Altered White-Matter Microstructure in Conduct Disorder Is Specifically Associated with Elevated Callous-Unemotional Traits

Adolescents with conduct disorder (CD) and elevated callous-unemotional (CU) traits have been reported to present with a more severe and persistent pattern of antisocial behaviour than those with low levels of CU traits. However, relatively few studies have investigated whether there are differences in brain structure between these subgroups.We acquired diffusion tensor imaging data and used tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) to compare adolescents with CD and high levels of CU traits (CD/CU+; n?=?18, CD and low levels of CU traits (CD/CU-; n?=?17) and healthy controls (HC; n?=?32) on measures of fractional anisotropy (FA), axial (AD), radial (RD) and mean (MD) diffusivity. Compared to CD/CU- adolescents, those with CD/CU+ presented increased FA and reduced RD and MD (lower diffusivity) in several tracts including: body and splenium of the corpus callosum, right inferior longitudinal fasciculus, ILF; right inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, IFOF; left superior longitudinal fasciculus, SLF; left cerebral peduncle, bilateral internal capsule, left superior and posterior corona radiata, bilateral thalamic radiation and left external capsule. In addition, relative to CD/CU- individuals, adolescents with CD/CU+ showed lower diffusivity (indexed by reduced RD and MD) in left uncinate fasciculus and bilateral fornix. Finally, relative to healthy controls, CD/CU+ individuals showed lower diffusivity (reduced RD) in the genu and body of the corpus callosum and left anterior corona radiata. These results suggest that CD/CU+ individuals present with white-matter microstructural abnormalities compared to both CD/CU- individuals and age-matched healthy controls. This finding is consistent with emerging evidence suggesting that CD/CU+ represents a distinct subtype of CD, and illustrates the importance of accounting for heterogeneity within CD populations.     

Expanding the Political Psychology Toolkit: The Potential of Discursive Psychology for Understanding Contentious Political Debate at a Grassroots Level

In its location at the intersection of political science and psychology, political psychology draws on many of the research techniques of both disciplines in its exploration of power, voting behavior, leadership, attitudes, and values. One hitherto relatively underutilized approach for understanding public policy debate is discursive psychology (DP). Applying this perspective to a contentious policy issue in Australia, we seek to demonstrate that this approach can add richness and depth to our understanding of how ordinary citizens engage in public policy debates. We suggest that this type of analysis can augment insights obtained from more traditional methods—such as focus groups, experimental approaches, and opinion polling—by analyzing how debates are constructed and presented at the grassroots level. This research is innovative in two ways. First, it applies a rigorous, empirical research approach to an area in which it has not previously been used: the study of public policy issues. Second, rather than analyzing the communicative practices of political leaders, we consider the rhetorical arguments made by ordinary citizens in their engagement with political issues and how they negotiate what counts as evidence. This can provide insights into how public debate can be conducted more productively and respectfully.     

Social Constraint and Self‐Doubt: Mechanisms of Social Network influence on Resistance to Persuasion

Those around us have a profound influence on our political attitudes and attitude strength, such that people whose social networks include a variety of perspectives have weaker, less deeply entrenched attitudes than those who are surrounded by like‐minded others. In particular, those embedded in attitudinally heterogeneous networks are more open to changing their views. The nature and mechanisms of this network influence on openness to attitude change remain unclear. A survey experiment examines two mechanisms proposed by prior literature: (1) social doubt triggered by network members' dissent and (2) social constraint to maintain similar attitudes. It also provides some data on the more commonly assumed mechanism, (3) information exchange. Results strongly support social constraint and are mixed on social doubt. This contrasts with the theoretical emphasis of much previous interdisciplinary social network research, which has focused primarily on information exchange, to the detriment of other mechanisms. Findings also indicate that like‐minded social network members solidify attitudes at least as much as dissent erodes them, suggesting that prior emphasis on the influence of heterogeneous rather than attitudinally congruent networks is overstated. Implications for political movements are discussed.     

Predictors of needle-sharing behavior among IDUs entering treatment

Abstract

Public funded treatment intake data from 3905 injection drug users were analyzed to identify correlates of reported needle sharing. Respondents included all first admissions to treatment from July 1, 1988 to June 30, 1989 in the city and county of San Francisco. More previous experience in drug treatment predicted lower rates of needle sharing (OR = 0.85, 95% C.I.= 0.79 - 0.92). Young age, cocaine use and white or Hispanic ethnicity predicted higher rates of needle sharing. The finding that drug treatment reduces the frequency of needle sharing in this population has important policy implications; these data support the role of treatment availability in reducing the spread of HIV among injection drug users.     

How Chesterton read history

Chesterton was a serious and even excellent philosopher, whose reputation has suffered because his style was so striking, and his conversion to Catholicism so unpopular with Whiggish Britons. He had many ‘politically incorrect’ opinions, but those ‘faults’ were symptoms of a greater virtue, his insistence that ‘the whole object of history is to make us realize that humanity can be great and glorious, under conditions quite different and even contrary to our own’. His desire for a United Europe was not for a larger, self‐willed State, but for a continent of peasant proprietors, workers owning their own tools, citizens alive to their own local heritage. What he distrusted was the Laodicean mood that best defines modernity, that nothing is worth dying for but life is not worth living. What he consistently opposed was the power of businessmen and aristocrats, and their Whiggish supporters’ habit of supposing that the actual course of history was inevitable. Speculation about might‐have‐beens (including the great might‐have‐been of medieval Christendom) is a way to subvert the oppressive weight of the present. His hope was for a revolution ('we may or may not see the New Jerusalem rebuilt. .. on our fields, but in the flesh we shall see Babylon fall'), one made easier by the realization that Babylon need never have been built.     

Personality Differences between Responsible and Less Responsible Children

Social maladjustment has been related to an external locus of control orientation. It was hypothesized, therefore, that delinquent females would be more external than a control sample. Further, since alienation from others is also associated with maladjustment, it was expected that the delinquents would also prefer greater distance from others. These hypotheses were confirmed with discussion being in terms of implication for rehabilitation of delinquents.     

Model Fit and Item Factor Analysis: Overfactoring,Underfactoring, and a Program to Guide Interpretation

In exploratory item factor analysis (IFA), researchers may use model fit statistics and commonly invoked fit thresholds to help determine the dimensionality of an assessment. However, these indices and thresholds may mislead as they were developed in a confirmatory framework for models with continuous, not categorical, indicators. The present study used Monte Carlo simulation methods to investigate the ability of popular model fit statistics (chi-square, root mean square error of approximation, the comparative fit index, and the Tucker–Lewis index) and their standard cutoff values to detect the optimal number of latent dimensions underlying sets of dichotomous items. Models were fit to data generated from three-factor population structures that varied in factor loading magnitude, factor intercorrelation magnitude, number of indicators, and whether cross loadings or minor factors were included. The effectiveness of the thresholds varied across fit statistics, and was conditional on many features of the underlying model. Together, results suggest that conventional fit thresholds offer questionable utility in the context of IFA.     

Readers' Theater: A Process of Developing Fourth-Graders' Reading Fluency

This study examines the process of fluency development of three fourth-grade readers of varying reading abilities. Participants were selected based on the number of words they read correctly per minute (WCPM) on the Qualitative Reading Inventory and their score on the Multidimensional Fluency Scale (MFS). Students participated in an 8-week intervention using readers' theater for fluency instruction and practice. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used. Students were observed during the literacy block of the school day, interviewed three times each, and provided weekly student self-reports. WCPM and MFS scores were recorded weekly. Findings showed inconsistent accuracy scores but documented the progress of students' development in two of the four MFS categories: pace and expression/volume. Motivation and confidence also increased through use of readers' theater.     

Jury Panel Member Perceptions of Interpersonal‐Affective Traits of Psychopathy Predict Support for Execution in a Capital Murder Trial Simulation

Recent research with college undergraduate mock jurors suggests that how psychopathic they perceive a criminal defendant to be is a powerful predictor of whether they will support a death verdict in simulated capital murder trials. Perceived affective and interpersonal traits of psychopathy are especially predictive of support for capital punishment, with perceived remorselessness explaining a disproportionate amount of variance in these attitudes. The present study attempted to extend these findings with a more representative sample of community members called for jury duty (N = 304). Jurors reviewed a case vignette based on an actual capital murder trial, provided sentencing verdicts, and rated the defendant on several characteristics historically associated with the construct of psychopathy. Consistent with prior findings, remorselessness predicted death verdicts, as did the affective and interpersonal features of psychopathy – though the latter effect was more pronounced among jurors who were Caucasian and/or who described their political beliefs as moderate rather than conservative or liberal. Results are discussed in terms of the potentially stigmatizing effects of psychopathy evidence in capital cases. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.