Effects of comorbid psychopathy on criminal offending and emotion processing in male offenders with antisocial personality disorder

Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) and psychopathy are two syndromes with substantial construct validity. To clarify relations between these syndromes, the authors evaluated 3 possibilities: (a) that ASPD with psychopathy and ASPD without psychopathy reflect a common underlying pathophysiology; (b) that ASPD with psychopathy and ASPD without psychopathy identify 2 distinct syndromes, similar in some respects; and (c) that most correlates of ASPD reflect its comorbidity with psychopathy. Participants were 472 incarcerated European American men who met Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (4th ed., American Psychiatric Association, 1994) criteria for ASPD and Psychopathy Checklist criteria for psychopathy, who met the criteria for ASPD but not for psychopathy, or who did not meet diagnostic criteria for either ASPD or psychopathy (controls). Both individuals with ASPD only and those with ASPD and psychopathy were characterized by more criminal activity than were controls. In addition, ASPD with psychopathy was associated with more severe criminal behavior and weaker emotion facilitation than ASPD alone. Group differences in the association between emotion dysfunction and criminal behavior suggest tentatively that ASPD with and ASPD without prominent psychopathic features may be distinct syndromes.     

Establishing the feasibility of direct observation in the assessment of tics in children with chronic tic disorders

Behavior analysis has been at the forefront in establishing effective treatments for children and adults with chronic tic disorders. As is customary in behavior analysis, the efficacy of these treatments has been established using direct-observation assessment methods. Although behavior-analytic treatments have enjoyed acceptance and integration into mainstream health care practices for tic disorders (e.g., psychiatry and neurology), the use of direct observation as a primary assessment tool has been neglected in favor of less objective methods. Hesitation to use direct observation appears to stem largely from concerns about the generalizability of clinic observations to other settings (e.g., home) and a lack of consensus regarding the most appropriate and feasible techniques for conducting and scoring direct observation. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate and establish a reliable, valid, and feasible direct-observation protocol capable of being transported to research and clinical settings. A total of 43 children with tic disorders, collected from two outpatient specialty clinics, were assessed using direct (videotape samples) and indirect (Yale Global Tic Severity Scale; YGTSS) methods. Videotaped observation samples were collected across 3 consecutive weeks and two different settings (clinic and home), were scored using both exact frequency counts and partial-interval coding, and were compared to data from a common indirect measure of tic severity (the YGTSS). In addition, various lengths of videotaped segments were scored to determine the optimal observation length. Results show that (a) clinic-based observations correspond well to home-based observations, (b) brief direct-observation segments scored with time-sampling methods reliably quantified tics, and (c) indirect methods did not consistently correspond with the direct methods.     

Examining the principles in principled conservatism: the role of responsibility stereotypes as cues for deservingness in racial policy decisions

Why do educated conservatives oppose affirmative action? Those in the "principled conservatism" camp say opposition is based on principled judgments of fairness about the policies. Others, however, argue that opposition is based on racism. The present article offers an alternative perspective that may reconcile these contradictory points of view. In 2 studies, the authors show 2 major findings: (a) that conservatives oppose affirmative action more for Blacks than for other groups, in this case women, and (b) that the relationship between conservatism and affirmative action attitudes is mediated best by group-based stereotypes that offer deservingness information and not by other potential mediators like old-fashioned racism or the perceived threat that affirmative action poses to oneself. The authors conclude that educated conservatives are indeed principled in their opposition to affirmative action, but those principles are group based not policy based.     

Adult age differences in the effects of goals on self-regulated sentence processing

The authors examined age differences in adults' allocation of effort when reading text for either high levels of recall accuracy or high levels of efficiency. Participants read a series of sentences, making judgments of learning before recall. Older adults showed less sensitivity than the young to the accuracy goal in both reading time allocation and memory performance. Memory accuracy and differential allocation of effort to unlearned items were age equivalent, so age differences in goal adherence were not attributable to metacognitive factors. However, comparison with data from a control reading task without monitoring showed that learning gains among older adults across trial were reduced relative to those of the young by memory monitoring, suggesting that monitoring may be resource consuming for older learners. Age differences in the responsiveness to (information-acquisition) goals could be accounted for, in part, by independent contributions from working memory and memory self-efficacy. Our data suggest that both processing capacity ("what you have") and beliefs ("knowing you can do it") can contribute to individual differences in engaging resources ("what you do") to effectively learn novel content from text.     

Odour‐based context reinstatement effects with indirect measures of memory: The curious case of rosemary

Previous studies examining environmental context‐dependent memory (ECDM) effects using indirect measures of memory have produced inconsistent findings. We report three experiments that examined ECDM in an indirect memory paradigm (word‐fragment completion) using ambient odours as environmental contexts. Expt 1 manipulated the odour present at learning and testing (rosemary or lemon) to produce reinstated‐context or switched‐context conditions. Reinstating rosemary led to a striking ECDM effect, indicating that indirect memory testing can be sensitive to ECDM manipulations. Odour ratings also indicated that rosemary induced a more unpleasant mood in participants than lemon. Expt 2 assessed the influence on indirect retrieval of odour‐based mood induction as well as odour distinctiveness, and indicated that rosemary's capacity to promote ECDM effects appears to arise from an additive combination of its unpleasantness‐inducing properties and its distinctiveness. Expt 3 partially supported these proposals. Overall, our findings indicate that some odours are capable of producing ECDM effects using indirect testing procedures. Moreover, it appears that it is the inherent proprieties of odours on dimensions such as unpleasantness and distinctiveness that mediate the emergence of ECDM effects, thereby explaining the particular potency of rosemary's mnemonic influence when it is reinstated.     

Gender differences in distributive negotiation: When in the negotiation process do the differences occur?

This study tested whether the degree of association among aspiration level, intended opening offer, actual first offer, actual counter‐offer, and final agreement was moderated by negotiator gender. Results show that gender does moderate the association between the predictor variable of intended opening offer and the criterion variable of actual first offer and the relationship between intended opening offer and actual counter‐offer. Interesting, this latter association was statistically non‐significant for women and statistically significant for men. These results suggest that gender differences disadvantaging women seem to manifest with the actual first offer and the actual counter‐offer. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Implementation Quality and Positive Experiences in After-School Programs

Data collected during an evaluation of a multi-site trial of an enhanced after-school program were used to relate quality of program implementation to student experiences after school. The enhanced after-school program incorporated a drug use and violence prevention component that was shown to be effective in previous research. Building on Durlak and Dupre’s (Am J Community Psychol 41:327–350, 2008) dimensions of implementation, we assessed the level of dosage, quality of management and climate, participant responsiveness, and staffing quality achieved at the five program sites. We evaluated how these characteristics co-varied with self-reported positive experiences after-school. The study illustrates how multiple dimensions of program implementation can be measured, and shows that some but not all dimensions of implementation are related to the quality of student after-school experiences. Measures of quality of management and climate, participant responsiveness, and staffing stability were most clearly associated with youth experiences. The importance of measuring multiple dimensions of program implementation in intervention research is discussed.     

Influence of properties of layered silicate minerals on adsorbed DNA surface affinity,self-assembly and nanopatterning

We report on the specific interaction between DNA and some mica-family minerals and other layered silicate structures. The interaction depends on mineral surface's crystallography, chemistry and potential. These properties are responsible for a remarkable variety of adsorption mechanisms and can be used to modulate surface self-assembly and nanopatterning of DNA. The controlled deposition of DNA onto non-conductive mineral regions with atomically flat boundaries has very attractive applications in nano-biotechnology (for example, microelectronics, microarrays and sensors). In addition, the extreme affinity discovered for some mineral surfaces, together with their ability to organize the DNA molecules, could be an indication of their catalytic potential. It may also have had relevance in the prebiotic environment, with important implications for the earth and life sciences.     

Self-Modeling and Competitive Beam Performance Enhancement Examined Within a Self-Regulation Perspective

The observation of oneself on video that has been edited to show a performance level higher than one can actually perform is a feedforward form of modeling, termed self-modeling (SM; Dowrick, 1999 Dowrick, P. W. 1999. A review of self-modeling and related interventions. Applied and Preventive Psychology, 8: 23–29. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). In this research, gymnasts alternated between viewing and not viewing a SM video during their competitive season. Results showed that gymnasts attained significantly higher beam scores when they viewed the video versus when they did not. No differences in self-efficacy were observed using a quantitative measure; however, a qualitative analysis of interviews based on Zimmerman's (2000) Ram, N. and McCullagh, P. 2003. Self-modeling: Influences on psychological responses and physical performance. The Sport Psychologist, 17(2): 220–241.  [Google Scholar] model, indicated that a number of self-regulatory processes, including self-efficacy, were employed.     

Reducing prejudice via direct and extended cross-group friendship

One of the most exciting developments in intergroup contact theory is the idea that a certain type of contact, cross-group friendship, might be particularly effective at reducing prejudice. In this chapter we review research on two types of cross-group friendship. Direct cross-group friendship refers to friendships that develop between members of different groups. Extended cross-group friendship, on the other hand, refers to vicarious experience of cross-group friendship, the mere knowledge that other ingroup members have cross-group friends. We consider the relationship between both types of cross-group friendship and prejudice and the processes that mediate and moderate these relationships. The research highlights the respective strengths and weaknesses of direct and extended cross-group friendship and illustrates how they might be practically combined in efforts to improve intergroup relations.