Maternal Depression and Youth Internalizing and Externalizing Symptomatology: Severity and Chronicity of Past Maternal Depression and Current Maternal Depressive Symptoms

Maternal depression is a well-documented risk factor for youth depression, and taking into account its severity and chronicity may provide important insight into the degree of risk conferred. This study explored the degree to which the severity/chronicity of maternal depression history explained variance in youth internalizing and externalizing symptoms above and beyond current maternal depressive symptoms among 171 youth (58 % male) ages 8 to 12 over a span of 3 years. Severity and chronicity of past maternal depression and current maternal depressive symptoms were examined as predictors of parent-reported youth internalizing and externalizing symptomatology, as well as youth self-reported depressive symptoms. Severity and chronicity of past maternal depression did not account for additional variance in youth internalizing and externalizing symptoms at Time 1 beyond what was accounted for by maternal depressive symptoms at Time 1. Longitudinal growth curve modeling indicated that prior severity/chronicity of maternal depression predicted levels of youth internalizing and externalizing symptoms at each time point when controlling for current maternal depressive symptoms at each time point. Chronicity of maternal depression, apart from severity, also predicted rate of change in youth externalizing symptoms over time. These findings highlight the importance of screening and assessing for current maternal depressive symptoms, as well as the nature of past depressive episodes. Possible mechanisms underlying the association between severity/chronicity of maternal depression and youth outcomes, such as residual effects from depressive history on mother–child interactions, are discussed.     

You can do it if you really try: The effects of motivation on thinking for pleasure

People find it difficult to enjoy their own thoughts when asked to do so, but what happens when they are asked to think about whatever they want? Do they find thinking more or less enjoyable? In the present studies, we show that people are more successful in enjoying their thoughts when instructed to do so. We present evidence in support of four reasons why this is: without instructions people do not realize how enjoyable it will be to think for pleasure, they do not realize how personally meaningful it will be to do so, they believe that thinking for pleasure will be effortful, and they believe it would be more worthwhile to engage in planning than to try to enjoy their thoughts. We discuss the practical implications of thinking for pleasure for promoting alternatives to the use of technology.     

Systemic Barriers Faced by Women Attempting to Leave Abusive Military Marriages

This narrative study features 8 women who shared their stories of systemic barriers faced in the process of leaving an abusive military marriage. The themes of power and control, protection of the service member, entitlement, infallibility, safe places are not safe, and cultural ideals of loyalty are presented and emphasized with excerpts from the women's narratives. Implications are identified for counselors in the roles of practitioner and advocate, along with suggestions of future directions for research.     

Does Parental Monitoring Moderate the Impact of Community Violence Exposure on Probation Youth’s Substance Use and Sexual Risk Behavior?

The present study examined whether parental monitoring buffers the negative effects of communtity violence exposure on probation youth’s substance use and sexual risk behaviors. Among a sample of 347 Chicago youth on probation, ages 13–17 years, parental monitoring did not moderate the relationship between community violence exposure and probation youth’s sexual risk and substance use. However, parental monitoring was independently associated with less engagement in sexual risk and substance use, and community violence exposure was independently associated with more risk behavior among probation youth. The present study contributes to the growing literature on the impact of community violence exposure and parenting on adjudicated youth risk.     

Chickadees discriminate contingency reversals presented consistently,but not frequently

Chickadees are high-metabolism, non-migratory birds, and thus an especially interesting model for studying how animals follow patterns of food availability over time. Here, we studied whether black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) could learn to reverse their behavior and/or to anticipate changes in reinforcement when the reinforcer contingencies for each stimulus were not stably fixed in time. In Experiment 1, we examined the responses of chickadees on an auditory go/no-go task, with constant reversals in reinforcement contingencies every 120 trials across daily testing intervals. Chickadees did not produce above-chance discrimination; however, when trained with a procedure that only reversed after successful discrimination, chickadees were able to discriminate and reverse their behavior successfully. In Experiment 2, we examined the responses of chickadees when reversals were structured to occur at the same time once per day, and chickadees were again able to discriminate and reverse their behavior over time, though they showed no reliable evidence of reversal anticipation. The frequency of reversals throughout the day thus appears to be an important determinant for these animals’ performance in reversal procedures.     

Assessing Biobehavioural Self‐Regulation and Coregulation in Early Childhood: The Parent‐Child Challenge Task

Researchers have argued for more dynamic and contextually relevant measures of regulatory processes in interpersonal interactions. In response, we introduce and examine the effectiveness of a new task, the Parent–Child Challenge Task, designed to assess the self‐regulation and coregulation of affect, goal‐directed behaviour, and physiology in parents and their preschoolers in response to an experimental perturbation. Concurrent and predictive validity was examined via relations with children's externalizing behaviours. Mothers used only their words to guide their 3‐year‐old children to complete increasingly difficult puzzles in order to win a prize (N = 96). A challenge condition was initiated midway through the task with a newly introduced time limit. The challenge produced decreases in parental teaching and dyadic behavioural variability and increases in child negative affect and dyadic affective variability, measured by dynamic systems‐based methods. Children rated lower on externalizing showed respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) suppression in response to challenge, whereas those rated higher on externalizing showed RSA augmentation. Additionally, select task changes in affect, behaviour, and physiology predicted teacher‐rated externalizing behaviours four months later. Findings indicate that the Parent–Child Challenge Task was effective in producing regulatory changes and suggest its utility in assessing biobehavioural self‐regulation and coregulation in parents and their preschoolers. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Eating disorder diagnostic scale: additional evidence of reliability and validity

The authors conducted 4 studies investigating the reliability and validity of the Eating Disorder Diagnostic Scale (HDDS; E. Stice, C. F. Telch, & S. L. Rizvi, 2000), a brief self-report measure for diagnosing anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder. Study 1 found that the HDDS showed criterion validity with interview-based diagnoses, convergent validity with risk factors for eating pathology, and internal consistency. Studies 2 and 3 found that the EDDS was sufficiently sensitive to detect the effects of eating disorder prevention programs. Regarding predictive validity, Studies 3 and 4 found that the EDDS predicted response to a prevention program and future onset of eating pathology and depression. Results provide additional evidence of the reliability and validity of this scale and suggest it may be useful in clinical and research applications.     

Motivation and affect in REM sleep and the mentation reporting process

Although the emotional and motivational characteristics of dreaming have figured prominently in folk and psychoanalytic conceptions of dream production, emotions have rarely been systematically studied, and motivation, never. Because emotions during sleep lack the somatic components of waking emotions, and they change as the sleeper awakens, their properties are difficult to assess. Recent evidence of limbic system activation during REM sleep suggests a basis in brain architecture for the interaction of motivational and cognitive properties in dreaming. Motivational and emotional content in REM and NREM laboratory mentation reports from 25 participants were compared. Motivational and emotional content was significantly greater in REM than NREM sleep, even after controlling for the greater word count of REM reports.