Preadolescent Decision‐Making Competence Predicts Interpersonal Strengths and Difficulties: A 2‐Year Prospective Study

Recent research has demonstrated that decision‐making competence (DMC), a latent construct reflecting individual differences in rational thought, is predictive of real‐world decision outcomes at various stages of life. This construct has been shown to be associated with concurrent and retrospective accounts of health‐risking behavior, but its predictive validity has yet to be demonstrated. In the present study, we examine this issue using a 2‐year prospective, multiple‐informant design. Specifically, we tested the degree to which preadolescent DMC (PA‐DMC) obtained at ages 10–11 years (Time 1; N = 101) predicted both self‐reports and caregiver reports of emotional, behavioral, and peer‐related difficulties obtained 2 years later (Time 2; N = 76). Holding variables such as numeracy and inhibitory control constant, lower Time 1 PA‐DMC scores predicted greater reported Time 2 psychosocial difficulties (i.e. peer, conduct, emotional, and hyperactivity/inattention problems). Additionally, higher PA‐DMC scores were associated with greater self‐reported prosocial behaviors at Time 2. These results highlight the utility of testing individual differences in rational responding. We discuss the potential for improving children's decision‐making processes. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Moderating Effect of Within‐Group Similarity on Change in a Strengths‐Based Programme for Incarcerated Young Men

Many youth who are incarcerated within juvenile correctional facilities experience mental health disorders, histories of victimization and suicide ideation. Strengths‐based intervention programmes are intended to enhance participants' resilience against such challenges. However, little is known about how the composition of intervention groups contributes to programmes' efficacy. This study addresses the impact of within‐group similarity on the success of a strengths‐based intervention for incarcerated young men (n = 141). Similarity was assessed in terms of self‐reported demographics and behaviours and belief systems. Youths' masculine ideology, caring and cooperative behaviours, ethnic pride and respect for differences, self‐efficacy regarding education and non‐violence, and attitudes about criminal behaviour were measured before and after intervention. Results indicate that participants' caring and cooperative behaviour increased during the intervention. However, their education‐related self‐efficacy was reduced, and the perceived benefits of criminal activity increased. These changes were moderated by group composition: less similarity between participants and their group members was associated with less negative change. In the context of juvenile corrections facilities, where staying the same may be a relatively positive outcome, perhaps the more relevant question is not which processes and characteristics of others better enable youth to change but which experiences help them retain positive aspects of themselves. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Perceptions of stressful life events as turning points are associated with self-rated health and psychological distress

Abstract

We test the hypothesis that changes in physical and psychological health are associated with construals of stressful life events. At two points in time, approximately 10 years apart, participants (n=1038) rated their physical health and psychological distress. At the second assessment, participants also reported their most stressful life event since the first assessment and indicated whether they considered the event a turning point and/or lesson learned. Lower self-ratings of health and higher ratings of psychological distress, controlling for baseline health and distress, and relevant demographic factors, were associated with perceiving the stressful life event as a turning point, particularly a negative turning point. The two health measures were primarily unrelated to lessons learned. How individuals construe the most stressful events in their lives are associated with changes in self-rated health and distress.     

Research & clinical exchange

Abstract

Question: Family therapists are often called upon to do consultations to schools about children having social and educational difficulties. In what ways is the family therapist's role different when he or she is called in to consult as an “outsider’ to the school system about a particular child whom he or she does not know, compared to being called upon by the school for advice about a child who is already being seen in treatment by that therapist?     

Selective Processing of Threatening Words in Anxiety: The Role of Awareness

In three experiments, high and low trait-anxious individuals were required to classify a centrally located number as odd or even while ignoring spatially separate threat-related or neutral words. It was found that high anxious subjects showed a selective bias to process threatening stimuli when the stimuli were pattern masked after a brief exposure (14msec). However, this automatic processing bias was apparent only under certain conditions: distractors were within focal attention; masked and unmasked distractors were randomly intermixed; or masked trials were presented after unmasked trials. These results suggest that automatic processing biases in high traitanxious individuals are influenced by contextual factors. There was also a suggestion of a qualitative difference in attentional bias between conscious (unmasked) and nonconscious (masked) states, providing evidence for perception without awareness. The theoretical implications of these results are discussed.     

Information Seeking and Avoiding in Health Contexts

Information management is an important component of coping with illness and illness‐related uncertainty. Normative theory and research on information seeking and avoiding in health contexts can help explain why some information management activities are more adaptive than others. Challenges and dilemmas of information management include relational demands (e.g., the need to coordinate the behaviors and goals of the participants) and contextual features (e.g., cross‐cultural considerations or channels available for information seeking and providing). Issues that need to be addressed in a normative approach include (a) how information management goals can be accomplished while still accounting for other goals (e.g., identity management or relational maintenance), (b) what roles interpreters can play to facilitate effective cross‐cultural information exchange (e.g., as cultural informants), and (c) how information seekers can best manage conflicting or overwhelming information when confronted with messages from multiple channels.     

Standing between two worlds in Harlem: A developmental psychopathology perspective of perinatally acquired human immunodeficiency virus and adolescence

Perinatal HIV infection in the US continues to evolve from a fatal pediatric illness to a chronic medical condition of childhood and adolescence. Although navigating this period is influenced by multi-leveled deprivations commonly experienced by low-income minority families, HIV alters the timing and experience of developmental milestones for many adolescents with perinatal HIV. This selective review of the growing developmental psychopathology literature and the authors' clinical work at a pediatric HIV program in Harlem, NY provide an overview of how developmental psychopathology offers an integrative framework that elucidates how autonomy, peer relationships, and self-concept evolve among 13–21 year old adolescents. This paper highlights the importance of considering influences of both perinatal HIV and the culture of poverty on adolescent development, and of adopting multilevel interventions and research to address how interactions among biologic, environmental, and HIV-related stressors (serostatus disclosure, medical treatment adherence, illness stigma) influence the development of adolescents with perinatal HIV.