Maternal Sensitivity and Anxiety: Impacts on Child Outcome

ABSTRACT

Children of anxious parents have been shown to be at an increased risk of developing an anxiety disorder. Thus, it is critically important to identify factors that increase or decrease that risk. The depression literature has shown that maternal sensitivity decreases negative child outcome associated with maternal depression. The current study was designed to determine whether maternal sensitivity may buffer children of anxious mothers in a similar way. Three hypotheses were tested. First, that anxious mothers would display less sensitivity than nonanxious mothers in interactions with their children; that there would be an interaction between sensitivity and anxiety on child outcome; and that sensitivity would account for variance in child outcome beyond that attributed to anxiety. One hundred and twenty-five mothers (75 anxious) and their children (ages 3–12) completed the study. Mothers were administered the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule-IV and Parent, and a subset also completed the Beck Anxiety Inventory. Children completed the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule-Child. Dyads also engaged in two interaction tasks (one cognitive, one social) which were coded for maternal sensitivity and three child outcome behaviors. Results showed that anxious mothers displayed less sensitivity in the social task but not in the cognitive task. An interaction between anxiety and sensitivity was found only when predicting child negativity in the social task. Finally, maternal sensitivity was found to account for variance in child outcome beyond that of anxiety. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Working memory involvement in emotion-based processes underlying choosing advantageously

The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) is widely used to assess decision making under conditions of uncertainty in clinical as well as in nonclinical populations. However, there is still debate as to whether normal performance at this task relies on implicit, emotion-based processes that are independent of working memory. To clarify the role of working memory on normal performance on the IGT, participants performed the task under low or high working memory load. We used a modified version of the original task, in which the position of the four decks was randomized between trials. Results showed that only participants performing under low memory load significantly chose more advantageously halfway through the task. In addition, when comparing the number of cards chosen from the two decks with frequent losses, one advantageous and one disadvantageous, only participants performing under low memory load chose more cards from the advantageous deck. The present findings indicate that the processes underlying optimal advantageous performance on the IGT rely on working memory functions.     

Working memory deficits in retinoid X receptor gamma-deficient mice

Retinoid signaling has been recently shown to be required for mnemonic functions in rodents. To dissect the behavioral and molecular mechanisms involved in this requirement, we have analyzed the spatial and recognition working memory in mice carrying null mutations of retinoid receptors RARbeta and RXRgamma. Double mutants appeared deficient in spatial working memory as tested in spontaneous alternation in the Y-maze and delayed nonmatch to place (DNMTP) test in the T-maze. These mutant mice did acquire, however, spatial place reference or right/left discrimination tasks in the T-maze set-up, indicating that basic sensorimotor functions, spatial orientation, and motivational factors are unlikely to account for deficits in working memory-sensitive tasks. Double-mutant mice were also deficient in novel object recognition at intermediate, but not short delays. RXRgamma appeared to be the functionally predominant receptor in modulation of the working memory, as RXRgamma, but not RARbeta single null mutant mice exhibited deficits similar to those observed in the double mutants. The mechanism of this modulation is potentially related to functions of RXRgamma in frontal and perirhinal cortex, structures in which we detected RXRgamma expression and which are functionally implicated in working memory processes.     

Strategies Used in the Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder: A Survey of Practicing Psychologists

One hundred and twenty three practicing psychologists completed surveys regarding the therapeutic techniques they employ for patients with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Participants identified their predominant orientation and rated the frequency with which they used a range of 27 specific strategies. Logistic regression analyses identified an expected relationship between specific techniques and the theoretical orientations to which they are most closely linked. These findings suggest a high level of concordance between self-described theoretical orientation and the specific treatment techniques utilized, but also that some theoretical orientations are comprised of smaller independent clusters of strategies. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Invited Review—Survey of Value‐Focused Thinking: Applications,Research Developments and Areas for Future Research

Criteria are the central focus of multi‐criteria decision analysis. Many authors have suggested using our values (or preferences) to define the criteria we use to evaluate alternatives. Value‐focused thinking (VFT) is an important philosophy that advocates a more fundamental view of values in our decision making in our private and professional lives. VFT proponents advocate starting first with our values and then using our values to create decision opportunities, evaluate alternatives and finally develop improved alternatives. It has been 20 years since VFT was first introduced by Ralph Keeney. This paper surveys the VFT literature to provide a comprehensive summary of the significant applications, describe the main research developments and identify areas for future research. We review the scope and magnitude of VFT applications and the key developments in theory since VFT was introduced in 1992 and found 89 papers written in 29 journals from 1992 to 2010. We develop about 20 research questions that include the type of article (application, theory, case study, etc.), the size of the decision space (which, when given, ranged from $200K to billions of dollars), the contribution documented in the article (application benefits) and the research contributions (categorized by preferences, uncertainties and alternatives). After summarizing the answers to these questions, we conclude the paper with suggestions for improving VFT applications and potential future research. We found a large number of significant VFT applications and several useful research contributions. We also found an increasing number of VFT papers written by international authors. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Laypeople do use sample variance: The effect of embedding data in a variance-implying story

When using sample data to decide whether two populations differ, laypeople attend to the difference between group means, but largely overlook within-group variability (Obrecht, Chapman, & Gelman, 2007 Obrecht, N. A., Chapman, G. B. and Gelman, R. 2007. Intuitive t-tests: Lay use of statistical information. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14: 1147–1152.  [Google Scholar]). We show, first, that laypeople know about and use story-implied variability when making pairwise comparisons. Then we demonstrate that participants’ sensitivity to variance in a dataset is boosted when presented in a context that implies consistent variance information. Statistical data were couched in stories about electrical conductivity measurements obtained from element samples (low-variability category) or body weight measurements from samples of peoples (high-variability category). We manipulated, between participants, whether the data variance matched or mismatched the story-implied variability. Participants who received data in a matching context showed high sensitivity to variance, while those in the mismatching condition did not. Laypeople use statistical data to make reasonable inferences when those data are provided in a context that makes sense.