On the assignment of punishment: the impact of general-societal threat and the moderating role of severity

This article reports experiments assessing how general threats to social order and severity of a crime can influence punitiveness. Results consistently showed that when participants feel that the social order is threatened, they behave more punitively toward a crime perpetrator, but only when severity associated with a crime was relatively moderate. Evidence is presented to suggest that people can correct-at least to a degree-for the "biasing" influence of these inductions. Finally, threats to social order appear to increase punitiveness by arousing a retributive desire to see individuals pay for what they have done, as opposed to a purely utilitarian desire to deter future wrongdoing. The authors suggest that individuals sometimes act as intuitive prosecutors when ascribing punishment to an individual transgressor based on their perception of general societal control efficacy.     

African American children's reports of depressed mood, hopelessness, and suicidal ideation and later suicide attempts

This study attempted to assess whether family demographic characteristics and child aggressive behavior are equal to or better than child self-reported depressive symptoms in predicting suicidal behavior. Participants were a community population of African Americans first recruited at age 6 and followed periodically through age 19-20. Measures included child self-reports of depressed mood, hopelessness, and suicidal ideation, teacher reported child aggression in grades 4-6, 6 th grade caregiver report of family demographic characteristics, and the participants' report at age 19-20 of suicide attempts. Depressed mood proved the most consistent predictor of adolescent/young adult attempts in our logistic regression analyses of the data from the population as a whole and among females. The relationship between depressed mood and suicide attempts in males was in the expected direction, but was not statistically significant. Teacher-reported youth aggressive behavior did prove to be a significant predictor of attempts in 4 th and 5 th grade for the population as a whole, but not in our analyses by gender. The relationships between family demographic characteristics and attempts failed to reach statistical significance, but were, generally, in the expected direction. The study revealed that African American children's self-reports of depressed mood as early as grade 4 may prove useful in predicting adolescent/young adult suicide attempts, particularly among females. Neither family demographics nor teacher-reported child aggressive behavior proved equal to child self-reported depressive symptoms in predicting later suicide attempts.     

Comparison of Hispanic children with and without limited English proficiency on the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test

Hispanic children with (n=148) and without (n=148) limited English proficiency were given the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test (NNAT; J. A. Naglieri. 1997a) and the Stanford Achievement Test-9th edition (SAT-9: 1995). The groups were selected from the NNAT standardization sample (N=22.620) and matched on geographic region, gender, socioeconomic status, urbanicity. and ethnicity. There was a very small difference (d ratio=0.1) between the NNAT standard scores for the children with limited English proficiency (M - 98.0) and those without limited English proficiency (M=96.7). The NNAT correlated moderately and similarly with achievement for the 2 groups. The sample of children with limited English proficiency earned considerably lower scores on SAT-9 Reading and Verbal subtests. Results suggest that the NNAT may be useful for the assessment of Hispanic children with and without limited English proficiency.     

The neuroanatomy and neuroendocrinology of fragile X syndrome

Fragile X syndrome (FXS), caused by a single gene mutation on the X chromosome, offers a unique opportunity for investigation of gene-brain-behavior relationships. Recent advances in molecular genetics, human brain imaging, and behavioral studies have started to unravel the complex pathways leading to the cognitive, psychiatric, and physical features that are unique to this syndrome. In this article, we summarize studies focused on the neuroanatomy and neuroendocrinology of FXS. A review of structural imaging studies of individuals with the full mutation shows that several brain regions are enlarged, including the hippocampus, amygdala, caudate nucleus, and thalamus, even after controlling for overall brain volume. These regions mediate several cognitive and behavioral functions known to be aberrant in FXS such as memory and learning, information and sensory processing, and social and emotional behavior. Two regions, the cerebellar vermis, important for a variety of cognitive tasks and regulation of motor behavior, and the superior temporal gyrus, involved in processing complex auditory stimuli, are reported to be reduced in size relative to controls. Functional imaging, typically limited to females, has emphasized that individuals with FXS do not adequately recruit brain regions that are normally utilized by unaffected individuals to carry out various cognitive tasks, such as arithmetic processing or visual memory tasks. Finally, we review a number of neuroendocrine studies implicating hypothalamic dysfunction in FXS, including abnormal activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. These studies may help to explain the abnormal stress responses, sleep abnormalities, and physical growth patterns commonly seen in affected individuals. In the future, innovative longitudinal studies to investigate development of neurobiologic and behavioral features over time, and ultimately empirical testing of pharmacological, behavioral, and even molecular genetic interventions using MRI are likely to yield significant positive changes in the lives of persons with FXS, as well as increase our understanding of the development of psychiatric and learning problems in the general population.     

Gesture behavior in unmedicated schizotypal adolescents

Schizotypal personality disorder is characterized by interpersonal and verbal communication deficits. Despite the important role of gesture in social communication, no published reports examine the use of gesture by individuals with SPD. In this study, raters code gesture from videotaped interviews of unmedicated adolescents with SPD, other personality disorders, or no Axis II disorder. Results indicate that SPD adolescents show significantly fewer gestures but do not differ from the other groups in overall rate of movement. The findings are discussed in light of brain regions involved in dysfunction, parallels to schizophrenia, and treatment implications.     

Selective attention, memory bias, and symptom perception in idiopathic environmental intolerance and somatoform disorders

Idiopathic environmental intolerance (IEI) refers to a polysymptomatic condition, similar to somatoform disorders. Various processes seem to contribute to its yet unknown etiology. Attention and memory for somatic symptom and IEI-trigger words was compared among participants with IEI (n = 54), somatoform disorders (SFD; n = 44) and control participants (n = 54). Groups did not differ in a dot-probe task. However, in an emotional Stroop task, attention was biased in IEI and SFD groups toward symptom words but not toward IEI-trigger words. Only the IEI group rated trigger words as more unpleasant and more arousing, and participants remembered them better in a recognition task. These implicit and explicit cognitive abnormalities in IEI and SFD may maintain processes of somatosensory amplification.     

Affective and attributional features of acculturative stress among ethnic minority college students

Little is known about the affective features of acculturative stress or its relation to attributional styles for negative events. The authors examined associations among acculturative stress, attributional style, and positive and negative affect among 96 ethnic minority college students. They hypothesized that acculturative stress would be characterized by elevated negative affect and global and stable attributions for negative events. Consistent with prediction, acculturative stress was significantly associated with negative affect and global attributions, even when controlling for other relevant predictors. Attributional style did not account for the association between negative affect and acculturative stress. Positive affect and stable and internal attributional styles were not related to acculturative stress. The authors discuss implications for reducing stress associated with acculturation.