A family history of psychopathology modifies the decrement in cognitive control among patients with HIV/AIDS

The present study was designed to evaluate the effect of HIV/AIDS on cognitive control and to determine if the effect is modified by familial risk for either alcohol or mood disorders. Sixty HIV-1 seropositive and 75 seronegative volunteers were assigned to four subgroups defined by the crossing of a diagnosis of alcohol dependence in the biological father with diagnoses of either major depressive disorder or bipolar disorder in the biological mother. Cognitive control was evaluated during a task in which subjects were asked, on occasion, to inhibit the impulse to respond in the same physical direction as the stimulus and instead respond in the opposite direction. Event related brain potentials and measures of task performance were recorded. The task evoked a negative shift in a late slow potential (SP) as well as an increment in reaction time when cognitive control was challenged. An important finding was an interaction between trial type, HIV/AIDS, and family history: HIV/AIDS and family history each attenuated the negative shift in the SP to such a degree that no further attenuation could be accomplished by the other. The effects of familial risk for alcohol versus mood disorders were equivalent. In conclusion, the absence of change in a late slow potential following a challenge to cognitive control may represent a marker of familial risk for both externalizing and internalizing disorders. The effects of familial risk on this slow potential are sufficiently robust as to attenuate the effects of HIV/AIDS on the probable generators of the response: the anterior cingulate and prefrontal cortex.     

Neue Medien für die gesundheitliche Versorgung

The rapid development of information and communication technologies and their broad availability open up new opportunities for psychosocial service provision. Information materials provided via the internet have the potential to improve users’ competences and thus influence their health care utilisation by allowing for more active participation. Furthermore, a great variety of e-health interventions have been developed to improve care. These interventions are not limited to specific areas of service provision but span the whole range from prevention to aftercare programs. It has been shown that such technology-enhanced interventions can help to bridge gaps in health care services in an effective way.     

Justice at the Margins: The Social Contract and the Challenge of Marginal Cases

Attempts to justify the special moral status of human beings over other animals face a well‐known objection: the challenge of marginal cases. If we attempt to ground this special status in the unique rationality of humans, then it becomes difficult to see why nonrational humans (infants, the severely cognitively disabled, and so on) should be treated any differently than other, nonhuman animals. We respond to this challenge by turning to the social contract tradition. In particular, we identify an important role for the concept of recognition in attempts to secure rights through a social contract. Recognition, which involves identifying with or seeing ourselves as others, is the key to establishing the scope of justice, and we argue that this scope extends to all humans—even the so‐called marginal cases—but not to other animals. If this is correct, then we have a principled reason for why all humans have certain rights that other animals lack.     

Growth goals, maturity, and well-being

In 2 studies (125 college students and 51 adults), 2 forms of growth goals (exploratory and intrinsic) were compared with 2 forms of personality development (social-cognitive maturity and social-emotional well-being). Participants whose narratives of major life goals emphasized conceptual exploration were especially likely to have high levels of maturity (measured as ego development; J. Loevinger, 1976), whereas those whose goals emphasized intrinsic interests (K. M. Sheldon & T. Kasser, 1995) were especially likely to have high levels of well-being. Participants who had coherent hierarchies of growth goals on the levels of major life goals and everyday goals were especially likely to have high levels of personality development. Finally, growth goals accounted for some relationships between age and personality development. Growth goals are discussed in terms of intentional self-development and specific developmental paths.     

Covert Video Surveillance of Parents Suspected of Child Abuse: The British Experience and Alternative Approaches

One million cases of child maltreatment and twelve hundred child deaths due to abuse and neglect occur per year. But since many cases of abuse and neglect remain either unreported or unsubstantiated due to insufficient evidence, the number of children who are abused, neglected, and killed at the hands of family caregivers is probably higher. One approach to combat child abuse in the U.K. has been the employment of hospital-based covert video surveillance (CVS) to monitor parents suspected of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSBP). The use of CVS, however, raises concerns about voluntary informed consent, research on human subjects, privacy, and the appropriateness of healthcare providers to conduct CVS. More broadly, the use of CVS raises concerns about the ethical life of healthcare institutions and their moral obligations to the families and communities they serve. The U.K. protocol for CVS is examined in light of these concerns. Three alternative CVS protocols and two procedures for selecting a protocol are then proposed for use in the U.S. The paper concludes that any CVS protocol selected for use by hospitals ought to be selected by means of open and democratic processes that permit community input and, subsequently, the possibility of a consensus on the moral status and scope of CVS.     

Ethical Issues in Tissue Banking for Research: A Brief Review of Existing Organizational Policies

Based on a general review of international, representative tissue banking policies that were described in the medical, ethics, and legal literature, this paper reviews the range of standards, both conceptually and in existing regulations, relevant to four main factors:(1) commercialization, (2) confidentiality, (3) informed consent, and (4) quality of research. These four factors were selected as reflective of some of the major ethical considerations that arise in the conduct of tissue banking research. The authors emphasize that any policy or ethical guidelines designed to regulate tissue bank research should address all four factors. Whenever this sort of research is conducted between several institutions or several countries, the paper suggests that the relevant entities work collaboratively to harmonize their standards.     

Continuity and change in the life story: a longitudinal study of autobiographical memories in emerging adulthood

If a person's internalized and evolving life story (narrative identity) is to be considered an integral feature of personality itself, then aspects of that story should manifest some continuity over time while also providing evidence regarding important personality change. Accordingly, college freshmen and seniors provided detailed written accounts of 10 key scenes in their life stories, and they repeated the same procedure 3 months and then 3 years later. The accounts were content analyzed for reliable narrative indices employed in previous studies of life stories: emotional tone, motivational themes (agency, communion, personal growth), and narrative complexity. The results showed substantial continuity over time for narrative complexity and positive (vs. negative) emotional tone and moderate but still significant continuity for themes of agency and growth. In addition, emerging adults (1) constructed more emotionally positive stories and showed (2) greater levels of emotional nuance and self-differentiation and (3) greater understanding of their own personal development in the 4th year of the study compared to the 1st year. The study is the first to demonstrate both temporal continuity and developmental change in narrative identity over time in a broad sampling of personally meaningful life-story scenes.     

After the storm: enduring differences in mother-child recollections of traumatic and nontraumatic events

Despite a growing literature on the collaborative reminiscing of mothers and children, little is known about the kinds of things mothers and children discuss as they recollect shared traumatic experiences. Do mother-child recollections of a traumatic event differ from their recollections of more benign events? To address this question, mother-child dyads (N=29) discussed a traumatic event, namely a devastating tornado, and two nontraumatic events (one that preceded and one that followed the tornado). Each dyad discussed all three events 4-months post-tornado and again 6 months later. Whereas conversations about both event types (traumatic and nontraumatic) varied with children's age, dyads' recollections of the tornado were significantly longer, more narratively coherent, and more complete than their recollections of nontraumatic events. These differences largely endured over the 6-month retention interval.     

Contributors to suicidal ideation among bipolar patients with and without a history of suicide attempts

This study was designed to develop models for vulnerability to suicidal ideation in bipolar patients. Logistic regression models examined correlates of suicidal ideation in patients who had versus had not attempted suicide previously. Of 477 patients assessed, complete data on demographic, illness history, and personality variables were available on 243. The regression models achieved positive predictive values of 55% and 59% for the attempter (N = 92) and nonattempter groups (N = 151), respectively. Depression was cross-sectionally associated with suicidal ideation in both the attempter and nonattempter groups but made a smaller contribution among attempters. Poor psychosocial adaptation and the personality factor "openness" were stronger contributors to suicidal ideation among prior attempters while anxiety and extraversion appeared protective against ideation. Among nonattempters, depression, anxiety, and neuroticism were the predominant influences on suicidal ideation. Bipolar patients with suicidal ideation may benefit from different treatment strategies depending on their prior attempt status.     

The role of nonlinear factor-to-indicator relationships in tests of measurement equivalence

Measurement invariance is a necessary condition for the evaluation of factor mean differences over groups or time. This article considers the potential problems that can arise for tests of measurement invariance when the true factor-to-indicator relationship is nonlinear (quadratic) and invariant but the linear factor model is nevertheless applied. The factor loadings and indicator intercepts of the linear model will diverge across groups as the factor mean difference increases. Power analyses show that even apparently small quadratic effects can result in rejection of measurement invariance at moderate sample sizes when the factor mean difference is medium to large. Recommendations include the identification of nonlinear relationships using diagnostic plots and consideration of newly developed methods for fitting nonlinear factor models.