Fifteen-Month-Old Infants Match Vocal Cues to Intentional Actions

Fifteen-month-old infants detected a violation when an actor performed an action that did not match her preceding vocal cue: The infants looked reliably longer when the actor expressed a humorous vocal cue followed by a sweet action or expressed a sweet vocal cue followed by a humorous action, than when the vocal cue was followed by a matching action. The infants failed to detect the mismatch when one person expressed the vocal cue and another performed the action. The results suggest that by 15 months of age, infants are capable of distinguishing between two types of vocal cues and actions along the positive emotional spectrum: humor and sweetness. Furthermore, they match humorous vocal cues to humorous actions and sweet vocal cues to sweet actions only when the cues and actions are made by the same person.     

Women Court-Ordered for Domestic Violence: Improvements in Depression

A quasi-experimental design was employed to compare depression at intake and completion of a sample of primarily Latina women court-ordered to a batterer intervention program. Data were derived from the intake assessments of 112 women over 24 months. Overwhelmingly, women reported being abused by their current and former partners. Approximately 58% of the women in this sample were depressed at intake. When culturally competent, gender-appropriate treatment is given to court-ordered women, depression symptomatology may decrease to levels of normal functioning. Further research is needed to understand court-ordered women as well as how to meet their unique needs.     

Selective and faithful imitation at 12 and 15 months

Research on imitation in infancy has primarily focused on what and when infants imitate. More recently, however, the question why infants imitate has received renewed attention, partly motivated by the finding that infants sometimes selectively imitate the actions of others and sometimes faithfully imitate, or overimitate, the actions of others. The present study evaluates the hypothesis that this varying imitative behavior is related to infants' social traits. To do so, we assessed faithful and selective imitation longitudinally at 12 and 15 months, and extraversion at 15 months. At both ages, selective imitation was dependent on the causal structure of the act. From 12 to 15 months, selective imitation decreased while faithful imitation increased. Furthermore, infants high in extraversion were more faithful imitators than infants low in extraversion. These results demonstrate that the onset of faithful imitation is earlier than previously thought, but later than the onset of selective imitation. The observed relation between extraversion and faithful imitation supports the hypothesis that faithful imitation is driven by the social motivations of the infant. We call this relation the King Louie Effect: like the orangutan King Louie in The Jungle Book, infants imitate faithfully due to a growing interest in the interpersonal nature of interactions. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at http://youtu.be/qlnIof1k-u8 .     

Difference Scores in the Identification of Children with Learning Disabilities It's Time to Use a Different Method

In this article, we identify ten reasons why discrepancy scores (based on differences between IQ and reading achievement scores) provide an inadequate means for identifying children with reading disabilities. We recommend instead that children be identified simply on the basis of problems in reading skills, regardless of their IQs.     

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Implementation Intentions Increase Exercise Enjoyment and Long-Term Exercise Behavior Among Low-Active Women

The current study evaluated the long-term effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) for promoting exercise behavior in comparison with planning in the form of implementation intentions (forming situational cues and action plans as to when, where, and how to incorporate exercise). We expected both interventions to increase exercise behavior (assessed using the Godin Leisure-Time Exercise Questionnaire; Godin and Shephard 1985) from baseline to 6-months post-intervention, but expected only ACT to also increase exercise enjoyment (assessed using the Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale; Kendzierski and DeCarlo 1991). A total of 32 women, randomized to receive a single session of either ACT training or instructions to form implementation intentions for exercise activities, took part in this study. The participants were contacted by email 6-months following the intervention to determine the amount of self-reported exercise. As expected, exercise amount increased in both groups. Contrary to our expectations, both groups also increased in exercise enjoyment. This study provides initial evidence that exercising can be increased through an ACT intervention. ACT and implementation intentions may both be effective and brief interventions for promoting exercise behavior and exercise-related enjoyment in low-active women. Future research needs to establish the psychosocial and personality factors that lead to the effectiveness of ACT and implementation intentions.     

Comparing the effects of low-level and high-level worker need-satisfaction: A synthesis of the self-determination and Maslow need theories

According to Maslow’s (Psychol Rev 50:370–396, 1943) hierarchical theory of needs, people do not become sensitized to “higher” level needs until they have satisfied their “lower” level needs (a moderator hypothesis); until then, they are unprepared to benefit from higher-level satisfactions. But according to the self-determination theory (SDT) model, high-level psychological needs, when met, are non-contingently beneficial (a main effect-only hypothesis). In two large-N studies of Russian energy companies, we measured low-level need-satisfaction in terms of felt security and felt financial satisfaction, and measured high-level need satisfaction in terms of SDT’s basic needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. In both studies, both the lower level and higher level need-satisfaction sets had strong main effects upon many positive work outcomes, including intrinsic motivation, organizational commitment, and SWB. In Study 2, Maslow’s “prepared to benefit” hypothesis was supported, in that satisfaction of high-level needs had slightly larger effects on outcomes when combined with satisfaction of low-level needs. However this was not found in Study 1. Potentials for integrating the SDT and Maslow need theories are discussed.