Social Skills,Social Support,and Psychological Distress: A Test of the Social Skills Deficit Vulnerability Model

The social skills deficit vulnerability model predicts that poor social skills minimize opportunities to acquire social support, in turn, leading to the proliferation of psychological distress. This prediction was tested in a 2‐wave longitudinal study that assessed 211 emerging adults at Time 1 (T1), with a 70% response rate 1 year later at Time 2 (T2). The results indicated that, after controlling for psychological distress at T1, social skills at T1 had an indirect effect on lower psychological distress at T2, through higher social support. Thus, people with poor social skills may be vulnerable to the development of psychological distress because they have less access the protective effects of social support.     

Stress sensitive healthy females show less left amygdala activation in response to withdrawal-related visual stimuli under passive viewing conditions

The amygdalae are key players in the processing of a variety of emotional stimuli. Especially aversive visual stimuli have been reported to attract attention and activate the amygdalae. However, as it has been argued that passively viewing withdrawal-related images could attenuate instead of activate amygdalae neuronal responses, its role under passive viewing conditions remains unclear. Furthermore, because individual sensitivity to stress reactions has been shown to modulate amygdalae processing, the aim of the current event-related fMRI study was to investigate whether individual differences in stress proneness could influence amygdala responses while passively viewing withdrawal and approach-related visual images. We presented 14 healthy female subjects with a random sequence of images of happy 'healthy' baby faces (approach-related) and baby faces disfigured by severe dermatological conditions (withdrawal-related). No instructions were given other than to watch the images attentively. We integrated individual perceived stress (PSS) scores in our analysis. The processing of withdrawal-related pictures resulted in less left amygdala activity in females scoring higher on perceived stress. Our findings suggest that stress-sensitive healthy females are less able to fully attend to withdrawal-related visual material and in essence avoid exposure to such images in an effort to reduce strong psychophysiological responses. Although the relatively small number of participants limits drawing firm conclusions, we suggest that in passive viewing emotional brain imaging paradigms, individual information on stress proneness should be included in the interpretation of amygdala neuronal processes.     

Audio-visual interactions with intact clearly audible speech

The effects of viewing the face of the talker (visual speech) on the processing of clearly presented intact auditory stimuli were investigated using two measures likely to be sensitive to the articulatory motor actions produced in speaking. The aim of these experiments was to highlight the need for accounts of the effects of audio-visual (AV) speech that explicitly consider the properties of articulated action. The first experiment employed a syllable-monitoring task in which participants were required to monitor for target syllables within foreign carrier phrases. An AV effect was found in that seeing a talker's moving face (moving face condition) assisted in more accurate recognition (hits and correct rejections) of spoken syllables than of auditory-only still face (still face condition) presentations. The second experiment examined processing of spoken phrases by investigating whether an AV effect would be found for estimates of phrase duration. Two effects of seeing the moving face of the talker were found. First, the moving face condition had significantly longer duration estimates than the still face auditory-only condition. Second, estimates of auditory duration made in the moving face condition reliably correlated with the actual durations whereas those made in the still face auditory condition did not. The third experiment was carried out to determine whether the stronger correlation between estimated and actual duration in the moving face condition might have been due to generic properties of AV presentation. Experiment 3 employed the procedures of the second experiment but used stimuli that were not perceived as speech although they possessed the same timing cues as those of the speech stimuli of Experiment 2. It was found that simply presenting both auditory and visual timing information did not result in more reliable duration estimates. Further, when released from the speech context (used in Experiment 2), duration estimates for the auditory-only stimuli were significantly correlated with actual durations. In all, these results demonstrate that visual speech can assist in the analysis of clearly presented auditory stimuli in tasks concerned with information provided by viewing the production of an utterance. We suggest that these findings are consistent with there being a processing link between perception and action such that viewing a talker speaking will activate speech motor schemas in the perceiver.     

A Social-Cognitive Model of Driver Aggression: Taking Situations and Individual Differences into Account

Aggressive driving is a phenomenon that has taken on tremendous significance in society. While the issue has been studied from perspectives of several disciplines, relatively few comprehensive empirical investigations have been conducted. This may be due, at least in part, to a scarcity of comprehensive theoretical works in the field, from which methodical research hypotheses could be derived. This paper reviews major extant theories of general aggression to offer a rationale for choosing a particular framework to apply to the topic of aggressive driving. The social-cognitive model of aggressive driving is recommended, as it takes into account wide-ranging cognitive, situational, and dispositional factors. Implications for future research are also considered.     

Social dominance and the disassociation between explicit and implicit representations of equality

This study tested whether social dominance orientation (SDO) predicted a conceptual disassociation between explicit (declarative or propositional) attitudes about equality and implicit (automatic or associative) views of how representative New Zealand Europeans and Maori are of the New Zealand nation (N = 48 Europeans). Explicitly stated attitudes framing equality in terms of procedural justice or meritocratic treatment were positively correlated with individual differences in the implicit tendency to view New Zealand Europeans as exclusively representative of New Zealand. This tendency to explicitly frame equality as based on individual merit and to implicitly favour the dominant (European) ethnic group as representative of the nation was observed only among people high in SDO. Our analysis provides novel support for the position that meritocratic ideology is malleable and may be employed by those high in SDO to frame concepts of equality and justice in ways that suit their desire for group‐based dominance. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Development of a Methodology for Examining the Process of Family Communication of Genetic Test Results

It is important to study communication processes in families where members are undergoing testing for genetic conditions because the information received from such testing is crucial not just to the individual concerned but also to other members of the biological family. This topic has received little research attention, in part because of the complexities of methodology required. In this paper we present the development of a method specifically designed for the examination of the content and process of communication of genetic information in families. The method aims to maximize ecological validity as far as is possible. We describe how participants and other family members are recruited and how data were collected. We outline three main data analytic strategies: a graphic to show how genetic information changes as it flows from clinic and through the family, an intensive qualitative analysis of the meaning and impact of the genetic information to different family members, and an informative genogram which plots key family dynamics. This method will be illustrated in relation to a study of ten family-groups where one individual has been found to carry a genetic mutation predisposing them to hereditary breast and ovarian cancer.     

“You Have to Sit and Explain it All,and Explain Yourself.” Mothers’ Experiences of Support Services for Their Offspring with a Rare Genetic Intellectual Disability Syndrome

The experiences of mothers of adult offspring with Angelman, Cornelia de Lange, or Cri du Chat syndrome have not been previously explored in research. The current study focuses on experiences with social and medical services and the impact the rareness of an adult offspring’s syndrome has on the experiences of mothers. Eight mothers of adults with Angelman, Cornelia de Lange, or Cri du Chat syndrome were interviewed. Thematic Content Analysis was used to interpret the interviews. Four themes emerged from the analysis: (i) The rarity of their offspring’s syndrome, (ii) Uneven medical and social care service provision, (iii) The inertia of social care services, and (iv) Mothers as advocates. Mothers felt that the rareness of their offspring’s syndrome did not affect experiences with social care services, but did affect access to medical services and some aspects of day-to-day living. Accessing appropriate social care services was reported to be a lengthy and complex process. These data may help inform care service providers about how best to support adults with rare genetic syndromes and their families.