。(3)父亲鼓励与接纳能加速儿童努力控制的平均增长速率, 而母亲鼓励与接纳则会延缓其平均增长速率。(4)初始的父亲养育方式可分别解释儿童努力控制发展水平和发展速率10%和2%的变异, 初始的母亲养育方式可分别解释其14%和3%的变异, 父母养育方式累计可分别解释其19%和10%的变异。     

Development of implicit and explicit category learning

We present two studies that examined developmental differences in the implicit and explicit acquisition of category knowledge. College-attending adults consistently outperformed school-age children on two separate information-integration paradigms due to children’s more frequent use of an explicit rule-based strategy. Accuracy rates were also higher for adults on a unidimensional rule-based task due to children’s more frequent use of the irrelevant dimension to guide their behavior. Results across these two studies suggest that the ability to learn categorization structures may be dependent on a child’s ability to inhibit output from the explicit system.     

Stability of Early Identified Aggressive Victim Status in Elementary School and Associations with Later Mental Health Problems and Functional Impairments

Aggressive victims—children who are both perpetrators and victims of peer aggression—experience greater concurrent mental health problems and impairments than children who are only aggressive or only victimized. The stability of early identified aggressive victim status has not been evaluated due to the fact that most studies of aggressor/victim subgroups have focused on preadolescents and/or adolescents. Further, whether children who exhibit early and persistent patterns of aggression and victimization continue to experience greater mental health problems and functional impairments through the transition to adolescence is not known. This study followed 344 children (180 girls) previously identified as socially adjusted, victims, aggressors, or aggressive victims at Grade 1 (Burk et al. 2008) to investigate their involvement in peer bullying through Grade 5. The children, their mothers, and teachers reported on children’s involvement in peer aggression and victimization at Grades 1, 3, and 5; and reported on internalizing symptoms, externalizing symptoms, inattention and impulsivity, as well as academic functioning, physical health, and service use at Grades 5, 7, and 9. Most children categorized as aggressive victims in Grade 1 continued to be significantly involved in peer bullying across elementary school. Children with recurrent aggressive victim status exhibited higher levels of some mental health problems and greater school impairments across the adolescent transition when compared to other longitudinal peer status groups. This study suggests screening for aggressive victim status at Grade 1 is potentially beneficial. Further early interventions may need to be carefully tailored to prevent and/or attenuate later psychological, academic, and physical health problems.