Children’s Affect Expression and Frontal EEG Asymmetry: Transactional Associations with Mothers’ Depressive Symptoms

Although parents and children are thought to influence one another's affect and behavior, few studies have examined the direction of effects from children to parents, particularly with respect to parental psychopathology. We tested the hypothesis that children's affective characteristics are associated with the course of mothers' depressive symptoms. Children's affect expression was observed during a series of mother-child interaction tasks, and children's resting frontal electroencephalogram (EEG) asymmetry was assessed in a psychophysiology laboratory. Mothers' depressive symptoms were assessed at two time points, approximately one year apart, at the mother-child interaction visits. Depressive symptoms increased over time for mothers with a history of childhood-onset depression whose children exhibited right frontal EEG asymmetry. Depressive symptoms were associated with high child negative affect at both time points for mothers whose children exhibited right frontal EEG asymmetry. Cross-lagged models with a subset of participants provided some evidence of both parent-to-child and child-to-parent directions of effects. Findings suggest that akin to other interpersonal stressors, children's affective characteristics may contribute to maternal depressive symptoms.     

Age-related deficits in associative memory: the influence of impaired strategic retrieval

In 2 experiments, the authors investigated whether impaired strategic retrieval processes contribute to the age-related deficit in associative memory. To do so, they compared older and younger adults on measures of associative memory that place high demands on retrieval processes (associative identification and recall-to-reject) to measures that place low demands on such processes (associative reinstatement and recall-to-accept). Results showed that older adults were severely impaired on associative identification and recall-to-reject measures; relatively intact on recall-to-accept measures, unless recollection was prominent; and intact on associative reinstatement measures. Together, these findings suggest that impairment in strategic retrieval accounts for older adults' deficits in memory for associative information and that this deficit, above and beyond poor binding of items, leads to and amplifies an impairment in overall recollection.     

Impact of depression on response to comedy: a dynamic facial coding analysis

Individuals suffering from depression show diminished facial responses to positive stimuli. Recent cognitive research suggests that depressed individuals may appraise emotional stimuli differently than do nondepressed persons. Prior studies do not indicate whether depressed individuals respond differently when they encounter positive stimuli that are difficult to avoid. The authors investigated dynamic responses of individuals varying in both history of major depressive disorder (MDD) and current depressive symptomatology (N = 116) to robust positive stimuli. The Facial Action Coding System (Ekman & Friesen, 1978) was used to measure affect-related responses to a comedy clip. Participants reporting current depressive symptomatology were more likely to evince affect-related shifts in expression following the clip than were those without current symptomatology. This effect of current symptomatology emerged even when the contrast focused only on individuals with a history of MDD. Specifically, persons with current depressive symptomatology were more likely than those without current symptomatology to control their initial smiles with negative affect-related expressions. These findings suggest that integration of emotion science and social cognition may yield important advances for understanding depression.     

Attitudinal and Normative Factors as Determinants of Gay Men's Intentions to Perform AIDS-Related Sexual Behaviors: A Multisite Analysis1

The purpose of this study was to test the applicability of the theory of reasoned action as a basis for understanding and predicting gay men's intentions to perform AIDS-related sexual behaviors. A total of 314 self-identified gay or bisexual men from Seattle, Denver, and Albany participated in the study. They were asked to indicate their intentions to perform 15 specific sexual behaviors chosen to represent different degrees of risk of contracting AIDS or other sexually transmitted diseases. In addition, they were asked to respond to items measuring the attitudinal and normative considerations regarding each behavior. As expected, the results showed that the gay men's intentions were significantly predicted by the two factors. More interesting, it was found that, although attitudes are consistently the more important determinants of intentions for all the respondents, the importance of normative considerations varies across cities. This difference in normative considerations is interpreted in light of the differences in the structure of the three gay communities. Implications for designing sample-specific intervention programs are discussed.     

Some effects of response-independent reinforcement on auditory generalization gradients.

Two groups of six rats received discrimination training with two auditory stimuli differing in intensity. During one stimulus, the schedule was variable interval; during the other, it was either variable time or extinction. Both the variable time and extinction schedules resulted in differential rates of responding in the presence of the two stimuli. Extinction resulted in an earlier and more stable difference. Stimulus generalization gradients obtained along the noise-intensity dimension revealed peak shift with both procedures. In addition, a secondary peak to stimuli in between the two training stimuli occurred with the variable-time schedule.     

The Effect of Residence Hall Judicial Pollcies on Attitudes toward Rule-Violating Behaviors1

As part of a longitudinal study of legal socialization (N= 507), a subset of the sample (n= 87) was chosen for an exploratory naturalistic experiment of the effect of manipulated residence hall judicial policies on attitudes toward rule-violating behavior. Freshman students who directly participated in the functioning of their dormitory judicial system (n= 26) expressed attitudes less tolerant of rule-violating behaviors than did freshman students (n= 12) who had no control over how rules were enforced. Students in both of these experimental conditions expressed attitudes less tolerant of rule-violating behavior than did those (n= 49) living in two control dormitories operating under the usual university policies. While noting the problem of confounds inherent in naturalistic designs, the results are interpreted as suggesting that while the imposition of strict rules by an external authority can result in attitudinal compliance, a stronger effect can be achieved by fostering shared values through active student participation in the judicial system. The implications of these findings are interpreted within the context of control theory.