Effort deficits and depression: The influence of anhedonic depressive symptoms on cardiac autonomic activity during a mental challenge

Motivational approaches to depression emphasize the role of dysfunctional motivational dynamics, particularly diminished reward and incentive processes associated with anhedonia. A study examined how anhedonic depressive symptoms, measured continuously across a wide range of severity, influenced the physiological mobilization of effort during a cognitive task. Using motivational intensity theory as a guide, we expected that the diminished incentive value associated with anhedonic depressive symptoms would reduce effort during a “do your best” challenge (also known as an unfixed or self-paced challenge), in which effort is a function of the value of achieving the task’s goal. Using impedance cardiography, two cardiac autonomic responses were assessed: pre-ejection period (PEP), a measure of sympathetic activity and our primary measure of interest, and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), a measure of parasympathetic activity. As expected, PEP slowed from baseline to task as anhedonic depressive symptoms increased (as measured with the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale), indicating diminished effort-related sympathetic activity. No significant effects appeared for RSA. The findings support motivational intensity theory as a translational model of effort processes in depression and clarify some inconsistent effects of depressive symptoms on effort-related physiology found in past work.     

The Contributions of Child Behavioral Functioning and Parent Distress to Family Functioning in Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease

The objective of this study was to examine the relative contributions of both parental and adolescent functioning to family functioning in adolescent patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and their families. Participants were 45 adolescents (27 male, 18 female) 13-17?years old (M?=?15.41?years, SD?=?1.32) with IBD and their parents. Families completed measures of patient behavioral functioning and depression, parent distress and family functioning. Disease severity assessments were completed via data provided by patients' gastroenterologists. Results indicated that parent-reported patient behavioral problems accounted for a significant 26% of variance in family functioning. Post-hoc analysis revealed that externalizing behavior problems accounted for the majority of this variance compared to internalizing behavior problems. These results suggest that externalizing problems may have a more significant impact on these families than previous research indicates. Moreover, externalizing behaviors may significantly impact family adaptation and should be taken into consideration during routine clinical care. Further research is needed to replicate and expand upon these findings.     

The Role of Structure Versus Individual Agency in Churches�� Responses to HIV/AIDS: A Case Study of Baltimore City Churches

This paper examines the activities of churches in Baltimore, Maryland, concerning the issues of sexuality, whether they potentially stigmatize persons with or at risk for HIV/AIDS, and to what extent individual agency versus institutional forces influence churches in this regard. In-depth interviews were conducted with 20 leaders from 16 churches and analyzed using a grounded theory methodology. Although many churches were involved in HIV/AIDS-related activities, the content of such initiatives was sometimes limited due to organizational constraints. Church leaders varied, however, in the extent to which they responded in accordance with or resisted these constraints, highlighting the importance of individual agency influencing churches?? responses to HIV/AIDS.     

A developmental evaluation of the role of word shape in word recognition

Fourth- and seventh-grade children and college-age adults proofread passages typed either in lowercase or in all capital letters. Words were misspelled by deleting one of four letters, s, c, k, or p, that have similar features in lowercase and uppercase. Proofreading errors decreased with age and increasing reading ability, but all of the subjects were sensitive to changes in word shape--they missed more words with deletions of s or c than k or p in the lowercase passage but not in the all-capitals passage. These findings indicate that word shape is an important variable in recognizing familiar words, even for young readers.     

More is more: The relationship between vocabulary size and word extension

This study experimentally tested the relationship between children’s lexicon size and their ability to learn new words within the domain of color. We manipulated the size of 25 20-month-olds’ color lexicons by training them with two, four, or six different color words over the course of eight training sessions. We subsequently tested children’s ability to extend new color words to new instances. We found that training with a broader number of color words led to increased extension of new words. The results suggest that children’s learning history predicts their ability to learn new words within domains.     

A comparison of laboratory and clinical working memory tests and their prediction of fluid intelligence

The working memory (WM) construct is conceptualized similarly across domains of psychology, yet the methods used to measure WM function vary widely. The present study examined the relationship between WM measures used in the laboratory and those used in applied settings. A large sample of undergraduates completed three laboratory-based WM measures (operation span, listening span, and n-back), as well as the WM subtests from the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III and the Wechsler Memory Scale-III. Performance on all of the WM subtests of the clinical batteries shared positive correlations with the lab measures; however, the Arithmetic and Spatial Span subtests shared lower correlations than the other WM tests. Factor analyses revealed that a factor comprising scores from the three lab WM measures and the clinical subtest, Letter-Number Sequencing (LNS), provided the best measurement of WM. Additionally, a latent variable approach was taken using fluid intelligence as a criterion construct to further discriminate between the WM tests. The results revealed that the lab measures, along with the LNS task, were the best predictors of fluid abilities.     

Trans-parency in the workplace: How the experiences of transsexual employees can be improved

Very little research has focused exclusively on the workplace experiences of transsexual employees. Studies that have been done are either qualitative case studies (e.g., Budge, Tebbe, & Howard; 2010; Schilt & Connell, 2007), or aggregate transsexual individuals with lesbian, gay, and bisexual employees (e.g., Irwin, 2002). The current study focuses on this underexamined population and examines general workplace experiences, and both individual and organizational characteristics that influence transsexual employees' job attitudes. Results reveal that organizational supportiveness, transsexual identity centrality, and the degree to which they disclose to individuals outside of work all predict transsexual employees' disclosure behaviors in the workplace. These disclosure behaviors are positively related to job satisfaction and organizational commitment, and negatively related to job anxiety. These relations are mediated by coworker reactions. This research expands knowledge about diverse employee populations and offers both theory and some of the first large-scale empirical data collected on the workplace experiences of transsexual employees.     

The Relationship Quality Interview: evidence of reliability, convergent and divergent validity, and incremental utility

Relationship satisfaction and adjustment have been the target outcome variables for almost all couple research and therapies. In contrast, far less attention has been paid to the assessment of relationship quality. The present study introduces the Relationship Quality Interview (RQI), a semistructured, behaviorally anchored individual interview. The RQI was designed to provide a more objective assessment of relationship quality as a dynamic, dyadic construct across 5 dimensions: (a) quality of emotional intimacy in the relationship, (b) quality of the couple's sexual relationship, (c) quality of support transactions in the relationship, (d) quality of the couple's ability to share power in the relationship, and (e) quality of conflict/problem-solving interactions in the relationship. Psychometric properties of RQI ratings were examined through scores obtained from self-report questionnaires and behavioral observation data collected cross-sectionally from a sample of 91 dating participants and longitudinally from a sample of 101 married couples. RQI ratings demonstrated strong reliability (internal consistency, interrater agreement, interpartner agreement, and correlations among scales), convergent validity (correlations between RQI scale ratings and questionnaire scores assessing similar domains of relationship quality), and divergent validity (correlations between RQI scale ratings and (a) behavioral observation codes assessing related constructs, (b) global relationship satisfaction scores, and (c) scores on individual difference measures of related constructs). Clinical implications of the RQI for improving couple assessment and interventions are discussed.     

Dissociable neural systems support retrieval of how and why action knowledge

In everyday discourse, people typically represent actions in one of two ways: how they are performed or why they are performed. In the present study, we determined the neural systems that support these natural modes of representing actions. Participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while identifying how and why people perform various familiar actions. Identifying how actions are performed produced activity in premotor areas that support the execution of actions and in higher-order visual areas that support the perception of action-related objects; this finding supports an embodied view of action knowledge. However, identifying why actions are performed preferentially engaged areas of the brain associated with representing and reasoning about mental states; these areas were right temporoparietal junction, precuneus, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, and posterior superior temporal sulcus. Our results suggest that why action knowledge is not sufficiently constituted by information in motor and visual systems, but requires a system for representing states of mind, which do not have reliable motor correlates or visual appearance.     

Dyadic Models for the Study of Health

Dyadic designs have been used in health research to investigate intra‐ and inter‐personal mechanisms of health and well‐being in various types of dyads, including parent–child dyads, siblings, friends, and romantic partners. Although a growing number of researchers are designing studies that capture the interdependent complexities of relationships, many still need more information on how to analyze the data in a way that maximizes its value. Therefore, the purpose of this review paper is twofold: (1) to address some of the ways in which dyadic data analysis is being used in current health research, with an emphasis on research that has employed the Actor‐Partner Interdependence Model, and (2) to propose and explain various methodological and substantive considerations that researchers should consider when using dyadic data analysis in their own research.