Sharing memories and telling stories: American and Chinese mothers and their 3-year-olds

American and Chinese mothers were asked to talk with their 3-year-old children at home about two shared past events and a story (41 mother-child dyads). Results revealed between-culture variation in the content and style of mother-child conversations when sharing memories and telling stories. American mothers and children showed a high-elaborative, independently oriented conversational style in which they co-constructed their memories and stories by elaborating on each other's responses and focusing on the child's personal predilections and opinions. In contrast, Chinese Mother-child dyads employed a low-elaborative, interdependently oriented conversational style where mothers frequently posed and repeated factual questions and showed great concern with moral rules and behavioural standards with their children. Findings suggest that children's early social-linguistic environments shape autobiographical remembering and contribute to cultural differences in the age and content of earliest childhood memories.     

A Truly Early Starter Model of Antisocial Behavior Revisited

This paper revisits a developmental model of the origins of early conduct problems. Several of the model's primary tenets have now been validated in two samples of at-risk children followed prospectively from infancy to school-age. In both cohorts, child, family, and sociodemographic factors all play a significant role in the development of early conduct problems. In particular, the quality of the caregiving environment during the child's second year differentiates clinical impairment according to both parent and teacher report 6 years later. We conclude by making recommendations for future studies. Research that utilizes a developmental framework, incorporates more sophisticated measurement of infant negative emotionality, and addresses the influences of neighborhood and culture, is suggested.     

Auditory feedback in music performance: Evidence for a dissociation of sequencing and timing

Four experiments examined temporal relationships between actions and auditory feedback in music performance. Experiment 1 incorporated phase shifts of feedback, which disrupted produced timing but not overall accuracy. Experiment 2 incorporated period shifts of pitch contents for synchronized feedback that primarily disrupted accuracy more than timing. Experiment 3 incorporated combined phase and period shifts, which caused moderate disruption to timing and accuracy and revealed interactive effects of period and phase shifts on production. A 4th experiment included all feedback conditions in the same session to confirm differences across Experiments 1-3. These results are consistent with the view that actions and their perceptual consequences are coordinated in a way that distinguishes timing (phase shifts) from sequencing (period shifts). ((c) 2003 APA, all rights reserved)     

Consistent and variable practice conditions: effects on relative and absolute timing

The authors conducted the present experiments to resolve the discrepancy between studies in which relative-timing learning has been found to be enhanced by consistent practice conditions and contextual interference experiments in which relative-timing learning has been found to be enhanced more by random practice than by blocked practice. There were 40 participants in Experiment 1 and 48 in Experiment 2. The results of Experiment 1 extended previous findings: The learning of the relative-timing pattern was systematically enhanced by the degree to which the practice conditions promoted movement consistency (constant > blocked > serial > random). Experiment 2 provided evidence that the discrepancy between the relative-timing effects in the 2 groups of studies was a product of the way in which relative-timing goals and feedback were presented. When the feedback was presented as segment times, random practice resulted in generally more stable relative-timing patterns during acquisition than blocked practice did. Thus, in both experiments, the learning of the relative-timing pattern was enhanced by more stable relative-timing conditions during acquisition. Absolute-timing learning, as indexed by the transfer tests, was enhanced by serial or random practice as compared with constant or blocked practice, and was relatively unaffected by feedback conditions directed at the relative-timing pattern. In terms of motor programming theory, those findings are taken as additional evidence for the disassociation of memories supporting generalized motor program (GMP) performance, as indexed by relative timing, and parameter performance, as indexed by absolute timing.     

Selected lifestyle and risk behaviors associated with adolescents' smoking

A selected number of lifestyle and risk behaviors of adolescents in relation to their smoking were studied using both longitudinal and cross-sectional analyses. Data of a national sample of 4,431 nonsmoking adolescents who participated in the 1989 Teenage Attitudes and Practices Survey and were re-interviewed in 1993 were analyzed. Adolescents who engaged in physical fights, engaged in drunk driving, and were risk-takers were more likely to be regular experimental smokers than adolescents who did not exhibit these behaviors. The data suggest that high-risk behaviors may cluster. Interventions may be necessary to target multiple risk behaviors and be more effective in changing adolescents' risk behaviors associated with smoking.     

Relationship Between Specific Adverse Life Events and Psychiatric Disorders

This study examines whether certain psychiatric disorders are associated more closely with adverse life events than other disorders are, and whether some adverse life events are associated with a specific group of disorders (e.g., depressive disorders), but not with other disorders (e.g., anxiety disorders). A probability sample of youth aged 9–17 at 4 sites is used (N = 1,285). Univariate and multivariate logistic regressions identify specific relationships between 25 adverse life events and 9 common child and adolescent psychiatric disorders, measured by the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children. Conduct Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Major Depressive Disorder, and Dysthymia are significantly associated with many of the adverse life events examined, whereas Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Agoraphobia, and Social Phobia are related to very few. This study suggests that certain psychiatric disorders may be more closely associated with adverse life events than other psychiatric disorders are, and that some adverse life events seem to be related to specific types of disorders.     

The emergence of coherence over the course of decision making

Previous research has indicated that decision making is accompanied by an increase in the coherence of assessments of the factors related to the decision alternatives. In the present study, the authors investigated whether this coherence shift is obtained before people commit to a decision, and whether it is obtained in the course of a number of other processing tasks. College students were presented with a complex legal case involving multiple conflicting arguments. Participants rated agreement with the individual arguments in isolation before seeing the case and after processing it under various initial sets, including playing the role of a judge assigned to decide the case. Coherence shifts were observed when participants were instructed to delay making the decision (Experiment 1), to memorize the case (Experiment 2), and to comprehend the case (Experiment 3). The findings support the hypothesis that a coherence-generating mechanism operates in a variety of processing tasks, including decision making.     

Cultivating the Therapeutic Alliance in a Telemental Health Setting

Contemporary Family Therapy - Telemental health services have broadened during the last decade (Choi et al. 2019; Pierce et al. 2020). More recently, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus...     

White Racial Identity Statuses and NEO Personality Constructs: An Exploratory Analysis

This study investigated the relationship between White racial identity development as proposed by J. E. Helms (1995) and the personality constructs Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. Participants were 105 White college students (55 women and 50 men) who were administered the White Racial Identity Attitude Scale (J. E. Helms & R. T. Carter, 1993), the NEO Five‐Factor Inventory (P. T. Costa & R. R. McCrae, 1992) and the New Racism Scale (C. K Jacobson, 1985). Results indicated that White racial identity was differentially related to several personality constructs and aversive racism. Implications for future White racial identity research are discussed.