Family Involvement in a Whole-School Bullying Intervention: Mothers’ and Fathers’ Communication and Influence with Children

Research indicates that involving families in school efforts to prevent and manage bullying behaviour is essential to success. Parents can influence their children's involvement in bullying situations by modelling positive social behaviour, offering advice about appropriate responses to bullying, and encouraging help-seeking. This paper reports family-related findings from the three-year group randomized control trial of the Friendly Schools Friendly Families (FSFF) intervention, which provided training and whole-school, classroom and family resources to build the capacity of schools to prevent bullying victimization and perpetration. Over 1400 parents and carers of Grades 2, 4 and 6 school students completed a survey at baseline and two post-tests. Parents exposed to the FSFF parent component received resources about ways to reduce bullying, build parenting skills and enhance parent–child communication; they also completed home activities with their children; and were encouraged to engage with their children’s school to reduce bullying. Mothers and fathers reported significant increases in the frequency of discussions with their child about bullying. Mothers were more likely than fathers to give pro-social, passive and help-seeking advice compared to fathers, who were more likely to encourage their child to ‘fight back’. The intervention improved fathers’ perceptions of their influence on children’s responses to being bullied. These results highlight the importance of working with both male and female caregivers when addressing children’s bullying behaviour. The findings also demonstrate that a parent intervention can have a positive impact on parent–child communication about bullying when it is an integral part of a whole-school approach.     

Piéron's Law holds during stroop conflict: insights into the architecture of decision making

Piéron's Law describes the relationship between stimulus intensity and reaction time. Previously (Stafford & Gurney, 2004), we have shown that Piéron's Law is a necessary consequence of rise-to-threshold decision making and thus will arise from optimal simple decision-making algorithms (e.g., Bogacz, Brown, Moehlis, Holmes, & Cohen, 2006). Here, we manipulate the color saturation of a Stroop stimulus. Our results show that Piéron's Law holds for color intensity and color-naming reaction time, extending the domain of this law, in line with our suggestion of the generality of the processes that can give rise to Piéron's Law. In addition, we find that Stroop condition does not interact with the effect of color saturation; Stroop interference and facilitation remain constant at all levels of color saturation. An analysis demonstrates that this result cannot be accounted for by single-stage decision-making algorithms which combine all the evidence pertaining to a decision into a common metric. This shows that human decision making is not information-optimal and suggests that the generalization of current models of simple perceptual decision making to more complex decisions is not straightforward.     

Experimentally manipulated high in‐group status can buffer personal self‐esteem against discrimination

We present an experiment in which the relative status of an in‐group and the discriminatory nature of a decision maker's intergroup behaviour (in‐group‐favouring/out‐group‐favouring/even‐handed) were independently manipulated to observe their effects on self‐esteem. Adopting a Social Identity Theory framework, and following from previous empirical work, we predicted that discrimination against one's in‐group would lead to lower self‐esteem among members of a low‐status group but not among members of a high‐status group. This prediction was confirmed. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A preliminary investigation of reaction time variability in relation to social functioning in children evaluated for ADHD

Reaction time variability (RTV) is a ubiquitous phenomenon in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Few studies have examined RTV in relation to functional outcomes such as social impairment in children with ADHD. In this exploratory study, we investigated whether RTV is associated with social functioning in children at risk for ADHD. Specifically, we explored the association between RTV (tau derived from correct go trials of a Stop-Signal task) and social functioning in 198 children ages 7–12 years referred for an ADHD evaluation. Social functioning measures included child and/or parent ratings of social competence, aggression, social problems, and impairment in relationships. In regression analyses that also included Oppositional Defiant Disorder symptoms and sex, higher RTV was significantly associated with lower ratings of social competence, and higher proactive/reactive aggression ratings on the child self-report measures. RTV was not significantly associated with parent report of social functioning or relationship impairment. This study provides preliminary evidence that RTV may be associated with social functioning in children at risk for ADHD. We propose that lapses of attention affecting cognitive control may also negatively impact social information processing thereby affecting social functioning. Replication is warranted and longitudinal studies are needed to investigate whether RTV predicts social dysfunction in ADHD.     

Reading between the lies: identifying concealed and falsified emotions in universal facial expressions

The widespread supposition that aspects of facial communication are uncontrollable and can betray a deceiver's true emotion has received little empirical attention. We examined the presence of inconsistent emotional expressions and "microexpressions" (1/25-1/5 of a second) in genuine and deceptive facial expressions. Participants viewed disgusting, sad, frightening, happy, and neutral images, responding to each with a genuine or deceptive (simulated, neutralized, or masked) expression. Each 1/30-s frame (104,550 frames in 697 expressions) was analyzed for the presence and duration of universal expressions, microexpressions, and blink rate. Relative to genuine emotions, masked emotions were associated with more inconsistent expressions and an elevated blink rate; neutralized emotions showed a decreased blink rate. Negative emotions were more difficult to falsify than happiness. Although untrained observers performed only slightly above chance at detecting deception, inconsistent emotional leakage occurred in 100% of participants at least once and lasted longer than the current definition of a microexpression suggests. Microexpressions were exhibited by 21.95% of participants in 2% of all expressions, and in the upper or lower face only.     

Investigating models of affect: relationships among EEG alpha asymmetry, depression, and anxiety

The approach-withdrawal and valence-arousal models both predict that depressive and anxious profiles will be associated with relatively reduced left frontal and increased right frontal activity respectively, while the valence-arousal model also proposes a dissociation by lower and higher right parietotemporal activity, respectively. Recent work further suggests that subtypes of anxiety disorders may be characterized by distinctive patterns of activity depending on their type of arousal (anxious arousal/apprehension). The aim of this study was to investigate the relationships among nonclinical depression/anxiety and lateralized frontal/parietotemporal activity by categorizing participants (N=428) on the basis of both negative mood and alpha EEG. Key findings include: (i) greater right frontal lateralization in anxious participants, symmetrical frontal activity in depressed/comorbid, and left frontal lateralization in healthy controls; (ii) right frontal lateralization in anxious arousal participants, left frontal and right parietotemporal lateralization in anxious apprehension; (iii) bilateral increase in frontal and increased right parietotemporal activity in depressed/comorbid participants. Findings support predictions for frontal but not posterior regions. Grouping on the basis of EEG may not be reciprocally predictive of negative mood groupings, suggesting involvement of additional factors.     

Evaluation of a Targeted Intervention Within a Schoolwide System of Behavior Support

A recommended component of comprehensive behavior support in schools is a targeted intervention designed to efficiently and effectively meet the support needs of students who are not responding to preventive schoolwide intervention strategies (Sugai, Horner et al., 2000; Walker et al., 1996). This study provides a fine-grained analysis using a multiple baseline across students design with the targeted intervention as the independent variable, and both classroom problem behavior and academic engagement as dependent variables. The multiple baseline analysis documents a modest functional relationship between implementation of the intervention and reduction in problem behavior. Implications for the design of behavior support in schools and the development of future research are provided.     

Intimacy and the magnitude and experience of episodic relational uncertainty within romantic relationships

This paper seeks to clarify the association between the intimacy and the magnitude of relational uncertainty generated by specific events within romantic relationships. More specifically, we suggest that episodic relational uncertainty peaks at moderate levels of intimacy. We conducted a cross–sectional study in which 328 romantic relationship participants reported their reactions to a hypothetical relational uncertainty increasing event. Although the effect size was small, findings documented a curvilinear association between intimacy and episodic relational uncertainty. Further, hierarchical regression results supported our predictions about the effects of intimacy and episodic relational uncertainty on people’s reactions to the events. We discuss the implications of our findings for understanding the roles of both intimacy and episodic relational uncertainty within romantic relationships.     

Validity of the Short Form of the Parenting Stress Index for Fathers of Toddlers

We examined the psychometric properties of two scales of the parenting stress index-short form (PSI-SF) in a low-income sample of fathers of toddlers. The factor structure, reliability, and validity of the parental distress and parent–child dysfunctional interaction subscales were assessed for 696 fathers in a multi-site study of Early Head Start. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) compared the fit of the developer recommended two-factor scales with five-factor scales theoretically derived and supported with mothers. Our results suggested that two subscales from the PSI-SF were reliable and valid for this sample of racially diverse, low-income fathers of toddlers. However, these subscales capture multiple dimensions of parenting stress and results also supported the use of more narrowly defined aspects of parenting stress that included general distress, distress specifically related to parenting demands, problematic interactions of the father–toddler dyad, perceptions of the child, and parental perceptions of self as a parent. These unidimensional scales may prove useful in research and clinical activities by allowing researchers to elucidate the mechanisms through which stress impacts parenting and permitting clinicians information to develop more targeted interventions for young children and their families.