The Effects of Time Pressure on Controlling Reactions to Persons With Mental Illness

Population surveys suggest that the general public stigmatizes persons with mental illness less than in the past. However, implicit attitude measures find that immediate reactions to mentally ill persons are still negative among both the general public and people diagnosed with mental illness. Time-course data suggest that these reactions may be dynamic, with immediate negative reactions becoming less prejudicial over time. We manipulated time pressures imposed upon social judgments about a mentally ill person. Participants perceived a mentally ill person as dangerous when forced to respond quickly; participants given ample time to respond were less likely to have this perception.     

A Program Intervention for Pediatric Bipolar Disorder: Preliminary Results

The effectiveness of a behaviorally based day treatment program for young children diagnosed with Pediatric Bipolar Disorder (PBD) was evaluated using pretreatment and posttreatment mean scores from the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). Data were evaluated in aggregate and using the clinically significant change method for children diagnosed with PBD, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), Adjustment Disorder, and no diagnosis/clinical and subclinical groups. Significant effects were found for all groups except the no diagnosis/subclinical group on the Internalizing scale and for all groups on the Externalizing scale. Clinically significant change was supported for the PBD, ADHD, ODD, and Adjustment Disorder groups. Implications and limitations of the study are discussed.     

What's Going On with Dora? An Interpersonal Perspective

Freud views Dora's symptoms as displacements of conflictual fantasies and affects. In this essay the focus is shifted to Dora's body in relation, a vehicle for communication. The schism between her soma and psyche—or act and word—is understood as Dora's response to the mystifying, hypocritical relatedness in her family. Freud's bifurcation of theory and clinical praxis may repeat this pattern at moments when metapsychological interpretations do not jibe with the interactive moment. A detailed inquiry regarding the often-embodied transference-countertransference matrix is therefore explored toward better understanding and integration.     

Assessment of Historical Analysis and Argumentation (AHAA): A New Measure of Document-Based Historical Thinking

Abstract

A troubling gap exists between the current state of history assessment and the knowledge and skills deemed essential for students to thrive in the 21st century. We propose a new assessment of historical thinking that represents a promising alignment with extant cognitive research, as well as with the practices that undergird the discipline. In this article, we discuss the design of the Assessment of Historical Analysis and Argumentation (AHAA), as well as the accompanying scoring rubric, and report findings from our administration of multiple forms of the exam with secondary students (N?=?618). Evidence indicates that the exam captured student historical thinking about documents and that the items prompted students to construct a cognitive representation of intertextual reasoning. Given the dearth of assessments that capture student historical thinking about documents and their understanding of content, we believe the AHAA has the potential to be an important instructional resource.     

The Clinical and Forensic Value of Information that Children Report While Drawing

Drawing is commonly used in clinical interviews to help children talk about their experiences. Research has shown that drawing increases the amount of information that children report about some emotional experiences. Here, we aimed to investigate the use of drawing in interviews about other, clinically relevant emotions, and the clinical and forensic relevance of the information that children report while drawing. To do this, sixty 5‐ to 6‐ and 11‐ to 12‐year‐olds drew and told, or told, about prior experiences that had made them feel happy, angry, proud (confident), and worried (nervous). For all emotions, drawing and telling increased the amount of forensically relevant, episodic details (e.g., who was there and what happened) that children reported relative to telling alone. In contrast, drawing and telling did not alter the amount of information that children reported about clinically relevant details (e.g., thoughts and emotions). We discuss the implications of these findings for using drawing in interviews with children. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

P = f (Conscientiousness × Ability): Examining the Facets of Conscientiousness

We posited that the form of the joint effects of motivation and ability in traditional performance models are interactive because motivation triggers the use of energy resources required to deploy ability at work. Moreover, we posited that achievement might best represent motivation compared to five other facets of Conscientiousness or global Conscientiousness. In two samples of customer service representatives, achievement interacted with general mental ability (GMA) in predicting task performance, whereas global Conscientiousness and the other five facets did not. This suggests that researchers examining the motivational aspects of Conscientiousness might uncover a more consistent pattern of results for task performance if they focus on the achievement facet. Furthermore, managers might see the highest levels of task performance in certain contexts when hiring individuals based on both achievement and GMA.     

Equanimity and Intimacy: A Buddhist-Feminist Approach to the Elimination of Bias

In this article I criticize some traditional impartiality practices in Western philosophical ethics and argue in favor of Marilyn Friedman’s dialogical practice of eliminating bias. But, I argue, the dialogical approach depends on a more fundamental practice of equanimity. Drawing on the works of Tibetan Buddhist thinkers Patrul Rinpoche and Khenpo Ngawang Pelzang, I develop a Buddhist-feminist concept of equanimity and argue that, despite some differences with the Western impartiality practices, equanimity is an impartiality practice that is not only psychologically feasible but also central to loving relationships. I conclude by suggesting ways that feminist dialogical practices for eliminating bias and meditative practices are mutually supportive.     

Dispositions of the Will

According to Aquinas (1888–1906), the virtue of justice is a habit, that is to say, a stable disposition of the will. Many commentators have found this claim to be puzzling, since it is difficult to see what this might entail, beyond a simple tendency to choose and act in accordance with precepts of justice. However, this objection does not take account of the fact that for Aquinas, the will is the principle of human freedom, and as such, it is expressed through, but not limited to a capacity for particular choices and actions. It therefore needs stable dispositions, towards characteristic aims, in order to function effectively. This paper sets out a case for the cogency of Aquinas’s overall account of the will and its dispositions, by way of an examination of familiar expressions of human freedom which cannot be reduced to a series of individual choices and acts. It then turns to a closer examination of Aquinas’ analysis of the will, arguing that Aquinas’ claims about the orientation of the will towards some overarching and comprehensive good can fruitfully be understood in terms of this expansive conception of human freedom.     

“Bounded” Empowerment: Analyzing Tensions in the Practice of Youth-Led Participatory Research in Urban Public Schools

This multi-method study examines tensions in the practice of youth-led participatory research (YPAR) in urban high schools among 15 semester-cohorts. Student participants in the present study were 77 ethnically diverse youth from four high schools in a major metropolitan school district. Data were gathered using systematic classroom observations, interviews with teachers and students involved in the projects, and participant observation. The two most commonly-constrained phases of the YPAR project were issue selection and action steps. A central tension in the issue selection phase for projects enacted across multiple semester cohorts was the tension between original inquiry and “traction:” Sticking with the same topic enabled sustained building of strategic alliances and expertise for making change, but limited the incoming cohort’s power to define the problem to be addressed. In further analyses, we identified processes that promoted student power despite continuity-related constraints—teachers’ framing and buy-in strategies, “micro-power” compensation, and alignment of students’ interests with the prior cohort—as well as constraints in other phases of the projects. This study’s findings regarding the promotion of youth power in the face of constraints advance the integration of theory and practice in youth-led research and have implications for participatory research more broadly.     

Associations between cortical thickness and general intelligence in children,adolescents and young adults

Neuroimaging research indicates that human intellectual ability is related to brain structure including the thickness of the cerebral cortex. Most studies indicate that general intelligence is positively associated with cortical thickness in areas of association cortex distributed throughout both brain hemispheres. In this study, we performed a cortical thickness mapping analysis on data from 182 healthy typically developing males and females ages 9 to 24 years to identify correlates of general intelligence (g) scores. To determine if these correlates also mediate associations of specific cognitive abilities with cortical thickness, we regressed specific cognitive test scores on g scores and analyzed the residuals with respect to cortical thickness. The effect of age on the association between cortical thickness and intelligence was examined. We found a widely distributed pattern of positive associations between cortical thickness and g scores, as derived from the first unrotated principal factor of a factor analysis of Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI) subtest scores. After WASI specific cognitive subtest scores were regressed on g factor scores, the residual score variances did not correlate significantly with cortical thickness in the full sample with age covaried. When participants were grouped at the age median, significant positive associations of cortical thickness were obtained in the older group for g-residualized scores on Block Design (a measure of visual-motor integrative processing) while significant negative associations of cortical thickness were observed in the younger group for g-residualized Vocabulary scores. These results regarding correlates of general intelligence are concordant with the existing literature, while the findings from younger versus older subgroups have implications for future research on brain structural correlates of specific cognitive abilities, as well as the cognitive domain specificity of behavioral performance correlates of normative gray matter thinning during adolescence.