Developmental history of care and control,depression and anger: Correlates of maternal sensitivity in toddlerhood

This study examined maternal sensitivity in response to toddler distress in relation to mothers' childhood care and control experiences with parents, maternal depression, and maternal anger. Fifty‐two mothers and infants participated. Mothers reported childhood care and control experiences prenatally. At 2½ years, mothers reported depressive symptoms and anger on questionnaires, and reported maternal behavior in a daily diary for 1 week, yielding ratings of maternal sensitivity to fear and anger. Results were as follows: (a) Mothers' acceptance during childhood correlated negatively with both maternal depression and maternal anger, and positively with maternal sensitivity to fear at 2½ years; (b) maternal anger mediated the association between childhood care and maternal sensitivity to fear at 2½ years; and (c) the interaction of maternal and paternal control during childhood predicted maternal sensitivity to anger at 2½ years, controlling for maternal education. When maternal control was low, paternal control was positively associated with maternal sensitivity to anger whereas when maternal control was high, paternal control was negatively associated with maternal sensitivity to anger. Results are discussed in relation to prior studies, with particular emphasis on attachment theory. Implications for preventive intervention efforts are considered.     

BIS/BAS responses to emotional cues: Self report, autonomic measure and alpha band modulation

The study explored the effect of the subjective evaluation and of BIS/BAS (Behavioral Inhibition and Activation System) differences on psychophysiological and brain oscillation measures, in response to pleasant/unpleasant and high/low arousing stimuli. Skin conductance response, heart rate, and electromyography, and alpha frequency band, were registered, during viewing IAPS figures. Both BIS and BAS measures were significant in modulating behavioral, autonomic and brain responses, with a clear dichotomy BAS-appetitive/positive BIS-withdrawal/negative sensitivity. Withdrawal (BIS) and appetitive (BAS) behavior showed opposite patterns of responses by the subjects within the frontal cortical site more than other sites. In addition, a specific frontal lateralization effect was found as a function of BIS (more right-side activation for negative cues) and BAS (more left-side activation for positive cues). Moreover, autonomic variables and frequency band were found to be effected by arousal rating per se, with an increased response to high arousal in comparison with low arousal and neutral stimuli. The effects of subjective evaluation and individual differences were discussed in the light of the coping activity of emotion comprehension.     

Effects of agency on movement interference during observation of a moving dot stimulus

Human movement performance is subject to interference if the performer simultaneously observes an incongruent action. It has been proposed that this phenomenon is due to motor contagion during simultaneous movement performance-observation, with coactivation of shared action performance and action observation circuitry in the premotor cortex. The present experiments compared the interference effect during observation of a moving person with observation of moving dot stimuli: The dot display followed either a biologically plausible or implausible velocity profile. Interference effects due to dot observation were present for both biological and nonbiological velocity profiles when the participants were informed that they were observing prerecorded human movement and were absent when the dot motion was described as computer generated. These results suggest that the observer's belief regarding the origin of the dot motion (human-computer generated) modulates the processing of the dot movement stimuli on their later integration within the motor system, such that the belief regarding their biological origin is a more important determinant of interference effects than the stimulus kinematics.     

Performance of british university psychology departments as measured by number of publications in BPS journals

The aim of this investigation was to gauge the comparative research performance of university departments of psychology in Britain. The performance indicator was the number of publications per departmental staff member in the journals of the British Psychological Society (BPS) during the seven-year period 1983–1989. The contents of these journals were thoroughly searched, and articles written by members of university psychology departments in Britain were counted. The number of publications of each psychology department was divided by the size of the department in the corresponding year and the resulting annual figures were summed to determine the number of publications in BPS journals per departmental staff member over the seven-year period. These research performance figures correlated significantly with an earlier measure of departmental research performance based on publications in the seven European psychological journals with the highest citations per published article and with recent performance indicators based on other criteria     

Comparing Attention to Socially-Relevant Stimuli in Autism Spectrum Disorder and Developmental Coordination Disorder

Difficulties with social interaction have been reported in both children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD), although these disorders have very different diagnostic characteristics. To date, assessment of social skills in a DCD population has been limited to paper-based assessment or parent report. The present study employed eye tracking methodology to examine how children attend to socially-relevant stimuli, comparing 28 children with DCD, 28 children with ASD and 26 typically-developing (TD) age-matched controls (aged 7–10). Eye movements were recorded while children viewed 30 images, half of which were classed as ‘Individual’ (one person in the scene, direct gaze) and the other half were ‘Social’ (more naturalistic scenes showing an interaction). Children with ASD spent significantly less time looking at the face/eye regions in the images than TD children, but children with DCD performed between the ASD and TD groups in this respect. Children with DCD demonstrated a reduced tendency to follow gaze, in comparison to the ASD group. Our findings confirm that social atypicalities are present in both ASD and to a lesser extent DCD, but follow a different pattern. Future research would benefit from considering the developmental nature of the observed findings and their implications for support.     

Assessing Safety Behaviors in Fear of Storms: Validation of the Storm-Related Safety Behavior Scale

With the exception of one self-report questionnaire assessing storm fear severity (Nelson et al. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 36(1), 105–114, 2014), there are few brief published assessment tools to measure the cognitive, behavioral, and physical manifestations of storm fear. A principal feature of phobic disorders is the use of safety behaviors to alleviate distress. Safety behaviors are believed to perpetuate anxiety by preventing the disconfirmation of feared outcomes (Salkovskis Behavioural Psychotherapy, 19(1), 6–19, 1991). To date, no studies have examined the use of safety behaviors in storm fear. The purpose of the current research was to develop and validate the Storm-Related Safety Behavior Scale (SRSBS; Vorstenbosch and Antony 2017), a 24-item self-report scale that measures safety behavior use in adults with a fear of storms. Two studies examined the (1) factor structure, internal consistency, validity, and test-retest reliability of the SRSBS, as well as the frequency with which specific safety behaviors were endorsed; and (2) ability of the SRSBS to differentiate between a group of adults with low and high fear of storms after exposure to a virtual thunderstorm. Factor analysis revealed that the SRSBS is best captured by one factor. Results provided preliminary evidence of convergent and discriminant validity, as well as test-retest reliability. Finally, significant group differences were found between participants with high versus low fear of storms following a virtual thunderstorm. These findings demonstrate the value of the SRSBS for assessing safety behavior use.     

Neurocognitive Functioning in Depressed Young People: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background: Depression is among the most common mental health problems for young people. In adults, depression is associated with neurocognitive deficits that reduce the effectiveness of treatment and impair educational and vocational functioning. Compared to adults, less is known about the neurocognitive functioning of young people with depression, and existing research has reported inconsistent findings. Method: This systematic review and meta-analysis synthesized the literature on neurocognitive functioning in currently depressed youth aged 12–25 years in comparison to healthy controls. Results: Following a systematic review of the literature, 23 studies were included in the meta-analysis. Poorer performance in the domains of attention (SMD: .50, 95% CI: .18–.83, p?=?.002), verbal memory (SMD: .78, 95% CI: .50–1.0, p?<?.001), visual memory (SMD: .65, 95% CI: .30–.99, p?<?.001), verbal reasoning/knowledge (SMD: .46; 95% CI: .14–.79; p?<?0.001) and IQ (SMD: .32; 95% CI: .08–.56; p?=?0.01) were identified in depressed youth. Relative weaknesses in processing speed/reaction time and verbal learning were also evident, however, these findings disappeared when the quality of studies was controlled for. Moderator analysis showed a tendency for poorer set-shifting ability in younger depressed participants relative to controls (although non-significant; p?=?.05). Moderator analysis of medication status showed taking medication was associated with poorer attentional functioning compared to those not taking medication. Conclusion: The findings suggest that currently depressed young people display a range of neurocognitive weaknesses which may impact treatment engagement and outcome. The findings support the need to consider neurocognitive functioning when treating youth with depression.     

Deadly combinations: how leadership contexts undermine the activation and enactment of followers’ high core self-evaluations in performance

Employees with high core self-evaluations (CSE) generally perform well in their jobs. The enactment of CSE in performance occurs within contexts, and leadership is one form of context that influences the activation and expression of CSE. Drawing on theories of CSE and leader–member exchange (LMX), we characterized the leadership context as the interaction between leader CSE and LMX quality. Examination of 173 followers and their 31 leaders in a manufacturing organization showed a positive association between follower CSE and performance when the context comprised high leader CSE and high LMX. Conversely, leadership contexts comprising high leader CSE and low LMX, or low leader CSE and high LMX, resulted in a negative relationship between follower CSE and performance. We also show that low CSE followers have relatively high performance under some circumstances. Thus, we contribute to understanding how some leadership contexts undermine high CSE followers’ performance and promote low CSE followers’ performance.