Longitudinal Outcomes of Child Parent Psychotherapy: Response to Commentaries

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - In response to the commentaries provided by Chu et al. (2020), Harmon et al. (2020), and McMahon & Maxwell (2020) on our longitudinal...     

Restlessness in Generalized Anxiety Disorder: Using Actigraphy to Measure Physiological Reactions to Threat

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is characterized by excessive, uncontrollable worry accompanied by symptoms of physiological arousal. Although individuals with GAD report greater subjective arousal than healthy individuals, they show equivalent or even attenuated physiological reactions to threat. This may result from using physiological measures better suited to fear than anxiety. To test this possibility, 102 adults with and without GAD were assessed for restlessness, a core physiological symptom of GAD. They were exposed to an in vivo threat task designed to elicit anxiety in the laboratory. Throughout the task, restlessness was measured physiologically with actigraphy sensors on both ankles and both wrists, and subjectively with self-report ratings. The GAD group reported higher subjective restlessness than the no-GAD group, and in the subset of cases who had restlessness as a clinically significant symptom, actigraphy scores were reliably elevated as well. However, although actigraphy scores increased with proximity to the threat, the increases did not differ by group. These findings provide initial validation for actigraphy as a novel measure of motor restlessness in GAD. In addition, they underscore the value of measuring restlessness using multiple assessment methods. These methods suggest that, in GAD, restlessness reflects a chronic state of arousal rather than a heightened physiological reaction to threat.     

Investigating Relationships Among Distress Tolerance,PTSD Symptom Severity,and Alcohol Use

Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment - Exposure to trauma (particularly interpersonal trauma), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, and low distress tolerance (DT; the...     

Evidence for discrete profiles of children’s physiological activity across three neurobiological system and their transitions over time

The conceptualization of stress‐responsive physiological systems as operating in an integrated manner is evident in several theoretical models of cross‐system functioning. However, limited empirical research has modeled the complexity of multisystem activity. Moreover few studies have explored developmentally regulated changes in multisystem activity during early childhood when plasticity is particularly pronounced. The current study used latent profile analysis (LPA) to evaluate multisystem activity during fall and spring of children's transition to kindergarten in three biological systems: the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), sympathetic nervous system (SNS), and hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis. Latent transition analysis (LTA) was then used to examine the stability of profile classification across time. Across both timepoints, three distinct profiles of multisystem activity emerged. One profile was characterized by heightened HPA axis activity (HPA Axis Responders), a second profile was characterized by moderate, typically adaptive patterns across the PNS, SNS, and HPA axis (Active Copers/Mobilizers), and a third profile was characterized by heightened baseline activity, particularly in the PNS and SNS (Anticipatory Arousal/ANS Responders). LTA of fall‐to‐spring profile classifications indicated higher probabilities that children remained in the same profile over time compared to probabilities of profile changes, suggesting stability in certain patterns of cross‐system responsivity. Patterns of profile stability and change were associated with socioemotional outcomes at the end of the school year. Findings highlight the utility of LPA and LTA to detect meaningful patterns of complex multisystem physiological activity across three systems and their associations with early adjustment during an important developmental transition.     

Sociodemographic Variations in Self-Reported Racism in a Community Sample of Blacks and Latino(a)s

This study investigated dimensions of socioeconomic status (SES) and self-reported racism among a convenience sample of 418 U.S.-born, Black and Latino(a) urban-dwelling adults. Predictors included indexes of individual and neighborhood SES. Self-reported racism was assessed with the Perceived Ethnic Discrimination Questionnaire–Community Version. Individuals at all levels of SES report racism, but the type of exposure varies by SES. Lower levels of SES predict higher levels of lifetime exposure to race-related stigmatization and threat/harassment, and more past-week discrimination. In contrast, higher levels of SES predict greater workplace discrimination. The findings highlight the importance of considering the complex ways in which SES and racism, 2 contributors to racial disparities in health, overlap and diverge.     

L’adhésion des populations immigrantes à la valeur de l’autonomie véhiculée en santé publique

Autonomy, a basic ethical value in public health, is regularly put under pressure by the demands of empowerment, rights of individuals and healthy communities. This article describes the results of a study about the support of non-immigrants and immigrants subjects (n?=?137) from the Montreal area on the value of autonomy conveyed in six public health programs. The results indicate that non-immigrants Quebecers and longstanding immigrants differ from recent immigrants concerning activities about commitment of fathers, poverty families, screening for sexually transmitted diseases and treatment of tuberculosis.     

The components of paraphrase evaluations

Two sentences are paraphrases if their meanings are equivalent but their words and syntax are different. Paraphrasing can be used to aid comprehension, stimulate prior knowledge, and assist in writing-skills development. As such, paraphrasing is a feature of fields as diverse as discourse psychology, composition, and computer science. Although automated paraphrase assessment is both commonplace and useful, research has centered solely on artificial, edited paraphrases and has used only binary dimensions (i.e., is or is not a paraphrase). In this study, we use an extensive database (N=1,998) of natural paraphrases generated by high school students that have been assessed along 10 dimensions (e.g., semantic completeness, lexical similarity, syntactical similarity). This study investigates the components of paraphrase quality emerging from these dimensions and examines whether computational approaches can simulate those human evaluations. The results suggest that semantic and syntactic evaluations are the primary components of paraphrase quality, and that computationally light systems such as latent semantic analysis (semantics) and minimal edit distances (syntax) present promising approaches to simulating human evaluations of paraphrases.     

The Effect of Manipulating Training Demands and Consequences on Experiences of Pressure in Elite Netball

Testing the efficacy of a pressure training framework (Stoker, Lindsay, Butt, Bawden, &; Maynard, 2016 Stoker, M., Lindsay, P., Butt, J., Bawden, M., &; Maynard, I. (2016). Elite coaches' experiences of creating pressure training environments. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 47(3), 262–281.[Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), the present study investigated whether manipulating training demands and consequences altered experiences of pressure. Elite Netballers (M_age = 26.14 years) performed a Netball exercise in a randomized, within-subject design with four conditions: a control, consequences, demands, and demands plus consequences condition. Compared with the control, self-reported pressure was significantly higher in the consequences and demands plus consequences condition but not in the demands condition. The findings provide mixed support for manipulating demands and strong support for manipulating consequences as a means for producing pressure.