Contributions of impulsivity and callousness in the assessment of adjudicated male adolescents: a prospective study

This study examined whether delinquent adolescents with low scores on personality scales related to callousness and impulsivity would show less antisocial behavior and better psychosocial functioning compared to those elevated on 1 or both scales. A group of 162 White and African American male adolescents, recently adjudicated in a southern youth court system, were assessed at baseline and at 18-month follow-up. Dependent variables included measures of antisocial and prosocial behaviors, days detained in juvenile detention, and symptoms of psychopathology. As hypothesized, adolescents low on both callousness and impulsivity spent fewer days detained and reported less antisocial behavior and fewer symptoms of psychopathology compared to those high on I or both scales. Finally, African American participants were detained for more days, but did not report significantly more antisocial behaviors or symptoms of psychopathology compared to the White adolescents. The results suggest that being low on callousness and impulsivity may serve a protective role for future delinquent behavior for both African American and White adolescents.     

Hostility and distraction have differential influences on cardiovascular recovery from anger recall in women.

This study investigated the relation of dispositional hostility to cardiovascular reactivity during an anger-recall task and of hostility and distraction to posttask recovery in 80 healthy women (ages 18-30). Half were randomly assigned to distraction during recovery. Hostility predicted slower systolic blood pressure and preejection period during recovery. Distraction was related to faster cardiac recovery, higher high-frequency (HF) power, lower low-frequency (LF) power and LF:HF ratios, and lower state anger and rumination during recovery. These results indicate deleterious influences of hostility on cardiovascular recovery but not during anger recall. The findings also show beneficial effects of distraction in expediting cardiovascular recovery, possibly through reducing rumination and anger.     

Maternal soothing and infant stress responses: soothing, crying and adrenocortical activity during inoculation

The relation between maternal soothing and infant stress response during inoculation was examined in a sample of 37 mothers and their 3-month-old infants. The mothers' soothing and the infants' cry vocalizations and the mothers' and the infants' salivary cortisol level pre- and post-injection were analysed. There was a positive relation between infants' cry vocalization post-injection and maternal soothing pre- and post-injection. The sample was divided in two sub-groups depending on whether the mothers evidenced most soothing of the infants in the period before (Preparatory group; n=20) or after (Contingent group; n=17) the syringe injection. In the Preparatory group, the duration of infant cry vocalizations was related to amount of maternal soothing before and after the injection, while cry vocalizations in the Contingent group was related to amount of maternal soothing after the injection. The Contingent infants responded to the injection with a significant increase in cortisol, while there was no increase in the Preparatory infants. The Preparatory infants evidenced significantly longer duration of looking at the target stimuli in a visual marking task, suggesting greater difficulties in disengaging attention. These findings indicate that 3-month-olds' stress responses and their mothers' situational behaviour are mutually regulated.     

Did Kant Respect Persons?

The illusion that Kant respects persons comes from ascribing contemporary meanings to purely technical terms within his second formulation of the categorical imperative, “[A]ct so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only”. When we realize that “humanity” means rational nature and “person” means the supersensible self (homo noumenon), we find that we are to respect, not human selves in all their diversity (homo phaenomenon), but rational selves in all their sameness, in their unvarying conformity to the universal principles of pure practical reason. Contemporary individualism gets no support from Kant. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The causal influences of attributions on emotions: a procedural priming approach

According to attributional theories of emotion, feelings of guilt presuppose that the causes of a negative event are located within the individual (internal attribution), whereas feelings of anger presuppose that the causes of the eliciting event are located outside the individual (external attribution). This study tested whether these attributions in fact exert the claimed causal influence on emotional experiences. The study employed a procedural priming technique in which neutral events were repeatedly attributed either to oneself (internal attribution) or to another person (external attribution). Subsequently, participants were exposed to a negative event that was ambiguous as to its causes. The results reveal that the prior repeated use of internal attributions enhanced the tendency to experience guilt, whereas the repeated use of external attributions enhanced the tendency to experience anger. These findings support the assumption that attributions exert a causal influence on emotions.