Promoting Mental Health in Disadvantaged Preschoolers: A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial of Teacher Training Effects

The literature provides solid documentation of the negative consequences of poor psychosocial functioning and behavioral problems in early childhood. Children facing economic disadvantage are at higher risk for poor socio-emotional development and problem behaviors, which draws attention to the need for prevention targeted at this risk group. The aim of our study was to analyze the impact of an evidence-based teacher-training program, the Incredible Years Teacher Classroom Management (IY-TCM), on the behavior of economically disadvantaged Portuguese children. Participants were 1030 children aged 3–6 years, from 65 preschool classrooms selected for their high percentage of children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. The study followed an experimental randomized controlled between-group design, with pre- and post-intervention assessments. Teachers in the experimental group attended the IY-TCM program, implemented in six monthly workshops, and four sessions of individual in-class support. Children outcomes were evaluated with the Preschool and Kindergarten Behavior Scales—2nd Edition (Social Skills and Problem Behavior scales). After the intervention, preschoolers in the IY-TCM classrooms showed more improvements in their social skills and more decreases in problem behavior. Children with lower levels of social skills (high risk) at pre-intervention and those coming from families in economic need showed greater improvements in social skills, but these effects were not observed for problem behavior. Results support the growing evidence of the effectiveness of the IY-TCM as a stand-alone, non-adapted program in a Portuguese cultural context, which can play a protective role in children’s lives and thus bridge the gap between children coming from different economic backgrounds.     

Applying Schema Theory to Intimate Aggression: Individual and Gender Differences in Representation of Contexts and Goals1

This study addressed individual and gender differences in the availability and content of memory representations of contexts and goals for physical aggression use in intimate relationships among university students. The contribution of victimization by one's partner to such representations was examined as well. Interaction effects in both quantitative and qualitative results indicated that perpetrator men differed from nonviolent men in measures of accessibility, providing more responses faster, and from nonviolent subjects and perpetrator women in their most frequently supplied categories of explanation for intimate aggression. Findings also provided indirect support for women's defensive uses of aggression, and evidence for the influence of emotion on memory access and content, including suppression of response time among female victims and male nonviolent victims.     

Comparative Optimism,Self-Superiority,Egocentric Impact Perception and Health Information Seeking: A COVID-19 Study

We examined perceived self-other differences (self-uniqueness) in appraisals of one’s risk of an infectious disease (COVID-19), one’s adherence to behavioural precautionary measures against the disease, and the impact of these measures on one’s life. We also examined the relationship of self-uniqueness with information seeking and trust in sources of information about the disease. We administered an online survey to a community sample (N = 8696) of Dutch-speaking individuals, mainly in Belgium and The Netherlands, during the first lockdown (late April-Mid June 2020). As a group, participants reported that they were less likely to get infected or infect others or to suffer severe outcomes than average (unrealistic optimism) and that they adhered better than average to behavioural precautionary measures (illusory superiority). Except for participants below 25, who reported that they were affected more than average by these measures (egocentric impact bias), participants also generally reported that they were less affected than average (allocentric impact bias). Individual differences in self-uniqueness were associated with differences in the number of information sources being used and trust on these sources. Higher comparative optimism for infection, self-superiority, and allocentric impact perception were associated with information being sought from fewer sources; higher self-superiority and egocentric impact perception were associated with lower trust. We discuss implications for health communication.     

Probability judgments of agency: Rational or irrational?

We studied how people attribute action outcomes to their own actions under conditions of uncertainty. Participants chose between left and right keypresses to produce an action effect (a corresponding left or right light), while a computer player made a simultaneous keypress decision. In each trial, a random generator determined which of the players controlled the action effect at varying probabilities, and participants then judged which player had produced it. Participants’ effect control ranged from 20% to 80%, varied blockwise, and they could use trial-by-trial feedback to optimize the accuracy of their agency judgments. Participants tended to attribute action effects to themselves (agency bias), probably reflecting a rational guessing strategy of always naming the more likely player. However, participants systematically neglected information favoring the computer player as the agent, even under conditions where this bias could only harm judgment accuracy. We conclude that agency biases have both rational and irrational components.     

The Impact of Face Skin Tone vs. Face Symmetry on Perceived Facial Attractiveness

The purpose of this study was to assess and compare the relative contribution of skin tone and symmetry on judgment of attractiveness regarding female faces. Two hundred and fifteen Mozambican adults were presented with a set of faces, and instructed to rate their degree of attractiveness along a continuous scale. Chi-square, factorial weight analyses and ANOVA were used to analyze the data. Face skin tone had a significant impact on the participants' attractiveness judgment of target faces. However, the target face skin tone contribution to the participants' attractiveness judgment (5% of the total variance) was much weaker than the contribution of the target face symmetry (85% of the total variance). These results imply that skin bleaching, common among Black people across sub-Saharan African countries, is not only dangerous to the health of those who practice it, but it is unlikely to make them appear much more attractive.     

The impact of body-part-naming training on the accuracy of imitative performances in 2- to 3-year-old children

A series of three experiments explored the relationship between 3-year-old children's ability to name target body parts and their untrained matching of target hand-to-body touches. Nine participants, 3 per experiment, were presented with repeated generalized imitation tests in a multiple-baseline procedure, interspersed with step-by-step training that enabled them to (i) tact the target locations on their own and the experimenter's bodies or (ii) respond accurately as listeners to the experimenter's tacts of the target locations. Prompts for on-task naming of target body parts were also provided later in the procedure. In Experiment 1, only tact training followed by listener probes were conducted; in Experiment 2, tacting was trained first and listener behavior second, whereas in Experiment 3 listener training preceded tact training. Both tact and listener training resulted in emergence of naming together with significant and large improvements in the children's matching performances; this was true for each child and across most target gestures. The present series of experiments provides evidence that naming--the most basic form of self-instructional behavior--may be one means of establishing untrained matching as measured in generalized imitation tests. This demonstration has a bearing on our interpretation of imitation reported in the behavior analytic, cognitive developmental, and comparative literature.     

The perception of changing emotion expressions

The utility of recognising emotion expressions for coordinating social interactions is well documented, but less is known about how continuously changing emotion displays are perceived. The nonlinear dynamic systems view of emotions suggests that mixed emotion expressions in the middle of displays of changing expressions may be decoded differently depending on the expression origin. Hysteresis is when an impression (e.g., disgust) persists well after changes in facial expressions that favour an alternative impression (e.g., anger). In expression changes based on photographs (Study 1) and avatar images (Studies 2a-c, 3), we found hystereses particularly in changes between emotions that are perceptually similar (e.g., anger-disgust). We also consistently found uncertainty (neither emotion contributing to the mixed expression was perceived), which was more prevalent in expression sequences than in static images. Uncertainty occurred particularly in changes between emotions that are perceptually dissimilar, such as changes between happiness and negative emotions. This suggests that the perceptual similarity of emotion expressions may determine the extent to which hysteresis and uncertainty occur. Both hysteresis and uncertainty effects support our premise that emotion decoding is state dependent, a characteristic of dynamic systems. We propose avenues to test possible underlying mechanisms.