The epidemiology of suicide-related outcomes in Mexico

Nationally representative data from the Mexican National Comorbidity Survey are presented on the lifetime prevalence and age-of-onset (AOO) distributions of suicide ideation, plan and attempt and on temporally prior demographic and DSM-IV psychiatric risk factors. Lifetime ideation was reported by 8.1% of respondents, while 3.2% reported a lifetime plan and 2.7% a lifetime suicide attempt. Onset of all outcomes was highest in adolescence and early adulthood. The risk of transition from suicide ideation to plan and attempt was highest within the first year of onset of ideation. The presence of one or more temporally prior DSM-IV/CIDI (Composite International Diagnostic Instrument) disorder was strongly related to each suicide-related outcome. Suicidal outcomes are prevalent, have an early AOO, and are strongly related to temporally prior mental disorders in Mexico. Given the early AOO, intervention efforts need to focus more than currently on children and adolescents with mental disorders to be effective in prevention.     

Critical Consciousness: An Alternative Pathway for Positive Personal and Social Development

This paper presents a conceptual model of the integrative psychological construct of critical consciousness (CC), defined as a moral awareness which propels individuals to disembed from their cultural, social, and political environment, and engage in a responsible critical moral dialogue with it, making active efforts to construct their own place in social reality and to develop internal consistency in their ways of being. The ontogeny of CC is analyzed in terms of the synergistic interaction between its two main components, structural developmental and moral motivation. The paper describes the cross-cultural interview research which allowed the elaboration of the CC developmental pathway. It posits the dimension of moral motivation as distinguishing the CC pathway, and illustrates the continuum between predominantly moral and expediency motivation through brief case vignettes. The paper differentiates three developmental macrolevels of CC, and illustrates through case vignettes two alternatives of social consciousness at the level of conventional morality—CC and non-CC. Some possible sources of moral motivation in personal history and biography are discussed.     

Beyond Single-Mindedness: A Figure-Ground Reversal for the Cognitive Sciences

A fundamental fact about human minds is that they are never truly alone: all minds are steeped in situated interaction. That social interaction matters is recognized by any experimentalist who seeks to exclude its influence by studying individuals in isolation. On this view, interaction complicates cognition. Here, we explore the more radical stance that interaction co-constitutes cognition: that we benefit from looking beyond single minds toward cognition as a process involving interacting minds. All around the cognitive sciences, there are approaches that put interaction center stage. Their diverse and pluralistic origins may obscure the fact that collectively, they harbor insights and methods that can respecify foundational assumptions and fuel novel interdisciplinary work. What might the cognitive sciences gain from stronger interactional foundations? This represents, we believe, one of the key questions for the future. Writing as a transdisciplinary collective assembled from across the classic cognitive science hexagon and beyond, we highlight the opportunity for a figure-ground reversal that puts interaction at the heart of cognition. The interactive stance is a way of seeing that deserves to be a key part of the conceptual toolkit of cognitive scientists.     

Entrevista con Klaus R. Scherer

RESUMEN

El profesor Scherer es uno de los Psicólogos Sociales más importantes de la actualidad, un importante investigador en temas de psicoacústica o de la conducta no verbal no vocal (como a él le gusta llamar a su campo). La contribución del profesor Scherer a la investigación del análisis psicológico de la voz y de las relaciones entre personalidad y los sitemas vocales no verbales de la comunicación ha sido muy importante para el desarrollo de la investigación en la dimensión no-verbal de la conducta. En esta entrevista Scherer reflexiona sobre el pasado y presente de la psicología alemana, refleja los hitos principales de su área de estudio y plantea el problema de la responsabilidad del investigador en la aplicación de sus hallazgos y productos. Se presenta, en esta entrevista, un ejemplo esclarecedor de la importancia de los factores interdisciplinarios en la génesis y apertura de nuevas áreas para la investigación.     

Factor analysis of a Venezuelan fear survey schedule

A Fear Survey Schedule, developed for use by university students in Venezuela, was administered to 871 first-year students at the Simón Bolivar University, Caracas, and subjected to several analyses to identify its factorial structure. Five factors were identified in the male group: Fear of aversive interpersonal events; of Violence and physical assault; of Loss of self-control; of Injuries and surgical operations; and of Animals and insects. Seven factors were identified in the female group, four of them coincided with the male group: Fear of interpersonal events; of Animals and insects; of Injuries and surgery; of Responsibility; of Death and physical threats; of Doctors and hospitals; of Violence and physical assault. The results were compared to those obtained with similar fear surveys of North American and Israeli University students.     

Indirect majority and minority influence: An exploratory study

In a 2 × 2 design, 85 subjects were asked to estimate the size of angles (direct influence) that were either 90 or 85°, after being confronted with incorrect judgements of a majority (88 per cent) or a minority (12 per cent) of people estimating the angles at 50°. Additionally, pre- and post-test measures were used to establish indirect influence on subjects' judgements pertaining to acute angles (i.e. on the estimation of the length of lines constituting the angles, and on the imaginary weight of figures represented by these angles). Overall, little direct influence is observed. This may partly be due to the introduction of a denial of the credibility of the source in all conditions. In fact, some evidence of direct influence is only found in the majority–85° angles condition. An instance of indirect influence (on the estimation of length of lines) appeared as the result of a majority stance when the angles in the experimental phase were 90°. When these angles were 85°, indirect minority influence (on the estimation of weight of figures) was observed. These effects had been predicted on the basis of the hypothesis stating that indirect majority influence would be possible when subjects expected consensus on the correct response (in the 90° angles condition), without being able to reach consensus at the manifest level (because of the denial and the restriction imposed by the clear shape of 90° angles). Indirect minority influence was hypothesized to be stronger in a situation that allows for diverse responses (i.e. for 85° angles).     

Atypical development of language and social communication in toddlers with Williams syndrome

Williams syndrome (WS) is a genetic disorder which results in an uneven cognitive profile. Despite superior language compared to other syndromes in the phenotypic outcome, toddlers with WS are as delayed in their language onset and early linguistic development as are toddlers with other syndromes. The cause of this delay in WS is as yet unknown. In a series of experiments, we examined whether atypical socio‐interactive precursors to language could contribute to the explanation of the late language onset and atypical developmental pathways observed in WS. Experiment 1 showed that despite superficially good social skills, toddlers with WS were only proficient at dyadic interaction. They were impaired in triadic interaction, essential for the referential uses of language, and showed none of the correlations between socio‐interactive markers and language seen in the typical controls. Experiment 2 focused on the comprehension and production of referential pointing. Again, the WS group was impaired, despite vocabulary levels higher than those of typically developing controls. Finally, Experiment 3 examined fine motor skills. The WS lack of pointing could not be explained in terms of motor impairments, since the WS toddlers were proficient at fine motor control, such as the pincer grip. Overall, our data indicate that the early stages of WS language follow an atypical pathway. The findings challenge the frequent claims in the literature that individuals with Williams syndrome have preserved linguistic and social skills.     

Development of a scale to measure leadership capacity of players in sports teams

This study describes the process of developing a scale to measure the leadership capacity of players in sports teams. Research into sports leadership has focused almost exclusively on the formal leadership of the coach, in which the studies by Chelladurai, with his five-factor model, have become an essential point of reference. Nevertheless, hardly any research has been carried out into the leadership that certain players exercise over the other team members. For this purpose, a sample of 143 male basketball players was used; these participants were asked to evaluate the characteristics of the sports leader over a total of 54 indicators. Firstly, explanatory factor analysis was performed with participants' responses, using principal axis and oblique rotation methods. The factor structure obtained was then subjected to confirmatory factorial analysis, enabling us to propose a Sports Leader Evaluation Scale (EELD, in Spanish) with 18 items grouped into 3 factors, denominated empathy and responsibility, assertiveness, and impulsiveness. Satisfactory fit indices were obtained for the model, for the reliability of items and for the internal consistency of factors.     

Association between polymorphisms in the dopamine transporter gene and depression: evidence for a gene-environment interaction in a sample of juvenile detainees

Previous research has generated examples of how genetic and environmental factors can interact to create risk for psychopathology. Using a gene-by-environment (G x E) interaction design, we tested whether three polymorphisms in the dopamine transporter gene (DAT1, also referred to as SLC6A3, located at 5p15.33) interacted with maternal parenting style to predict first-onset episodes of depression. Participants were male adolescents (N= 176) recruited from a juvenile detention center in northern Russia. As hypothesized, one of the polymorphisms (rs40184) moderated the effect of perceived maternal rejection on the onset of major depressive disorder, as well as on suicidal ideation. Further, this G x E interaction was specific to depression; it did not predict clinically significant anxiety. These results highlight the need for further research investigating the moderating effects of dopaminergic genes on depression.