Parental Emotion Socialization in Clinically Depressed Adolescents: Enhancing and Dampening Positive Affect

This study compared parental socialization of adolescent positive affect in families of depressed and healthy adolescents. Participants were 107 adolescents (42 boys) aged 14 – 18 years and their parents. Half of the participants met criteria for major depressive disorder and the others were demographically matched adolescents without emotional or behavioral disorders. Results based on multi-source questionnaire and interview data indicated that mothers and fathers of depressed adolescents were less accepting of adolescents’ positive affect and more likely to use strategies that dampen adolescents’ positive affect than were parents of healthy adolescents. Additionally, fathers of depressed adolescents exhibited fewer responses likely to enhance the adolescents’ positive affect than were fathers of healthy adolescents. These findings build on those of previous work in examining parental responses to adolescent emotions, focusing on positive emotions and including both mothers and fathers.     

SASB: A Bridge Between Personality Theory and Clinical Psychology

The World Wide Web has inarguably become an integral part of the daily lives of the majority of the world's population. Many people spend more time online than with any given person on any particular day, yet the cognitive impact of being online remains understudied in psychology. We examine the research that has been done, and relate other related research findings, in an effort to attract more research to this area. We analyze some of the key factors that may have an impact on what and how we learn online, whether we are interacting with the cloud mind interpreted by Google or with other people via text based communication. We investigate how this development changes our perception of reality and how we may evaluate online information in ways that differ from face-to-face encounters. Living our lives in cyberspace changes what kinds of information we most frequently process and how we habitually deploy our cognitive resources, for better and for worse. When people interact with the Internet they may adopt particular mind-sets, modulating basic psychological processes. We integrate disparate lines of research in an effort to provide avenues for future investigation.     

Climbing the Alchemical Mountain

Using Thomas Vaughan's allegory of the mountain as a backdrop and drawing insights from the myth of Demeter and Persephone, this article elaborates on the challenging and paradoxical path toward individuation, which, in this case, is metaphorically expressed as climbing a mountain. Although, at first, it is often assumed that individuation is a straightforward process of moving forward and upward, this article demonstrates that this is not the case. Rather, individuation is a complex endeavor that initially takes one down instead of up. In other words, to climb the mountain is to encounter the prima materia, to come face to face with one's shadow, and to take the many unforeseen detours away from the ego's fixed goals. In the end, what is discovered is that one never attains the mystery (or reaches the top) by strength and will alone, but rather by divine grace, which the alchemical literature describes as the aqua permanens, the “stream of living water from the summit of the mountain.”     

Response to commentary on the multimodal treatment study of ADHD (MTA): mining the meaning of the MTA

In the December 2000 issue of the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, we published a set of papers presenting secondary analyses of the Multimodal Treatment Study of ADHD (MTA), and R. A. Barkley (2000) provided a commentary. A critique of the design of the study (MTA Cooperative Group, 1999) was presented based on a theoretical perspective of a behavioral inhibition deficit that has been hypothesized as the core deficit of ADHD (R. A. Barkley, 1997). The commentary questioned the design and analysis of the MTA in terms of (1) the empirical criteria for selection of components of behavioral (Beh) intervention, (2) the effectiveness of the Beh intervention, (3) the methods for analyses at the group and individual level, (4) implications of the MTA findings for clinical practice, (5) the role of genetics in response to treatment, and (6) the lack of a nontreatment control group. In this response, we relate the content of the papers to the commentary, (1) by reviewing the selection criteria for the Beh treatment, as outlined by K. C. Wells, W. E. Pelham, et al. (2000), (2) by addressing the myth that the MTA Beh treatment was ineffective (Pelham, 1999), (3) by describing the use of analyses at the level of the individual participant, as presented by J. S. March et al. (2000) and W. E. Pelham et al. (2000) as well as elsewhere by J. M. Swanson et al. (2001) and C. K. Conners et al. (2001), (4) by relating some of the suggestions from the secondary analyses about clinically relevant factors such as comorbidity (as presented by J. S. March et al., 2000) and family and parental characteristics (as presented by B. Hoza et al., 2000, S. P. Hinshaw et al., 2000, and K. C. Wells, J. N. Epstein, et al., 2000), (5) by discussing the statistical concept of heritability and the lack of a significant difference in the presence of ADHD symptoms in parents of the MTA families compared to parents in the classmate-control families (as presented by J. N. Epstein, et al., 2000), and (6) by acknowledging that an ethically necessary weakness of the MTA design is that it did not include a no-treatment control group. We discuss the use of secondary analyses to suggest how, when, and for what subgroups effectiveness of the Beh treatment may have been manifested. Finally, we invite others to use the large and rich data set that will soon be available in the public domain, to perform secondary analyses to mine the meaning of the MTA and to evaluate theories of ADHD and response to treatments.     

Responsiveness in Interactions of Mothers and Sons with ADHD: Relations to Maternal and Child Characteristics

We observed mother–child interactions, at baseline, in 136 families of 7–10-year-old boys with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) who were part of a large clinical trial, the Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with ADHD. Independent coders rated stylistic aspects of maternal behavior and factor analyses revealed a responsiveness factor that included overall responsiveness and sensitivity to the child, warmth and acceptance, and appropriate control. We examined relations between maternal responsiveness and (a) maternal depressive symptoms and maternal childhood ADHD symptoms, and (b) boys' ADHD and conduct problem symptoms. Controlling for all other variables, maternal responsiveness displayed a unique negative association with mother-reported child conduct problems, but not with child ADHD symptoms, and also was negatively related to maternal depressive symptoms. We discuss the unique association between mother-reported child conduct problems and parenting, and note the utility of studying parenting style in families of children with ADHD. We describe the results within the framework of a transactional model.     

Sex and birth order differences in filial behavior

Personal interviews were conducted with 499 children of elderly white widows. Results showed no birth order differences in the provision of assistance to the elderly; however, there were significant sex differences. Daughters performed more caretaking activities and social services and provided more emotional support for their mothers than did sons. Sons had a tendency, though insignificant, to provide more advisory assistance to their mothers. After adjusting for situational differences between daughters and sons a sex difference remained only for the provision of emotional support.     

Family Support and Conflict: Prospective Relations to Adolescent Depression

The relations between family support, family conflict, and adolescent depressive symptomatology were examined longitudinally in a sample of 231 female and 189 male adolescents and their mothers. Structural equation models revealed that less supportive and more con-flictual family environments were associated with greater depressive symptomatology both concurrently and prospectively over a 1-year period. Conversely, adolescent depressive symptomatology did not predict deterioration in family relationships. Depressive symptomatology and, to a greater extent, family characteristics showed high levels of stability over the 1-year period. Counter to our expectations, the relations between family variables and depressive symptomatology were similar for boys and girls. The results suggest that the quality of family interactions is relevant for understanding the development of depressive symptoms in adolescents.     

Pupillary and heart rate reactivity in children with minimal brain dysfunction

This study attempted to replicate and extend previous findings on autonomic arousal and responsivity in children with diagnoses of minimal brain dysfunction (MBD). Pupil size, heart rate, skin conductance, and skin temperature were recorded from 32 MBD and 45 control children during a session that included presentation of visual stimuli, simple reaction time (RT), a cold pressor procedure, and rest periods. The MBD children were tested both off and on clinical dosages of stimulant drugs in a crossover design. Evidence of higher than normal arousal levels in the unmedicated MBD Ss was obtained from resting skin conductance and, more tenuously, from pupil size. Lower phasic responsivity in the MBD children was evidenced by slower RT, less cardiac deceleration to both light and RT stimuli, and smaller pupil dilation to the RT stimuli. Spontaneous pupillary constrictions during rest periods, presumably indicating drowsiness, were observed about equally in MBD and control children. Stimulant drugs raised arousal levels but did not reverse the responsivity deficits. The lower phasic reactivity in the MBD group and the effects of stimulant drugs on arousal indices confirm earlier reports. The finding of higher arousal in drug-free MBD children is incompatible with the low arousal hypothesis of MBD but is consistent with a previous report of the effects of a stimulating environment on these children.This work was supported in part by a grant from the Ittleson Family Foundation. The authors thank Frank Abate for technical assistance.     

Adaptation to displaced vision: Evidence for transfer of adaptation and long-lasting aftereffects

Aftereffects following a single exposure to visual rearrangement last for 48 h and longer. Following multiple spaced exposures to visual rearrangement, aftereffects persisted for at least 2 weeks. Over the course of the multiple exposures, subjects showed diminished scatter when pointing without sight of hand to visual targets but did not show diminished constant errors. Adaptation achieved in one visuomotor transferred nearly perfectly to a test situation involving somewhat different movement demands.     

Familial Aggregation of ADHD Characteristics

Patterns of familial aggregation of ADHD symptoms in parents of ADHD and non-ADHD children were examined. Within the ADHD sample, symptom aggregation was examined as a function of biological relationship, parent and child gender, and children's comorbid diagnoses. Participants consisted of parents of 579 children with ADHD, Combined Type participating in the multimodal treatment study of children with ADHD and parents of 288 normal control participants. Adult symptoms of ADHD were measured by both self-report and report of a significant other. Results indicated that the parents of children with ADHD had higher ratings of inattention/cognitive problems, hyperactivity/restlessness, impulsivity/emotional lability, and lower self-concept than parents of children without ADHD on both self-report and other-report ratings. Within the ADHD sample of children, other-report ratings of inattention/cognitive problems and impulsivity/emotional lability were higher for biological parents compared to nonbiological parents whereas self-ratings were not related to biological status. These findings support previous research documenting familial aggregation of ADHD and appear to strengthen the hypothesis that there is a genetic contribution to ADHD.