Relations of Parenting and Negative Life Events to Cognitive Diatheses for Depression in Children

In a sample of 299 children (grades 2, 4, and 6), we examined parenting and negative life events as predictors of depressive cognitions, specifically low self-perceived competence, depressive cognitive schemas, and depressogenic attributional style. We also examined developmental trends in these relations. Children completed measures of parenting, negative life events, and depressive cognitions. Parents also completed measures of parenting and negative life events. Consistent with our hypotheses, negative parenting and negative life events corresponded with higher levels of depressive cognitions, whereas positive parenting corresponded with lower levels of depressive cognitions. The relations between negative parenting and negative automatic thoughts were stronger for older children. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Education as an intergenerational process of human learning, teaching, and development

In this article I argue that the future of psychological research on educational processes would benefit from an interdisciplinary approach that enables psychologists to locate their objects of study within the cultural, social, and historical contexts of their research. To make this argument, I begin by examining anthropological accounts of the characteristics of education in small, face-to-face, preindustrial societies. I then turn to a sample of contemporary psychoeducational research that seeks to implement major, qualitative changes in modern educational practices by transforming them to have the properties of education in those self-same face-to-face societies. Next I examine the challenges faced by these modern approaches and briefly describe a multi-institutional, multidisciplinary system of education that responds to these challenges while offering a model for educating psychology students in a multigenerational system of activities with potential widespread benefits.     

Social inhibition of return

Responses to a target stimulus can be slower when it appears in the same rather than a different location to a previous event, an effect known as inhibition of return (IOR). Recently, it has been shown that when two people alternate responses to a target, one person’s responses are slower when they are directed to the same locations as their partner’s previous response. The present study sought to investigate this highly novel effect, which we term social IOR (SIOR), in relation to what is known of IOR in individuals performing alone. We found that only a real conspecific can induce SIOR in another person, whereas an animated conspecific cannot. Additionally, SIOR emerges at locations to which a conspecific has been inferred to respond, even when direct observation of his/her responses is prevented. Finally, SIOR can be induced without the abrupt visual transients normally associated with the generation of IOR. These findings suggest that SIOR is the result of stronger activations of IOR mechanisms, or that it is subserved by entirely separate inhibitory processes.     

Adaptation in Visuomanual Tracking Depends on Intact Proprioception

The role of arm proprioception in motor learning was investigated in experiments in which, by moving the arm, subjects followed the motion of a target displayed on a monitor screen. Adaptive capabilities were tested in visuomanual tracking tasks following alterations in the relationship between the observer's actual arm movement and visual feedback of the arm movement given by a cursor motion on the screen. Tracking performance and adaptive changes, measured in terms of spatiotemporal error, tracking trajectory curvature, and spatial gain, were compared in 7 control subjects (CSs) and in 1 deafferented subject (DS). CSs adapted appropriately to altered visuomanual relationships; those changes were present in trials immediately after restoration of normal scaling. In contrast, although the DS modified his tracking strategy from trial to trial according to the altered conditions, he did not show plastic changes in internal visuomanual scaling. Like the results of prismatic adaptation experiments, the present results suggest that arm proprioception contributes to the plastic changes that follow alterations in the scaling of visuomanual gain.     

Age and Cognitive Stress Influences Motor Skill Acquisition,Consolidation, and Dual-Task Effect in Humans

This study examined motor skill learning using a weight-bearing and cognitive-motor dual-task that incorporated unexpected perturbations and measurements of cognitive function. Forty young and 24 older adults performed a single-limb weight bearing task with novel speed, resistance, and cognitive dual task conditions to assess motor skill acquisition, retention and transfer. Subjects performed a cognitive dual task: summing letters in one color/orientation (simple) or two colors/orientations (complex). Increased cognitive load diminished the rate of skill acquisition, decreased transfer to new conditions, and increased error rate during an unexpected perturbation; however, young adults had a dual-task benefit from cognitive load. Executive function predicted 80% of the variability in dual-task performance. Although initial learning of a weight-bearing cognitive-motor dual-task was poor, longer term goals of improved dual-task effect and retention emerged.     

Coalition Preference as a Function of Expected Values in a Tetradic Weighted-Majority Game

Eighty male subjects participated in a tetradic weighted-majority game in which a coalition was required to control the division of the payoff. The amount of the payoff and/of the probability of receiving the payoff were varied. The data strongly supported the hypothesis that subjects would prefer the coalition with the largest expected value (size of payoff x probability of success = expected value) rather than the coalition with the largest payoff or the coalition with the highest probability of success. However, contrary to expectations, the 'division of rewards was found to be a function of the relative assigned resources of the coalition members, despite the lack of a logical connection between the assigned resources and the rules governing obtaining the payoff.     

Avoiders vs. Amenders: Implications for the investigation of guilt and shame during Toddlerhood?

Abstract

Recent research and theory highlights the distinctive features of shame vs. guilt, as well as the important implications of that distinction for typical and atypical behaviour regulation. Briefly, shame is characterised by withdrawal and hiding from judgemental others, and guilt by making amends–repairing and confessing. The present study was aimed at determining whether a shame-relevant and a guilt-relevant pattern of responses to a standard violation could be distinguished in toddlers.

Two-year-old children participated in a play session, during which a mishap occurred that the children appeared to have caused. Based upon whether or not children avoided the experimenter (E) after the mishap, they were dichotomised into a shame-relevant group of subjects (Avoiders) who avoid E after the mishap, are slow to make reparation, and are slow to tell E about the mishap; and a guilt-relevant group (Amenders) showing the opposite pattern. All guilt-relevant behaviours were greater for Amenders than Avoiders, and all but one shame-relevant behaviour was greater for Avoiders than for Amenders, suggesting coherence in the organisation of responses. Moreover, convergent evidence from a maternal report questionnaire indicated that in non-laboratory settings as well, Amenders manifested greater guilt relative to shame than did Avoiders. Further research is needed to determine developmental antecedents and consequences of the Avoider/Amender dichotomy.     

Race,Immorality and Money in the American Baha'i Community: Impeaching the Los Angeles Spiritual Assembly

This article analyses the dissolution of the Baha'i local assembly of Los Angeles in 1986–88 by the National Assembly. Official explanations for this move focused on lapses in morality and administrative discipline, but local interviewees, as well as some official pronouncements, suggest that the conflict had two roots: the globalisation of the community and resultant ethnic conflict among whites, African–Americans and newly immigrant Iranians; and national/local conflicts over power and money. Low-information elections, the unaccountability of elected officials, censorship and difficulties in acknowledging social conflict were the causes of these episodes in the Baha'i religion.     

Seeing the Expected,the Desired,and the Feared: Influences on Perceptual Interpretation and Directed Attention

Though people often believe their visual experiences reflect the objective state of the surrounding world, a wealth of recent evidence suggests that perceptions are systematically biased. We draw from contemporary research and supplement with real world anecdotes to suggest that two aspects of perception are subject to influence by states internal to perceivers themselves. We focus on the biases that arise from two difficult tasks faced by the visual system. First, visual information is often unclear and ambiguous; yet visual input must be categorized quickly and efficiently. Second, people can focus on only a subset of perceptual information at once, and as a result visual attention is necessarily directed at a subset of the surrounding world. We document ways in which expectations, desires, and fears help to resolve perceptual ambiguity and direct attention. Finally, we discuss the functional nature of visual biases and note potential consequences in important domains.     

Cinematherapy: Metaphorically promoting therapeutic change

Cinematherapy involves assigning clients commercial movies to view between sessions of therapy. This article describes the applications of cinematherapy as a useful adjunct to more traditional approaches to therapeutic change. Techniques for implementation are outlined, and potential advantages of the use of cinematherapy are discussed. While cinematherapy may be used as an assignment within a variety of theoretical orientations, this article conceptualizes the technique from the perspective of the use of metaphor to promote therapeutic change. Although many therapists report informal use of films in working with clients, there is a paucity of research on the efficacy of cinematherapy as a counselling technique. The article makes extrapolations about effectiveness based on empirical findings involving use of the related technique of bibliotherapy. However, the authors hope that the article will inspire more formal research into the use of cinematherapy.