An analysis of the internalizing and externalizing behaviors of traumatized urban youth with and without PTSD

To test the differential validity of the posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) classification, 3 groups of youths (PTSD, traumatized PTSD negatives, and controls) were examined. Youth with major comorbid disorders were excluded. On the basis of an analysis of parent-derived Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) ratings, significant variations in CBCL scores were associated with PTSD but not with exposure to exceptional stress in the absence of PTSD. The results also indicated that traumatic exposure without the development of PTSD was not associated with higher estimates of psychopathology.     

When do low‐power customers complain? The joint effects of chronic sense of personal power and complaint success on complaining intentions

In the customer complaint literature, researchers have found that the lack of an incidental sense of power is one of the reasons why customers do not complain. However, two issues are left unanswered: does a chronic sense of power influence consumer complaining behavior, and how individuals who feel chronically powerless can be encouraged to complain when dissatisfied. The present study is intended to address this topic. Drawing on the approach–inhibition theory of power, we argue that the probability of complaint success increases the complaint behavior of customers with a low chronic sense of power, thereby mitigating the differences in the complaint behavior of consumers with low and high power. The three studies indicated that a low chronic power was negatively associated with complaining intentions and that this association was mitigated by the perceived success of complaining.     

A kinematic examination of dual-route processing for action imitation

The dual-route model of imitation suggests that meaningful and meaningless actions are processed through either an indirect or a direct route, respectively. Evidence indicates that the direct route is more cognitively demanding since it relies on mapping visuospatial properties of the observed action on to a performed one. These cognitive demands might negatively influence reaction time and accuracy for actions performed following a meaningless action under time constraints. However, how meaningful and meaningless action imitation processing is reflected in movement kinematics is not yet clear. We wanted to confirm whether meaningless action performance incurs a reaction time cost, whether the cost is reflected in kinematics, and, more generally, to examine kinematic markers of emblematic meaningful and meaningless action imitation. We examined participants’ reaction time and wrist movements when they imitated emblematic meaningful or matched meaningless gestures in either blocks of the same action type or mixed blocks. Meaningless actions were associated with a greater correction period at the end of the movement, possibly reflecting a strategy designed to ensure accurate completion for less familiar actions under time constraints. Furthermore, in mixed blocks, trials following meaningless actions had a significantly increased reaction time, supporting previous claims that route selection for action imitation may be stimulus-driven. However, there was only convincing evidence for this effect with an interval of ~2,948ms, but not ~3,573ms or ~2,553ms, between movements. Future work motion-tracking the entire hand to assess imitation accuracy, and more closely examining the influence of duration between movements, may help to explain these effects.     

Intimate Partner Acceptance–Rejection and Subjective Well-Being: What is the Role of Resilience?

The present study investigated: (a) the relationship between perceived intimate partner rejection and subjective well-being and (b) the mediating effect of resilience in the relationship between perceived intimate partner rejection and subjective well-being and (c) the differences between married and unmarried participants regarding their perceived intimate partner rejection. The sample consisted of 316 individuals (50?% males, M _age?=?38.72 years, SD?=?13.07) and data collection was made with self-report questionnaires measuring demographic characteristics, perceived intimate partner rejection, resilience, and subjective well-being. Hierarchical multiple regression showed that participants’ educational status, intimate partner rejection, and resilience predicted subjective well-being. The indirect (mediation) effects were examined using the PROCESS program. Results showed that resilience mediated fully the relationship between perceived intimate partner rejection and subjective well-being in both males and females of our sample. We also found that married participants and married women in particular reported rejection by their partners to a higher extent comparing to unmarried ones. Implications for future research and effective counseling interventions are discussed.     

Gender Differences in the Relationship of Puberty with Adolescents’ Depressive Symptoms: Do Body Perceptions Matter?

This study explored how pubertal status is related to depressive symptoms among adolescent boys and girls and whether body perceptions explained this relationship. This study is based on a national random US sample of adolescents from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (9,011 girls and 8,781 boys). Results showed that boys and girls responded differently to puberty. During the transition to puberty boys had higher depressive symptoms than post-pubertal boys, due to perceptions that they were not as physically large and developed as their peers. Pre-pubertal and post-pubertal boys did not significantly differ on depressive symptoms. Post-pubertal girls had higher depressive symptoms than pre-pubertal girls, due to perceptions that they were overweight and more physically developed than their peers.     

Learning of a T-maze by rat pups when contact with the mother is either permitted or denied

Mother–pup interactions constitute an important component of environmental stimulation of the offspring during the neonatal period. Employing maternal contact as either a positive reinforcer or, its denial, as a frustrative, non-rewarding stimulus, we developed a novel experimental paradigm involving learning by rat neonates of a T-maze. When trained under the reward of maternal contact during postnatal days 10–13 Wistar rat pups learned the choice leading to the mother in a T-maze. When tested 2 h later, in the absence of the mother, pups showed a clear preference for the arm of the T-maze leading to the position of the mother during training. Furthermore, pups receiving the expected reward of maternal contact had higher numbers of c-Fos immunopositive cells in the dorsal striatum compared to either naïve or pups denied the expected reward. The above behavioral and cellular results indicate that pups receiving the expected reward developed a procedural-like memory. When trained under frustrative non-reward pups learned to make the correct choice in the T-maze, albeit less efficiently than pups receiving the expected reward. Following this training condition c-Fos immunohistochemistry revealed increased activation of the CA1 area of the hippocampus and the orbitofrontal cortex. Expression of the information learned by the pups denied the expected reward was contingent upon the presence of the mother in the experimental setup in exactly the same configuration as during the training.     

The use of spatial and local cues for orientation in domestic chicks (Gallus gallus)

Animal Cognition - Birds have been widely used to study spatial orientation. However, since different birds rely on different types of visual information to find goal locations (such as spatial...     

Attitudes about Affirmative Action for Women: The Role of Children in Shaping Parents’ Interests

This paper uses pooled cross-sectional data from the 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006 General Social Surveys (GSS), a nationally representative sample of the U.S. adult population, to assess how employed parents’ attitudes about affirmative action for women are influenced by their children’s gender. The analytic sample includes 1,695 employed respondents. Findings based on logistic regression indicate that having daughters (and no sons) magnifies employed mothers’ support for affirmative action for women and minimizes employed fathers’ support. Conversely, having sons (and no daughters) does not suppress mothers’ support for affirmative action for women, nor does it differentiate men’s attitudes about affirmative action. We speculate about how these patterns in parents’ attitudes relate to self interest and group interest (i.e., their children’s future work experiences).     

Exploring social capital in rural settlements of an islander region in Greece

This paper reports on a large scale cross‐sectional study examining subjective perceptions of community social life held by a randomly selected sample of residents (n = 428) in all small rural settings (n = 89) of the region of North Aegean Sea. The notion of social capital was used as a conceptual tool in order to explore different aspects of the relational life of contemporary rural communities. This study has two aims: First to provide an account of rural residents' perceptions of village life in terms of interpersonal support, mutual aid, trust, social cohesion and community competence, and second to examine the suitability of the social capital notion within the specific cultural context. A combination of data collection procedures and a range of sources were employed, such as key informants, rural residents and researchers' field observations. The findings indicate that small farming communities of high devotion with deep roots and strong sense of belonging face severe demographic imbalance and experience low civic power given the limited links with external agents. The mainstream notion of social capital as an unconditionally beneficial factor is thus questioned. The findings call for revisiting its relevance across communities with varying capacities and needs. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.