Putting families in the center: family perspectives on decision making and ADHD and implications for ADHD care

Objective: To examine components of family-centered care in families' stories about treatment decision making for their child with ADHD. Method: Twenty-eight families participated in qualitative interviews that addressed families' perspectives on (a) the treatment decision-making process, (b) the cause and impact of their child's symptoms, and (c) treatment goals and preferences. Results: The majority of families preferred to be primary or shared decision makers regarding treatment decisions. Families' perspectives on the cause of the child's symptoms varied and often were not consistent with a biomedical framework. Families described multiple areas of impairment on child, family relationships, and family functioning. Perspectives toward evidence-based treatments were mixed, with families also expressing interest in and pursuing interventions not delineated in current treatment guidelines. Conclusion: These findings reinforce the importance of eliciting families' perspectives and involving these important stakeholders in shared decision making as critical components of family-centered care for children with ADHD.     

A latent profile analysis of Asian American men's and women's adherence to cultural values

The goal of this study was to identify diverse profiles of Asian American women's and men's adherence to values that are salient in Asian cultures (i.e., conformity to norms, family recognition through achievement, emotional self-control, collectivism, and humility). To this end, the authors conducted a latent profile analysis using the 5 subscales of the Asian American Values Scale-Multidimensional in a sample of 214 Asian Americans. The analysis uncovered a four-cluster solution. In general, Clusters 1 and 2 were characterized by relatively low and moderate levels of adherence to the 5 dimensions of cultural values, respectively. Cluster 3 was characterized by the highest level of adherence to the cultural value of family recognition through achievement, whereas Cluster 4 was typified by the highest levels of adherence to collectivism, emotional self-control, and humility. Clusters 3 and 4 were associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms than Cluster 1. Furthermore, Asian American women and Asian American men had lower odds of being in Cluster 4 and Cluster 3, respectively. These findings attest to the importance of identifying specific patterns of adherence to cultural values when examining the relationship between Asian Americans' cultural orientation and mental health status.     

Rats distinguish between absence of events and lack of evidence in contingency learning

The goal of three experiments was to study whether rats are aware of the difference between absence of events and lack of evidence. We used a Pavlovian extinction paradigm in which lights consistently signaling sucrose were suddenly paired with the absence of sucrose. The crucial manipulation involved the absent outcomes in the extinction phase. Whereas in the Cover conditions, access to the drinking receptacle was blocked by a metal plate, in the No Cover conditions, the drinking receptacle was accessible. The Test phase showed that in the Cover conditions, the measured expectancies of sucrose were clearly at a higher level than in the No Cover conditions. We compare two competing theories potentially explaining the findings. A cognitive theory interprets the observed effect as evidence that the rats were able to understand that the cover blocked informational access to the outcome information, and therefore the changed learning input did not necessarily signify a change of the underlying contingency in the world. An alternative associationist account, renewal theory, might instead explain the relative sparing of extinction in the Cover condition as a consequence of context change. We discuss the merits of both theories as accounts of our data and conclude that the cognitive explanation is in this case preferred.     

Birth cohort changes in Chinese adolescents' mental health

In China, rapid economic growth and increasing social problems constitute two basic characteristics of contemporary social change. During the process of dramatic social change, an emerging question is how adolescents' mental health has changed across birth cohorts. The present paper reviews four studies of crosstemporal meta-analysis conducted by us. By meta-analysis of previous literature, we examined changes in mean scores on mental health measures over time (from the early 1990s to the mid-2000s). It was found that since the early 1990s, Chinese adolescents' mental health deteriorated across birth cohorts, shown in increased scores on the negative indicators of mental health (e.g. mental problems, anxiety, and depression), whereas self-esteem as a positive trait decreased. The dropping trend in Chinese adolescents' mental health could be attributed to social change, especially increasing social problems. Therefore, adequate attention must be paid to potential influences of social change on individuals' psychological development.     

Improving the future by considering the past: The impact of upward counterfactual reflection and implicit beliefs on negotiation performance

Reflecting on previous experiences and considering how things could have been better (upward counterfactual reflection) is central to learning. While researchers have identified a number of situational antecedents to upward counterfactual generation, less is known about individual differences in counterfactual reflection. We address this gap by considering how implicit beliefs regarding the fixedness or malleability of basic characteristics influence counterfactual generation. In a negotiation context, we show that individuals who believe that negotiation ability is changeable are more likely to consider how things could have been better following a negotiation experience compared to individuals who believe that negotiation ability is fixed. We further demonstrate the impact of upward counterfactual reflection on learning and performance: Negotiators who hold malleable beliefs are better able to discover creative agreements that benefit both parties in a negotiation, and these performance differences are mediated by upward counterfactual generation.     

The Study of College Students’ Beliefs in China

Pastoral Psychology - The beliefs of college students is an important issue that is followed closely by the Government of China (GOC). In recent years, the GOC increasingly has encouraged the...     

A confirmatory factor analytic approach on perceptions of knowledge and skills in teaching (PKST)

This paper reports the cross-validation of the factor pattern of the Perceptions of Knowledge and Skills in Teaching (PKST) survey, which was used to assess the self-perceived pedagogical knowledge and skills of pre-service and beginning teachers. The sample comprised 323 pre-service teachers enrolled in a 1-yr. post-graduate teacher education program in Singapore. The survey had 37 items distributed across six scales: student learning, lesson planning, instructional support, accommodating diversity, classroom management, and care and concern. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to cross-validate the survey's factor pattern. The results showed that the model was an acceptable fit to the data. The PKST survey can thus be adapted by different teacher education programs to assess pre-service and beginning teachers' progress in developing their pedagogical knowledge and skills.     

The Music of Ritual Practice—An Interpretation

Music is an important philosophical theme in Confucian writings, one that is intimately related to ritual. But the relationship between music and ritual requires clarification. This paper seeks to argue for a general sense of music that reflects a particular aspect of ritual that has to do with performance. There is much material available in classical texts, such as the 'Record of Music' ('Yueji'), that allows for nuanced explications of the musical qualities of such performances. Thus explicated, those musical terms provide for a way of speaking about the overall effects of ritual that is not bound to specific choreographic details or particular ritual rules. Finally, it is suggested that the Confucian notion of ren ?? could be usefully compared to the generalised notion of music.     

Investigating trajectories of change in psychological distress amongst patients with depression and generalised anxiety disorder treated with internet cognitive behavioural therapy

Internet based cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is efficacious for the treatment of anxiety and depression. The current study aimed to examine the effectiveness of internet based CBT prescribed by primary care clinicians for the treatment of depression and generalised anxiety disorder. Psychological distress data from 302 patients who completed an online CBT course for depression and 361 patients who completed an online CBT course for generalised anxiety disorder were subjected to growth mixture analysis. For both disorders psychological distress decreased across each lesson in a quadratic trend. Two classes of individuals were identified with different trajectories of change: a large group of individuals who responded well to the courses and a smaller group of individuals with a lower response. Both groups were similar with respect to socio-demographic characteristics however the Low Responders tended to have higher levels of symptom severity and psychological distress at baseline in comparison to the responders. For the majority of patients (75-80%) the internet CBT courses for depression and generalised anxiety disorder were effective. Further research is required to identify and effectively treat the smaller proportion of patients who did not improve during internet CBT.     

Sequence effects by non-predictive arrow cues

Previous studies have found that attention orienting is influenced by the orienting processes of previous trials in a spatial cueing paradigm. This study mainly investigated whether this sequence effect could happen for a non-predictive arrow cue and whether it was influenced by the cue-target SOAs in previous and current trials. A significant sequence effect was observed for arrow cues even when voluntary control was not required, and it was significantly influenced by the SOAs of previous trials. The present results support the automatic memory check hypothesis and may reflect some temporal characteristics of the memory mechanism in sequential processes. In addition, contrary to the previous findings, we found an overall response facilitation following a catch trial, suggesting that the influence of preceding catch trials may be sensitive to experimental contexts.