Personality,Parental, and Media Influences on Aggressive Personality and Violent Crime in Young Adults

Debate remains regarding the interaction between predictor variables for aggression, including family environment, media violence, and personality. The current study examined the contributions of gender and personality, exposure to physical abuse and violence in the family, and exposure to media violence in both television and in video games on violent criminal activity. Data from young adults (n = 355) indicated that personality characteristics and direct physical abuse significantly predicted violent crime. Exposure to television and video game violence were not significant predictors of violent crime. These results elucidate the complex interplay between multiple factors related to the etiology of violent crime. These results also call into question the belief that media violence is involved in the etiology of violent crime.     

Effects of foster care intervention and caregiving quality on the bidirectional development of executive functions and social skills following institutional rearing

Institutional rearing negatively impacts the development of children's social skills and executive functions (EF). However, little is known about whether childhood social skills mediate the effects of the foster care intervention (FCG) and foster caregiving quality following early institutional rearing on EF and social skills in adolescence. We examined (a) whether children's social skills at 8 years mediate the impact of the FCG on the development of EF at ages 12 and 16 years, and (b) whether social skills and EF at ages 8 and 12 mediate the relation between caregiving quality in foster care at 42 months and subsequent social skills and EF at age 16. Participants included abandoned children from Romanian institutions, who were randomly assigned to a FCG (n = 68) or care as usual (n = 68), and a never-institutionalized group (n = 135). At ages 8, 12, and 16, social skills were assessed via caregiver and teacher reports and EF were assessed via the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery. Caregiving quality of foster caregivers was observed at 42 months. FCG predicted better social skills at 8 years, which in turn predicted better EF in adolescence. Higher caregiver quality in foster care at 42 months predicted better social skills at 8 and 12 years, and better EF at 12 years, which in turn predicted 16-year EF and social skills. These findings suggest that interventions targeting caregiving quality within foster care home environments may have long-lasting positive effects on children's social skills and EF.     

A Model of Psychological Distress for Mothers of Children with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

We functionally defined and tested a model of psychological distress for mothers of children diagnosed with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). This operationalized model includes three latent constructs which are hypothesized to influence mother's psychological symptomatology: Parenting Stress, Parent Characteristics, and Environment Characteristics. Structural equation modeling was used to reformulate and test the measurement models and the overall model. Data supported a model with some empirically-based model revisions founded on both comparisons of best fit and by an examination of statistical modification indices. The final model maintained the Parenting Stress and Parental Characteristics constructs, but replaced independent environmental variables with a more generalized construct of life stress.     

Family therapy with black families

Family therapy in Britain must develop to encompass the external reality of family life. Living in a racist society dominates the lives of all black families. Family therapists need to acknowledge and address this before intervening in the family system. This paper offers personal and professional experiences, confrontaion, structured exercises and general and specific principles for work with black families. Minimal and positive goals are advocated so that practitioners do not feel paralysed by the enormity of the task.     

Dissociating location-specific inhibition and attention shifts: Evidence against the disengagement account of contingent capture

The study of attentional capture has provided a rich context for assessing the relative influence of top-down and bottom-up factors in visual perception. Some have argued that attentional capture by a salient, irrelevant stimulus is contingent on top-down attentional set (e.g., Folk, Remington, & Johnston, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 18:1030?C1044, 1992). Others, however, have argued that capture is driven entirely by bottom-up salience and that top-down factors influence the postallocation speed of disengagement from the irrelevant stimulus (e.g., Theeuwes, Acta Psychologica 135:77?C99, 2010a). In support of this speed-of-disengagement hypothesis, recent findings from the modified spatial-cuing paradigm show that cues carrying a no-go target property produce reverse, or negative, cuing effects, consistent with inhibition of the cue location from which attention has been very quickly disengaged (Belopolsky, Schreij, & Theeuwes, Perception, & Psychophysics, 72, 326?C341, 2010). Across six experiments, we show that this inhibitory process can be dissociated from shifts of spatial attention and is, thus, not a reliable marker of capture. We conclude that the data are inconsistent with the predictions of the disengagement hypothesis.     

Descombes' Critique of Cognitivism

Truth‐telling is a project that is both gripping and problematic for Rousseau, as he is both captured by an ideal of telling as complete, undistorted discernment, documentation and communication, and also haunted by the fear that telling can never be this innocent. For Rousseau, as for Kant, telling does not leave the told untouched; rather, telling gives us a type of contact with objects that is marked and mediated by the process of telling itself, and hence the possibility of immediately grasping objects through telling is forever lost to us. The drive to capture things in themselves, which originates, according to Kant, in a formal principle of reason, shows up in Rousseau's writings as a nostalgia that governs and animates inquiry. I will read Rousseau, and the traumas of truth‐telling he articulates, as important pretexts for Kant's critical epistemology. Rousseau discloses tensions that infect his truth‐telling practices. Kant seeks to neutralize these tensions, not by dissolving them, but rather by translating them into the terms of transcendental philosophy and thus showing how they can be defused and rendered harmless in their empirical form, so as to secure the possibility of proper truth‐telling.     

Assessing negative cognitive style: Development and validation of a Short-Form version of the Cognitive Style Questionnaire

The Cognitive Style Questionnaire (CSQ) is a frequently employed measure of negative cognitive style, associated with vulnerability to anxiety and depression. However, the CSQ's length can limit its utility in research. We describe the development of a Short-Form version of the CSQ. After evaluation and modification of two pilot versions, the 8-item CSQ Short Form (CSQ-SF) was administered to a convenience sample of adults (N = 278). The CSQ-SF was found to have satisfactory internal reliability and test-retest reliability. It also exhibited construct validity by demonstrating predicted correlations with measures of depression and anxiety. Results suggest that the CSQ-SF is suitable for administration via the Internet.     

Using powerpoint to demonstrate human classical salivary conditioning in a classroom situation

Classical conditioning is one of the most fundamental types of learning, yet demonstrating its principles in a classroom setting can be challenging. This study introduces using PowerPoint as a new, practical technique that can be used in a classroom setting to demonstrate classical conditioning. The PowerPoint file is flexible and easy to adapt for demonstrating various aspects of classical conditioning (including higher order conditioning) in a concrete manner. Moreover, this study was designed to measure salivation in a more objective and valid way which could be used by student researchers interested in measuring salivation as a conditioned response.