Peer Victimization, Aggression, and Their Co-Occurrence in Middle School: Pathways to Adjustment Problems

An ethnically diverse sample of 6th-grade students completed peer nomination procedures that were used to create subgroups of students with reputations as victims, aggressors, aggressive victims, and socially adjusted (neither aggressive nor victimized). Self-report data on psychological adjustment, attributions for peer harassment, and perceived school climate were gathered. In addition, homeroom teachers rated participating students on academic engagement and students' grades were collected from school records. Victims reported the most negative self-views, aggressors enjoyed the most positive self-views, and aggressive victims fell between these two groups, although their psychological profile more closely resembled that of victims. However, all three subgroups encountered more school adjustment problems when compared to their socially adjusted classmates. Different pathways to school adjustment problems for aggressors and victims were examined. For victims, characterological self-blame for victimization and psychological maladjustment were the key mediators, whereas for aggressors, the significant pathway was mainly through perceived unfairness of school rules. Analyses by ethnicity revealed that African American boys were most likely to be perceived as aggressive and as aggressive victims and they were doing most poorly in school. Implications for intervention with subgroups of problem behavior youth and the particular vulnerabilities of African American adolescents were discussed.     

Comparing judgments of stuttering made by students, clinicians, and highly experienced judges

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare judgments of stuttering made by students and clinicians with previously available judgments made by highly experienced judges in stuttering. Method: On two occasions, 41 university students and 31 speech-language pathologists judged the presence or absence of stuttering in each of 216 audiovisually recorded 5-s intervals of the speech of adults who stutter. Intrajudge and interjudge agreement were calculated, and comparisons were made to judgments previously made about the same recordings by 10 highly experienced judges of stuttering. Results: Students and clinicians showed similar and relatively high levels of intrajudge and interjudge agreement, but both students and clinicians identified less than half as much stuttering as the highly experienced judges had identified. Conclusions: These results replicate previous findings of high agreement coexisting with low accuracy in students’ judgments of stuttering, extending those findings to show that similar problems are evident in judgments made by practicing clinicians. Implications include the need for explicit stuttering judgment training programs for both students and practicing clinicians.

Educational objectives: After reading this article, the reader will be able to: (1) describe different methods for identifying stuttering and possible problems associated with each method; (2) describe two different methods for reporting interjudge reliability; (3) describe how the identification of stuttering differs for student, clinician, and highly experienced judges.     

Autobiographical memories prompted by automatic thoughts in panic disorder and social phobia

This study examined the retrieval of autobiographical memories when prompted by automatic thoughts that were representative of maladaptive schema content specific to 2 anxiety disorders. Participants with panic disorder (n = 20), those with social phobia (n = 22) and non-anxious participants (n = 20) indicated the first specific memory that came to mind when cued with panic-related, social phobia-related and control automatic thoughts. Panic participants retrieved memories cued with panic disorder-related automatic thoughts more quickly than social phobic and non-anxious participants, and social phobic participants retrieved memories cued with social phobia-related automatic thoughts more quickly than non-anxious participants. Relative to non-anxious participants, participants in both patient groups retrieved more anxious/worried memories when cued with automatic thoughts related to their diagnosis and more fearful memories when cued with either type of diagnosis-related automatic thought. Results indicate that panic and social phobic participants were characterized by general threat-relevant autobiographical memory biases.     

Picking up speed in understanding: Speech processing efficiency and vocabulary growth across the 2nd year

To explore how online speech processing efficiency relates to vocabulary growth in the 2nd year, the authors longitudinally observed 59 English-learning children at 15, 18, 21, and 25 months as they looked at pictures while listening to speech naming one of the pictures. The time course of eye movements in response to speech revealed significant increases in the efficiency of comprehension over this period. Further, speed and accuracy in spoken word recognition at 25 months were correlated with measures of lexical and grammatical development from 12 to 25 months. Analyses of growth curves showed that children who were faster and more accurate in online comprehension at 25 months were those who showed faster and more accelerated growth in expressive vocabulary across the 2nd year.     

Implicit policies about relations between personality traits and behavioral effectiveness in situational judgment items

This paper develops the concept of implicit trait policy (ITP), which is a variant of the accentuation effect described by Tajfel (1957). ITPs are implicit beliefs about causal relations between personality traits and behavioral effectiveness. Studies reported here tested the hypotheses (a) that personality traits affect ITPs so that agreeable people, for instance, believe the relation between agreeableness and effectiveness is more strongly positive than disagreeable people do and (b) that ITPs can predict behavior that expresses associated personality traits. Two studies with undergraduate research participants supported the first hypothesis for traits of agreeableness and extraversion (the average correlation between traits and associated ITPs was .31 for agreeableness and .37 for extraversion) but not for conscientiousness. A 3rd study with student participants found that individual differences in ITPs for agreeableness predicted agreeable behavior (the average correlation was .33) in simulated work settings. These results suggest that ITPs may be useful for predicting work behavior that expresses personality traits even though ITPs may not be strongly correlated with the personality traits themselves.     

High-maintenance interaction: inefficient social coordination impairs self-regulation

Tasks requiring interpersonal coordination permeate all spheres of life. Although social coordination is sometimes efficient and effortless (low maintenance), at other times it is inefficient and effortful (high maintenance). Across 5 studies, participants experienced either a high- or a low-maintenance interaction with a confederate before engaging in an individual-level task requiring self-regulation. Self-regulation was operationalized with measures of (a) preferences for a challenging task with high reward potential over an easy task with low reward potential (Study 1) and (b) task performance (anagram performance in Study 1, Graduate Record Exam performance in Studies 2 and 3, physical stamina in Study 4, and fine motor control in Study 5). Results uniformly supported the hypothesis that experiencing high-maintenance interaction impairs one's self-regulatory success on subsequent, unrelated tasks. These effects were not mediated through participants' conscious processes and emerged even with a nonconscious manipulation of high-maintenance interaction.     

Effects of D-amphetamine and ethanol on variable and repetitive key-peck sequences in pigeons

This experiment assessed the effects of d-amphetamine and ethanol on reinforced variable and repetitive key-peck sequences in pigeons. Pigeons responded on two keys under a multiple schedule of Repeat and Vary components. In the Repeat component, completion of a target sequence of right, right, left, left resulted in food. In the Vary component, 4-peck sequences differing from the previous 10 produced food. d-Amphetamine (0.1-3.0 mg/kg, i.m.) was administered in two separate phases, separated by ethanol administration (1.0-2.0 g/kg, i.g.). Under control conditions, measures of variability were high in the Vary component, and lower in the Repeat component. Following administration of the highest dose of d-amphetamine, but not ethanol, response rates decreased in both components. d-Amphetamine and ethanol tended to increase overall sequence variability in the Repeat component, and had less of an effect in the Vary component. Performance in the Repeat component during Phase 2 of d-amphetamine administration was more disrupted than during Phase 1. Measures of variability and repetition based on shifts in the relative frequency distributions of the 16 possible keypeck sequences differed from those based on the overall measure of variability, highlighting the importance of considering both molar and molecular measures when assessing the effects of drugs on reinforced variability and repetition. In addition, the shifts in the relative frequency distribution of response sequences suggest that d-amphetamine produced decrements in repeat performance by decreasing discriminative control within response sequences, whereas ethanol decreased repeat performance by decreasing discriminability between components as well as discriminative control within response sequences.     

Memory and interpretation of visual representations of threat in socially anxious and nonanxious individuals

The present study was designed to replicate and extend results reported by Brendle and Wenzel (Behav. Res. Ther. 42 (2004) 155), who found that socially anxious individuals accurately recalled threat-relevant information but subsequently imposed a biased interpretation upon that same material, using more ecologically valid stimuli. Socially anxious (n=37) and nonanxious (n=47) individuals viewed two positive, two negative, and two neutral video vignettes and completed two cognitive tasks assessing memory and interpretation of factual details immediately and after 48 h. Similar to the results reported by Brendle and Wenzel (2004), socially anxious and nonanxious individuals did not differ in their memory for details that had been presented in the vignettes. However, socially anxious individuals made more negative interpretations of details included in the vignettes than nonanxious individuals, although unlike Brendle and Wenzel (2004), they did not demonstrate the tendency to make less positive interpretations. It is concluded that socially anxious individuals are characterized by interpretation biases when presented with threat-relevant information, and there is no evidence to suggest that they are characterized by memory biases for threat-relevant information.     

The effects of methylphenidate on a functional analysis of disruptive behavior: a replication and extension

In the present investigation, a functional analysis of the disruptive behavior of a 18-year-old man who had been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and moderate mental retardation was conducted, both when he was taking methylphenidate and when he was not taking the medication. The results of this functional analysis demonstrated that the participant's disruptive behaviors were reinforced by access to attention only when he was not taking methylphenidate.