Family Intervention to Prevent Depression and Substance Use Among Adolescents of Depressed Parents

Parental depression places offspring at elevated risk for multiple, co-occurring problems. The purpose of this study was to develop and preliminarily evaluate Project Hope, a family intervention for the prevention of both depression and substance use among adolescent-aged children (M?=?13.9?years) of depressed parents. The program was created by blending two empirically supported interventions: one for depression and another for substance use. Thirty families were randomly assigned to either Project Hope (n?=?16) or a wait-list control condition (n?=?14). Pretests, posttests (n?=?29), and 5-month follow-ups (n?=?28) were conducted separately with parents and youth via phone interviews. Questions asked about the family depression experience, family interactions, family management, coping, adolescent substance use beliefs and refusal skills, adolescent depression, and adolescent substance use. Project Hope was fully developed, manualized, and implemented with a small sample of targeted families. Engagement in the program was relatively high. Preliminary outcome analyses were conducted using 2 (Group) ×3 (Time) analyses of covariance. Results provided some evidence for significant improvements among intervention compared to control participants in indicators of the family depression experience, family management, and coping, and a statistically significant decrease from pretest to posttest in alcohol quantity for intervention compared to control youth. Next steps for this program of research are discussed.     

An Approach to Examining the Proximal and Intermediate Outcomes of an Intensive Family Preservation Program

This study examined the effects of the Boys Town In-Home Family Program (BT-IHFP) on parenting skills, family functioning, and child behavior for at-risk families involved with child protective services. The BT-IHFP is designed as a home-based, family-centered alternative to out-of-home placement with the goal of improving family functioning, keeping families together, and preventing further involvement with child protective services. The model uses a hands-on cognitive-behavioral approach, promotes family engagement, provides 24/7 services to families, and links families to community resources. While it is essential to examine ultimate, long-term outcomes such as family preservation, it is also important to investigate the proximal and intermediate outcomes that address the key changes in behavior that support successful long-term outcomes. The goals of this study were to (1) examine the pre-post change of proximal and intermediate outcomes and (2) examine if improvements in parenting skills, parental roles, and parental stress (proximal outcomes) will be related to improvements in child behavior at home, child behavior at school, and family functioning (intermediate outcomes). Inspecting intake and discharge data for 44 families, 94% were intact at discharge and significant pre-post improvements were found in proximal and intermediate outcomes. These findings suggest that this six-week intensive BT-IHFP holds promise for teaching at-risk families skills to promote positive family functioning.     

Changing Direction on Direction of Fit

In this paper, I show that we should understand the direction of fit of beliefs and desires in normative terms. After rehearsing a standard objection to Michael Smith’s analysis of direction of fit, I raise a similar problem for Lloyd Humberstone’s analysis. I go on to offer my own account, according to which the difference between beliefs and desires is determined by the normative relations such states stand in. I argue that beliefs are states which we have reason to change in light of the world, whereas desires are states that give us reason to change the world. After doing this, I show how the view avoids various objections, including two from David Sobel and David Copp. The paper ends by briefly discussing the relevance of the view to the Humean theory of motivation.     

Executive function on the Psychology Experiment Building Language tests

The measurement of executive function has a long history in clinical and experimental neuropsychology. The goal of the present report was to determine the profile of behavior across the lifespan on four computerized measures of executive function contained in the recently developed Psychology Experiment Building Language (PEBL) test battery and evaluate whether this pattern is comparable to data previously obtained with the non-PEBL versions of these tests. Participants (N = 1,223; ages, 5–89 years) completed the PEBL Trail Making Test (pTMT), the Wisconsin Card Sort Test (pWCST; Berg, Journal of General Psychology, 39, 15–22, 1948; Grant & Berg, Journal of Experimental Psychology, 38, 404–411, 1948), the Tower of London (pToL), or a time estimation task (Time-Wall). Age-related effects were found over all four tests, especially as age increased from young childhood through adulthood. For several tests and measures (including pToL and pTMT), age-related slowing was found as age increased in adulthood. Together, these findings indicate that the PEBL tests provide valid and versatile new research tools for measuring executive functions.     

The role of disgust emotions in the observer response to facial disfigurement

Social intrusions by observers are commonly reported by those with disfiguring conditions. This study examined the role of disgust emotions in the observer response. A group of students (N = 48) completed quantitative questionnaires measuring extent of disfigurement, whilst viewing images of faces with varying disfigurements. Another group of students (N = 84) completed quantitative questionnaires measuring level of disgust elicited by the same images. Disgust sensitivity was measured using the Disgust Scale Revised. Observers reported greater levels of disgust (p < .01) with increasing severity of facial disfigurement. Individuals with a higher disgust sensitivity reported increased levels of disgust in response to faces of mild (p = .03), moderate (p = .02) and severe (p < .01) disfigurement compared to those with a lower disgust sensitivity. This provides an explanatory framework for the avoidance reactions of observers and may be important in understanding variability in adjustment following disfigurement.     

Improving Discrimination and Face Matching with Caricature

Identification of faces from photographs is a common security measure, but matching unfamiliar faces produces high rates of error. Caricatures of familiar people are highly identifiable because they exaggerate distinctive features. We investigated whether exaggerating unfamiliar faces through caricaturing could also improve face‐matching accuracy. In Experiment 1, face‐matching arrays were caricatured relative to an average by 30%, 50% and 70%. Correct rejection of the target‐absent arrays was improved at all levels. Accurate matches increased at 30%, but at 70%, the transformation was too extreme, and all of the arrays were more likely to be rejected. In Experiment 2, photographic identification (ID) images were caricatured by 30% and 50% and matched to life‐size photographs. Rejection of foils improved, but the ID of matching images was impaired. Modest levels of caricature may improve discrimination in unfamiliar face matching, but at stronger levels, a conservative response bias may inhibit accurate ID. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Understanding anhedonia in schizophrenia through lexical analysis of natural speech

Anhedonia is a negative prognostic indicator in schizophrenia. However, the underlying nature of this emotional deficit is unclear. Laboratory studies examining patients’ emotional reactions under controlled circumstances have failed to find evidence for a diminished hedonic response, instead finding that patients’ reactions to laboratory stimuli are characterised by high levels of negative emotion. The present study employed lexical analysis of natural speech in 52 patients and 49 non-patient controls while they discussed separate neutral, pleasant and unpleasant autobiographical memories. Patients with clinically rated anhedonia, versus other patients and controls, showed a dramatic increase in negative emotion expression when discussing pleasurable memories, but they showed no corresponding decrease in positive emotion. These findings provide further evidence that “anhedonia” is more reflective of negative emotional states than the absence of positive ones. These findings also raise questions about how positive and negative emotions can be simultaneously co-activated in patients with schizophrenia.     

Placing events in time: The role of autobiographical recollection

Episodic experience is argued to be rich in temporal information, but it remains unclear whether temporal information is directly coded in the event memory or is reconstructed at retrieval. The two experiments reported here emphasise the role of reconstructive processes of autobiographical context in establishing the date of memories. Younger and older participants were presented with famous public events, although only the latter had actually lived through them. Participants were asked to make forced-choice judgements about the date of the event and other event-related facts. Overall, while the older group showed better fact knowledge of the events, this did not translate into better dating performance. This older group showed similar dating performance across events with high and low factual knowledge. In contrast, the younger group's dating accuracy was determined by their level of knowledge. This suggests that older individuals who have direct episodic experience of an event may perform the task in a qualitatively different manner, eschewing semantic facts in favour of other sources of information. Crucially, this process does not appear to enhance performance. A second experiment addressed the issue of whether older participants date events based on general qualities of the event memory (e.g., vividness), the availability of other event-related semantic facts, or autobiographical context. It was found that the ability to place an event in autobiographical context is related to dating accuracy, but not to other aspects of memory.     

Reversing the Counterfactual Analysis of Causation

The counterfactual analysis of causation has focused on one particular counterfactual conditional, taking as its starting‐point the suggestion that C causes E iff (～C □→ ～E). In this paper, some consequences are explored of reversing this counterfactual, and developing an account starting with the idea that C causes E iff (～E □→ ～C). This suggestion is discussed in relation to the problem of pre‐emption. It is found that the ‘reversed’ counterfactual analysis can handle even the most difficult cases of pre‐emption with only minimal complications. The paper closes with a discussion of the wider philosophical implications of developing a reversed counterfactual analysis, especially concerning the differentiation of causes from causal conditions, causation by absences, and the extent to which causes suffice for their effects.     

Negotiating Multiplicity: Adaptive Asymmetries within Second-Generation Turks’ “Society of Mind”

If identities are socially produced, what happens when individuals grow up participating in divergent or conflicting social contexts? This article reports on research with second-generation Turkish adolescents in London. Using the concept of the dialogical self, the research examines the dialogical structure of these young Turks’ selves. The analysis is Bakhtinian and seeks to identify the different discourses through which these young Turks talk about themselves. Three distinct discourses, or I-positions, are identified. These are then related to the sociocultural context within which these youth live, and specific attention is given to the constraints on these youth in expressing aspects of their identity. We demonstrate that the asymmetries and tensions within these adolescents’ dialogical selves are adaptive to the fractured and asymmetrical social contexts in which they are embedded.