Interpersonal subtypes within generalized anxiety disorder

In this study, we addressed the heterogeneity in interpersonal problems across patients with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). We assessed interpersonal problems by the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems (IIP-C; Horowitz, Alden, Wiggins, & Pincus, 2000) in a sample of 78 GAD patients. We used IIP-C profiles describing interpersonal characteristics of the total GAD sample as well as clustered GAD interpersonal subtypes. Although the overall sample was located in the friendly submissive quadrant of the circumplex model, this was true only for the Exploitable cluster, which includes more than 50% of the patients. Importantly, clusters of GAD patients with other locations reporting predominantly Cold, Nonassertive, or Intrusive interpersonal problems were also identified. The 4 clusters did not differ in terms of gender, comorbid disorders, or the severity of depression or anxiety. Thus, the assessment of interpersonal problems provides additional diagnostic information covering the heterogeneity of GAD patients. This information could be used for differential indication and individual case formulation in GAD.     

The specificity of maternal parenting behavior and child adjustment difficulties: a study of inner-city African American families.

The specificity of the association between 2 parenting behaviors (warmth and supervision) and 2 indicators, aggressive behavior and depressive symptoms, of major child outcomes (externalizing problems and internalizing problems) was examined among 196 inner-city African American mothers and their school age children. Given the growing number of African American families affected by HIV/AIDS and demonstrated compromises in parenting associated with maternal infection, the moderating role of maternal HIV/AIDS was also examined. Findings from longitudinal analyses supported the specificity of maternal warmth but not of maternal supervision. Maternal warmth was a stronger predictor of decreases in child aggressive behavior than of decreases in depressive symptoms. In addition, maternal warmth was a stronger predictor of decreases in aggressive behavior than was maternal supervision. Parenting specificity was not moderated by maternal HIV/AIDS. Clinical implications and future research directions are discussed.     

Basic Self-Knowledge: Answering Peacocke’s Criticisms of Constitutivism

Constitutivist accounts of self-knowledge argue that a noncontingent, conceptual relation holds between our first-order mental states and our introspective awareness of them. I explicate a constitutivist account of our knowledge of our own beliefs and defend it against criticisms recently raised by Christopher Peacocke. According to Peacocke, constitutivism says that our second-order introspective beliefs are groundless. I show that Peacocke’s arguments apply to reliabilism not to constitutivism per se, and that by adopting a functionalist account of direct accessibility a constitutivist can avoid reliabilism. I then argue that the resulting view is preferable to Peacocke’s own account of self-knowledge.     

The Objectivity of Values: Invariance without Explanation

This paper develops and motivates minimalism about the objectivity of values: the objectivity of values is no more, and no less, than invariance with respect to possible differences in attitudes. Thus the relation of invariance need not have any particular explanation, or, indeed, any explanation at all, for values to count as fully objective. Values need not be metaphysically real, simply in order to be objective, as according to traditional realist views. But we should not suppose, as some recent writers do, that there is no special issue of objectivity to consider: the issue of objectivity is the issue whether or how values vary with our attitudes.     

The factor structure of the CVLT-C in pediatric epilepsy.

The current study used archival data to evaluate the fit of six latent variable models, originally generated by Donders (1999), for the California Verbal Learning Test-Children's Version (CVLT-C; Delis, Kramer, Kaplan, & Ober, 1994) in a large (N = 289) sample of pediatric epilepsy cases presenting at three tertiary treatment centers. Using confirmatory factor analysis, we found that a model including factors of Attention Span, Learning Efficiency, Free Delayed Recall, Cued Delayed Recall, and Inaccurate Recall demonstrated the best relative fit for our data. These findings are consistent with those reported by Donders (1999) in his reanalysis of the CVLT-C standardization sample data, supporting the validity of this factorial model in pediatric epilepsy populations.     

Who do you look like? Evidence of facial stereotypes for male names

The present research provides evidence that people use facial prototypes when they encounter different names. In Experiment 1, participants created face exemplars for fifteen common male names, subsets of which were endorsed as good examples by a second set of participants. These most typical faces were morphed to create face-name prototypes. In Experiment 2, participants matched one of the names to each of the prototype faces from Experiment 1. Participants’ matching choices showed convergence in naming the prototypes for many of the names. Experiment 3 utilized these same prototypes in a learning task designed to investigate if the face-name associations revealed in Experiment 2 impacted the learnability of the names. Participants learned face-name pairings that had a higher association (based on frequencies from Experiment 2) faster than pairings with a low association. Results suggest a more direct relationship between faces and names than has been previously proposed.     

Same-Sex and Other-Sex Peer Reports: Unique Contributors to Understanding Children’s School Adjustment

The present study proposed to understand how same-sex and other-sex peer nominations relate differently to teacher reports of children’s behaviors and measures of children’s friendships. Students provided peer nominations, mutual friend data, and social network data. Teachers rated students’ antisocial behavior and social competence. As expected, other-sex peer social preference scores predicted teacher ratings of antisocial behavior, while same-sex peer social preference scores predicted data on friendships and social groups. Unexpectedly, both same and other sex peer nominations predicted children’s teacher-rated social competence. Findings suggest that other-sex peers offer a unique perspective on children’s social behavior that is neither superfluous nor unimportant to understanding children’s psychosocial adjustment.     

The Pathoplastic Relationship Between Interpersonal Problems and Fear of Failure

ABSTRACT This study advances the understanding of fear of failure (FF), a dispositional avoidance-oriented achievement motive, by employing interpersonal classification techniques to groups of individuals who fear failure in order to examine the pathoplastic relations between FF and interpersonal problems. Shame-based FF is thought to be related to the self-regulation strategies of appeasement and aggression, and these strategies are hypothesized to be associated with the interpersonal problems of Nonassertiveness and Vindictiveness, respectively. Using 2 independent samples ( n s=60 and 38) reporting high FF, interpersonal profiles were examined for the groups in their entirety and for cluster solutions within the larger samples. Results demonstrated that individuals high in FF exhibited 1 of 2 prototypical interpersonal profiles associated with Domineering/Vindictive or Nonassertive/Exploitable problems that correspond with the hypothesized aggression and appeasement regulation strategies. Consistent with the concept of pathoplasticity, these differences were not better accounted for by demographic, affective, motivational, personality, or attachment style characteristics of the samples.