A Direct Method of Assessing Underlying Cognitive Risk for Adolescent Depression

An enduring tendency towards negative thinking is thought to increase vulnerability for future depression. However, it has not been possible to assess this tendency in non-depressed mood states. We examined if response latency to endorse dysfunctional attitudes is associated with depressive outcomes in a longitudinal study. A sample of young people at familial risk of depression (N?=?252, aged 10–19, 56.3 % female) completed a computer-administered dysfunctional attitude scale. The main outcome measure was the difference in reaction time to agree versus disagree with dysfunctional attitudes. Cross-sectional differences between current and previous depression and no psychiatric disorder groups as well as longitudinal associations with depressive symptoms were examined. Young people with current and previous depression were quicker to agree with dysfunctional attitudes than those without disorder. In young people free from depressive disorder, faster agreements with dysfunctional attitudes were specifically associated with increased depressive symptoms over time. Self-reported dysfunctional attitudes did not differentiate the formerly depressed and no disorder groups and showed a longitudinal association with depressive symptoms for older adolescents only. Reaction time to endorse dysfunctional attitudes may indicate changes in affective processing that represent an early risk for future depression that is not indexed by self-report measures of negative thought.     

CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS AS SOURCES OF STRENGTH OR OBSTACLES FOR MOTHERS COPING WITH HIV

The current study explores the impact of HIV disease on the interpersonal relationships and social support experiences of mothers living with HIV. Analysis of interviews with 25 mothers with HIV focused on their perceptions of the impact of HIV on close relationships with significant others, including family of origin, children, friends, intimate partners, and parents. The results revealed the following major relationship challenges that mothers had to cope with after the discovery of their HIV-positive status: weighing reasons for and against disclosure of their HIV status, whether HIV disclosure brings relationship partners closer together, finding future caregivers for young children if one's health declines, and coordinating safer-sex practices with sexual partners, especially with the many males who are reluctant to use condoms. The study suggests the importance of understanding both the positive and negative aspects of social interactions in coping with HIV and the struggles that mothers have with the consequences of the HIV diagnosis for both themselves and their significant others.     

EMS Treatment of Families in an Ambiguous Out-of-Hospital Child Death: The Role of Attribution Errors

Sometimes children die from maltreatment. However, when first responders enter a scene to save the life of a dying child, the cause of the health problem cannot be immediately determined. EMS professionals are taught to enact the medically appropriate protocols in a family-centered way. This study examines five case studies of infant deaths. When there is ambiguity as to why the death might have occurred, EMS and other emergency personnel seem to be more judgmental and this attitude affects their behavior toward family members. Family members have a more difficult time coping with the loss as a result.     

An Analogue Study of the Psychological and Psychosocial Processes Associated With Post‐concussion Symptoms

This study used an analogue design to investigate post‐concussion syndrome and the psychological and psychosocial processes associated with post‐concussion symptom (PCSx) reporting. The study examined the role of expectation in reporting of PCSx, the nature of associated psychological and psychosocial difficulties, and the “good‐old‐days” phenomenon. Forty‐five healthy participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups: (1) a control group or (2) an expectation group who were asked to perform as if they had experienced a mild traumatic brain injury. Fourteen psychiatric patients comprised the clinical group. Self‐report questionnaires assessing PCSx and psychological and psychosocial variables were administered. It was hypothesised that PCSx would be non‐specific, that the expectation group would report greater dysfunction than controls, and that the “good‐old‐days” phenomenon would cause the expectation and clinical groups to underestimate pre‐morbid PCSx. All participants reported some degree of dysfunction, and the expectation and clinical groups underestimated past PCSx. The expectation group reported more PCSx and psychological and psychosocial dysfunction than controls, resembling the clinical group. The results demonstrate that expectation can cause otherwise healthy individuals to resemble a clinical group in terms of their level of endorsement of psychological and psychosocial dysfunction.     

Symbolic Politics and the Prediction of Attitudes Toward Federal Regulation of Reduced‐Exposure Tobacco Products1

The present study relies on symbolic politics theory to predict public attitudes toward the federal regulation of conventional tobacco products (a familiar attitude object) and reduced‐exposure tobacco products (a relatively novel attitude object). We predicted that attitudes toward most forms of regulation would be more strongly influenced by symbolic beliefs about the role of government in society than by self‐interested concerns, with the exception of taxation. We predicted that the financial consequences of taxation policies would be less ambiguous for those who are affected, resulting in a stronger relationship between self‐interest and policy attitudes. The results strongly supported our hypotheses, suggesting a process by which symbolic beliefs and self‐interested concerns influence attitude formation. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed.     

Cytokines and memory across the mature life span of women

Increasing evidence suggests a role of the immune system in modulation of cognition, but details on affected memory systems are largely lacking. We therefore aimed to study the relation between selected cytokines and subsets of memory, and the impact of age in these relations. From a random population-based sample (the Betula Prospective Cohort Study), 298 women (age 45-90) were studied in terms of episodic recall and recognition, semantic fluency and knowledge, and prospective memory. Circulating cytokines of relevance for cognition and aging were measured with ELISA. Levels of interleukin (IL)-6 and sIL-2R were significantly and negatively associated with most cognitive variables, while the opposite was true for IL-1β. Age shared substantial variance with both cytokines and memory, and turned most correlations non-significant when controlled for together with education, BMI and presence of disease. Interactions between age and cytokines were further analyzed in multiple regressions. For IL-6, significant negative interactions with age were found for semantic fluency (p<0.05) and prospective memory (p<0.01), and for sIL-2R in predicting semantic knowledge (p<0.05), indicating an increased negative impact of these cytokines on memory with increasing age. In conclusion, the study indicates a relation between cytokines and memory that appears to be largely mediated by age, and supports the suggestion that cytokine dysregulation with higher age may interact with cognitive aging.     

Increasing stimulus intensity does not affect sensorimotor synchronization

When people synchronize taps with isochronously presented stimuli, taps usually precede the pacing stimuli [negative mean asynchrony (NMA)]. One explanation of NMA [sensory accumulation model (SAM), Aschersleben in Brain Cogn 48:66–79, 2002] is that more time is needed to generate a central code for kinesthetic-tactile information than for auditory or visual stimuli. The SAM predicts that raising the intensity of the pacing stimuli shortens the time for their sensory accumulation, thereby increasing NMA. This prediction was tested by asking participants to synchronize finger force pulses with target isochronous stimuli with various intensities. In addition, participants performed a simple reaction-time task, for comparison. Higher intensity led to shorter reaction times. However, intensity manipulation did not affect NMA in the synchronization task. This finding is not consistent with the predictions based on the SAM. Discrepancies in sensitivity to stimulus intensity between sensorimotor synchronization and reaction-time tasks point to the involvement of different timing mechanisms in these two tasks.     

Cognitive-behavioural health-promotion intervention increases fruit and vegetable consumption and physical activity among South African adolescents: a cluster-randomised controlled trial

Rates of chronic diseases are high among Black South Africans but few studies have tested cognitive-behavioural health-promotion interventions to reduce this problem. We tested the efficacy of such an intervention among adolescents in a cluster-randomised controlled trial. We randomly selected 9 of 17 matched pairs of schools and randomised one school in each pair to the cognitive-behavioural health-promotion intervention designed to encourage health-related behaviours and the other to a human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/sexually transmitted disease (STD) risk-reduction intervention that served as the control. Interventions were based on social cognitive theory, the theory of planned behaviour and qualitative data from the target population. Data collectors, blind to participants' intervention, administered confidential assessments at baseline and 3, 6 and 12 months post-intervention. Primary outcomes were fruit and vegetable consumption and physical activity. Participants were 1057 grade 6 learners (mean age = 12.4 years), with 96.7% retained at 12-month follow-up. Generalised estimating equations revealed that averaged over the follow-ups, a greater percentage of health-promotion intervention participants than HIV/STD control participants met 5-a-Day fruit and vegetable and physical activity guidelines. The intervention also increased health-promotion knowledge, attitude and intention, but did not decrease substance use or substance-use attitude and intention. The findings suggest that theory based and contextually appropriate interventions may increase health behaviours among young adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa.     

A Randomized Controlled Trial of the Say Yes to Life (SYTL) Positive Psychology Group Psychotherapy Program for Depression: An Interim Report

An RCT was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the Say Yes to Life (SYTL) positive psychology group psychotherapy program compared with treatment as usual (TAU). The current interim report is based on data from the first 82 cases recruited into the trial. There were 57 trial completers at post-treatment. At pretreatment on demographic and clinical variables, there were no significant differences between trial completers and dropouts in SYTL and TAU groups. There were two main significant (p < .01) findings. Compared with TAU treatment-completers, more than twice as many SYTL treatment-completers (28 vs. 72 %) were recovered 3 months after therapy using stringent recovery criteria (no longer meeting DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for major depressive disorder and scoring below clinical cut-off scores on the Beck Depression Inventory II, the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression, and the Montgomery–Asberg Depression Rating Scale and showing reliable change on these three measures of depressive symptom severity). Second, the overall average service use cost per case in the SYTL group was significantly lower than that of the TAU group (€726 vs.€1187). This was largely due to the lower cost of the SYTL group therapy program compared with TAU which involved individual therapy. The pattern of results in an intention-to-treat analysis was similar to that in the completer analysis, though group difference did not reach significance due to inadequate statistical power and conservative missing data imputation procedures. It is planned to collect data on 100 trial completers, based on a power analysis.     

Diversity’s harvest: Interactions of diversity sources and communication technology on creative group performance

Our research is based on arguments that three different diversity sources in groups – agreeableness, openness, and ethnicity – might simultaneously possess separation properties that result in social categorization and variety properties that provide non-redundant and value-adding information resources. To help understand how these diversity sources interact with the additive and reductive features of communication technology to impact group creativity, we designed two studies involving computer mediation, nominal group technique, and face-to-face (control) communication. Our findings suggest that agreeableness, openness, and ethic diversity possess both negative separation and positive variety properties. Whereas the separation properties of all three diversity sources, as well as the variety properties of openness diversity, are evident in newly-formed groups, the variety properties of agreeableness and ethnic diversity are only manifest in mature groups. Finally, the additive and reductive features of communication technology interact with all three diversity sources to impact creative group performance in different ways.