The Relations among Measurements of Informant Discrepancies within a Multisite Trial of Treatments for Childhood Social Phobia

Discrepancies between informants’ reports of children’s behavior are robustly observed in clinical child research and have important implications for interpreting the outcomes of controlled treatment trials. However, little is known about the basic psychometric properties of these discrepancies. This study examined the relation between parent-child reporting discrepancies on measures of child social phobia symptoms, administered before and after treatment for social phobia. Participants included a clinic sample of 81 children (7–16 years old [M = 11.75, SD = 2.57]; 39 girls, 42 boys) and their parents receiving treatment as part of a multisite controlled trial. Pretreatment parent-child reporting discrepancies predicted parent-child discrepancies at posttreatment, and these relations were not better accounted for by the severity of the child’s pretreatment primary diagnosis. Further, treatment responder status moderated this relation: Significant relations were identified for treatment non-responders and not for treatment responders. Overall, findings suggest that informant discrepancies can be reliably employed to measure individual differences over the course of controlled treatment trials. These data provide additional empirical support for recent work suggesting that informant discrepancies can meaningfully inform understanding of treatment response as well as variability in treatment outcomes.     

Developmental changes in dopamine neurotransmission in adolescence: Behavioral implications and issues in assessment

Adolescence is characterized by increased risk-taking, novelty-seeking, and locomotor activity, all of which suggest a heightened appetitive drive. The neurotransmitter dopamine is typically associated with behavioral activation and heightened forms of appetitive behavior in mammalian species, and this pattern of activation has been described in terms of a neurobehavioral system that underlies incentive-motivated behavior. Adolescence may be a time of elevated activity within this system. This review provides a summary of changes within cortical and subcortical dopaminergic systems that may account for changes in cognition and affect that characterize adolescent behavior. Because there is a dearth of information regarding neurochemical changes in human adolescents, models for assessing links between neurochemical activity and behavior in human adolescents will be described using molecular genetic techniques. Furthermore, we will suggest how these techniques can be combined with other methods such as pharmacology to measure the impact of dopamine activity on behavior and how this relation changes through the lifespan.     

Conflicted Gender Identity, Body Dissatisfaction, and Disordered Eating in Adult Men and Women

The relation between gender identity and body dissatisfaction as well as disordered eating was examined in a population-based sample of Finnish adults aged 18 to 44 years (N?=?1,142). Participants with a conflicted gender identity were compared to controls matched on age and biological sex. Participants with a conflicted gender identity showed higher levels of body dissatisfaction, women with a conflicted gender identity also showed more eating disturbance than controls. Among men with a conflicted gender identity, male–male sexual experience was associated with more body dissatisfaction and disordered eating. Among women with a conflicted gender identity, female–female sexual experience was related to less body dissatisfaction. Possible explanations for these findings and the potential clinical implications are discussed.     

Capturing autonomy,competence, and relatedness at work: Construction and initial validation of the Work‐related Basic Need Satisfaction scale

The satisfaction of the basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, as defined in Self‐Determination Theory, has been identified as an important predictor of individuals' optimal functioning in various life domains. The study of work‐related need satisfaction seems, however, hampered by the lack of a validated measure. To assist future research, the present study aimed to develop and validate a Work‐related Basic Need Satisfaction scale (W‐BNS). Using four Dutch‐speaking samples, evidence was found for the three‐factor structure of the scale, the discriminant validity, and the reliability of the three need satisfaction subscales as well as their criterion‐related and predictive validity. The W‐BNS may therefore be considered as a promising tool for future research and practice.     

Relationship Quality and Purchase Intention and Behavior: The Moderating Impact of Relationship Strength

Purpose  

The purpose of this study was to investigate the link between perceived relationship quality, purchase intention and behavior, and the moderating role of relationship strength.     

The Relation between Selection Expectations,Perceptions and Organizational Attraction: A test of competing models

Little is known about how applicants' selection expectations and perceptions interplay in predicting applicant attraction outcomes (organizational attractiveness, job pursuit intention, and recommendation intention). In the present study, 340 entry‐level applicants for jobs in a large financial company provided information about their selection expectations before the procedure, and about their perceptions and attraction to the organization after the procedure. Regression analyses indicated that applicant perceptions, and in particular perceptions of warmth/respect, mediated the relationship between selection expectations and organizational attractiveness and job pursuit intention. No support was found for the moderating role of selection expectations in the perception–attraction relationship. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.     

“清代道藏”——江南蒋元庭本《道藏辑要》之研究

继明代《正统道藏》之后,《道藏辑要》是最重要的道教丛书。《道藏辑要》一书的形成至今仍是个谜,当代学者普遍认为它有三个主要版本:一为彭定求(1645-1719)编原本,二为蒋元庭(1755-1819)增补本,三为贺龙骧、彭瀚然最终修订本。与学者们普遍认可的观点不同,本文力图证明《道藏辑要》实际上只有两个版本(版本二和版本三),而所谓的彭定求本纯属虚构。在对蒋元庭之同代人闵一得(1748/58-1836)的作品进行研究后,我们证实蒋元庭确是《道藏辑要》的编者。在闵一得的作品中,我们还可以发现《道藏辑要》在江南地区与"吕洞宾崇拜"有关之道教社团中的影响;在巴黎藏本《道藏辑要》(这一版本与藏书家丁福保编制目录之版本十分近似)中,这种影响的痕迹更是十分明显。在此发现的基础上,本文力图开辟新的研究领域,使读者可以更好地了解《道藏辑要》的复杂文本历史,以及它在推动清代道教纯粹远景及扶鸾崇拜中的角色。     

Looking out for danger: An attentional bias towards spatially predictable threatening stimuli

Attentional bias to threat is well established, however, the influence of spatial predictability on this attentional bias has never been investigated. Here we investigated how threat affects attentional capture and disengagement when its spatial location is predictable. Using a visual search paradigm, participants were required to identify a target inside one of a variable number of colored circles. One color (Conditioned Stimulus, CS+) was fear-conditioned using an electrocutaneous stimulus at tolerance level. In the experimental group the CS+ was made spatially predictable (occurred more often at one location in the visual display), while this was not the case in the control group. Results showed no complete automatic capture of attention by the CS+, but the experimental group did show more prioritization of the CS+ and less difficulty to disengage from the CS+ than the control group. Of further importance was the finding that the experimental group also attended to the location that was predictive of the CS+, even when no CS+ was presented. Findings are discussed in terms the effects of predictability on anxiety.     

Ingratiation and Self‐Promotion in the Selection Interview: The Effects of Using Single Tactics or a Combination of Tactics on Interviewer Judgments

This paper investigates the relative effectiveness of the use of 2 impression‐management tactics—ingratiation and self‐promotion—on interviewers' evaluations of an applicant in a laboratory setting. It was suggested that the use of a single tactic would be better than the use of no tactic; that the use of self‐promotion would be more successful than the use of ingratiation; and, finally, that the use of a combination of tactics would lead to the best evaluations. Results were largely in line with our hypotheses. Interviewer ratings and action recommendations were more positive in the combination condition, followed by the self‐promotion condition, the ingratiation condition, and the neutral condition. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.