Night and day: are siblings as different in temperament as parents say they are?

Twin studies suggest that parent ratings of temperament exaggerate differences between twins. The present study examined whether such contrast effects also operate for nontwin siblings. The activity level (AL) and shyness of 95 nontwin sibling pairs (ages 3 to 8 years) were assessed via parent ratings and objective measures (actigraph and observer ratings). Siblings showed no resemblance in either parent-rated AL or shyness; however, sibling resemblance for actigraph AL and observer-rated shyness was substantial. Thus, parents do contrast their nontwin siblings when rating these 2 temperament dimensions. Moreover, the importance of sibling differences in temperament to the sibling relationship and differential maternal treatment varied across the different measures of AL and shyness, suggesting that parent perceptions may play a role in these associations.     

The role of teachers' perceived control and children's characteristics in interactions between 6-year-olds and their teachers

The study aimed at an understanding of child-teacher interactions in school preparatory classrooms. Relations between observed interactions and sex of the child, teachers' ratings of their perceived control, and of children's undercontrolled and overcontrolled problem behaviors, social competence and work efficiency were studied. Thirty-six teachers and 92 six-year-olds, 39 girls and 53 boys, from 19 classrooms were directly observed on 2-5 occasions during a total mean of 60 minutes per child. The results showed that interactions involving teacher support behaviors were the most common, but comparatively less well explained by the predictors. Associations were found between perceived control and two types of teacher command interactions. For teacher commands initiated by child externalizing behavior, the relation with perceived control was shown to hold for boys only. Male sex and rated undercontrolled problems were predictive of more interactions initiated with externalizing behaviors and also of more restrictive teacher responses following child positive behaviors. Overcontrolled children, who had teachers high in perceived control, were more often met with support behavior when they were off-task. It was concluded that teacher perceptions of control and of child behaviors as well as sex of the child contribute to ongoing processes in preschool classrooms and that the chosen methodology could be used to further the search for factors affecting interactions in preschool settings.     

Do Personal Dispositions Affect the Relationship Between Psychosocial Working Conditions and Workplace Bullying?

There is scarce research on the interaction between psychosocial working conditions and being a target of workplace bullying with individual characteristics as a moderator. We therefore examined 3,363 employees from 60 Danish workplaces to test whether sense of coherence moderates the relationship between the job demand-control model and bullying. This work is exploratory in nature, as no previous study to assess this moderation was found. Hierarchical linear regressions showed that demand-control model was significantly associated with bullying. Sense of coherence displayed a significant though practically negligible moderating effect. This suggests that negative psychosocial working conditions are associated with bullying independently of personal characteristics, at least in terms of sense of coherence.     

The Benefits of Group Therapy Observation for Therapists-in-Training

The authors contend, based on a survey of group therapy trainees, that observing an ongoing psychotherapy group in vivo provides an exceptional learning opportunity. Clinicians often experience resistance and anxiety regarding therapy group leadership, and group therapy is notoriously challenging to teach. Trainees consistently described the Group Observation course as one of the most effective training experiences that they have had. The observation group model mitigates many concerns that trainees have about group leadership and inspires enthusiasm and confidence for leading groups. Group observers learned vital group leadership skills, most notably: the ability to bear affect and trust the group process, the ability to follow and use group themes, metaphors, and underlying dynamics, and the ability to highlight attachment themes, work in the here and now, and promote immediacy.     

User involvement in research: power and compromise

The extent to which collaborative research can redress power imbalances is debated with reference to some of the relevant literature. Different ways in which research can be collaborative and power shared between researchers and participants are discussed. The benefits and challenges specific to collaboration in the area of mental health research are considered, illustrated with examples from research we conducted into the experience of taking antipsychotic medication. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cognitive behavioral management of Tourette's syndrome and chronic tic disorder in medicated and unmedicated samples

Objective

Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and medication can be administered in combination in treating tic disorders but there are no studies evaluating the effectiveness of CBT with and without medication. The current study compares the efficacy of CBT in combination with medication and without medication.

Method

CBT was administered in a consecutively referred sample of 76 people diagnosed either with Gilles de la Tourette Syndrome or chronic tic disorder. The sample was divided into a medicated and a non-medicated group. Twenty three were stabilized on medication and 53 were not receiving medication. Measures administered pre- and post-CBT in both groups included: main outcome measure of Tourette Syndrome Global Scale and measures of mood.

Results

Repeated measures analysis of variance on the initial sample revealed no difference between medicated and non-medicated groups in outcome. A further analysis comparing the 23 receiving medication with 23 not receiving medication matched on baseline clinical variables also yielded no significant group differences, either in treatment outcome on main tic outcome measures or on other clinically relevant questionnaires.

Discussion

CBT for tic disorders is an effective treatment administered either in combination with medication or alone.     

Solving the chicken-and-egg problem of letter detection and fixation duration in reading

When asked to detect target letters while reading a text, participants miss more letters in frequent function words than in less frequent content words. According to the truncation assumption that characterizes most models of this effect, misses occur when word-processing time is shorter than letter-processing time. Fixation durations for detections and omissions were compared with fixation durations from a baseline condition when participants were searching for a target letter embedded in different words. Although, as predicted by truncation, fixation durations were longer for detections than for omissions, fixation durations for detections were also longer than those for the same words in the baseline condition, demonstrating that longer fixation durations when targets are detected are more likely to be due to demands associated with producing a detection response than to truncation. Also, contrary to predictions from the truncation assumption, the standard deviation of fixation durations for detections was larger than that from the baseline condition.