Novel Insights into Longstanding Theories of Bidirectional Parent–Child Influences: Introduction to the Special Section

Although bidirectional parent and child influences have been incorporated in theoretical models pertaining to the development of internalizing and externalizing behaviors in youth, studies have historically focused on the socializing influence that parents have on their children. This has left several important research questions unanswered about the nature of bidirectional parent-child relations across development, including how these bidirectional effects are related to different types of child and adolescent psychopathology. The goal of this special section is to examine some longstanding issues regarding the nature of bidirectional parent-child effects across time using a diverse array of longitudinal datasets. The results from these studies emphasize the importance of considering bidirectional effects in developmental psychopathology research, particularly the often overlooked influence that children and adolescents have on their parents' behavior and emotional well-being. Following these empirical articles, an expert in the field provides a scholarly commentary designed to outline the progress that has been made in understanding bidirectional parent-child effects across development as well as to propose fruitful areas for future research.     

Motivational influences on cognitive control: Behavior,brain activation,and individual differences

What changes in brain activity are associated with changes in motivational state? The present study addressed this question by having participants perform a cognitive task (AX variant of the Continuous Performance Test; AX-CPT) under three different blocked motivational conditions (reward-incentive, penalty-incentive, and baseline). Behavioral data showed that the incentive conditions modulated task performance, potentially by altering participants’ cognitive control strategy. Neuroimaging data indicated that the reward condition was associated with a sustained increase in a primarily right-lateralized network that included parietal and prefrontal cortex. Additionally, individual differences were observed, such that activation in both reward-related brain regions and frontopolar cortex was linked to the degree of motivation-induced performance enhancement and to motivation-related personality variables. These results suggest that changes in motivational state may modulate performance through sustained activity in cognitive control regions and that the effect of incentives may be affected by the personalities of the participants.     

Are There Stable Factors in Preadolescent Girls’ Externalizing Behaviors?

Relatively little is known about the factor structure of disruptive behavior among preadolescent girls. The present study reports on exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of disruptive girl behavior over four successive data waves as rated by parents and teachers in a large, representative community sample of girls (N = 2,451). Five factors were identified from parent ratings (oppositional behavior/conduct problems, inattention, hyperactivity/impulsivity, relational aggression, and callous-unemotional behaviors), and four factors were identified derived from teacher ratings (oppositional behavior/conduct problems/callous-unemotional behaviors, inattention, hyperactivityimpulsivity, and relational aggression). There was a high degree of consistency of items loading on equivalent factors across parent and teacher ratings. Year-to-year stability of factors between ages five and 12 was high for parent ratings (ICC = 0.70 to 0.88), and slightly lower for teacher ratings (ICC = 0.56 to 0.83). These findings are discussed in terms of possible adjustment to the criteria for children's disruptive behavior disorders found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders.

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It's Time We Brought Introspection Out of the Closet

ABSTRACT— I identify the main reasons why introspection unofficially has been banned from the field for some 100 years, though it has been partly smuggled back in through the use of "verbal (self-) reports." I then show why introspection is indispensable to psychology. I argue that this ban has retarded the progress of psychology by taking attention away from the problem of the accuracy of self-reports, limiting our understanding of concepts like emotion, discouraging psychologists from using introspection themselves, and ignoring the study of how to develop introspective skill. I conclude by suggesting some approaches to validating introspective reports.     

Normality evaluations and their relation to personality traits and well-being

Despite frequent discussions of what it means to be normal in clinical, social, and personality psychology theory, the characteristics of individuals who call themselves normal are little understood. In 5 studies, the authors investigated various hypotheses concerning the nature of normality evaluations. The authors add to recent evidence that normality evaluations represent a distinct dimension of evaluative judgments, showing self-judgments of being normal (versus strange) to be relatively independent from self-judgments of being average (versus unique). Normality evaluations showed positive relations with communal traits such as agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability, and were negatively related to openness to experience. Supporting a broader hypothesis that normality evaluations may be involved in directing or motivating personality development processes, normality evaluations were positively associated with well-being and a sense of fitting in with one's peers, and individuals who felt abnormal felt a heightened sense that they needed to improve their personality. Finally, the personality correlates of normality evaluations were found to change over the lifespan, largely in parallel with the actual mean-level development of personality traits with age.     

Using the PRISM to compare the explanatory value of general and role-contextualized trait ratings

In an earlier work (Wood & Roberts, 2006), the Personality and Role Identity Structural Model (PRISM) was proposed as a model for organizing the relations between diverse self-perceptions, with a person's general identity ("how I am in general") organized above diverse role identities (e.g., "how I am as an employee"), which in turn is organized above role-specific behaviors and experiences (e.g., typical interactions with coworkers). In the present article, I argue that despite the fact that role trait measures are often much more related to role behaviors than general trait measures in cross-sectional analyses, general trait measures better capture the dispositional causes of a person's role behavior. In support of this, a brief study is presented illustrating how general traits may be better predictors than role-contextualized trait ratings of the evolution of an individual's experiences or behaviors within a given context. Finally, I contend that the basic framework of the PRISM, where a person's behaviors and identities within multiple contexts are assessed simultaneously and longitudinally alongside general personality ratings, is necessary to make strong statements concerning the nature of the relationships between personality traits and role experiences.     

Heterogeneity in ADHD: Neurocognitive predictors of peer,family, and academic functioning

Childhood attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is associated with impairments in peer, family, and academic functioning. Although impairment is required for diagnosis, children with ADHD vary significantly in the areas in which they demonstrate clinically significant impairment. However, relatively little is known about the mechanisms and processes underlying these individual differences. The current study examined neurocognitive predictors of heterogeneity in peer, family, and academic functioning in a well-defined sample of 44 children with ADHD aged 8–13 years (M = 10.31, SD = 1.42; 31 boys, 13 girls; 81% Caucasian). Reliable change analysis indicated that 98% of the sample demonstrated objectively-defined impairment on at least one assessed outcome measure; 65% were impaired in two or all three areas of functioning. ADHD children with quantifiable deficits in academic success and family functioning performed worse on tests of working memory (d = 0.68 to 1.09), whereas children with impaired parent-reported social functioning demonstrated slower processing speed (d = 0.53). Dimensional analyses identified additional predictors of peer, family, and academic functioning. Working memory abilities were associated with individual differences in all three functional domains, processing speed predicted social functioning, and inhibitory control predicted family functioning. These results add to a growing literature implicating neurocognitive abilities not only in explaining behavioral differences between ADHD and non-ADHD groups, but also in the substantial heterogeneity in ecologically-valid functional outcomes associated with the disorder.     

Negative Emotions and Alcohol Use Initiation in High-Risk Boys: The Moderating Effect of Good Inhibitory Control

Studies on the relation between negative affect and later alcohol use have provided mixed results. Because definitions of negative affect often include diverse emotions, researchers have begun to dismantle this higher-order construct in an attempt to explain these inconsistent findings. More recent evidence also indicates that good inhibitory control may moderate the relation between negative emotions and alcohol use. The current longitudinal investigation examined the independent relation between three components of negative affect (i.e., depressed mood, fear, and anger) and alcohol use initiation in a sample of aggressive boys. The moderating effect of good inhibitory control was also examined. Results indicated that increased anger and decreased fearfulness are associated with an increased risk for alcohol use initiation only for boys with moderate to low levels of inhibitory control. However, depressed mood predicted alcohol use initiation for boys with good inhibitory control. The potential implications for substance use prevention efforts are discussed.     

An evaluation of response allocations to concurrently available slot machine simulations

Gambling behavior often involves making choices between concurrently available game options. With regard to slot machine gambling, multiple games allow for choices to be made with respect to which game to play. The authors of the present study used a slot machine simulation created in Visual Basic. NET to examine gambling preference. The specific question addressed was whether gamblers prefer a smaller payout more often (averaging around every 10 spins) over a larger payout less often (averaging around every 50 spins). Two types of reinforcement were examined during the study: frequency of payouts and the amount of credits won. The results indicate that participants had a preference for a slot machine with the more frequent payout as opposed to one with more intermittent payout. These results support existing literature on theories of choice and provide a step toward understanding human gambling behavior.     

Intrusive effects of implicitly processed information on explicit memory

This study described the interference of implicitly processed information on the memory for explicitly processed information. Participants studied a list of words either auditorily or visually under instructions to remember the words (explicit study). They were then visually presented another word list under instructions which facilitate implicit but not explicit processing. Following a distractor task, memory for the explicit study list was tested with either a visual or auditory recognition task that included new words, words from the explicit study list, and words implicitly processed. Analysis indicated participants both failed to recognize words from the explicit study list and falsely recognized words that were implicitly processed as originating from the explicit study list. However, this effect only occurred when the testing modality was visual, thereby matching the modality for the implicitly processed information, regardless of the modality of the explicit study list. This "modality effect" for explicit memory was interpreted as poor source memory for implicitly processed information and in light of the procedures used. as well as illustrating an example of "remembering causing forgetting."