Earliest Memories and the Dynamics of Delinquency: A Replication Study

A previous study of early childhood memories (EMS) with a sample of 15 delinquents and 18 nondelinquent controls successfully identified 80% of the delinquents and 100% of the nondelinquents. Our study used 71 delinquents and 71 nondelinquent controls matched for age, whereas gender (male) and geographical area were held constant. Socioeconomic status (SES) was restricted to middle class and above. Several refinements were also made to the previous EM scoring system to make it more useful to clinicians, and four EMS were elicited rather than two in the prior study. Predictive results with a discriminant analysis were consistent with those from the previous study and were highly significant-81.7% were correctly classified as delinquents and 95.8% as nondelinquents. The study effectively validates the use of the EM scoring system for this population. The results are discussed from the standpoint of the Cognitive-Perceptual approach to EMS and current models of delinquency.     

Is family-to-work interference related to co-workers' work outcomes?

Previous studies have convincingly shown that employees' family lives can affect their work outcomes. We investigate whether family-to-work interference (FWI) experienced by the employee also affects the work outcomes of a co-worker. We predict that the employee's FWI has an effect on the co-worker's outcomes through the crossover of positive and negative work attitudes. Using a sample of 1430 co-worker dyads, we found that the employee's FWI had a positive relationship with the co-worker's sickness absence through the crossover of feelings of burnout. Similarly, employee FWI was positively related to co-worker turnover intention through the crossover of (reduced) work engagement. The results show that family matters at work, affecting not only employee but also co-worker work outcomes.     

Examining the Relation Between the Therapeutic Alliance, Treatment Adherence, and Outcome of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Children With Anxiety Disorders

Little is known about the contribution of technical and relational factors to child outcomes in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for children with anxiety disorders. This study investigated the association between treatment adherence, the child-therapist alliance, and child clinical outcomes in manual-guided individual- and group-based CBT for youths diagnosed with anxiety disorders. Trained observers rated tapes of therapy sessions for treatment adherence and child-therapist alliance in a sample of 52 children (aged 8 to 12) with anxiety disorders. Self-reported child anxiety was assessed at pre-, mid-, and posttreatment; parent-reported child internalizing symptoms was assessed at pre- and posttreatment. The results showed high levels of treatment adherence and child-therapist alliance in both CBT programs. Neither treatment adherence nor child-therapist alliance predicted traditional measurements of child outcomes in the present study, but a relation between alliance and outcome was found using a more precise estimation of the true pre-post differences. Implications of these findings for expanding our understanding of how treatment processes relate to child outcome in CBT for children with anxiety disorders are discussed.     

Religion and Self: Notions from a Cultural Psychological Perspective

After a brief introduction of a cultural psychological perspective, this paper turns to the concept of self. The paper proposes to conceive of that reality to which the concepts of self refer as a narrative, employing especially autobiographies and other ego-documents in empirical exploration. After discussing some psychological theories about “self,” the paper points out that they may well be applied in research on personal religiosity.     

Geometric and featural representations in semantic concepts

We explore the adequacy of two types of similarity representation in the context of semantic concepts. To this end, we evaluate different categorization models, assuming either a geometric or a featural representation, using categorization decisions involving familiar and unfamiliar foods and animals. The study aims to assess the optimal stimulus representation as a function of the familiarity of the stimuli. For the unfamiliar stimuli, the geometric categorization models provide the best account of the categorization data, whereas for the familiar stimuli, the featural categorization models provide the best account. This pattern of results suggests that people rely on perceptual information to assign an unfamiliar stimulus to a category but rely on more elaborate conceptual knowledge when assigning a familiar stimulus.     

Context-dependent Dynamic Processes in Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Differentiating Common and Unique Effects of <Emphasis Type="Italic">State Regulation Deficits</Emphasis> and <Emphasis Type="Italic">Delay Aversion</Emphasis>

The ability to specify differential predictions is a mark of a scientific models’ value. State regulation deficits (SRD) and delay aversion (DAv) have both been hypothesized as context-dependent dynamic dysfunctions in ADHD. However, to date there has been no systematic comparison of their common and unique elements. Here we review these hypotheses—and describe the core and secondary manifestations of the two constructs and review evidence in support of them. Second, we focus on what are seen as the hallmark indicators of the two deficits—preference of small immediate over large delayed rewards for DAv and the slow event rate effect for SRD. We describe the overlap between these two manifestations and then explore how experimental manipulations and the analysis of neuropsychological and physiological mediators of effects can allow us to differentiate these two patterns of neuropsychological dysfunction on the basis of specific predictions. Finally, we highlight the implications of neuropsychological heterogeneity for the practical implementation of tests of DAv and SRD.     

Interacting noradrenergic and corticosteroid systems shift human brain activation patterns during encoding

Emotionally arousing experiences are usually well retained, an effect that depends on the release of adrenal stress hormones. Animal studies have shown that corticosterone and noradrenaline – representing the two main stress hormone systems – act in concert to enhance memory formation by actions involving the amygdala, hippocampus and prefrontal cortex (PFC). Here we test whether interactions between these two stress hormone systems also affect human memory formation as well as the associated pattern of brain activation. To this end, forty-eight male human subjects received hydrocortisone, yohimbine or both before presentation of emotional and neutral pictures. Activity in the amygdala, hippocampus and PFC was monitored with functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) during encoding of these stimuli, when hormonal levels were elevated. Memory performance was tested 1 week later. We investigated whether an increased level of one of the two hormone systems would lead to differential effects compared to the combined application of the drugs on brain activation and memory performance. We report that the application of cortisol led to an overall enhancing effect on recognition memory, with no significant additional effect of yohimbine. However, during encoding the brain switched from amygdala/hippocampus activation with either hormone alone, to a strong deactivation of prefrontal areas under the influence of the combination of both exogenous hormones. Although we did not find evidence that exogenous stimulation of the noradrenergic and corticosteroid systems led to significant interaction effects on memory performance in this experiment, we conclude that stress hormone levels during encoding did differentially determine the activation pattern of the brain circuits here involved.     

MMPI Supplemental Scale Performance of Mexican Americans and Level of Acculturation

Mexican American and Anglo American's performance on the Wiggins Content Scales, Harris-Lingoes subscales, and Serkownek subscales was assessed in a college student population, Level of acculturation (Mexican vs. Anglo orientation), age, and social class were statistically controlled, The results showed statistically significant differences between means of Anglo and Mexican Americans on most of the supplemental scales assessed. These differences were more numerous before scale validity criteria were applied. The number of statistically significant differences were further reduced when level of acculturation and age were statistically controlled, The results showed that level of acculturation is a highly important variable which moderates interpretation of the MMPI scale elevations we measured. Acculturation far outweighted the influence of the well established MMPI moderator variables of age and social class.     

Enhancing mental health and well-being outcomes for psychotherapy and counselling through idiographic analysis: A four-quadrant approach

Mental health and well-being outcomes in psychotherapy and counselling have largely been studied through the use of standardised nomothetic measurement. A key limitation is that nomothetic measurement and current statistical analyses do not necessarily capture the outcomes of the complicated and individual psychotherapy processes. There is an increased interest in the use of idiographic patient-reported outcome measures (I-PROMs), which are uniquely useful because they may explore areas of importance that are unexplored by nomothetic outcome measures. We argue that to optimise the value of I-PROMs, it is necessary to consider their contribution alongside standardised nomothetic measures. However, there are important considerations with respect to whether or not I-PROMs from different clients, or indeed from the same client, can be meaningfully explored at a team/service level, and alongside standardised nomothetic outcomes. We provide worked examples on real client data to show that delineating four quadrants of analysis is important to explore the breadth of information: (a) individual progress on single items, (b) individual progress by aggregated scores, (c) team/service-level progress by goal item/theme and (d) team/service-level progress by aggregated scores.