A 32-society investigation of the influence of perceived economic inequality on social class stereotyping

There is a growing body of work suggesting that social class stereotypes are amplified when people perceive higher levels of economic inequality—that is, the wealthy are perceived as more competent and assertive and the poor as more incompetent and unassertive. The present study tested this prediction in 32 societies and also examines the role of wealth-based categorization in explaining this relationship. We found that people who perceived higher economic inequality were indeed more likely to consider wealth as a meaningful basis for categorization. Unexpectedly, however, higher levels of perceived inequality were associated with perceiving the wealthy as less competent and assertive and the poor as more competent and assertive. Unpacking this further, exploratory analyses showed that the observed tendency to stereotype the wealthy negatively only emerged in societies with lower social mobility and democracy and higher corruption. This points to the importance of understanding how socio-structural features that co-occur with economic inequality may shape perceptions of the wealthy and the poor.     

Depressed mothers’ infants show less negative affect during non-contingent interactions

Infants of depressed and non-depressed mothers were videotaped interacting with their mothers in the [Nadel, J., Carchon, I., Kervella, C., Marcelli, D., & Reserbat-Plantey, D. (1999). Report: Expectancies for social contingency in 2-month-olds. Developmental Science, 2, 164–173] paradigm which consists of three segments including: (1) a free play, contingent interaction, (2) a non-contingent replay of the mothers’ behavior that had been videotaped during the first segment, and (3) a return to a free play, contingent interaction. As compared to infants of non-depressed mothers, infants of depressed mothers showed less negative change (less increase in frowning) in their behavior during the non-contingent replay segment. This finding was interpreted as the infants of depressed mothers being more accustomed to non-contingent behavior in their mothers, thus experiencing less violation of expectancy in this situation.     

Clinical Mutual Attunement and the Development of Therapeutic Process: A Preliminary Study

Despite the identification of many factors that play a central role in the development of the psychotherapy process, there is still a lack of evidence about the basic relational mechanisms that pave the way to its working. In this pilot study, we focus on nonverbal microprocessual attunement as the basic mechanism grounding the displacing of discrete factors in shaping the clinical process. Two single sessions of two short-term psychodynamic treatments, selected respectively from a good- and a poor-outcome treatment, have been coded in terms of patient and therapist speech rate, coordination in ruptures, resolution of the therapeutic alliance, and patient's displayed thinking processes. Two dynamic structural equation models focusing on clinical attunement as a factor able to activate the interplay of the assessed clinical dimensions have been theoretically designed and tested in both cases. The driven theoretical structural equation models fit the data, suggesting a different role of nonverbal attunement as a moderating factor. The obtained results are consistent with the hypothesis claiming that a good-outcome psychotherapy session is characterized by a mechanism of clinical attunement that enforces the therapist–patient relationship and promotes the integration of formal thinking processes that affect emotional and cognitive domains.     

Selective attention in early Dementia of Alzheimer Type

This study explored possible deficits in selective attention brought about by Dementia of Alzheimer Type (DAT). In three experiments, we tested patients with early DAT, healthy elderly, and young adults under low memory demands to assess perceptual filtering, conflict resolution, and set switching abilities. We found no evidence of impaired perceptual filtering nor evidence of impaired conflict resolution in early DAT. In contrast, early DAT patients did exhibit a global cost in set switching consistent with an inability to maintain the goals of the task (mental set). We discuss these findings in relation to the DAT literature on executive attention, dual-tasking, and working memory.     

Inhibition of action, thought, and emotion: A selective neurobiological review

The neural bases of inhibitory function are reviewed, covering data from paradigms assessing inhibition of motor responses (antisaccade, go/nogo, stop-signal), cognitive sets (e.g., Wisconsin Card Sort Test), and emotion (fear extinction). The frontal cortex supports performance on these paradigms, but the specific neural circuitry varies: response inhibition depends upon fronto-basal ganglia networks, inhibition of cognitive sets is supported by orbitofrontal cortex, and retention of fear extinction reflects ventromedial prefrontal cortex–amygdala interactions. Inhibition is thus neurobiologically heterogeneous, although right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex may support a general inhibitory process. Dysfunctions in these circuits may contribute to psychopathological conditions marked by inhibitory deficits.     

Task feedback effects on conflict monitoring and executive control: relationship to subclinical measures of depression

Emerging evidence suggests that depression is associated with executive dysfunction, particularly after committing errors or receiving negative performance feedback. To test this hypothesis, 57 participants performed two executive tasks known to elicit errors (the Simon and Stroop Tasks) during positive or negative performance feedback. Participants with elevated depressive symptoms (Beck Depression Inventory scores >or= 13) were characterized by impaired posterror and postconflict performance adjustments, especially during emotionally negative task-related feedback. Additionally, for both tasks, depressive symptoms were inversely related to postconflict reaction time adjustments following negative, but not positive, feedback. These findings suggest that subclinical depression is associated with impairments in behavioral adjustments after internal (perceived failure) and external feedback about deficient task performance.     

Sleep disturbances in depressed pregnant women and their newborns

Pregnant women (N=253) were recruited during their second trimester of pregnancy (M=22.3 weeks gestation) and assigned to depressed (N=83) and non-depressed groups based on a SCID diagnosis of depression. They were then given self-report measures on sleep disturbance, depression, anxiety and anger, and their urine was assayed for norepinephrine and cortisol. These measures were repeated during their third trimester (M=32.4 weeks). Their newborns were then observed during sleep. During both the second and third trimesters, the depressed women had more sleep disturbances and higher depression, anxiety and anger scores. They also had higher norepinephrine and cortisol levels. The newborns of the depressed mothers also had more sleep disturbances including less time in deep sleep and more time in indeterminate (disorganized) sleep, and they were more active and cried/fussed more.     

Preterm infants show reduced stress behaviors and activity after 5 days of massage therapy

Preterm infants residing in an NICU were randomly assigned to a massage therapy or to a control group. The preterm infants in the massage therapy group received three 15-min massages each day for 5 consecutive days, with the massages consisting of moderate pressure stroking to the head, shoulders, back, arms and legs and kinesthetic exercises consisting of flexion and extension of the limbs. Infant stress behaviors and activity were recorded on the first and last day of the study. Preterm infants receiving massage therapy showed fewer stress behaviors and less activity from the first to the last day of the study. The findings suggest that massage has pacifying or stress reducing effects on preterm infants, which is noteworthy given that they experience numerous stressors during their hospitalization.     

Cross-national comparisons of the association between alcohol consumption and deliberate self-harm in adolescents

How differences in drinking patterns may affect the impact of alcohol consumption on deliberate self-harm among adolescents is explored in this international comparative study. Schools in Australia, Belgium, England, Hungary, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Norway (N = 30,532) were surveyed. In all countries the risk of deliberate self-harm was significantly elevated among adolescents who reported some or numerous episodes of intoxication, controlling for confounding factors. The results support the assumption that intoxication is significantly related to the association between alcohol consumption and deliberate self-harm in adolescents.