Psychosocial implications of poor motor coordination in children and adolescents

Utilising Harter's theory of competence motivation (Harter, S. The determinants and mediational role of global self-worth in children. In: N. Eisenberg, Contemporary topics in developmental psychology, Wiley, New York, 1987, pp. 219-242.), the current study examined perceived competence and social support, and their influence on self-worth and anxiety in children and adolescents with and without developmental coordination disorder (DCD). A group of children aged 8-10 years, and a group of adolescents aged 12-14 years, with significant movement problems were compared with matched control groups on measures of perceived competence, perceived social support, self-worth and anxiety. Those with DCD were found to perceive themselves as less competent in several domains, and having less social support than control participants. Overall, DCD groups had lower self-worth and higher levels of anxiety than the control groups. Adolescents also perceived themselves as less competent with poorer social support and lower self-worth than younger children. In addition, anxiety was significantly higher for the adolescent group compared to their younger counterparts.     

Functional assessment: Contributions and future directions

Functional assessment is at once redefining the standards for clinical interventions and reemphasizing the importance of studying basic behavioral mechanisms. This commentary describes one perception of what we are learning from current research on functional assessment and suggests directions for the future.     

The MCMI-III: present and future directions

Both the original Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI-I; Millon, 1977) and the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-II (MCMI-II; Millon, 1987) were refined and strengthened on a regular basis by both theoretic logic and research data. This aspiration has continued. The new Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III (MCMI-III; Millon, 1994) has been further coordinated with the most recent official diagnostic schema, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed., [DSM-IV]; American Psychiatric Association [APA], 1994) in an even more explicit way than before. Although the publication of the first version of the MCMI preceded the publication of the DSM-IV, its author played a major role in formulating the official manual's personality disorders, contributing thereby to their conceptual correspondence. The DSM-III-R (APA, 1987) was subsequently published in the same year as the MCMI-II; the inventory was modified in its final stages to make it as consonant as possible with the conceptual changes introduced in the then forthcoming official classification. The present version of the MCMI, the MCMI-III, strengthens these correspondences further by drawing on many of the diagnostic criteria of the DSM-IV to serve as the basis for drafting the inventory's items. This article reports on a select set of theoretical and empirical developments that are being carefully weighed for possible inclusion in future MCMIs, or as a guide in the refinement process of future MCMIs.     

主动性人格:机制与未来走向

主动性人格(proactive personality)作为一种独特的人格特质,指采取积极行动去影响所处环境的一种个体倾向。主动性高的个体善于发现机会,抓住机会,并且不断地坚持目标。研究者梳理了主动性人格的起源和概念、测量方法,阐述了主动性人格的实施效果、中介机制和调节机制,强化了中国本土文化的权变作用。未来研究应继续完善主动性人格的概念、开发符合时代特征的测量工具、拓展其研究层次与实施效果。     

Episodic future thinking in children compared to adolescents

Episodic thinking involves the ability to re-create past and to construct future personal events, which contain event-specific (episodic) and general (semantic) details. The richness of episodic thought for past events improves as children move into adolescence. The current study aims to examine changes in episodic future thinking and to establish the cognitive underpinning of these changes. Typically developing children (n = 14) and adolescents (n = 15) were tested using an adapted version of the Child Autobiographical Interview (CAI) that required generation of past and future personally relevant events. Relational memory and executive skills were also examined. Significant developmental gains were found in richness of events recall across temporal directions (past and future) and across different types of details (episodic and semantic). Developmental gains in richness of past events were also shown to correspond to developmental gains in generation of future events. Moreover, developmental changes in relational memory and (to a lesser extent) executive functions were found to relate to increases in the amount of episodic (but not semantic) details provided. Our study highlighted the similarities between past and future episodic thinking in typically developing children and adolescents. It also raises a possibility that children with developmental and neurological disorders with impaired relational memory and/or executive skills may be at risk of difficulties with episodic thinking.     

Some future directions for global justice

The fields of global ethics and global justice have expanded considerably over the last two decades and they now cover a wide variety of topics. Given this huge range there are many areas that are ripe for important developments. In this commentary I identify some useful directions for promising exploration in the field of global justice. I argue that expanded dialogue networks would considerably enhance work in philosophy and be beneficial to other disciplines as well. I indicate also how we could develop work on allocating responsibilities for reducing global injustices in useful ways, by considering a wider range of considerations that give rise to responsibilities and expanding the scope of, and audience for, these discussions. I catalog some under-theorized topics that should get more philosophical attention (including the notions of complicity, exploitation, and corruption). In addition, I draw attention to the ways in which a journal such as this one could facilitate a number of important dialogue networks.     

Vicarious traumatisation: current status and future directions

Theorists and practitioners have long recognised that working with trauma clients can trigger reactions in the therapist similar to those experienced by the client. Nevertheless, research in this area has been lacking. One obstacle has been confusion regarding key terms. Vicarious traumatisation is the most appropriate concept given that it relates specifically to trauma work, incorporates intrinsic and extrinsic factors, and can be located within the framework of the constructivist self-development theory. Although limited, research has identified a range of factors that influence vicarious traumatisation, such as experience, personal trauma history and coping style. Future investigation is required to examine aspects that could enhance counsellor resilience. In addition, vicarious traumatisation needs to be studied in terms of a broad range of clientele and occupations.     

Career self-efficacy: Empirical status and future directions

Bandura's self-efficacy theory, stemming from a social cognitive model of behavior, has been gaining empirical attention in the career literature. This paper reviews emerging findings applying self-efficacy theory to career-relevant behaviors; examines a number of conceptual and methodological issues arising from this work; and offers several directions for future research and theory on the career self-efficacy construct. Self-efficacy appears to offer promise in understanding certain career entry behaviors, such as college major choices and academic performance, though there has been little work relating self-efficacy to career development beyond college or exploring causal connections between self-efficacy and career behaviors. An expanded base for research on career self-efficacy is advocated.     

Critical consciousness: current status and future directions

In this chapter, the authors consider Paulo Freire's construct of critical consciousness (CC) and why it deserves more attention in research and discourse on youth political and civic development. His approach to education and similar ideas by other scholars of liberation aims to foster a critical analysis of society--and one's status within it--using egalitarian, empowering, and interactive methods. The aim is social change as well as learning, which makes these ideas especially relevant to the structural injustice faced by marginalized youth. From their review of these ideas, the authors derive three core CC components: critical reflection, political efficacy, and critical action. They highlight promising research related to these constructs and innovative applied work including youth action-research methodology. Their conclusion offers ideas for closing some of the critical gaps in CC theory and research.     

Evaluative conditioning: Recent developments and future directions

Evaluative conditioning (EC) is generally considered to be one of the routes via which likes and dislikes are acquired. We identify recent trends in EC research and speculate about the topics that will dominate future research on EC. Many of the recent developments in EC research were shaped by functional definitions of EC that refer only to environmental conditions, but not to mental processes and representations. These functional definitions stimulated the development of and debates between theories about the mental processes that mediate EC. These trends, as well as greater methodological and conceptual sophistication, inspired meta-conditional studies that aim at determining the conditions under which EC is characterized by certain properties. The question of whether EC depends on contingency awareness remains a central topic, albeit with a stronger link to theorizing about underlying mental processes. Other automaticity features have gained enhanced interest, as can for example be seen in research investigating whether EC is goal-independent and whether EC is resource-independent. We argue that future research would benefit from a sharper distinction between processes that operate during acquisition (i.e., when CS–US pairs are presented) and processes that operate during measurement (i.e., when the effects of CS–US pairings are assessed). We conclude with a short summary of all articles in this Special Issue, relating them to the identified trends in EC research.     

Functional neuroimaging and the law: trends and directions for future scholarship

Under the umbrella of the burgeoning neurotransdisciplines, scholars are using the principles and research methodologies of their primary and secondary fields to examine developments in neuroimaging, neuromodulation and psychopharmacology. The path for advanced scholarship at the intersection of law and neuroscience may clear if work across the disciplines is collected and reviewed and outstanding and debated issues are identified and clarified. In this article, I organize, examine and refine a narrow class of the burgeoning neurotransdiscipline scholarship; that is, scholarship at the interface of law and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).     

Creating state of the art,next-generation Virtual Reality exposure therapies for anxiety disorders using consumer hardware platforms: design considerations and future directions

Decades of research and more than 20 randomized controlled trials show that Virtual Reality exposure therapy (VRET) is effective in reducing fear and anxiety. Unfortunately, few providers or patients have had access to the costly and technical equipment previously required. Recent technological advances in the form of consumer Virtual Reality (VR) systems (e.g. Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear), however, now make widespread use of VRET in clinical settings and as self-help applications possible. In this literature review, we detail the current state of VR technology and discuss important therapeutic considerations in designing self-help and clinician-led VRETs, such as platform choice, exposure progression design, inhibitory learning strategies, stimuli tailoring, gamification, virtual social learning and more. We illustrate how these therapeutic components can be incorporated and utilized in VRET applications, taking full advantage of the unique capabilities of virtual environments, and showcase some of these features by describing the development of a consumer-ready, gamified self-help VRET application for low-cost commercially available VR hardware. We also raise and discuss challenges in the planning, development, evaluation, and dissemination of VRET applications, including the need for more high-quality research. We conclude by discussing how new technology (e.g. eye-tracking) can be incorporated into future VRETs and how widespread use of VRET self-help applications will enable collection of naturalistic “Big Data” that promises to inform learning theory and behavioral therapy in general.     

Cognitive-behavioral therapy for social anxiety disorder: supporting evidence and future directions

The present paper examines the role of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) in the treatment of social anxiety disorder (SAD). A cognitive-behavioral model of SAD is first presented. Different modalities of CBT for SAD are then described, including exposure, cognitive restructuring, relaxation training, and social skills training, and evidence supporting their efficacy is reviewed. The comparative and combined impact of CBT and pharmacotherapeutic interventions is also explored. CBT appears to be an efficacious treatment for SAD. However, the overall efficacy CBT may be increased by closer examination of the active ingredients of treatment. Such analyses may also enable more successful integration of the different CBT techniques and of CBT and pharmacotherapy in the treatment of SAD.     

Evolutionary developmental psychology: Current status and future directions

The field of developmental psychology is part of a continuum of disciplines, from cell biology to cultural anthropology, that are focused on understanding developing and potentially evolving phenotypes; the reciprocal interactions between genetics and experiences produce variation in developing phenotypes and this variation is the grist for evolutionary selection. The articles in this issue provide cutting edge and multidisciplinary analyses of developing and potentially evolving phenotypes in areas that are of central interest to developmental scientists, including mother–infant attachments, stress responses in children, social cognition, and life span development. The articles and other recent works signal the reemergence of developmental psychology as an evolutionarily informed, multidisciplinary field. In this view, it is not about nature versus nurture or biology versus psychology, it is about tackling difficult problems at multiple levels of analysis, each of which has something to contribute and none of which is sufficient in and of itself.     

Occupational specialty congruence: New data and future directions

The present research examined the relationship between within-occupational congruence and satisfaction, and attempted to integrate hypotheses and findings of prior studies with the conceptual implications of occupational specialty congruence. Correspondence between vocational interests within occupations and specialty choice has shown higher correlations with satisfaction than with congruence (Assouline & Meir, 1987). Occupational specialty congruence was derived by comparing preferred functions with the actual functions characterizing a given occupational specialty. In the present study, involving 120 computer software professionals, occupational specialty congruence correlated approximately .45 with satisfaction, using core job function dimensions. Specialty change within occupation, rather than occupational change, may help in cases of poor occupational choice, burnout, or a change in health. Further research should explore the generalizability of the function dimensions employed herein. Identifying core dimensions can aid in designing both career tracks and certification exams.