Child abuse and negative explicit and automatic self-associations: The cognitive scars of emotional maltreatment

Individuals reporting Childhood Abuse (CA) (i.e., emotional neglect, emotional-, physical- and sexual-abuse) are marked by increased explicit (i.e. self-reported) negative self-associations, and an increased risk to develop depression or anxiety disorders. Automatic self-associations might play an important role in the development and maintenance of affective disorders after exposure to CA, since automatic associations are assumed to be involved in uncontrolled (spontaneous) affective behavior. This study examined whether individuals reporting a history of CA show stronger automatic (and explicit) self-depression and/or self-anxiety associations than individuals who report no CA in a large cohort study (Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety (NESDA), n = 2981). The Implicit Association Test (IAT) was utilized to assess automatic self-depression and self-anxiety associations. We found that CA was associated with enhanced automatic (and explicit) self-depression and self-anxiety associations. Additionally, when compared to physical- and sexual-abuse, Childhood Emotional Maltreatment (CEM; emotional abuse and emotional neglect) had the strongest link with enhanced automatic (and explicit) self-depression and self-anxiety associations. In addition, automatic and explicit negative self-associations partially mediated the association between CEM and depressive or anxious symptomatology. Implications regarding the importance of CA, and CEM in particular will be discussed.     

The costs of caring: Gender identification increases threat following exposure to sexism

The current research examined whether group identification moderates the extent to which perceived ingroup discrimination is threatening, as indexed by physiological and self-report measures. Women read and gave a speech summarizing an article describing sexism as prevalent or rare. They then completed a distraction task and sat for a recovery period. Cardiovascular reactivity (CVR) was used to index threat experienced on an automatic level and self-reported anxiety was used to index threat experienced on a controlled level. Regardless of group identification, participants in the prevalent sexism (vs. rare sexism) condition exhibited a pattern of CVR consistent with threat during the speech and reported greater anxiety post-speech. During recovery, however, highly identified participants in the prevalent sexism condition exhibited a sustained threat pattern of CVR and reported higher anxiety post-recovery compared to low identifiers. High group identification may heighten the psychological and physiological burden of discrimination.     

Can the absence of prejudice be more threatening than its presence? It depends on one's worldview

The present research used validated cardiovascular measures to examine threat reactions among members of stigmatized groups when interacting with members of nonstigmatized groups who were, or were not, prejudiced against their group. The authors hypothesized that people's beliefs about the fairness of the status system would moderate their experience of threat during intergroup interactions. The authors predicted that for members of stigmatized groups who believe the status system is fair, interacting with a prejudiced partner, compared with interacting with an unprejudiced partner, would disconfirm their worldview and result in greater threat. In contrast, the authors predicted that for members of stigmatized groups who believe the system is unfair, interacting with a prejudiced partner, compared with interacting with an unprejudiced partner, would confirm their worldview and result in less threat. The authors examined these predictions among Latinas interacting with a White female confederate (Study 1) and White females interacting with a White male confederate (Study 2). As predicted, people's beliefs about the fairness of the status system moderated their experiences of threat during intergroup interactions, indicated both by cardiovascular responses and nonverbal behavior. The specific pattern of the moderation differed across the 2 studies.     

Decreased empathic sensitivity for distressed infants in neurotic adults: The mediating role of remembered parental rejection

The primary purpose of the present research was to determine whether negative reactions to infant distress in neurotic adults are mediated by representations of same sex parental rejection. Participants were 308 adult males and females who completed questionnaires assessing their personality and their representations of their parents’ care-giving from childhood. Participants also reported their own empathic reactions toward emotionally distressed and non-distressed infants. The present findings revealed that neuroticism significantly predicted a greater recall of parental rejection which, in turn, predicted decreased empathy ratings for distressed infants. In addition, recollections of father rejection mediated the relation between neuroticism and empathy in men, while recollections of maternal rejection mediated the relation between these variables in women.     

Do Automatic Self-Associations Relate to Suicidal Ideation?

Dysfunctional self-schemas are assumed to play an important role in suicidal ideation. According to recent information-processing models, it is important to differentiate between ‘explicit’ beliefs and automatic associations. Explicit beliefs stem from the weighting of propositions and their corresponding ‘truth’ values, while automatic associations reflect more simple associations in memory. Both types of associations are assumed to have different functional properties and both may be involved in suicidal ideation. Thus far, studies into self-schemas and suicidal ideation focused on the more explicit, consciously accessible traces of self-schemas and predominantly relied on self-report questionnaires or interviews. To complement these ‘explicit’ findings and more directly tap into self-schemas, this study investigated automatic self-associations in a large scale community sample that was part of the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety (NESDA). The results showed that automatic self-associations of depression and anxiety were indeed significantly related to suicidal ideation and past suicide attempt. Moreover, the interactions between automatic self-depressive (anxious) associations and explicit self-depressive (anxious) beliefs explained additional variance over and above explicit self-beliefs. Together these results provide an initial insight into one explanation of why suicidal patients might report difficulties in preventing and managing suicidal thoughts.     

Positive and Negative Androgyny and Their Relationship with Psychological Health and Well-Being

A new method of scoring the Extended Personal Attributes Questionnaire (EPAQ) was used to assess the constructs of positive and negative androgyny. The EPAQ was administered to 196 adult women and men; their responses were categorized into a differentiated androgyny. Significant differences were obtained between positive and negative androgynous people as well as between positive and negative feminine and positive and negative masculine people on a set of measures of psychological health and well-being. These findings support the validity and utility of differentiating androgyny into positive and negative categories of gender role identity.     

Contextual Challenges in South Africa: The Role of a Research Ethics Committee

This article parallels a debate similar to the one in Canada and elsewhere where researchers whose work involves humans now operate under a single ethics policy, with a strong biomedical emphasis. The institution of research ethics committees for humanities and social sciences in South Africa are relatively recent, posing unique challenges to researchers and academicians. These factors contribute to the complexity of conducting ethically sound research in the humanities and social sciences. The article explores this specific context and how a research ethics committee in the humanities and social sciences can meet the challenge of the unique South African context.     

Spirituality in British state education: an alternative perspective

The purpose of this article is to challenge the assumption that a wholly secular spirituality offers an appropriate basis for encouraging spirituality in state schools. It does this by, firstly, drawing attention to the reality of secularist indoctrination in our society and in our schools. This makes the anxiety about religious indoctrination, so strongly expressed at least since the 1960s, heavily one‐sided. The article then outlines an understanding of spirituality which transcends the secular versus religious debate in offering genuinely common ground, open to all and intuitively perceivable by all. Examples are given of a spiritual plane of experience put alongside two radically different planes: the habitual and the demonic. The purpose of explicit education concerning spirituality thus becomes to develop further awareness of this common ground and its presence or absence in practice. The article concludes by advocating that schools enable serious and respectful debate between different interpretations, secular and religious, of this plane of experience, while seeking to exemplify it in the whole ethos of the school.     

Situational affect and temperament: Implications for sibling caregiving

The caregiving behaviour of 60 preschool‐age children (M=50 months) toward their 16‐month‐old younger siblings was observed during a brief separation from their parents. Sibling caregiving was more strongly associated with parent ratings of both the older siblings' and toddlers' temperament than with the younger siblings' distress exhibited during the separation. The older siblings' social fear was positively related to providing care, whereas their temperamental activity level was negatively related to caregiving. Younger siblings' temperamental anger and soothability were positively associated with receiving care from an older sibling. Relations with temperament were independent of both children's distress levels during the separation, and in several instances, dispositional affective measures (i.e. temperament) made stronger contributions to the prediction of sibling caregiving than did situational distress. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.