Fortalezas Familiares Program: Building Sociocultural and Family Strengths in Latina Women with Depression and Their Families

The purpose of this article is to describe Fortalezas Familiares (FF; Family Strengths), a community‐based prevention program designed to address relational family processes and promote well‐being among Latino families when a mother has depression. Although depression in Latina women is becoming increasingly recognized, risk and protective mechanisms associated with children's outcomes when a mother has depression are not well understood for Latino families. We begin by reviewing the literature on risk and protective psychosocial mechanisms by which maternal depression may affect Latino youth, using family systems theory and a developmental psychopathology framework with an emphasis on sociocultural factors shaping family processes. Next, we describe the theoretical basis and development of the FF program, a community‐based 12‐week intervention for Latina immigrant women with depression, other caregivers, and their children. Throughout this article, we use a case study to illustrate a Latina mother's vulnerability to depression and the family's response to the FF program. Recommendations for future research and practice include consideration of sociocultural processes in shaping both outcomes of Latino families and their response to interventions.     

Importance of having agreeable friends in adolescence (especially when you are not)

Using the actor–partner interdependence model, we examined whether adolescent's agreeableness, best friend's agreeableness, and the interaction between adolescent‐friend agreeableness are important for interpersonal functioning. Adolescents (N = 158) in fifth to eighth grades who were part of best friend pairs completed personality and friendship measures. Adolescents' adjustment and victimization experiences were assessed by peer nominations. For boys, best friend's agreeableness moderated the relationship between the target boy's agreeableness and overt victimization, relational victimization, and externalizing problems. For girls, best friend's agreeableness moderated the relationship between the target girl's agreeableness and internalizing problems and prosocial skills. This study provides an initial glimpse into how traits of friends can influence outcomes beyond what would be expected from adolescents' personality alone.     

Short-term memory for serial order supports vocabulary development: New evidence from a novel word learning paradigm

Although recent studies suggest a strong association between short-term memory (STM) for serial order and lexical development, the precise mechanisms linking the two domains remain to be determined. This study explored the nature of these mechanisms via a microanalysis of performance on serial order STM and novel word learning tasks. In the experiment, 6- and 7-year-old children were administered tasks maximizing STM for either item or serial order information as well as paired-associate learning tasks involving the learning of novel words, visual symbols, or familiar word pair associations. Learning abilities for novel words were specifically predicted by serial order STM abilities. A measure estimating the precision of serial order coding predicted the rate of correct repetitions and the rate of phoneme migration errors during the novel word learning process. In line with recent theoretical accounts, these results suggest that serial order STM supports vocabulary development via ordered and detailed reactivation of the novel phonological sequences that characterize new words.     

Geometries and Dynamics of a Rod Determine How It Is Used for Reaching

Displacing an object with a hand-held rod provided a simple paradigm for studying tool use. The authors asked how reaching was affected by manipulations of rod properties. Adults held a rod (length = .10 to 1.5 m), with its tip in the air; walked toward an object on a table; chose a place to stop; and displaced the object with the rod's tip. In 3 experiments (Ns = 9, 22, and 17 participants), the authors manipulated rod length, mass, and mass distribution to determine whether and how geometric and dynamic properties affected the chosen distance and the posture. Both the chosen stopping distance and the postures were well accommodated to rod characteristics. Postural adaptations took place only in the arm, which was organized as a synergy. Predictably, rod length explained most of the variance, but small and reliable differences in both distance and posture depended on mass and mass distribution. The chosen distance anticipated not only rod length but also the upcoming posture needed to control the rod.     

Validity and Stability of the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory in a Nonforensic Sample of Young Adults

Scores were obtained for 103 Subjects on the Sixteen Personality Factor test, Form C; the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule; the Otis Quick Scoring Test, Form G; Raven's Progressive Matrices, Sets A-E; and on 47 handwriting variables. First, personality and intelligence variables, then handwriting variables were factored and rotated, after which factor scores were obtained. Through a regression of handwriting from personality and intelligence factor scores, it was found that 6 of 16 handwriting factors could be predicted by 5 of 10 personality and intelligence factors. These results and their relation to graphology are discussed.     

An 18-month follow-up investigation of motor coordination and working memory in primary school children

The aim of the current study was to examine the relationship between motor coordination and visual working memory in children aged 5–11 years. Participants were 18 children with movement difficulty and 41 control children, assessed at baseline and following an 18-month time period. The McCarron Assessment of Neuromuscular Development provided a measure of motor skills and the CogState One-Back task was used to assess visual working memory. Multi-level mixed effects linear regressions were used to assess the relationship between fine motor skills, gross motor skills, and visual working memory. The results revealed that for children with movement difficulty, better fine motor skills at baseline significantly predicted greater One-Back accuracy and greater (i.e., faster) speed at 18-month follow-up. Conversely, fine motor skills at baseline did not predict One-Back accuracy and speed for control children. However, for both groups, greater One-Back accuracy at baseline predicted better fine and gross motor skills at follow-up. These findings have important implications for the assessment and treatment of children referred for motor difficulties and/or working memory difficulties.     

The Anomalous Wellbeing of Disabled People: A Response

Disabled people frequently find themselves in situations where their quality of life and wellbeing is being measured or judged by others, whether in decisions about health care provision or assessments for social supports. Recent debates about wellbeing and how it might be assessed (through subjective and/or objective measures) have prompted a renewed focus on disabled people’s wellbeing because of its seemingly ‘anomalous’ nature; that is, whilst to external (objective) observers the wellbeing of disabled people appears poor, based on subjective assessments, people with disabilities report a good quality of life. In this paper, I examine an article by the philosopher Dan Moller in which he seeks to explain this ‘disability paradox’. Despite agreeing with his analysis that there is more to what people value than happiness, his explanation reflects some of the difficulties presented in philosophical accounts which seek to understand the lives of disabled people: this includes an analysis which fails to problematise definitions of wellbeing and who has the ‘voice’ to do the defining; which negates the multiple identities and subject positions that disabled people occupy; and which lacks recognition of the social contexts which mediate disabled people’s lives. I suggest that there is a need to incorporate disabled people’s voices into research which deepens our empirical knowledge about the relationship between impairment and wellbeing, including the social circumstances that shape disabled people’s agency.     

Impulsivity,sensation seeking and reproductive behaviour: A life history perspective

Impulsivity has often been invoked as a proximate driver of different life-history strategies. However, conceptualisations of “impulsivity” are inconsistent and ambiguities exist regarding which facets of impulsivity are actually involved in the canalisation of reproductive strategies. Two variables commonly used to represent impulsivity were examined in relation to reproductive behaviour. Results demonstrated that sensation seeking was significantly related to strategy-based behaviour, but impulsivity (defined as a failure to deliberate) was only weakly correlated. The effect of impulsivity disappeared when sensation seeking was controlled. Sex differences emerged for sensation seeking but not impulsivity. We conclude that “impulsivity” is not a unitary trait and that clearer distinctions should be made between facets of this construct.     

The areas of change questionnaire: A cross-cultural comparison of israeli and american distressed and nondistressed couples

Abstract

This study examines Israeli couples' presenting complaints about their relationship, their perceptions of one another's complaints and perceptual accuracy between actual and perceived complaints, using the Areas of Change Questionnaire (ACQ). Samples were obtained of both distressed and nondistressed couples. Each sample met stringent criteria for categorization as distressed and nondistressed. Normative data for both samples are examined and areas of similarities and differences are discussed. The instrument is found to discriminate distressed and nondistressed Israeli couples. Results are compared with a previous study of American distressed and nondistressed couples. The American finding that women desire more change in marriage is not replicated in the Israeli sample, nor the American finding that distress and stage in the life cycle are related. However, there is an indication in both samples that men, compared to women, perceive more requests for change. Men in both cultures also feel more change is asked of them than they themselves ask in return.