Anxiety in Swedish School Children: Situational Specificity,Informant Variability and Coping Strategies

In a school sample, 463 Swedish children aged between 8 and 12 years reported their experience of anxiety during 11 "typical" home and school setting activities. In addition to rating the frequency and type of anxiety experienced, the children reported whether they used coping strategies to reduce their anxiety. Parents and teachers also rated the anxiety levels in the same children. Nine percent of the children reported that they experienced anxiety "often" during at least 1 of the 11 home and school activities and 1.5% reported an anxiety level of "often" averaged across all of the 11 activities. The parents reported that 9% of the children experienced "moderate" to "very much" anxiety levels averaged across the home-related activities, whereas the teachers reported that 38.5% of the children had such anxiety levels at school. Overall, the children's ratings of their frequency levels of anxiety were found to depend more on age than on gender. The children and their parents both regarded anxiety to be most common during "leaving home for school" and "going to bed at night" activities. The correspondence between child, parent and teacher reports of overall anxiety in the children was low; similar findings were obtained for anxiety among children in the various setting activities. The 8-year-old children reported a higher use of various coping strategies than did the 12-year-olds. The results are discussed in view of the current literature on anxiety and fears in children.     

Effect of Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Tests on Health Behaviour and Anxiety: A Survey of Consumers and Potential Consumers

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic tests can be purchased over the internet. Some companies claim to provide relative genetic risks for various diseases and thus encourage healthy behaviour. There are concerns that exposure to such information may actually discourage healthy behaviour or increase health anxiety. An online survey was conducted (n?=?275). Respondents were composed of individuals who had purchased a DTC genetic test and received their results (consumers, n?=?189), as well as individuals who were either awaiting test results or considering purchasing a test (potential consumers, n?=?86). Consumers were asked if their health behaviour or health anxiety had changed after receiving their results. Respondents’ current health behaviour and health anxiety were queried and compared. In total, 27.3 % of consumers claimed a change in health behaviour, all either positive or neutral, with no reported cessation of any existing health behaviour. A change in health anxiety was claimed by 24.6 % of consumers, 85.3 % of which were a reduction. Consumers had significantly better health behaviour scores than potential consumers (p?=?0.02), with no significant difference in health anxiety. This study points towards an association between receipt of DTC genetic test results and increased adoption of healthy behaviours for a minority of consumers based on self-report, with more mixed results in relation to health anxiety.     

The role of illness perceptions in the attachment-related process of affect regulation

Abstract

Based on the predictions of the attachment theory and the Common Sense Model of illness perceptions, the current study focused on the role played by illness perceptions in explaining the path linking attachment orientations to negative affect during recovery from cardiac illness. We predicted two putative mechanisms: (1) illness perceptions would mediate the direct association between attachment-related insecurity (especially attachment anxiety) and levels of distress at follow-up and (2) illness perceptions would interact with attachment orientations (attachment avoidance in particular) in explaining patients' distress. The sample consisted of 111 male patients admitted to the Cardiac Care Unit of the Meir Medical Center, located in the central region of Israel. Patients completed a measure of attachment orientations during hospitalization (baseline). One month later, patients' illness perceptions were measured. Patients' depression and anxiety symptoms were measured at baseline and at the six-month follow-up. The associations between attachment-related anxiety and anxiety symptoms at follow-up were fully mediated by illness perceptions. Attachment-related avoidance was found to interact with illness perceptions in the prediction of depressive symptoms at follow-up. The findings shed light on the possible dynamics among personality, cognitive appraisals, and affect regulation efforts when coping with illness.     

Parts function as perceptual organizational entities in infancy

Both objects and parts function as organizational entities in adult perception. Prior research has indicated that objects affect organization early in life: Infants grouped elements located within object boundaries and segregated them from those located on different objects. Here, we examined whether parts also induce grouping in infancy. Five- and 6.5-month-olds were habituated to two-part objects containing element pairs. In a subsequent test, infants treated groupings of elements that crossed part boundaries as novel, in comparison with groupings that had shared a common part during habituation. In contrast, the same arrangement of elements failed to elicit evidence of grouping in control conditions in which the elements were not surrounded by closed part boundaries. Thus, infants grouped and segregated elements on the basis of part structure. Part-based processing is a key aspect of many theories of perception. The present research adds to this literature by indicating that parts function as organizational entities early in life.     

Father–Daughter Communication About Sex Moderates the Association Between Exposure to MTV’s 16 and Pregnant/Teen Mom and Female Students’ Pregnancy-Risk Behavior

MTV’s hit programs 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom have been the subject of national debate since their inception. Supporters contend that the shows inhibit pregnancy-risk behavior. Critics contend that the shows glamorize adolescent motherhood and encourage pregnancy-risk behavior. The present study explored the possibility that the association between viewing 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom and student females’ pregnancy-risk behavior depends on the extent to which females’ parents communicated with them about sex while they were growing up. Survey data were gathered from 313 female students. A disordinal interaction was found between father–daughter sexual communication, viewing frequency, and recent intercourse behavior. Frequent viewing was associated with an increased probability of having engaged in recent intercourse for females whose fathers did not communicate with them about sex while growing up. Conversely, frequent viewing was associated with a decreased probability of having engaged in recent intercourse for females whose fathers often communicated about sex with them while growing up. No interaction was found between mother–daughter sexual communication, viewing frequency, and recent intercourse behavior. These results suggest that fathers may play an especially important role in determining how sexual media socialize their daughters.     

Attentional biases for faces and body parts

In four experiments, we examined whether faces and body parts are processed faster and engage attention more than other objects. Participants searched for a green among blue frames and were asked to make speeded categorical decisions on an object presented within the target frame (e.g., was it food?). On half of the trials a colour singleton (a red frame) was also present and reaction times to targets were measured as a function of the object category within the singleton. The results show that categorical judgements of faces (Experiments 1–3) and body parts (Experiment 4) in the target frame were significantly faster as compared to other object categories. Furthermore, the cost associated with presenting a face or body part in the singleton frame was greater than the cost when another type of object was in the singleton. These results suggest an attentional bias towards stimuli of sociobiological significance such as faces and body parts.     

Attention to distinguishing features in object recognition

This study advances the hypothesis that, in the course of object recognition, attention is directed to distinguishing features: visual information that is diagnostic of object identity in a specific context. In five experiments, observers performed an object categorization task involving drawings of fish (Experiments 1–4) and photographs of natural sea animals (Experiment 5). Allocation of attention to distinguishing and non-distinguishing features was examined using primed-matching (Experiment 1) and visual probe (Experiments 2, 4, 5) methods, and manipulated by spatial precuing (Experiment 3). Converging results indicated that in performing the object categorization task, attention was allocated to the distinguishing features in a context-dependent manner, and that such allocation facilitated performance. Based on the view that object recognition, like categorization, is essentially a process of discrimination between probable alternatives, the implications of the findings for the role of attention to distinguishing features in object recognition are discussed.     

Uses and abuses of theory: a group analytic perspective

Group therapy occupies a curious and ambiguous status in the overall mental health field: groups are recognized and marginalized, sought after and avoided, respected and dismissed as second best to individual therapy. Groups are now practised widely in many services, probably because of the pressure of referrals and increased concern about funding, but even then have a secondary status. The under-recognition of both the value and complexity of groups seems to parallel the problems of theory which are part of the group psychotherapeutic culture. Rather than attempt a comprehensive theory of groups in this article, I intend to present some of the problems about theory and its link to practice, focusing particularly on the ambivalence about groups that I see as a continuing concern. I do so from a position which values theory, seeing in theory the container of understanding which guides psychotherapeutic practice. I do not identify with a critical position which rejects theory. This position recognizes fully the risks and dangers of over-theorizing, the potential to distort human contact through a rigid adherence to theory; however, I write in the spirit of appreciating theory thoughtfully applied as without theory, our work might be impoverished and even impeded.