The effects of family composition,family health,parenting behavior and environmental stress on children's divorce adjustment

The traditional family composition model of children's divorce adjustment was compared to a family competence model. Subjects included 81 children whose parents remained married, were divorced, or were divorced and subsequently remarried. Divorced families had been separated for between 24 and 48 months. Custodial parents completed questionnaires regarding family functioning, occurrence of stressful life events, and child's psychosocial adjustment. Children completed questionnaires regarding parenting behaviors and self-esteem. A trained examiner conducted a structured diagnostic interview of the child. Multivariate analysis of covariance showed that family composition had a significant effect on the occurrence of stressful events and change in income but not children's adjustment. Hierarchical multiple regression correlations indicated the most powerful predictors of child adjustment were family competence variables which accounted for 21% of the variance in child adjustment scores. In contrast, family composition accounted for only 8% of variance in child adjustment scores. Further, hierarchical multiple regression correlations indicated that higher levels of family functioning were associated with families where parental hostility was low and parents displayed few rejecting behaviors while practicing consistent and appropriate discipline.     

Visual identity and uncertainty in repetition blindness

Repetition blindness (RB) was investigated in 6 experiments. In the first 3 experiments participants detected vowel targets in 11-letter sequences. When all letters were uppercase, detection was poorer for same (e.g., AA) than for different (e.g., AO) targets. However, when one target was uppercase and the other lowercase, RB was found only for targets visually identical except for size (e.g., Oo), not for visually different pairs (e.g., Aa). Experiment 4 found RB for visually identical versus different consonant-vowel-consonant words. Experiments 5 and 6 replicated Kanwisher's (1987) experiment in which RB was insensitive to word case but revealed these effects to be artifacts of poor recognition of 5-letter words coupled with a biased guessing strategy. Overall, these experiments found RB only at a low level of visual information processing.     

Fixed-interval responding under second-order schedules of food presentation or cocaine injection.

Squirrel monkeys operated a key under second-order schedules in which every tenth completion of a 5-minute fixed interval resulted in either presentation of food or intravenous injection of cocaine. When a 2-second light was presented at the completion of the component fixed-interval schedules, positively accelerated responding developed and was maintained in each component. Over a tenfold range of doses of cocaine(30 to 300 microgram/kg/injection) and amounts of food (0.75 to 7.5 g/presentation); the second-order schedule of cocaine injection maintained higher average rates of responding than the second-order schedule of food presentation. Substituting saline for cocaine or eliminating food presentation decreased average rates of responding. When no stimulus change occurred at the completion of the first nine component fixed-interval schedules, but the 2-second light and food presentation or cocaine injection still occurred after the tenth component, only low and relatively constant rates of responding were maintained in each component. Patterns of responding characteristic of 5-minute fixed-interval schedules were maintained by the 2-second light paired with either cocaine injection or food presentation, though the maximum frequency of cocaine injection or food presentation was less than once per 50 minutes.     

Divorce in the kibbutz: Past and present

In the kibbutz today, there are no ideological or economic barriers to prevent a couple from deciding to divorce. Both husband and wife are assured continued economic security and equal opportunities for co-parenting, thus reducing fears of disruption in the daily contact with the children. In spite of these favorable circumstances, marital breakups in the kibbutz are less frequent than in the larger cities in Israel. In recent years, however, at a time when a stronger and more intensive family life has gained legitimacy within the kibbutz structure, there is a marked tendency toward a rise in the rate of divorce. In this article we analyze the possible causes of the variations in the frequency of divorce within the kibbutz framework.The authors express appreciation to Esther Mivtzari, a psychologist on the staff of the Kibbutz Child and Family Clinic and a member of the religious kibbutz Ein-Tzurim, for assistance in gathering data on divorce in the religious kibbitzum.     

Associative facilitation of word recognition as measured from a neutral prime

It is shown that lexical decision times to strong associates with an associative strength of approximately 40% are facilitated relative to targets following a neutral prime, “blank,” whereas very weak associates with an associative strength of less then 3% are neither facilitated nor inhibited. It is also shown that relative to the “blank” baseline time, a row of crosses inhibits processing of the following target. The latter finding has implications for earlier studies that have used crosses as a neutral prime. In these studies, facilitation effects have been overestimated and inhibition effects have been underestimated. Neely 1976 has proposed a predict-and-match strategy according to which subjects are assumed to predict one or more targets from the prime and to match the actual target onto the predicted targets. A part of this theory is not supported by the present data. The results are discussed in terms of the two-process theory of expectancy (Posner & Snyder, 1975). They are also considered in the light of a recent theory by Becker (1980). As an alternative interpretation of part of the reported data, a coherence assumption by the subjects about all reading materials is introduced.     

Retrieval independence between parts and wholes in successive recognition tasks

Participants studied AB word pairs and completed three recognition tests. In one recognition test each A word was presented with two distractors that did not appear on the study list. In another recognition test each B word was presented with two distractors that did not appear on the study list. In a third recognition test an AB target was presented with two distractors composed of words not on the study list. Six different groups of participants each performed the recognition tests in a different order, so that all possible orders were tested. Recognition of the A, B, and AB targets for a given study pair were independent of each other when single-word recognition preceded double-word recognition. There was almost complete independence in the reverse order. Even when recognition judgements were restricted to those for which the participants were most confident, there was independence of recognition among the three tests. A pair recognition test served as an additional study trial for the individual words; however, the reverse was not the case. All of these results were predicted by a single three-parameter mathematical model derived from the hypothesis that single-word and double-word targets had independent representations in memory.     

Sex differences in ADHD: Conference summary

Clinical samples of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have been dominated by males. Consequently, female manifestations and sex differences have been relatively neglected in the extensive ADHD research. Because ADHD is so common (3% to 5% of school children) and chronic (lifelong in many cases), even a small proportion of females multiplied by such a large base means hundreds of thousands of girls and women with ADHD, a significant public health problem. An NIMH conference concluded that research is needed not only on sex differences related to ADHD, but also on manifestations of ADHD in females as such. Areas of focus should include differences in life course (sex-differential age effects); effects of hormones; effects of ADHD parenting (in utero and postnatal) on the next generation; response to and implications for design of psychosocial treatment; effects of differential comorbidity; normative background sex differences that influence the manifestation of ADHD; differences in development of verbal fluency and social behavior; possible interactions of sex and ethnicity; a prospective study of both sex offspring of ADHD adults; and such methodological issues as appropriate instruments and diagnostic thresholds, power to prevent false negatives, valid impairment measures, validity and reliability of child self-reports, and more inclusive samples (all three subtypes: inattentive, hyperactive-impulsive, and combined).The following participants in the November 16–17, 1994, NIMH Conference on Sex Differences in ADHD may be considered ghost co-authors of the contents in this summary. Special thanks are due to Euthymia Hibbs, Ph.D., co-organizer of the conference; Peter Jensen, M.D., who suggested the successful format; Delores Parron, Ph.D., who gave much helpful advice on the conference arrangements; Emily Areia, Ph.D., who thoroughly critiqued the summary; Joan Cole, who helped abstract the recorded proceedings; and Jose Bauermeister, Ph. D., F. Xavier Castellanos, M.D., Stephen Hinshaw, Ph.D., and Mark Stein, Ph.D., who helped with referencing. Other participants, in alphabetical order, included Russell Barkley, Ph.D.; Joseph Biederman, M.D.; Caryn Carlson, Ph.D.; C. Keith Conners, Ph.D.; Monique Ernst, M.D.; Miranda Gaub; Jay N. Giedd, M.D.; Michael Gordon, Ph.D.; Jeffrey Halperin, Ph. D.; Betsy Hoza, Ph.D.; Hans Huessy, M.D.; Jean King, Ph.D.; Kathleen Kiely; Rachel Klein, Ph.D.; Benjamin Lahey, Ph.D.; Jan Loney, Ph.D.; Elizabeth Lorch, Ph.D.; Spero Manson, Ph.D.; Keith McBurnett, Ph.D.; Richard Milich, Ph.D.; Douglas Novins, M.D.; Daisy Pascualvaca, Ph.D.; Linda Pfiffner, Ph.D.; Jane Steinberg, Ph.D.; James Swanson, Ph.D.; Marcus Thomeer, Ph.D.; Lillie Williams, M.D.; Alan Zametkin, M.D.The opinions expressed herein are the views of the author and conference participants and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the National Institute of Mental Health or any other part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.     

Moving Beyond Self‐Report: Implicit Associations about Death/Life Prospectively Predict Suicidal Behavior among Veterans

Reliance on self‐report limits clinicians' ability to accurately predict suicidal behavior. In this study the predictive validity of an objective measure, the death/suicide Implicit Association Test (d/sIAT), was tested among psychiatrically hospitalized veterans. Following acute stabilization, 176 participants completed the d/sIAT and traditional suicide risk assessments. Participants had similar d/sIAT scores regardless of whether they had recently attempted suicide. However, d/sIAT scores significantly predicted suicide attempts during the 6‐month follow‐up above and beyond other known risk factors for suicidal behavior (OR = 1.89; 95% CI: 1.15–3.12; based on 1SD increase). The d/sIAT may augment the accuracy of suicide risk assessment.