Parental and family predictors of behavior problems in inner-city black children

Studied contributions of maternal psychological distress, family stress load, maternal and family risk factors, and family coping strategies in predicting behavior problems in 441 inner-city black primary-grade children. Results indicated maternal psychological distress and high family stress load were associated with high child behavior problems. Family coping strategies offered no protection against risk, while coping with life difficulties by reframing them was detrimental to child behavioral adjustment. Active help-seeking strategies (i.e., family mobilization, acquiring social supports) served to moderate the effects of maternal psychological distress and family risk attributes for boys, but exacerbated the effects of dysfunctional maternal social and psychiatric histories for girls. Implications for understanding vulnerability and resilience in inner-city black children and recommendations for future research are discussed.     

Client-therapist intimacy: responses of psychotherapy clients to a consumer-oriented brochure

Psychotherapy clients read two consumer-oriented brochures: a general brochure on psychology and a brochure on the topic of client-therapist intimacy. Half of the participants read the general brochure first and the brochure on client-therapist intimacy second, and half the participants did the reverse. Participants reported favorable reactions to the brochures, indicating they thought both should be made available to psychotherapy clients; that neither were too long, too sensitive, or too difficult to read; and that the brochures should be made available early during the therapeutic process. After reading the client-therapist intimacy brochure, participants also showed some changes in Likert-type scores measuring attitudes regarding intimate contact between clients and therapists. Although participants were more negative about issues of sexual misconduct after reading the client-therapist intimacy brochure, they did not indicate a decrease in trust of therapists, nor did they indicate a greater likelihood of filing a false complaint. We concluded that therapists' reservations about presenting clients with factual information regarding therapist sexual exploitation of clients are not empirically founded.     

Experimental Personality Designs: Analyzing Categorical by Continuous Variable Interactions

Theories hypothesizing interactions between a categorical and one or more continuous variables are common in personality research. Traditionally, such hypotheses have been tested using nonoptimal adaptations of analysis of variance (ANOVA). This article describes an alternative multiple regression-based approach that has greater power and protects against spurious conclusions concerning the impact of individual predictors on the outcome in the presence of interactions. We discuss the structuring of the regression equation, the selection of a coding system for the categorical variable, and the importance of centering the continuous variable. We present in detail the interpretation of the effects of both individual predictors and their interactions as a function of the coding system selected for the categorical variable. We illustrate two- and three-dimensional graphical displays of the results and present methods for conducting post hoc tests following a significant interaction. The application of multiple regression techniques is illustrated through the analysis of two data sets. We show how multiple regression can produce all of the information provided by traditional but less optimal ANOVA procedures.     

Syntactic parsing as revealed by brain responses: First-pass and second-pass parsing processes

This paper reviews a series of electrophysiological experiments on syntactic processing against the background of a psycholinguistic two-stage model of parsing. The data reveal two event-related brain potential components in correlation with syntactic processes: an early left anterior negativity and a late centro-parietal positivity. It is argued that these two components can be correlated with two separate stages of syntactic processing: the early left anterior negativity reflecting first-pass parsing processes and the late positivity reflecting second-pass parsing processes possibly including processes of reanalyses.     

Men's and women's perceptions of non-consensual sexual intercourse

This paper examines the reactions of college men and women (primarily white) to scenarios depicting non-consensual intercourse between men and women with varying levels of prior intimacy. Women were more likely than men to consider the scenarios unacceptable, and the gender difference increased with the level of prior intimacy between the victim and the offender in the scenario. Respondents who reported knowing a rape victim were also more likely to consider the scenarios unacceptable, and this effect was significantly larger for men. We consider the implications of these results for understanding the role of salience of sexual assault and self-interest in shaping men's and women's reactions to non-consensual intercourse.     

The effects of ethnicity and acculturation on early adolescent delinquency

We examined the influence of ethnicity and acculturation status on the relationship between parental monitoring, susceptibility to antisocial peer pressure, and delinquency. The sample consisted primarily of Caucasian (63%) and Mexican-American (24%) early adolescents. Self-report data were collected from 1021 sixth and seventh graders, equally divided by gender (mean age =12.7 years). The Mexican-American adolescents were categorized into one of three acculturation groups: (a) acculturated; (b) unacculturated by choice; and (c) recent immigrants. Acculturated Mexican-American early adolescents reported significantly more delinquent behaviors than the Caucasian, unacculturated by choice, and recent immigrant youth. Recent immigrant early adolescents reported more parental monitoring than the acculturated Mexican-American early adolescents. Level of perceived susceptibility to antisocial peer pressure did not differ between ethnic or acculturation groups. Regression analyses revealed that the relationship between parental monitoring and delinquency was mediated by susceptibility to antisocial peer pressure for all the groups regardless of ethnicity or level of acculturation. Findings emphasize the importance of: (a) examining level of acculturation when sampling ethnically diverse populations; and (b) comparing global mean level differences and specific relationships among independent variables.     

A View of the violence contained in chronic fatigue syndrome

In this paper I ask whether there might be any one particular psychopathology likely to be linked specifically with the physical illness known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) or myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), and whether CFS/ME aids and abets and 'fits' an original mental state. I think the question cannot yet be answered. However it is my hypothesis that in some personality structures the onset of CFS/ME following a physical illness exacerbates negativity and is an aspect of ordinary depression where there is a lowering of energy levels and a loss of zest for life, or it may reveal the pathological aspect of unresolved rage.
Depending on the degree of pathological disturbance, working with and through the rage may or may not result in a resolution of the symptoms of ME. In this paper I consider some of the problems in the transference and countertransference relationship, which make it extremely difficult to separate out reality from phantasy. There is then the further problem of the denial of the psyche by the patient as part of the violence inherent in the illness.
One case is presented, an example of ME in a borderline male patient in whom resolution could not be achieved.     

USE OF EXTINCTION AND REINFORCEMENT TO INCREASE FOOD CONSUMPTION AND REDUCE EXPULSION

Extinction and reinforcement contingencies were used to treat 2 children with feeding disorders. Positive reinforcement and avoidance extinction effectively increased food acceptance but also increased food expulsion. Reduced expulsion and increased swallowing were achieved by repeated presentation of expelled food, a second extinction component.     

The Investigation of Personality Structure: Statistical Models

This article provides an introduction to a number of statistical techniques for investigating the structure of measures of personality. Each of these techniques is illustrated through its application to a set of 12 items from Snyder's (1974) self-monitoring scale. Approaches are presented for both continuous and dichotomous observed measures and for underlying constructs that are assumed to be continuous as well as those that are assumed to be discrete classes. Our emphasis is on techniques which permit tests of hypothesized structures (with a special focus on confirmatory factor analysis); however, exploratory approaches are also considered. We identify the critical assumptions, limitations, and areas of application of these techniques with an aim toward fostering their critical and appropriate usage.     

Multiple timing and the allocation of attention

Two experiments were designed to examine the effects of multiple timing tasks on prospective time judgment performance. In experiment 1, subjects were required to monitor the durations of one, two, three, or four concurrent target stimuli which began and ended at different times, and then reproduce one of those durations subsequently chosen at random. Time judgment accuracy deteriorated as the number of target stimuli increased. In experiment 2, subjects used the production method to generate specified durations for one, two, three, or four partially overlapping stimuli. Timing was less accurate in conditions involving more target stimuli. In the multiple-target conditions, time judgments were less accurate for the later- rather than earlier-onset targets. The results support an attentional model of timing, and suggest that timing is an effortful process which draws from limited attentional resources.