The Moderated Influence of Internal Control: An Examination Across Health‐Related Behaviors

An extension of the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991) was used to identify whether moderated relationships exist between perceived behavioral control and theoretical constructs within the model. Study 1 examined influences of perceived internal control relative to behavioral category; for a utilitarian behavior (e.g., using sunscreen, donating blood), the moderating relation was of a cognitive nature (i.e., attitude, subjective norm), whereas for hedonic behaviors (e.g., drinking and driving, fast food consumption), the moderating relation was of a noncognitive nature (i.e., affect, past behavior). These relations were manipulated in Study 2 via the framing of neutral behaviors (i.e., chocolate and fat consumption) to explicate the hypothesized patterns of interactions. Theoretical implications of findings are discussed.     

Understanding families as systems

In this article, we discuss recent research that has arisen from theoretical and conceptual models that use a systems metaphor for understanding families. We suggest that research stimulated by such models leads social scientists in new and important directions in understanding the social and emotional development of children in their families. These models view development as resulting from the dynamic transactions across multiple levels of family systems, which regulate a child's behavior. Thus, these models are important in considering multiple influences on development and adaptation.     

Diagnostic Utility: Experimental Demonstrations and Replications of Powerful Question Effects in High‐Stakes Deception Detection

The concept of diagnostic utility was used to create questions that would differentially affect deception detection accuracy. Six deception detection studies show that subtle differences in questioning produced accuracy rates that were predictably, substantially, and reliably above and below chance. The first 3 detection studies demonstrate that diagnostically useful questioning can reliably achieve accuracy rates over 70% with student and experienced judges. The fourth and fifth experiments demonstrated negative diagnostic utility among federal investigators but not students. The final experiment crossed 3 sets of interview questions with experience. Strong question effects produced a swing in accuracy from 32 to 73%. A questioning by experience interaction was also obtained.     

Multimedia mug books: how multi should the media be?

The impact of allowing witnesses to choose the type of cues presented in multimedia mug books was explored in two experiments. In Experiment 1, participants viewed a videotaped crime and attempted to identify the perpetrator from one of three types of mug books: (a) dynamic‐combined—participants could choose to follow static mug shots with a computerized video clip combining three types of dynamic cues: the person walking, talking, and rotating; (b) dynamic‐separable—participants could limit the types of dynamic cues presented; and (c) static—just the static mug shot was presented. The dynamic‐separable condition produced significantly fewer false positive foil identifications than the static condition. Within the dynamic‐separable condition, voice was the most preferred cue. Experiment 2 explored the contribution of the individual cues. Participants attempted identifications from single dynamic cue mug books where only one type of cue was presented if a participant chose additional information. It was found that providing individual cues did not improve performance over the static mug book control. Based on the potential danger of witnesses choosing to rely on single dynamic cues, it was suggested that multimedia mug books should present dynamic cues in combination. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Using equivalence‐based instruction to teach the visual analysis of graphs

Previous research has demonstrated low rater agreement when visually inspecting trends in single‐subject design graphs (see Wolfe, Seaman, & Drasgow, 2016). Didactic instruction of visual analysis of practicing behavior analysts has resulted in generally poor and unreliable performances (Danov & Symons, 2008; Diller, Barry, & Gelino, 2016). Therefore, a refined instructional technology to improve the reliability among behavior analysts is warranted. Developing research has focused on the application of equivalence‐based instruction (Brodsky & Fienup, 2018; Rehfeldt, 2011) for a variety of complex human behaviors. In the current study, equivalence‐based instruction was used to train four participants to identify functional relations displayed in five different classes of graphs. Training resulted in the formation of five equivalence classes by all participants consisting of three members (graph, functional relation rule, and functional relation statement). In addition, the skills were maintained for up to 2 weeks and generalized to novel graphs.     

Neural correlates of conventional and harm/welfare-based moral decision-making

The degree to which social norms are processed by a unitary system or dissociable systems remains debated. Much research on children’s social-cognitive judgments has supported the distinction between “moral” (harm/welfare-based) and “conventional” norms. However, the extent to which these norms are processed by dissociable neural systems remains unclear. To address this issue, 23 healthy participants were scanned with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while they rated the wrongness of harm/welfare-based and conventional transgressions and neutral vignettes. Activation significantly greater than the neutral vignette baseline was observed in regions implicated in decision-making regions including rostral/ventral medial frontal, anterior insula and dorsomedial frontal cortices when evaluating both harm/welfare-based and social-conventional transgressions. Greater activation when rating harm/welfare-based relative to social-conventional transgressions was seen through much of ACC and bilateral inferior frontal gyrus. Greater activation was observed in superior temporal gyrus, bilateral middle temporal gyrus, left PCC, and temporal-parietal junction when rating social-conventional transgressions relative to harm/welfare-based transgressions. These data suggest that decisions regarding the wrongness of actions, irrespective of whether they involve care/harm-based or conventional transgressions, recruit regions generally implicated in affect-based decision-making. However, there is neural differentiation between harm/welfare-based and conventional transgressions. This may reflect the particular importance of processing the intent of transgressors of conventional norms and perhaps the greater emotional content or salience of harm/welfare-based transgressions.     

Child Conduct Problems Across Home and School Contexts: a Person-Centered Approach

To examine patterns of conduct problems across the home and school context, we used latent class analysis to analyze primary caregivers’ and teachers’ ratings on the conduct problems subscale of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Goodman Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 38, 581–586, 1997) in the Family Life Project (N?=?1,292), a prospective study of child development in rural and small town contexts. We found a similar four-class solution at 5 and 7 years of age. In decreasing prevalence, the following classes were identified: (1) low symptoms reported by both informants (low cross-context); (2) high parent-reported symptoms, low teacher-reported symptoms (home context); (3) low parent-reported symptoms, moderate teacher-reported symptoms (school context); and (4) high symptoms reported by both informants (high cross-context). Classes exhibited stability from age five to age seven: children were more likely to remain in the same class than to transition to a different class, and longitudinal stability was especially high for children in the low cross-context class at age 5. A number of child and family characteristics measured in early childhood (executive function, verbal ability, poverty-related risk, sensitive parenting, and parental depressive symptoms) were associated with class membership at age five and age seven, but were generally not associated with longitudinal transitions between classes.     

Medroxyprogesterone acetate impairs memory and alters the GABAergic system in aged surgically menopausal rats

In women, medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA) is the most commonly used progestin component of hormone therapy (HT). In vitro, MPA negatively impacts markers of neuronal health and exacerbates experimentally-induced neurotoxicity. There is in vitro evidence that these factors are driven by GABAergic and neurotrophic systems. Whether these effects translate to a negative impact on brain function has not been tested in vivo, clinically or preclinically. Here we evaluate the mnemonic and neurobiological effects of MPA in the surgically menopausal rat. Aged ovariectomized (OVX) rats were given subcutaneous vehicle, natural progesterone, low-dose MPA or high-dose MPA. Multiple cognitive domains were analyzed via the water radial-arm maze (WRAM) and Morris maze (MM). Cognitive brain regions were assayed for changes in the GABAergic system by evaluating GAD protein, the synthesizing enzyme for GABA, and neurotrophins. On the WRAM, both progestin types impaired learning. Further, high-dose MPA impaired delayed memory retention on the WRAM, and exacerbated overnight forgetting on the MM. While neurotrophins were not affected by progesterone or MPA treatment, both progestin types altered GAD levels. MPA significantly and progesterone marginally decreased GAD levels in the hippocampus, and both MPA and progesterone significantly increased GAD levels in the entorhinal cortex. These findings suggest that MPA, the most commonly used progestin in HT, is detrimental to learning and two types of memory, and modulates the GABAergic system in cognitive brain regions, in aged surgically menopausal rats. These findings, combined with in vitro evidence that MPA is detrimental to neuronal health, indicates that MPA has negative effects for brain health and function.