Direct, mediated, moderated, and cumulative relations between neighborhood characteristics and adolescent outcomes

Using data from the 1990 Survey of Children and Parents, we explored direct and indirect associations between neighborhood conditions and adolescents' well-being. Analyses of data from 348 parents and their 14- to 17-year-old children indicated that neighborhood characteristics were directly related to adolescent outcomes (i.e., psychological adjustment and school problems). Second, parenting behaviors and peer characteristics significantly mediated this association. Third, the relative adaptiveness of parenting behaviors and peer attributes was contingent on neighborhood characteristics. Finally, neighborhood, parenting, and peer variables each had a unique contribution to adolescent outcomes; thus, stress across these domains was additive and posed cumulative risk for adolescents' well-being.     

Flashbulb memories of personal events of 9/11 and the day after for a sample of New York City residents

The present study assessed consistency of recollections of personal circumstances of the 9/11 World Trade Center attack and events of the day before (9/10), and the day after (9/12), in a sample of 100 New York City college students. The day before 9/11 represented an ordinary event. A questionnaire was administered twice, 1 wk. and 1 yr. after the 9/11 attack. Students were asked to describe their personal circumstances when hearing about the news of the World Trade Center attack and for the same time of day for 9/10 and 9/12. 18 students returned the follow-up questionnaire. Consistency of initial and follow-up responses for the central categories for both 9/11 and 9/12 of where, who, and activity was very high (9/11: "Where"--100%, "Who"--100%, "What"--94%; 9/12: "Where"--100%, "Who"--100%, "What"--80%). Recollections of 9/10 were significantly less consistent ("Where"--79%, "Who"--71%, "What"--71%). Analysis indicated that students formed vivid, consistent recollections during the events of both 9/11 and 9/12. It is likely that the events of 9/12 also became flashbulb memories, vivid recollections of traumatic events, because the emotional impact of the stressful events, i.e., police and military presence, disrupted schedules, relating to the 9/11 attack endured beyond the day of the attack.     

Career decision-making self-efficacy of South African high school boys and girls

Social cognitive career theory suggests that males and females may not differ in career decision-making self-efficacy, but this statement requires extension of research to high school samples. The Career Decision-making Self-efficacy Scale-Short Form was administered to white South African high school students in Grades 9 to 11, of whom 368 were boys and 494 girls. No significant sex differences were found, suggesting that career interventions based on social cognitive career theory in high school need not be sex-specific in content.     

Influence of chronic corticosterone and glucocorticoid receptor antagonism in the amygdala on fear conditioning

Glucocorticoid receptor activation within the basolateral amygdala (BLA) during fear conditioning may mediate enhancement in rats chronically exposed to stress levels of corticosterone. Male Sprague-Dawley rats received corticosterone (400 microg/ml) in their drinking water (days 1-21), a manipulation that was previously shown to cause hippocampal CA3 dendritic retraction. Subsequently, rats were adapted to the fear conditioning chamber (day 22), then trained (day 23), and tested for conditioned fear to context and tone (day 25). Training consisted of two tone (20s) and footshock (500 ms, 0.25 mA) pairings. In Experiment 1, muscimol (4.4 nmol/0.5 microl/side), a GABAergic agonist, was microinfused to temporarily inactivate the BLA during training. Rats given chronic corticosterone showed enhanced freezing to context, but not tone, compared to vehicle-supplemented rats. Moreover, BLA inactivation impaired contextual and tone conditioning, regardless of corticosterone treatment. In Experiment 2, RU486 (0, 0.3, and 3.0 ng/0.2 microl/side) was infused on training day to antagonize glucocorticoid receptors in the BLA. Corticosterone treatment enhanced fear conditioning to context and tone when analyzed together, but not separately. Moreover, RU486 (3.0 ng/side) selectively exacerbated freezing to context in chronic corticosterone-exposed rats only, but failed to alter tone conditioning. Serum corticosterone levels were negatively correlated with contextual, not tone, conditioning. Altogether, these suggest that chronic corticosterone influences fear conditioning differently than chronic stress as shown previously. Moreover, chronic exposure to corticosteroids alters BLA functioning in a non-linear fashion and that contextual conditioning is influenced more than tone conditioning by chronic corticosterone and BLA glucocorticoid receptor stimulation.     

The Sexual Communication Scale: a measure of frequency of sexual communication between parents and adolescents

This study reports on the psychometric properties of a brief instrument that can be used in research or practice to measure the frequency of communication about sexual matters between parents and adolescents: The Sexual Communication Scale (SCS). The instrument was designed to assess communication between a mother/mother-figure and an adolescent and between a father/father-figure and an adolescent. The instrument, which contains 20 items for mothers and the same 20 for fathers, addresses sexual topics ranging from dating to sexual intercourse to homosexuality to HIV/AIDS. The sample used to establish reliability and validity of the SCS consisted of 158 males and females, who were primarily Caucasian, suburban, low to upper middle socioeconomic status, and in the 9th through 12th grades. Factor analyses revealed a strong unidimensional construct. Further, internal consistency was found to be very high. In sum, the SCS demonstrated adequate psychometric properties.     

Sex differences in spatial and non-spatial Y-maze performance after chronic stress

Chronic restraint is known to alter hippocampal CA3 dendritic morphology and spatial memory in male rats. The present study examined whether female rats, which exhibit different anatomical adaptations to chronic stress than those of males, would also show spatial memory impairments. Male and female Sprague-Dawley rats were restrained for 6 h/day for 21 days, a time frame previously demonstrated to cause hippocampal CA3 dendritic atrophy. The day after the last restraint session, rats were tested on a Y-maze, a habituation task that can be used to assess spatial memory. Chronic stress impaired Y-maze performance in both sexes without affecting levels of locomotion as measured by total arm entries in the first minute. However, Y-maze performance of stressed females improved in 2-5 min when chronically stressed males continued to show poor Y-maze performance. The enhanced Y-maze performance of chronically stressed females occurred when total arm entries were higher compared to the entries made by males. Therefore, correlations were performed between total arm entries and spatial memory in 1 and 2-5 min. In the first minute when control females demonstrated functional spatial memory, female controls with the lowest locomotor levels exhibited the best performance. The correlations for stressed females were not significant, and neither were the correlations for any group in 2-5 min. Overall, these results show important sex differences in response to chronic stress with females exhibiting an ability to recover quickly from deficits in Y-maze performance.     

Why are attributions to discrimination interpersonally costly? A test of system- and group-justifying motivations

In two studies, Whites' endorsement of system-justifying beliefs predicted increased negativity toward Blacks who blamed negative events on discrimination. Whites' system-justifying beliefs were not associated with negativity toward Blacks who blamed negative events on other internal causes, external causes, or nondiscriminatory unfairness. These negative reactions toward discrimination claimants were mediated by perceptions that the claimant held dissimilar values and failed to take personal responsibility for outcomes. In both studies, participants' White Identification did not moderate the relationship between the Black target's attribution for failure and subsequent negative perceptions of that individual, thus providing evidence against a group-justification explanation of these findings.     

Games in Clinical Genetic Counseling Supervision

Games are defined as ongoing series of complementary ulterior transactions that are superficially plausible but have a concealed motivation to maximize pay-offs and minimize penalties for the initiator. While some games are harmless and part of socialization, others are destructive. Destructive game-playing in clinical supervision, in which game-playing (initiated by either supervisors or students) interferes with a student's realization of internship goals, has been documented in some allied healthcare professions but has not yet been studied in genetic counseling. Genetic counselors and clinical supervisors of genetic counseling students were anonymously surveyed regarding their experiences with destructive game-playing. Results show that such games do occur in genetic counseling clinical supervision. Some games are the same or similar to ones previously described in other health-care professions; others may be unique to genetic counseling. The purpose of this paper is to document these games as a first step to facilitating dialogue, understanding and awareness of them.     

Brain-behavior relationships in reading acquisition are modulated by socioeconomic factors

Functional neuroimaging may provide insights into the achievement gap in reading skill commonly observed across socioeconomic status (SES). Brain activation during reading tasks is known to be associated with individual differences in children's phonological language skills. By selecting children of equivalent phonological skill, yet diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, we use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to demonstrate that a child's experience, as operationalized by SES, can systematically modulate the relationship between phonological language skills and reading-related brain activity in left fusiform and perisylvian regions. Specifically, at lower socioeconomic levels, individual differences in skill result in large differences in brain activation. In contrast, as SES increases, this relationship between phonological language skill and activation is attenuated. Socioeconomic background factors are thus found to modulate brain-behavior relationships in reading, indicating that cognitive, social, and neurobiological influences on reading development are fundamentally intertwined.     

Neuroimaging the serial position curve. A test of single-store versus dual-store models

Neuroimaging data could help clarify the long-standing dispute between dual-store and single-store models of the serial position curve. Dual-store models assume that retrieval from late positions is dependent on short-term memory (STM), whereas retrieval from early positions is dependent on long-term memory (LTM). Single-store models, however, assume that retrieval processes for early and late items are similar, but that early items are more difficult to discriminate than late items. The present study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine this question. Ten young adults were scanned while they recognized items from early or late serial positions. Recognition of early items uniquely activated brain areas traditionally associated with LTM, namely, regions within the hippocampal memory system. None of these areas was activated for retrieval of late items. These results indicate differential use of LTM retrieval processes, and therefore support dual-store models over single-store models.