Relational Security Moderates the Effect of Serotonin Transporter Gene Polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) on Stress Generation and Depression among Adolescents

Previous research demonstrates that carriers of the short allele of the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR) show both greater susceptibility to depression in response to stressful life events and higher rates of generation of stressful events in response to depression. The current study examines relational security (i.e., self-reported beliefs about attachment security) as a moderator of these effects, building on emerging research suggesting that the short allele acts as a marker of sensitivity to the social environment. Participants were 354 Caucasian adolescents oversampled for maternal depression (137 male, 217 female), assessed at ages 15 and 20. Results indicated that the short allele predicted increased stress generation at age 20 among those with low age 15 security but decreased stress generation among those with high security, and revealed a three-way interaction between age 15 depression, age 15 security, and genotype, where depression predicted stress generation only among short allele carriers with low security. Further, among boys only, security interacted with genotype to predict longitudinal changes in depression diagnosis, with the s-allele predicting relative increases in probability of depression among boys with low security but decreases among boys with high security. Results support the notion of the short allele as a marker of social reactivity, and suggest that attachment security may buffer against the genetic vulnerability introduced by the short allele, in line with predictions of the differential susceptibility theory.     

Femininity and Dominance Across the Lifespan: Longitudinal Findings from Two Cohorts of Women

The Intergenerational Studies (IGS) began in 1929 designed with the overarching goal of describing and predicting normal human development. Here we focus on original IGS participant women and daughters of original participants, with respect to development in femininity and dominance, as measured by the CPI. Three-level HLM indicates older cohort women are higher in femininity than younger cohort women in early adulthood; both cohorts show an equivalent linear decrease with age. In contrast, the two cohorts show equivalent levels of dominance in early adulthood, but the younger cohort women show a greater increase with age than the older cohort women. Results illustrate both cohort and developmental movement toward less femininity and more dominance in women.     

Revisiting von Restorff’s early isolation effect

An item that is conceptually or physically different from other items in a series is often remembered well. This isolation effect has been found independent of the position of the isolated item in the list, suggesting that special attention to or processing of the isolated item is not a necessary precondition of the effect. Three experiments are reported that challenge this conclusion. In Experiment 1a, we compared memory for conceptually isolated items to memory for the same items in unrelated and homogeneous lists. Under moderately distracting conditions, isolation effects were observed with midlist but not with early isolates. In fact, early isolation impaired memory for the conceptually distinct items relative to the same items in homogeneous lists. Experiment 1b replicated this memory impairment for early conceptual isolates and extended it to nondistracting conditions. In Experiment 2, we focused on early isolation, manipulating the type of isolation and whether or not participants performed judgments of learning (JOLs). An early isolation effect was observed for numbers isolated in lists of words (and vice versa), but not for conceptual isolates. Performing the JOL task reduced the size of the early isolation effect. These results suggest that number/word stimulus contrasts are coded automatically and support an isolation effect independent of list position. However, conceptual contrasts require relational processing and will only support an early isolation effect when such processing occurs. The results of Experiments 1a, 1b, and 2 suggest that attentional resources during list presentation and a favorable retrieval environment combine to support good memory for distinctive events.     

Narcissism,identification, and longitudinal change in psychological health: Dynamic predictions

The narcissist has been described as “dependent on others to provide confirmation of the grandiose ego ideal” (American Psychiatric Association. (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.). The present study shows how the combination of dependent identification and unhealthy narcissism leads to decreasing psychological health across 42 years of adulthood. Change in psychological health is studied in 156 participants of the Intergenerational Studies, Institute of Human Development, University of California, Berkeley. We predicted that longitudinal decline in psychological health, as assessed by longitudinal hierarchical linear modeling analyses of the California Personality Inventory v3 scale [Gough, H. G., & Bradley, P. (1996). California Psychological Inventory. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press], would be predicted by the joint presence in early adulthood of maladaptive narcissism [Wink, P. (1992). Three narcissism scales for the California Q-set. Journal of Personality Assessment, 58, 51–66] and defensive identification [Cramer, P. (1991a). The development of defense mechanisms: Theory, research and assessment. New York: Springer-Verlag]. In contrast, we predicted healthy narcissism would be positively related to psychological health throughout adulthood. Predictions were confirmed via regression analyses including interaction terms, and are explained by the insoluble conflict that occurs when narcissistic gratification is dependent on the admiration of others, but the tie to others interferes with independent growth and accomplishment.     

Expectations of Psychotherapy Duration by Disorder: A Comparison Between Professional and Young Adult Expectations

Using more precise methodology, the current study investigated expectations of psychotherapy duration for specific disorders. Duration expectations were obtained for young adults and compared to those obtained from psychotherapists as reported by Lowry and Ross (Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training 34:272–277, 1997). Results revealed that expected duration for young adults by disorder was quite similar to the psychotherapists, where less severe psychological disorders and problems were expected to require shorter treatment durations than moderate and severe disorders and problems. For disorders and problems with which young adults were familiar, their expectations were essentially the same as psychotherapists. A meaningful difference was found for suicidal ideation, with young adults expecting significantly longer treatment duration.     

Fathering activities during early infancy

Fathering activities of 16 fathers of firstborns were surveyed via questionnaire to assess their involvement in physical caretaking, affective interaction and support of mother through participation in household tasks. Results indicated that student fathers who had previous infant care experience, whose infants were unplanned and whose wives were either employed or attending school spent the most time interacting with their infants. Other variables explored which had little effect on father's interaction time included: formal education, attendance at prenatal clases, infant's sex and method of feeding, family isolation. Fathers spent more time in affective interaction than in physical caretaking. Time spent by fathers in affective interaction was nearly equal to that of mothers, while time spent in physical caretaking was much greater for mothers.     

Wives' work and psychological well-being: An extension of gove's social role theory of depression

The effectiveness of social role theory in explaining the relationship between wives' work (inside and outside the home) and psychological well-being is examined in reference to existing empirical patterns and alternative explanations. The theory is extended by the reorientation of its assumptions around central concepts and premises of the rational choice and social exchange framework: rewards, costs, cost reduction, alternative sources of gratification, and subjective evaluation of behavioral outcomes. Several mediating factors are integrated into the revised theory: help with housework and child care, work satisfaction, and participation in voluntary associations and social networks. The explanatory utility of the additional causal links proposed in the expanded theory is explored in a comparison of 50 employed wives and 50 housewives, all of whom have at least one preschool child living at home. The validity of the revised propositions is supported by the findings, which reveal no significant difference between the employed wives and the housewives in depression, health anxiety, or life satisfaction.     

The role of anxiety in the Career Decision Making of liberal arts students

Liberal arts students (N = 341) completed parallel halves of the A-State portion of the State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-S) before and after completion of either a career-planning questionnaire consisting largely of Harren's Assessment of Career Decision-Making (ACDM) instrument (treatment group) or a set of consumer preference marketing questions (control group). As hypothesized, the treatment group showed an increase in post-test anxiety as compared to pretest responses; level of expressed anxiety in the control group pre- and post-test did not change significantly. Additionally, state anxiety (at both points in time) in the treatment group was found to relate to most of the ACDM measures operationalizing the career-planning model of Harren and his associates, thus confirming that anxiety is both another indicator of student lack of success in the career planning process and a justifiable extension of their model. Anxiety was found to relate more weakly to specific career concerns, suggesting that students are not fully aware of the source(s) of their anxiousness. Further, two key scales from Harren's model (dependent decision-making style and occupational commitment) were found to be related to specific career concerns, indicating that those measures are reftective of actual student concerns in successful career planning. Further research should seek to demonstrate the development of these relationships between career planning and anxiety over time.