Preschoolers' Inhibition in Their Home: Relation to Temperament

Researchers assessed 58 preschoolers' reactions to an unfamiliar person and unfamiliar objects in their familiar home environment. Children participated in a 30-min procedure designed to elicit behavioral inhibition, including (a) a free-play period with a stranger present, (b) a structured interaction with the stranger, and (c) uncertainty-eliciting tasks. Behaviors representing the child's reactions toward the mother, stranger, and novel objects were coded. Mothers completed a temperament scale. Preschoolers exhibited behaviors indicative of inhibition toward unfamiliar social and nonsocial stimuli; behaviors remained stable across increasingly intrusive episodes. The approach/withdrawal component of temperament was related to behavioral inhibition. Individual differences in mood did not appear to be related to differences in inhibition. Parent reported temperament was related to researcher-observed behaviors.     

Negative attributes are gendered too: Conceptualizing and measuring positive and negative facets of sex‐role identity

Measures of gender identity have almost exclusively relied on positive aspects of masculinity and femininity, although conceptually the self‐concept is not limited to positive attributes. A theoretical argument is made for considering negative attributes of gender identity, followed by five studies developing the Positive–Negative Sex‐Role Inventory (PN‐SRI) as a new measure of gender identity. Study 1 demonstrated that many of the attributes of a German version of the Bem Sex‐Role Inventory are no longer considered to differ in desirability for men and women. For the PN‐SRI, Study 2 elicited attributes characterizing men and women in today's society, for which ratings of typicality and desirability as well as self‐ratings by men and women were obtained in Study 3. Study 4 examined the reliability and factorial structure of the four subscales of positive and negative masculinity and femininity and demonstrated the construct and discriminant validity of the PN‐SRI by showing that the negative masculinity and femininity scales were unique predictors of select validation constructs. Study 5 showed that the new instrument explained variance in the validation constructs beyond earlier measures of gender identity. Key message: Even in the construction of negative aspects of gender identity, individuals prefer gender‐congruent attributes. Negative masculinity and femininity make a unique contribution to understanding gender‐related differences in psychological outcome variables. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ): the Factor Structure and Scale Validation in U.S. Adolescents

The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is one of the most commonly used instruments for screening psychopathology in children and adolescents. This study evaluated the hypothesized five-factor structure of the SDQ and examined its convergent validity against comprehensive clinical diagnostic assessments. Data were derived from the National Comorbidity Survey - Adolescent Supplement (NCS-A), a nationally representative sample of U.S. adolescents aged 13 to 18 years. Parents/parent surrogates (n=6,483) was asked to complete a self-administered questionnaire including the SDQ and DSM-IV comprehensive diagnostic information on the participating adolescents. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to assess the factor structure of the SDQ. The five-factor solution of the SDQ (including emotional, conduct, hyperactivity-inattention, peer relationship, and prosocial) provided a satisfactory fit to the data, and was invariant across sex, age, race/ethnicity and income subgroups. SDQ scores predicted a significantly increased probability of meeting criteria for a DSM-IV disorder, with better prediction for behavior disorders than for mood disorders. Decreasing the SDQ cutoffs to the 80th percentile significantly increased the sensitivity from 39% to 63% for the SDQ Total Difficulties Score, with an expected decrease in specificity from 93% to 87%. This work confirms the five-factor structure of the SDQ in an ethnically and sociodemogrpahically diverse community sample of adolescents. Our findings strengthen empirical evidence for the use of the parent-reported SDQ as a screening tool for DSM-IV behavioral and emotional disorders in adolescents identified in the general population.     

Development of Recognition of Face Parts from Unfamiliar Faces

The present study examined developmental changes in the ability to recognize face parts. In Experiment 1, participants were familiarized with whole faces and given a recognition test with old and new eyes, noses, mouths, inner faces, outer faces, or whole faces. Adults were above chance in their recognition of the eye and mouth regions. However, children did not naturally encode and recognize face parts independently of the entire face. In addition, all age groups showed comparable inner and outer face recognition, except for 8‐ to 9‐year‐olds who showed a recognition advantage for outer faces. In Experiment 2, when participants were familiarized with eyes, noses, or mouths and tested with eyes, noses, or mouths, respectively, all ages showed above‐chance recognition of eyes and mouths. Thirteen‐ to 14‐year‐olds were adult‐like in their recognition of the eye region, but mouth recognition continued to develop beyond 14 years of age. Nose recognition was above chance among 13‐ to 14‐year‐olds, but recognition scores remained low even in adulthood. The present findings reveal unique developmental trajectories in the use of isolated facial regions in face recognition and suggest that featural cues (as a class) have a different ontogenetic course relative to holistic and configural cues. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Quantitative work demands,emotional demands,and cognitive stress symptoms in surgery nurses

In surgery, cognitive stress symptoms, including problems in concentrating, deciding, memorising, and reflecting are risks to patient safety. Recent evidence points to social stressors as antecedents of cognitive stress symptoms in surgery personnel. The current study tests whether cognitive stress symptoms are positively associated with emotional abuse, emotional- and task-related demands and resources in surgery work. Forty-eight surgery nurses from two hospitals filled out the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire in its German version. Task-related and emotional demands were positively related to cognitive stress symptoms. In a stepwise, multiple, linear regression of cognitive stress symptoms on task-related and emotional demands, emotional abuse and emotional demands were unique predictors (p < .05). Efforts to increase patient safety should address emotional abuse, emotional demands, and, therefore, communication and cooperation team climate in surgery personnel.     

Rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) as living fossils of hominoid personality and subjective well-being

Personality dimensions capturing individual differences in behavior, cognition, and affect have been described in several species, including humans, chimpanzees, and orangutans. However, comparisons between species are limited by the use of different questionnaires. We asked raters to assess free-ranging rhesus macaques at two time points on personality and subjective well-being questionnaires used earlier to rate chimpanzees and orangutans. Principal-components analysis yielded domains we labeled Confidence, Friendliness, Dominance, Anxiety, Openness, and Activity. The presence of Openness in rhesus macaques suggests it is an ancestral characteristic. The absence of Conscientiousness suggests it is a derived characteristic in African apes. Higher Confidence and Friendliness, and lower Anxiety were prospectively related to subjective well-being, indicating that the connection between personality and subjective well-being in humans, chimpanzees, and orangutans is ancestral in catarrhine primates. As demonstrated here, each additional species studied adds another fold to the rich, historical story of primate personality evolution.     

Repression versus sensitization in response to media violence as predictors of cognitive avoidance and vigilance

Repression and sensitization as situational modes of coping with anxiety were examined as predictors of trait measures of cognitive avoidance and vigilance. In this study, 303 undergraduates saw a violent film clip to elicit anxiety. Increases in skin conductance level (SCL) and state anxiety (STA) from baseline were measured to identify repressors (high SCL, low STA) and contrast them with sensitizers (low SCL, high STA) and genuinely low anxious individuals (low SCL, low STA). State anger was also recorded. Trait measures of vigilance and cognitive avoidance were collected 2 weeks earlier. Significant SCL × STA interactions indicated that repressors scored higher on cognitive avoidance and lower on vigilance compared to sensitizers and low anxious participants. Repressors were less likely than sensitizers to report gaze avoidance during the clip. The anger by SCL interaction was nonsignificant, suggesting that repressors and sensitizers differ specifically in the processing of anxiety rather than negative affect in general.     

Age differences in instability, contingency, and level of self-esteem across the life span

We investigated age differences in instability, contingency, and level of self-esteem from age 13 to 72 years, using data from 1386 individuals who participated in a diary study over 25 days. Instability and contingency of self-esteem decreased from adolescence to old age, whereas level of self-esteem increased. Big Five personality traits predicted the level, but not the slope, of the trajectories of self-esteem characteristics. Age differences in self-esteem characteristics did not merely reflect age differences in instability and level of positive and negative affect. Finally, self-esteem characteristics showed a stable pattern of interrelations across the life span. Overall, the findings suggest that people’s self-esteem tends to become better adjusted—i.e., more stable, less contingent, and higher—across the life course.     

Fusion prevents the redundant signals effect: evidence from stereoscopically presented stimuli

In a simple reaction time (RT) experiment, visual stimuli were stereoscopically presented either to one eye (single stimulation) or to both eyes (redundant stimulation), with brightness matched for single and redundant stimulations. Redundant stimulation resulted in two separate percepts when noncorresponding retinal areas were stimulated, whereas it resulted in a single fused percept when corresponding areas were stimulated. With stimulation of noncorresponding areas, mean RT was shorter to redundant than to single stimulation, replicating the redundant signals effect (RSE) commonly found with visual stimuli. With stimulation of corresponding areas, however, no RSE was observed. This suggests that the RSE is driven by the number of percepts rather than by the number of stimulated receptors or sensory organs. These results are consistent with previous findings in the auditory modality and have implications for models of the RSE.     

In Search of a New Mythology

Humanity's profound disconnection from nature is played out in its most visible form in the unfolding environmental catastrophe people are facing today. At the root of this alienation from the natural world is a spiritual crisis. The current dominant paradigm of rationalism and scientific inquiry rendered the natural world lifeless and soulless; nature became a commodity, rife for exploitation. Humanity needs to birth a new, collective mythology that can inspire a sustainable relationship with the natural world. Our very survival might hinge on our ability to create a cohesive narrative that allows for an experience of nature as alive, interconnected, and sacred.