Effects of COMT genotype on behavioral symptomatology in the 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome.

The 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome (DiGeorge/velocardiofacial syndrome) is associated with elevated rates of psychosis, and is also characterized by severe attentional difficulties and executive dysfunction. Behavioral manifestations of this syndrome could result from haploinsufficiency of the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene, located within the 22q11 region. The goal of the present study was to examine COMT genotype in relation to behavioral symptomatology in this syndrome. Val158/108Met was genotyped in 38 patients (16 Met/-, 22 Val/-) with confirmed 22q11.2 deletions who had received the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) as part of a comprehensive evaluation. Results indicated that the Val genotype was associated with significantly greater internalizing and externalizing behavioral symptomatology in children with 22q11.2 deletions. Val allele status was associated with a greater-than-four-fold increase in risk for clinically significant behavior problems in children with this syndrome. These data are consistent with previous findings of increased psychopathology associated with the Val genotype in normal individuals and suggest that a functional genetic polymorphism in the 22q11 region may influence behavior in individuals with COMT haploinsufficiency.     

Defensive Responding on the MMPI-2 in Pre-Surgical Candidates

The MMPI-2 is frequently used for a variety of pre-surgical evaluations that can have life changing consequences for the patient being examined. While it intuitively makes sense that a proportion of examinees will attempt to downplay distress in order to avoid any perceived questions about their surgical candidacy, this hypothesis has received scant research attention. This study cluster analyzed the MMPI-2 L, F, & K validity scales for 890 pre-surgical candidates. Depending on the standard utilized, between one-third and two-thirds of our sample displayed some degree of defensive responding. These results suggest that traditional markers of test validity may need to be adjusted in populations with high base rates for defensiveness. The difficulty in ascribing personality characteristics based on validity scale scores and directions for further research are also discussed.     

Meanings of Education for University Students: Academic Motivation and Personal Values as Predictors

We conducted two studies to determine the meanings that undergraduate students ascribe to their education and how these meanings relate to relevant psychological constructs: academic motivation and values. Ten meanings emerged: career preparation, independence, finding direction for the future, learning, self-development, taking the next step, making social connections, changing the world, stress, and escape. Support was found for many of the predicted relationships. For example, enjoyment motivation positively predicted all of the meanings, except taking the next step, stress, and escape. Also as expected, the values of intellectualism and academic achievement positively predicted learning, self-development, and changing the world. However, contrary to expectations, valuing physical development also emerged as a significant predictor of several of the meanings of education.     

Three kinds of rhymes: An ERP study

In a simple prime-target visual rhyming paradigm, pairs of words, nonwords, and single letters elicited similar event-related potential (ERP) rhyming effects in young adults. Within each condition, primes elicited contingent negative variation (CNV) while nonrhyming targets elicited more negative waveforms than rhyming targets within the 320-500ms (N400/N450) time window. The target rhyming effect, apparently primarily an index of phonological processing, was similar across conditions but tended to be smaller in mean amplitude for letters. One of the first reports of such a letter rhyming effect in the ERP literature, these findings could be important developmentally because letter rhyme tasks simultaneously index the two best predictors of ease of learning to read: letter name knowledge and phonological awareness.     

Backward recognition masking as a general type of interference in needed poststimulus processing

Auditory backward recognition masking (ABRM) has been argued to reflect interference in the storage and/or processing of a short-lived sensory form of information and has been viewed as a relatively invariant attribute of auditory pitch processing for very brief stimuli that are minimally separated in frequency (DeltaF). In contrast, the present study demonstrates that ABRM reflects interference with several basic principles of auditory processing. Measured in terms of target tone duration, rather than DeltaF, ABRM is demonstrated for target stimuli representing the interval of a musical fifth and masker-target stimulus intervals of a musical third, with thresholds ranging from approximately 22 to 55 msec and psychometric functions that are indicative of more than one contributing factor. On the basis of common underlying principles, the possibility that the threshold for the identification of temporal order of onset reflects ABRM and possible implications for the perception of complex stimuli, including speech, are discussed.     

Feminist Consciousness Among Russians and Americans

Most empirical research on feminist consciousness has been conducted with North American women. In this study we examined feminist consciousness and attitudes toward women's issues among Russian and American women and men. Survey data from undergraduate students provide evidence of both cross-cultural and gender-related differences. Women scored higher than men on 4 of the 5 aspects of feminist consciousness measured in this study. American students scored higher on three aspects of feminist consciousness; however, Russian students were higher on sensitivity to sexism. Data concerning attitudes toward specific women's issues are also presented. Findings suggest that judgments about feminist consciousness based solely on these attitudes could lead to misconceptions about levels of feminist consciousness across cultures.     

A Relational Approach to Career Counseling: Theoretical Integration and Practical Application

This article reviews the current status of career theory in practice and presents a theoretical overview of relational theory and its logical extension to the career domain. Despite the emergence of literature regarding the interconnectedness of career progress and the quality of relationships in one's life (e.g., D. L. Blustein, 2001; D. L. Blustein, M. S. Prezioso, & D. E. P. Schultheiss, 1995; D. E. P. Schultheiss, H. M. Kress, A. J. Manzi, & J. M. Glasscock, 2001), counseling practice is limited by the absence of a meaningful approach to intervene in clients' relational and career worlds. The relational career counseling approach moves counseling toward a contextually based relational perspective to facilitating career progress. This approach is illustrated with a case example.     

The effects of perceived competence and sociability on electoral outcomes

Previous research demonstrated that inferences of competence from the face are good predictors of electoral outcomes [Todorov, A., Mandisoza, A. N., Gore, A., & Hall, C. C. (2005). Inferences of competence from faces predict election outcomes. Science, 308, 1623-1626]. In the current work we examined the role of another key dimension in social perception, namely perceived sociability. Results showed that people considered both competence and sociability, as inferred from the face, as related to higher chances of winning the elections. A different pattern emerged in relation to the actual electoral outcomes. Indeed, perceived competence was related to higher chances of winning, whereas perceived sociability was negatively related to electoral success. It is thus shown that these two fundamental dimensions in social perception exert opposite effects on voting behaviors.     

Hiding and finding: The relationship between visual concealment and visual search

As an initial step toward developing a theory of visual concealment, we assessed whether people would use factors known to influence visual search difficulty when the degree of concealment of objects among distractors was varied. In Experiment 1, participants arranged search objects (shapes, emotional faces, and graphemes) to create displays in which the targets were in plain sight but were either easy or hard to find. Analyses of easy and hard displays created during Experiment 1 revealed that the participants reliably used factors known to influence search difficulty (e.g., eccentricity, target—distractor similarity, presence/absence of a feature) to vary the difficulty of search across displays. In Experiment 2, a new participant group searched for the targets in the displays created by the participants in Experiment 1. Results indicated that search was more difficult in the hard than in the easy condition. In Experiments 3 and 4, participants used presence versus absence of a feature to vary search difficulty with several novel stimulus sets. Taken together, the results reveal a close link between the factors that govern concealment and the factors known to influence search difficulty, suggesting that a visual search theory can be extended to form the basis of a theory of visual concealment.