A Meta-Analysis of the Distinction between Reactive and Proactive Aggression in Children and Adolescents

The present meta-analytic review aimed to clarify divergent findings concerning the relation between reactive and proactive aggression in children and adolescents. Fifty-one studies with 17,965 participants were included in the analysis. A significant correlation between reactive and proactive aggression was found. The strength of this relation varied considerably between studies, from -.10 to .89. Observational assessment and tilt/noise tasks were associated with smaller correlations than questionnaires. Within the large group of questionnaire studies, studies disentangling the form and function of aggression found lower correlations than studies that did not disentangle form and function. Among questionnaire studies, higher reliability was associated with larger correlations. Effect size did not depend on other study characteristics such as sample type, age, and informant type. It is concluded that reactive and proactive aggression are most clearly distinguished with behavioral observations and questionnaires that unravel form and functions of aggression.     

Growing Up as a European? Parental Socialization and the Educational Divide in Euroskepticism

Research consistently shows that individuals with higher levels of education express lower levels of Euroskepticism. This relationship has been explained by values and skills acquired in education and by higher labor-market competitiveness. While these explanations assume a causal impact of education, previous research uses cross-sectional data. This is problematic, as students self-select into education. The contribution of this article is twofold. First, it provides a better test of the causal effect of education on Euroskepticism by using data from the Swiss Household Panel (1999–2011) that allow analyzing how Euroskepticism changes as students move through education from the age of 13 years onwards. Second, it advances theory by highlighting the role of parental socialization in explaining Euroskepticism. We argue that children of higher educated parents select into higher education and take over the pro-European attitudes of their parents. We find a strong educational divide in Euroskepticism. However, longitudinal analyses show no change in Euroskepticism as individuals pass through education. Supporting the parental-socialization hypothesis, parental Euroskeptic attitudes and education explain changes in youngsters' Euroskepticism. The results suggest that, rather than a genuine education effect, differences between educational groups are mostly a result of self-selection due to family background.     

CLOSENESS, AUTONOMY, EQUITY, AND RELATIONSHIP SATISFACTION IN LESBIAN COUPLES

It is often assumed that in lesbian relationships a high degree of closeness is reached at the expense of autonomy of the partners. The present study among 119 Dutch lesbian couples examined the effect on relational satisfaction of two dimensions of closeness, emotional dependency and intimacy, and of autonomy and equity. The women in this study were generally open about their lesbian relationship, and reactions of the social environment were mostly positive. Autonomy was negatively related to dependency, but not at all to intimacy. Intimacy and equity as reported by the respondent and her partner, as well as dependency and autonomy reported by the respondent, were independent predictors of relationship satisfaction. Support from the social environment and participation in lesbian subcultures did not play a role in relationship satisfaction.     

Selective Evaluation and Coping With Stress: Making One's Situation Cognitively More Livable

Selective evaluation processes were examined in a study involving 167 individuals receiving payments under the Disablement Insurance Act in the Netherlands. A factor analysis showed 6 strategies of selective evaluation: emphasizing benefits, downward comparison, devaluing former dimensions, imaging "worse worlds," positive framing, and creating new dimensions. Although emphasizing benefits was relatively less common among those under stress, downward comparisons and the imaging of "worse worlds" were clearly more prevalent among individuals experiencing stress. A regression analysis showed that, independent of the degree of stress, selective evaluation techniques (in particular, emphasizing benefits and imagining of "worse worlds") contributed positively to the way respondents evaluated their situation. Moreover, when controlling for the evaluation of one's situation and stress at Time 1, selective evaluation techniques, and especially imagining of "worse worlds," and creating new dimensions, were positively related to the evaluation of one's situation at Time 2 (1 year after Time 1). The results are interpreted as support for the Taylor, Wood, and Lichtman (1983) model of selective evaluation, and for Wills' (1987) downward comparison theory.     

Social interactions,stressful events and negative affect at work: A micro-analytic approach

In the present study a daily event-recording method, the DIRO (Daily Interaction Record in Organizations), was employed for assessing social interactions, stressful events and negative affect at work. Forty-one secretaries filled out the records during the course of a week. This made it possible to consider both between-and within-subject effects of social interactions. The results showed that the social interactions of secretaries were characterized by three dimensions: intimate support, instrumental support and rewarding companionship. These three dimensions appeared to have different relationships with occupational stress. Instrumental support seemed to play the most important role in the work of secretaries, whereas rewarding companionship played no role at all in alleviating occupational stress. In the discussion some explanations are offered for this unexpected result.     

Explanatory limitations of the HKB model: incentives for a two-tiered model of rhythmic interlimb coordination

The HKB model for rhythmic interlimb coordination has highlighted the importance of coordinative stability and loss of stability, and introduced, with this focus, a new set of explanatory constructs. However, the phenomenological character of both parts of this model (i.e., the potential and the associated system of coupled oscillators) precludes an understanding of how the observed stability characteristics are related to more specific (e.g., biomechanical and neurophysiological) aspects of the movement system. A two-tiered model (involving a distinction between 'neural' and 'effector' dynamics) is discussed that offers handles for addressing such underpinnings of the identified coordination dynamics. The promise of the model in this regard is illustrated by two recent studies showing how explicit accounts of the effector dynamics may help disclose why (and how) particular properties of the peripheral system affect the overall coordination dynamics.     

Generalization of extinguished skin conductance responding in human fear conditioning

In a human fear conditioning paradigm using the skin conductance response (SCR), participants were assigned to two groups. Following identical acquisition, group ABA (n = 16) was extinguished to a generalization stimulus (GS), whereas group AAB (n = 20) was extinguished to the conditioned stimulus (CS). At test, presenting the CS in group ABA yielded a strongly recovered SCR. Presenting the GS in group AAB, on the other hand, did not disrupt the effects of extinction. We conclude that extinguishing the CS (group AAB) is an efficient strategy to overcome the stimulus specificity of extinction observed otherwise (group ABA). Clinical implications are discussed.     

The impact of frontal and non-frontal brain tumor lesions on Wisconsin Card Sorting Test performance

Several lesion and imaging studies have suggested that the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) is a measure of executive dysfunction. However, some studies have reported that this measure has poor anatomical specificity because patients with either frontal or non-frontal focal lesions exhibit similar performance. This study examined 25 frontal, 20 non-frontal low-grade brain tumor patients, and 63 normal controls (NC) on the WCST. The frontal patients were also assigned to either a left frontal (n=10) group or a right frontal group (n=15) and compared with the non-frontal group and NC. It was hypothesized that the frontal brain tumor patients would display greater deficits on categories achieved and a higher number of perseverative errors than non-frontal brain tumor patients on the WCST. Finally, it was predicted that right frontal brain tumors would result in greater executive functioning deficits than left frontal or non-frontal brain tumors. Results indicated that the left frontal group achieved the fewest categories and committed the most perseverative errors compared to the other patient and normal control groups. In addition, the left frontal group committed significantly more perseverative errors than the right frontal group. These results suggest that the WCST is sensitive to the effects of low-grade brain tumors on executive functioning.     

Incidence and significance of anamnestically indicated neurotic disorders in young applicants for flight training

The histories of 17 years old clinically normal subjects show that 10% of them had functional disturbances or abnormalities in behaviour which are not to be considered as indications of latent neurotic development. Significant differences in EEG, size distribution, and reaction of the circulatory system during psycho-emotional stress (low-pressure chamber testing) may indicate a disharmonious physical maturation with increased disposition to circulatory lability and psychological abnormalities. The good intellectual performances and the favourable prognosis with regard to flight training are reasons for not disqualifying this group of applicants.