Participation Patterns Among Mexican–American Parents Enrolled in a Universal Intervention and Their Association with Child Externalizing Outcomes

This study used growth mixture modeling to examine attendance trajectories among 292 Mexican–American primary female caregivers enrolled in a universal preventive intervention and the effects of health beliefs, participation intentions, cultural influences, and intervention group cohesion on trajectory group membership as well as trajectory group differences on a distal outcome, immediate posttest teacher report of child externalizing (T2). Results supported four trajectory groups—early terminators (ET), mid-program terminators (MPT), low-risk persistent attenders (LRPA), and high-risk persistent attenders (HRPA). Compared with LRPAs, caregivers classified as HRPAs had weaker familism values, less parenting efficacy, and higher externalizing children with lower GPAs. Caregivers in the two persistent attender groups reported strong group cohesion and providers rated these caregivers as having strong participation intentions. Children of caregivers in the LRPA group had the lowest T2 child externalizing. Children of caregivers in the MPT group had lower T2 externalizing than did those of the ET group, suggesting partial intervention dosage can benefit families. Despite high levels of attendance, children of caregivers in the HRPA had the highest T2 externalizing, suggesting this high-risk group needed either more intensive services or a longer period for parents to implement program skills to evidence change in child externalizing.     

An Evolutionary Outlook on Motivation: Implications for the Clinical Dialogue

A taxonomy of basic motivational systems (reptilian, mammalian, and neo-mammalian), that emerged in phases during the course of millions of years, is proposed. These different phases did not replace each other, but became reorganized in the brain at different hierarchical levels. It is argued that (a) humans are an ultracooperative species and (b) high degrees of cooperation put strong selective pressures toward the development of sophisticated forms of intersubjective communication. These two developments had cascading effects on human evolution, creating both the conditions upon which humans were able to understand intentions, gestures, emotions, and, ultimately, the minds of others, and the emergence of language and symbolic forms of cultural evolution. Possible evolutionary steps that led to this ultracooperative survival strategy and some of their genetic mechanism, with special emphasis on a multilevel model of selection, are described, and the implications for psychotherapy and psychoanalysis are explored.     

Peripheral pain enhances the effects of incentive downshifts

Physical pain (induced by tissue damage) and psychological pain (induced by surprising incentive loss) share a set of common neural substrates, but little is known about their interactions. The present research studied such interactions using the formalin test to induce physical pain and consummatory successive negative contrast (cSNC) to induce psychological pain. In the formalin test, animals receive an intradermal injection of formalin (1%) in a hind paw. In cSNC, rats with free access to 32% sucrose show a sharp suppression of drinking behavior after a downshift to 4% sucrose, compared to rats that always receive 4% sucrose. In Experiment 1, formalin administration before the first and second 32-to-4% sucrose downshift trials enhanced cSNC. In Experiment 2, a similar treatment before the first downshift trial after a 16-to-4% sucrose downshift, which normally produces little or no evidence of cSNC, significantly increased cSNC. In Experiment 3, using a 32-to-4% sucrose downshift procedure similar to that of Experiment 1, no effects were observed following formalin administration immediately after Trial 11. Thus, no evidence was found that the effects of physical pain on cSNC were caused by changes in memory consolidation. The procedures used in these experiments offer a new approach to study the neural substrates of interactions between physical and psychological pain.     

The Interconnected Self: The Social Individual is More Than Just Social + Individual

Although decades of research provide consistent evidence supporting the perspective that the self is divided into social and personal components each with unique and predictable motivational associations, the current paper argues that something important has been overlooked. Specifically, what has been lost is the acknowledgment that although different components of self can be activated, and can have important implications, the two aspects of self are highly interconnected. Specifically in this paper, it is argued that (i) the independent self is affected by social motivations and (ii) the social self is affected by independent motivations. Two studies are presented in support of these hypotheses. We conclude by comparing our perspective with existing theories of the self and by discussing implications for the study of the self.     

Religiosity at the roadside: memorials,animitas, and shrines on a Chilean highway

ABSTRACT

Roadside memorials devoted to vehicle-related deaths are increasingly common across the globe. Scholars have generally emphasised their commemorative status—as sites where a private memory is publicly displayed—underestimating, however, their religious dimension. This article is based on research which involved the content analysis of photographs taken during multiple visits to the 94 roadside memorials existing in 2015 on Route 78, a major Chilean highway connecting Santiago (Chile’s capital city) and San Antonio (one of the country’s main sea ports). We argue that Chilean roadside memorials are not solely commemorative sites but primarily animitas that have a core (popular) religious component: they are privileged locations where salvific grace is dispensed, acting as mediators between the living and the divinity and connecting the sacred and profane worlds. Furthermore, we suggest that the tragic nature of the deaths they commemorate confers on them a miraculous efficacy which may transform the sites into shrines and the victims into folk saints.     

Evidence of successive negative contrast in terrestrial toads (Rhinella arenarum): central or peripheral effect?

Animal Cognition - Prior research with terrestrial toads (Rhinella arenarum) in a water-reinforced instrumental situation indicated a direct relationship between acquisition rate and reward...     

Massed trial Overtraining Effects on Extinction and Reversal Performance in Turtles (Geoclemys reevesii)

Two experiments with turtles (Geoclemys reevesii) examined the overtraining extinction effect (OEE) and the overtraining reversal effect (ORE), under massed training conditions. In Experiment 1, three groups of turtles received 7, 14, or 21 sessions of training in a runway situation for food reinforcement, followed by 15 sessions of extinction. Extinction was faster, the greater the number of acquisition sessions. In Experiment 2, the two groups of turtles learned a spatial discrimination for food reinforcement either to a criterion (19 of 20 correct responses), or to that criterion plus 100 additional trials of overtraining. When the validity of the positions was reversed, learning was faster for the overtrained group than for the group trained to a criterion. This evidence of the OEE and the ORE is the first yet reported for a reptile. The results are discussed in the framework of comparative research on rewardschedule effects.