Psychosocial Issues in Families Affected by Maple Syrup Urine Disease

The primary aim of this study was to ascertain the psychosocial issues faced by families affected by maple syrup urine disease (MSUD). The psychosocial adjustment and quality of life of children with MSUD were also described. Participants included 55 families and their children (ages 5 to 18 years) and teachers. Measures included a MSUD Family Survey, the Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC) and the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL). Parents reported via the MSUD Family Survey that the greatest sources of stress were financial and emotional. Many parents reported difficulty interacting with the medical staff and with schools. On the BASC, half of the children fell within the average range in psychosocial adjustment, although there were elevations in scales measuring attention, hyperactivity, and learning problems. On the PedsQL, the mean quality of life scores were closer to children with cancer than to a healthy sample. Despite the emotional and financial burden, parents reported that MSUD has also had a positive influence on their lives, leading to a world-view that is more compassionate and caring.     

Motivational influences on controlled processing: moderating distractibility in older adults

Research has suggested that aging is associated with a decline in the efficiency of controlling processing operations. Three studies examined the moderating impact of personal relevance on age differences in one index of such operations: the ability to ignore distracting information. Young (17-26) and older (58-86) adults read a series of passages interspersed with irrelevant, distracting information, with the relevance of the passage content to these two age groups being systematically varied. For both groups, processing was more efficient and comprehension enhanced when passage relevance was high. These effects were particularly strong among older adults, a finding consistent with a growing body of data highlighting the importance of motivational factors in determining age differences in cognitive performance.     

Extending the Legacy of Sandra Bem: Psychological Androgyny as a Touchstone Conceptual Advance for the Study of Gender in Psychological Science

We retrace Bem’s original formulations for defining and assessing the concept of psychological androgyny in the United States. By focusing on the early conceptual aspects of Bem’s research, we describe three related but distinct impacts of that work. One impact was a social justice message of equality between women and men in the United States. A second impact was focusing research attention on gender roles as a malleable, socially constructed phenomena that, when polarized across gender groups, had negative consequences for psychological well-being. A third less obvious impact was helping scholars divest themselves of the previous, narrow understanding that gender was ultimately collapsible into a single dimension of masculinity–femininity. As with any new concept for its time, the legacy of psychological androgyny featured both backslides into and advances against the previous understanding of gender that it was designed to challenge. Our discussion of what we believe to be key functions and impacts of the concept of psychological androgyny serves to underscore just how important its introduction was and still is for ongoing gender scholarship and research.     

Perceived Conflict Styles of Adult Children and their Parents: What Is the Connection?

The purpose of this study was to explore the potential genesis of conflict styles for couples by evaluating the association between parents’ conflict styles and those of their adult children and their adult children’s partners. Using Social Learning Theory as a theoretical foundation, the four conflict typologies from Gottman’s work (avoidant, validating, volatile, and hostile) were applied to study the participants’ conflict styles. Multinomial logistic regression was then conducted on a sample of 25,511 participants, testing the relationships between the conflict styles of parents, their adult children’s conflict styles, and their adult children’s partners’ conflict styles. All of the perceived parental conflict styles were linked to the same conflict styles in adult children. However, for adult children and their partners, the patterns were mixed. Whereas having validating parents predicted having validating partners, having avoidant or hostile parents predicted having hostile partners. The results suggest the possibility of the intergenerational transmission of conflict styles between parents and their adult children as well as contributing to the established research on assortative mating in that individuals may be more likely to select partners who are similar to them in terms of their approaches to conflict. The results of this study have important implications for intervening early in families with less functional conflict styles.     

Treating Depression Among Adolescent Perinatal Women With a Dialectical Behavior Therapy–Informed Skills Group

Depression is a prevalent and impairing problem affecting both women and offspring during the perinatal (pregnancy and the postpartum) period. Despite this, few studies have examined treatments for perinatal adolescents with depressive symptoms. The present study examined the feasibility and preliminary outcomes of a dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) informed skills group among depressed adolescent perinatal women (N = 25) recruited from both a public health parent education program and an adolescent obstetric clinic. A brief composite case example is included to illustrate how DBT skills were taught, practiced, and applied. Findings suggest the intervention was credible, acceptable, and associated with improvement in depression. Challenges with feasibility of enrolling and retaining adolescent perinatal women were evident, as approximately half of the enrolled participants did not complete the study. This study provides preliminary evidence that a DBT-informed skills group may be a promising intervention for depressed adolescent perinatal women and points to important directions for clinical practice and research, including treatment engagement and retention.     

Behavioral avoidance tests and disgust in contamination fears: distinctions from trait anxiety

Much of the existing literature examining the role of disgust is limited to specific phobia. Recent research has begun to examine the role of disgust in contamination fear, a subtype of obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Through the use of behavioral avoidance tasks (BATs), the current study was designed to examine the role of disgust in people with contamination fears, with attention to distinguishing high and low trait anxiety. From a large screening of undergraduate students, three groups were formed based on their level of contamination fear and level of trait anxiety: contamination fearful ( n = 12 ), high-trait anxiety ( n = 11 ), and low trait anxiety ( n = 15 ). Subjects were asked to engage in six different BATs corresponding to six domains of disgust (food, animals, body products, body envelope violations, death, and sympathetic magic). One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed significant differences between the contamination fearful group and the high trait anxiety group on the animal and sympathetic magic BATs. Significant differences on the food, animal, body envelope violations, and death BATs were also found between the contamination fearful group and the low-trait anxious group. The findings modestly support the importance of disgust in contamination fears. Implications for the study of disgust in contamination fear are provided.     

Comparison of polygraph data obtained from individuals involved in mock crimes and actual criminal investigations

In a preliminary attempt to determine the generalizability of data from laboratory mock-crime studies, the authors examined the similarities and differences among the cardiovascular, electrodermal, and respiration responses of deceptive and nondeceptive individuals elicited to crime-relevant and crime-irrelevant questions. Participants in the laboratory group were randomly assigned to nondeceptive (n = 28) or deceptive (n = 27) treatment groups, and a mock-crime scenario was used. The field participants were confirmed nondeceptive (n = 28) or deceptive (n = 39) criminal suspects who underwent polygraph examinations between 1993 and 1997. The results indicated that there were salient differences between field and similarly obtained laboratory polygraph response measures. However, accuracy of laboratory participants' classifications using logistic regression analysis was not significantly different from field participants' classification accuracy.     

Contextual modulation of N400 amplitude to lexically ambiguous words

Though much is known about the N400 component, an event-related EEG potential that is sensitive to semantic manipulations, it is unclear whether modulations of N400 amplitude reflect automatic processing, controlled processing, or both. We examined this issue using a semantic judgment task that manipulated local and global contextual cues. Word triplets (prime-noun-target, e.g., finance-bank-money) were sequentially presented on a computer screen (500 ms duration, 1000 ms stimulus onset asynchrony), in which the second word was a homograph. The first word (prime) created a neutral-, dominant-meaning- or subordinate-meaning-biased "global context," and the third word (target) created a dominant- or subordinate-biased "local context" that was either congruent or incongruent with the "global context" established by the first prime word. Participants were instructed to read all three words but to decide only whether the second and third words were semantically related. Event-related potentials (ERPs), specifically the N400, were recorded to the third terminal word. N400 amplitudes evoked by dominant meaning-related third words incongruent with the globally biased subordinate context (e.g., river-bridge-money) were significantly more negative than dominant endings in neutral contexts (e.g., taxi-bank-money), but not different from unrelated filler triplets. In addition, there was some indication that left hemisphere, temporal-parietal electrode sites were associated with greater N400 negativity for dominant targets in conflicting subordinate global contexts than homologous right hemisphere electrode sites, the latter of which showed significant activation to subordinate meanings in cooperating contexts. Thus, N400 amplitude was more affected by global than local context suggesting that controlled processes may take priority over automatic processes in modulating N400 amplitude, especially for left hemisphere electrode sites.     

Sequential Memory: A Developmental Perspective on Its Relation to Frontal Lobe Functioning

The multidimensional nature of the frontal lobes serves to organize and coordinate brain functionings playing a central and pervasive role in human cognition. The executive processes implicated in complex cognition such as novel problem solving, modifying behavior as appropriate in response to changes in the environment, inhibiting prepotent or previous responses, and the implementation of schemas that organize behavior over time are believed to be mediated by the frontal regions of the brain. Overall, the functioning of the frontal lobes assists individuals in goal directed and self-regulatory behavior. Additional theories of frontal lobe functioning have focused on its involvement in temporal, or time-related domains. The organizational and strategic nature of frontal lobe functioning affects memory processes by enhancing the organization of to-be-remembered information. Among the specific memory systems presumed to be based on anterior cerebral structures is the temporal organization of memory. An essential component of memory that involves temporal organization is sequential ordering entailing the ability to judge which stimuli were seen most recently and the temporal ordering of events in memory. Focal lesion studies have demonstrated the importance of the frontal lobes on retrieval tasks in which monitoring, verification, and placement of information in temporal and spatial contexts of critical importance. Similarly, frontal lobe damage has been associated with deficits in memory for the temporal ordering, or sequencing, of events. The acquisition of abilities thought to be mediated by the frontal lobes, including sequential memory, unfolds throughout childhood, serving to condition patterns of behavior for the rest of the brain. Development of the frontal regions of the brain is known to continue through late adolescence and into early adulthood, in contrast to the earlier maturation of other cortical regions. The developmental patterns of the frontal lobes are thought to involve a hierarchical, dynamic, and multistage process.