Adolescent recognition of parental affect: influence of depressive symptoms

This study examined depressive biases in adolescents' labeling of parental affect. Adolescents (151 girls; 82 boys) and their parents engaged in videotaped problem-solving interactions. Adolescents then participated in a video-mediated recall procedure in which they watched the videotaped interaction and indicated how they thought their parents were feeling. Indices of parents' affect during the problem-solving interactions were also provided by parent self-report and behavioral observations. Adolescent depressive symptoms were associated with overreporting of parental aggressive affect and underreporting of parental happy and neutral affects, relative to both directly observed and self-reported parental affect. Depressive symptoms were not associated with overreporting of parental dysphoric affect. Given the importance of accurately reading affective cues for negotiating interpersonal interactions, these findings likely have implications for understanding processes that contribute to adverse relationships among the families of adolescents with depressive symptoms.     

Discrepancy-based and anticipated emotions in behavioral self-regulation

Discrepancies between one's current and desired states evoke negative emotions, which presumably guide self-regulation. In the current work we evaluated the function of discrepancy-based emotions in behavioral self-regulation. Contrary to classic theories of self-regulation, discrepancy-based emotions did not predict the degree to which people engaged in self-regulatory behavior. Instead, expectations about how future self-discrepancies would make one feel (i.e., anticipated emotions) predicted self-regulation. However, anticipated emotions were influenced by previous discrepancy-based emotional experiences, suggesting that the latter do not directly motivate self-regulation but rather guide expectations. These findings are consistent with the perspective that emotions do not necessarily direct immediate behavior, but rather have an indirect effect by guiding expectations, which in turn predict goal-directed action.     

Responding to unemployment and inequalities in income and health

This paper discusses the social and economic context in which counselling and psychotherapy are practised. The use of ‘outplacement counselling’ and personal skills training programmes for dealing with unemployment and redundancy is criticized. It is argued that they involve a form of psychological reductionism which fails to acknowledge socio-economic realities. Research showing a strong link between inequalities of income and physical and mental health is reviewed. It is suggested that counsellors and psychotherapists have a professional obligation to acknowledge the social and economic circumstances likely to contribute to clients' mental distress and avoid the dangers of reductionism.     

STUDENTS' APPLICATIONS OF SELF‐QUESTIONING STUDY TECHNIQUES: AN INVESTIGATION OF THEIR EFFICACY

This article describes the results of a study in which college developmental reading students were taught how to use study techniques which involved self‐questioning. Over a nine‐week period, subjects were trained in the application of SQ3R (Robinson, 1961), REAP (Eanet & Manzo, 1976), and self‐questioning (Andre & Anderson, 1978‐79) to content area prose materials. Quantitative results indicated that the SQ3R group significantly outperformed the REAP group on a posttest measure of comprehension. No other significant differences were found. In addition, a qualitative analysis was conducted to determine how well subjects processed information during the application of their specific study techniques. These findings indicated that: (1) structured study techniques may be more effective for aiding students' retention of content area prose materials; (2) students are more concerned with detail or factual information than “higher level” forms of information; and (3) instructors of college developmental reading students need to instruct their students as to how to generate questions at all levels of comprehension.     

Fowler's Stages of Faith Development in an Honors Science-and-Religion Seminar

According to Paul Tillich's understanding of religion as "ultimate concern," a religious dimension is implicit in all university curricula. A science-and-religion course, such as one taught at Southeast Missouri State University, can offer students the opportunity to integrate their worldview, taking seriously both religious ideas and scientific information. Assignments based on A. E. Lawson's model of a learning cycle provide a vehicle for evaluating significant student learning leading toward fuller integration. The stages of faith developed by James W. Fowler serve as a fruitfull framework for interpreting changes in student viewpoints. Fowler's six stages of faith are characterized. Examples from student writing assignments demonstrate shifts in the cognitive understanding of faith that coincide with Fowler's stages.     

Extracting Intrinsic Functional Networks with Feature-Based Group Independent Component Analysis

There is increasing use of functional imaging data to understand the macro-connectome of the human brain. Of particular interest is the structure and function of intrinsic networks (regions exhibiting temporally coherent activity both at rest and while a task is being performed), which account for a significant portion of the variance in functional MRI data. While networks are typically estimated based on the temporal similarity between regions (based on temporal correlation, clustering methods, or independent component analysis [ICA]), some recent work has suggested that these intrinsic networks can be extracted from the inter-subject covariation among highly distilled features, such as amplitude maps reflecting regions modulated by a task or even coordinates extracted from large meta analytic studies. In this paper our goal was to explicitly compare the networks obtained from a first-level ICA (ICA on the spatio-temporal functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data) to those from a second-level ICA (i.e., ICA on computed features rather than on the first-level fMRI data). Convergent results from simulations, task-fMRI data, and rest-fMRI data show that the second-level analysis is slightly noisier than the first-level analysis but yields strikingly similar patterns of intrinsic networks (spatial correlations as high as 0.85 for task data and 0.65 for rest data, well above the empirical null) and also preserves the relationship of these networks with other variables such as age (for example, default mode network regions tended to show decreased low frequency power for first-level analyses and decreased loading parameters for second-level analyses). In addition, the best-estimated second-level results are those which are the most strongly reflected in the input feature. In summary, the use of feature-based ICA appears to be a valid tool for extracting intrinsic networks. We believe it will become a useful and important approach in the study of the macro-connectome, particularly in the context of data fusion.     

Affective Expectations Influence Neural Responses to Stressful Images in Soldiers

In the present study, we examined how expectations about the affective valence of an event influence immediate neurocognitive responses to the event. Both neutral images and negative images displaying war photos were shown to active duty military personnel undergoing predeployment training. Expectations regarding the affective content of upcoming images were manipulated by means of abstract visual cues that were valid only 75% of the time. Besides providing greater ecological validity, inclusion of invalid cues enabled us to examine separately, effects of the expected and actual valence of the images. Neurocognitive responses within the first second after image presentation were examined using the late positive potential (LPP), a noninvasive measure of brain electrical activity known to index affective processes. Negative images evoked an enhanced LPP relative to neutral images over central-parietal and right anterior electrode sites. Both the central-parietal and anterior LPP were found, likewise, to be modulated by expected valence. Expectation of negative versus neutral images led to an enhanced central-parietal LPP and an attenuated anterior LPP over both hemispheres independent of image valence. These findings are interpreted in terms of the allocation of attention to motivationally salient events, affective interpretation of those events, and induced affective/motivational states. By helping to characterize affective responses to acute stress and the regulation of those responses by psychological context, our study contributes to a basic understanding of how such regulation may become disordered and may aid in the development of targets for therapeutic interventions.     

The Self‐Ambivalence Measure: A psychometric investigation

The purpose of this study was to assess the psychometric properties of the Self‐Ambivalence Measure and its subscales developed by Bhar and Kyrios. The factor structure, reliability, and validity of the measure were examined utilising a non‐clinical sample of 415 participants who completed self‐report measures of aspects of the self. Results indicated that the Self‐Ambivalence Measure exhibited levels of internal consistency and convergent and divergent validity, warranting its use in further research. In contrast to earlier research finding a two‐factor structure, a three‐factor structure was found to best fit the current sample and the factors were labelled Self‐Worth Ambivalence, Moral Ambivalence, and Public Self‐consciousness. This solution separated internal aspects of self‐ambivalence from social aspects which were conceptualised as an aspect of lovability. A discussion of implications is provided.     

Watching for gains and losses: The effects of motivational challenge and threat on attention allocation during a visual search task

This experiment tests predictions based on research and evidence around the biopsychosocial model (BPSM) that people in a challenge state have faster, more gain orientated search patterns than those in a threat state. Participants (n = 44) completed a motivated performance task involving the location of a target appearing in one of two search arrays: one associated with gaining points and the other associated with avoiding the loss of points. Midway through the task, participants received a false feedback prime about their performance invoking either challenge or threat. We found that participants receiving a challenge prime (high performance feedback) spent longer searching the gain array and made fewer fixations on the loss array. Those receiving a threat prime (low performance feedback) made fewer fixations on the gain array. These findings are in line with the BPSM and provide evidence that allocation of attention (measured using eye movement data) is related to challenge and threat.