What is the Social Impact of ADHD in Girls? A Multi-Method Assessment

This study explores the social impact of ADHD, with and without opposition-defiant behaviour (ADHD+ODD (n= 22) and ADHD-only (n= 18)), in 9- to 12- year old girls compared to girls without ADHD (n= 40). Girls played a computer game involving simulated players, and mothers and teachers completed rating scales. In general, mothers and teachers saw girls with ADHD+ODD as more overtly and relationally aggressive and less prosocial than girls with ADHD-only, who were seen as more overtly and relationally aggressive and less prosocial than control girls. On the computer game, girls with ADHD+ODD were more overtly aggressive, more directly relationally aggressive, and showed less skilled behaviour than the other groups. Girls with ADHD-only showed less covert, indirect relational aggression and more socially awkward interactions than girls in the control group on the computer game. In all, the results indicate that girls with ADHD, with and without ODD behaviour, engage in socially detrimental behaviours.     

The exact variance of weighted kappa with multiple raters

Weighted kappa described by Cohen in 1968 is widely used in psychological research to measure agreement between two independent raters. Everitt then provided the exact variance for weighted kappa for two raters. In this paper, Everitt's exact variance is extended to three or more raters.     

Cognitive Acrobatics in the Construction of Worker–mother Identity

This study uses dialectical theory to explore the interaction of worker identity (perceived financial need and job/career identity) and intensive mothering expectations in mothers’ identity construction. This study is based on extensive interviews with 98 at-home, part-time employed and full-time employed mothers of one or more pre-school children from the Midwestern United States. The narrative analysis reveals that mothers embrace intensive mothering expectations. Because of these cultural expectations, mothers must modify either societal mothering expectations or worker expectations in order to construct an integrated worker–mother identity. We found that while at-home mothers can embrace intensive mothering expectations, employed mothers engage in cognitive acrobatics to manage the tension between employment and the dominant mothering ideology. Deirdre D. Johnston is Professor of Communication and Debra H. Swanson is Professor of Sociology at Hope College. This research was funded by grants from Hope College Frost Center for Social Science Research and the Ruth M. Peale faculty development fund.     

Affectionate Writing Reduces Total Cholesterol: Two Randomized,Controlled Trials

In two 5‐week trials, healthy college students were randomly assigned either to experimental or control groups. Participants in the experimental groups wrote about their affection for significant friends, relatives, and/or romantic partners for 20 minutes on three separate occasions; on the same schedule, those in the control groups wrote about innocuous topics. Total cholesterol was assessed via capillary blood at the beginning of the trials and again at the end. Participants in the experimental groups experienced statistically significant reductions in total cholesterol. Control participants in the first study experienced a significant increase during the same period, whereas those in the second study did not. Cholesterol changes were largely unmoderated by linguistic features of the writing produced in the intervention. Potential therapeutic implications are discussed.     

Social anxiety in older adults: phenomenology, prevalence, and measurement

Although phobias represent the most common anxiety disorders among the elderly, little is known about their social nature. The present study provides information about the prevalence, measurement, and phenomenology of social anxiety in older adults (n = 283) and compares results to those of younger adults (n = 318). Analyses revealed that social anxiety is less prevalent in old age than it is within younger cohorts and is associated with different symptomatology. The psychopathological profile of those who reach clinical levels of social anxiety is however similar, irrespective of age. Results regarding the psychometric properties of the SPAI when used for the elderly were promising, but the questionnaire appears to be difficult for some older adults to complete. Results are discussed in terms of explanations for age differences in social anxiety, initial psychometrics of the SPAI in an older adult sample, and suggestions for future research.     

Asymptotic log-linear analysis: some cautions concerning sparse frequency tables

Traditional asymptotic probability values resulting from log-linear analyses of sparse frequency tables are often much too large. Asymptotic probability values for chi-squared and likelihood-ratio statistics are compared to nonasymptotic and exact probability values for selected log-linear models. The asymptotic probability values are all too often substantially larger than the exact probability values for the analysis of sparse frequency tables. An exact nondirectional permutation method is presented to analyze combined independent multinomial distributions. Exact nondirectional permutation methods to analyze hypergeometric distributions associated with r-way frequency tables are confined to r = 2.     

Word length,phonemic, and visual similarity effects in poor and normal readers

Serial order recall for visually and auditorily presented stimuli was examined in a group of 12-year-old poor readers and 7-year-old reading-age controls. With pictorial presentation, the poor readers showed a visual similarity effect, no word length effect, and a smaller phonemic similarity effect than that of controls. However, with visual presentation of printed words and with auditory presentation, poor readers showed word length and phonemic similarity effects of similar magnitude to that of controls. It is concluded that poor readers rely on visual information in tasks where the presented images are highly codable, and where verbal recoding is not obligatory, but that they will make use of phonological coding when the stimuli are not as easily codable visually in memory.     

The contributions of static visual cues, nonvisual cues, and optic flow in distance estimation

By systematically varying cue availability in the stimulus and response phases of a series of same-modality and cross-modality distance matching tasks, we examined the contributions of static visual information, idiothetic information, and optic flow information. The experiment was conducted in a large-scale, open, outdoor environment. Subjects were presented with information about a distance and were then required to turn 180 before producing a distance estimate. Distance encoding and responding occurred via: (i) visually perceived target distance, or (ii) traversed distance through either blindfolded locomotion or during sighted locomotion. The results demonstrated that subjects performed with similar accuracy across all conditions. In conditions in which the stimulus and the response were delivered in the same mode, when visual information was absent, constant error was minimal; whereas, when visual information was present, overestimation was observed. In conditions in which the stimulus and response modes differed, a consistent error pattern was observed. By systematically comparing complementary conditions, we found that the availability of visual information during locomotion (particularly optic flow) led to an 'under-perception' of movement relative to conditions in which visual information was absent during locomotion.     

Determining essential content for applied behavior analyst practitioners

This article reports the procedures and findings of a job-analysis study recently conducted by the Behavior Analyst Certification Board, Inc. (BACB) and considers some implications of the survey data collected during this process. The job analysis focused on the applied sector of the field of behavior analysis and limited its inquiry into matters of professional competencies and training. The results represent a unique sample of demographic information and valuable collection of opinions regarding the competencies and training required of applied behavior analyst practitioners. Because these opinions have a direct effect on certification task standards and content of the BACB credentialing examinations, which in turn drive the curricula of undergraduate and graduate programs in applied behavior analysis, it is important to consider what these views might mean for the continuing evolution of the field of behavior analysis.     

False recognition without intentional learning

Asked to memorize a list of semantically related words, participants often falsely recall or recognize a highly related semantic associate that has not been presented (the critical lure). Does this false memory phenomenon depend on intentional word reading and learning? In Experiment 1, participants performed a color identification task on distractor words from typical false memory lists. In Experiment 2, participants read the same words. In both experiments, the primary task was followed by a surprise recognition test for actually presented and unpresented words, including the critical lures. False alarms to critical lures were robust and quite equivalent across the two experiments. These results are consistent with an activation/monitoring account of false memory, in which processing of semantic associates can evoke false memories even when that processing is incidental.