Benefit-Finding Improves Well-Being among Women Who Have Experienced Gender Discrimination

Sex Roles - Women experience gender discrimination in numerous important life domains, which can harm psychological well-being. Benefit-finding—identifying the positive implications of having...     

Mothers' citizenship status and household food insecurity among low-income children of immigrants

Recent data have shown that children of immigrant noncitizens experience more persistent and higher levels of food insecurity than the children of citizens following welfare reform. However, little is known about the range of factors that might explain different rates of food insecurity in the different populations. In this study, the authors used national data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten cohort to assess this question, using multivariate probit regression analyses in a low-income sample. They found that households of children (foreign and U.S.-born) with noncitizen mothers are at substantially greater risk of food insecurity than their counterparts with citizen mothers and that demographic characteristics such as being Latina, levels of maternal education, and large household size explain about half of the difference in rates.     

Reliability of a Longitudinal Sequence of Scale Ratings

Reliability captures the influence of error on a measurement and, in the classical setting, is defined as one minus the ratio of the error variance to the total variance. Laenen, Alonso, and Molenberghs (Psychometrika 73:443–448, 2007) proposed an axiomatic definition of reliability and introduced the R _T coefficient, a measure of reliability extending the classical approach to a more general longitudinal scenario. The R _T coefficient can be interpreted as the average reliability over different time points and can also be calculated for each time point separately. In this paper, we introduce a new and complementary measure, the so-called R _Λ , which implies a new way of thinking about reliability. In a longitudinal context, each measurement brings additional knowledge and leads to more reliable information. The R _Λ captures this intuitive idea and expresses the reliability of the entire longitudinal sequence, in contrast to an average or occasion-specific measure. We study the measure’s properties using both theoretical arguments and simulations, establish its connections with previous proposals, and elucidate its performance in a real case study. The authors are grateful to J&J PRD for kind permission to use their data. We gratefully acknowledge support from Belgian IUAP/PAI network “Statistical Techniques and Modeling for Complex Substantive Questions with Complex Data.”     

Targeting Co-Sleeping in Children With Anxiety Disorders Using a Modified Bedtime Pass Intervention: A Case Series Using a Changing Criterion Design

Children with anxiety disorders experience high rates of sleep-related problems, with co-sleeping and resistance to sleeping independently being among the more frequent problems reported. Although extinction-based behavioral sleep interventions have repeatedly been shown to be highly effective for treating bedtime resistance, the primary obstacle to their implementation is parent discomfort with these procedures. The bedtime pass intervention was developed to minimize extinction bursts when implementing extinction procedures for childhood sleep problems. Several studies have found this intervention to be effective for treating bedtime resistance behaviors, but not co-sleeping specifically, in nonclinical samples of children. The current paper describes the use of a modified bedtime pass procedure to target problematic co-sleeping and related bedtime resistance behaviors in two children with anxiety disorders who presented for treatment at an outpatient pediatric anxiety specialty clinic. A changing criterion, single subject methodology was used to evaluate the effectiveness of this procedure. Data indicate that both children were able to transition from co-sleeping with parents every night, to sleeping independently, with relatively limited need for contact with parents at night during the intervention. These findings extend the data for the bedtime pass procedure to both co-sleeping and children with anxiety disorders. Clinical implications of these findings are discussed given the limited guidance for treating comorbid sleep problems in anxious children. Strengths and limitations of the data being drawn from a clinical treatment setting are also discussed.     

Analysis of Recruitment Strategies: Enrolling Veterans With PTSD Into a Clinical Trial

This analysis evaluated the efficacy of a variety of recruitment methods employed in a medication trial in a veteran population. Recruitment and demographic data were collected over the course of a randomized controlled trial (RCT) assessing the efficacy of an experimental medication for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Multivariate logistic regression was used to identify demographic and recruitment variables predictive of consenting to participation in the trial. Data were collected for 1,050 potential study participants. As compared with individuals contacted by mail based on chart review, potential participants who were referred by a clinician were 3 times more likely to consent to participate, and individuals who responded to an advertisement were 5 times more likely to consent to participate. Females were more likely to respond to advertisements, whereas males were more likely to be referred. Those who were referred were significantly older than potential participants identified via the directed mailing. Clinician referral was the method most likely to lead to identifying an eligible and willing participant. When designing a recruitment plan for a clinical trial, factors such as the target sample and available staff should be carefully considered.     

Reputation-like inference in domestic dogs (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Canis familiaris</Emphasis>)

Humans frequently interact with strangers absent prior direct experience with their behavior. Some conjecture that this may have favored evolution of a cognitive system within the hominoid clade or perhaps the primate order to assign reputations based on third-party exchanges. However, non-primate species’ acquisition of skills from experienced individuals, attention to communicative cues, and propensity to infer social rules suggests reputation inference may be more widespread. We utilized dogs’ sensitivity to humans’ social and communicative cues to explore whether dogs evidenced reputation-like inference for strangers through third-party interactions. Results indicated dogs spontaneously show reputation-like inference for strangers from indirect exchanges. Further manipulations revealed that dogs continued to evidence this ability despite reduction of specific components of the observed interactions, including reduction of visual social cues (i.e., face-to-face contact between the participants in the interaction) and the nature of the recipient (i.e., living, animate agent versus living, inanimate self-propelled agent). Dogs also continued to demonstrate reputation-like inference when local enhancement was controlled and in a begging paradigm. However, dogs did not evidence reputation-like inference when the observed interaction was inadvertent.     

The sensitivity of judgment-of-learning resolution to past test performance,new learning,and forgetting

When people judge their learning of items across study–test trials, their accuracy in discriminating between learned and unlearned items improves on the second trial. We examined the source of this improvement by estimating the contribution of three factors—memory for past test performance (MPT), new learning, and forgetting—to accuracy on trial 2. In Experiment 1, during an initial trial, participants studied paired associates, made a judgment of learning (JOL) for each one, and were tested. During the second trial, we manipulated two variables: when the JOL was made (either immediately before or after studying an item) and whether participants were told the outcome of the initial recall attempt on trial 1. In Experiment 2, the same procedure was used with a 1-week retention interval between study and test on trial 2. In both experiments, JOL resolution was higher on trial 2 than on trial 1. Fine-grained analyses of JOL magnitude and decomposition of resolution supported several conclusions. First, MPT contributed the most to boosts in JOL magnitude and improvements in resolution across trials. Second, JOLs and subsequent resolution were sensitive to new learning and forgetting, but only when participants’ judgments were made after study. Thus, JOLs appear to integrate information from multiple factors, and these factors jointly contribute to JOL resolution.     

The influence of agenda-based and habitual processes on item selection during study

Research on study-time allocation has largely focused on agenda-based regulation, such as whether learners select items for study that are in their region of proximal learning. In 4 experiments, the authors evaluated the contribution of habitual responding to study-time allocation (e.g., reading from left to right). In Experiments 1 and 2, participants selected items for study from a 3-item array. In Experiment 1, pairs were ordered by learning ease from left to right or in the reverse order. In Experiment 2, pairs were in a column with the easiest item either in the top or bottom position. Participants more likely chose to study the easiest item first when it was presented in the prominent position of an array, but when the difficult item was in the prominent position, it was more often chosen first for study. In Experiment 3, a 3 × 3 array was used. In 1 group, the 3 easy items were in the left column and the 3 difficult ones were in the right column; in another group, these columns were reversed. Participants largely chose items in a top-down or left-to-right order. In Experiment 4, items were presented sequentially for item selection, with either the difficult items presented first (followed by progressively easier items) or in the reverse order. Participants could choose half the items for restudy, and they were more likely to choose items presented earlier in the list, regardless of presentation order. These and other outcomes indicate that both agenda-based regulation (in terms of using the region of proximal learning) and habitual responding contribute to people's selection of items for study.