Belief in a just world and social dominance orientation: Evidence for a mediational pathway predicting negative attitudes and discrimination against individuals with mental illness

Prejudice against individuals with mental illness stems from multiple factors, including the personality traits of those harboring the prejudiced attitudes. However, little is known about the personality processes (as opposed to static correlates) leading to negative attitudes and discrimination toward individuals with mental illness. The present research tested a mediational model in which negative attitudes against such people and resulting intentions to discriminate are distally rooted in just-world beliefs, which predispose people toward higher social dominance orientation, a well-known proximal personality predictor of general prejudice. Participants completed measures of behavioral intentions, attitudes toward individuals with mental illness, social dominance orientation, and belief in a just world. The proposed mediational model was supported, and an alternative causal model was not. These results illuminate the personality-process antecedents of attitudes toward individuals with mental illness and provide a foundation for research targeting interventions intended to reduce prejudice and discrimination against this population.     

Predictors of driving outcomes in advancing age

This study aimed to develop predictive models for real-life driving outcomes in older drivers. Demographics, driving history, on-road driving errors, and performance on visual, motor, and neuropsychological test scores at baseline were assessed in 100 older drivers (ages 65-89 years [72.7]). These variables were used to predict time to driving cessation, first moving violation, or crash. Using Cox proportional hazards regression models, significant individual predictors for driving cessation were greater age and poorer scores on Near Visual Acuity, Contrast Sensitivity, Useful Field of View, Judgment of Line Orientation, Trail Making Test-Part A, Benton Visual Retention Test, Grooved Pegboard, and a composite index of overall cognitive ability. Greater weekly mileage, higher education, and "serious" on-road errors predicted moving violations. Poorer scores from Trail Making Test-Part B or Trail Making Test (B-A) and serious on-road errors predicted crashes. Multivariate models using "off-road" predictors revealed (a) age and Contrast Sensitivity as best predictors for driving cessation; (b) education, weekly mileage, and Auditory Verbal Learning Task-Recall for moving violations; and (c) education, number of crashes over the past year, Auditory Verbal Learning Task-Recall, and Trail Making Test (B-A) for crashes. Diminished visual, motor, and cognitive abilities in older drivers can be easily and noninvasively monitored with standardized off-road tests, and performances on these measures predict involvement in motor vehicle crashes and driving cessation, even in the absence of a neurological disorder. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Using the Theory of Planned Behaviour and implementation intentions to predict and facilitate upward family communication about mammography

Regular mammography facilitates early detection of breast cancer, and thus increases the chances of survival from this disease. Daughter-initiated (i.e. upward) communication about mammography within mother-daughter dyads may promote mammography to women of screening age. The current study examined this communication behaviour within the context of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), and aimed to bridge the intention-behaviour gap by trialling an implementation intention (II) intervention that aimed to facilitate upward family communication about mammography. Young women aged 18-39 (N=116) were assigned to either a control or experimental condition, and the latter group formed IIs about initiating a conversation with an older female family member about mammography. Overall, those who formed IIs were more likely to engage in the target communication behaviour, however the intervention was most effective for those who reported low levels of intention at baseline. Perceived behavioural control emerged as the most important variable in predicting the target behaviour. The altruistic nature of this behaviour, and the fact that it is not wholly under volitional control, may have contributed to this finding. Future studies that systematically explore the relative roles of intention and perceived behavioural control in behaviours of this nature are warranted.     

Childhood abuse and neglect and cognitive flexibility in adolescents

Childhood maltreatment (CM) has been associated with diminished executive functioning in children and adults; however, there is a relative paucity of study of executive function in adolescents exposed to CM. Yet, executive dysfunction in adolescence may have important adverse consequences including increased vulnerability to risky behaviors and impaired school functioning. This study investigates the relationship between self-reported CM and an executive function, cognitive flexibility, in adolescents without identified psychiatric disorders. Effects of physical and emotional, abuse and neglect, maltreatment subtypes were explored. Thirty adolescents ages 12-17 years, 50% females, completed the retrospective self-report Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) and were administered the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). Correlational analyses assessed the relationship between WCST perseverative error scores norm-referenced for age and education with CTQ total scores. The relationship with nonperseverative errors, as well as with physical and emotional abuse and neglect CM subscores, were explored. Total CTQ scores showed significant associations with perseverative errors on the WCST, but not with nonperseverative errors. Significant associations with perseverative errors were seen for physical abuse and physical neglect among the CTQ subscales. The results suggest both physical abuse and physical neglect are associated with diminished cognitive flexibility in adolescents. These effects were detected in adolescents without identified psychiatric diagnoses suggesting the importance of considering executive dysfunction in adolescents exposed to CM who may not meet diagnostic criteria for an Axis I disorder and that tests of perseverative errors, such as those of the WCST, may be sensitive indicators of this dysfunction.     

Psychometric Properties of the Parental Distress Subscale

Using data from the Fragile Family Child Wellbeing Study, we examined the psychometric properties of the parental distress subscale of the parenting stress index—short form. Unlike previous studies, we found that the two-factor model did not fit the data significantly better than the one-factor model. Moreover, the results indicated that both the one-factor and the two-factor models provided only a marginal fit to the data. This finding was consistent across two time periods. Implications of these findings and future research are discussed.     

The role of children’s negative attributions on depressive symptoms: an inherited characteristic or a product of the early environment?

Negative attributional style has been associated with depressive symptoms in children. Yet, it is unclear whether these cognitive biases reflect inherited characteristics of the broader depressive phenotype or are a product of children's environments. While existing data in adolescents show that negative attributions reflect a genetic predisposition, elevating depressive responses to stress, other data suggest that negative attributions in children are more likely to reflect early environmental experiences on symptoms. Here, we assess the degree to which negative attributional style and depressive symptoms arise from common genetic, shared and non-shared environmental influences in childhood. Monozygotic and dizygotic twins reported on attributional style and depressive symptoms at age 8 (n = 300 pairs) and at age 10 (n = 250 pairs). Two multivariate models with varying assumptions on the nature of the relationship between negative attributions and depressive symptoms within and across time were fit to the data. The Common Pathway model provided better fit than the Cholesky decomposition. A common, latent factor influenced both attributional style and depressive symptoms at both time-points in children. The only significant influences on this factor were shared and non-shared aspects of the environment. Placing the present findings with those of adolescents suggests possible developmental differences in the relationship between attributional style and depressive symptoms.     

Percepts to recollections: insights from single neuron recordings in the human brain

Transformation of experience into memories that can guide future behavior is a common ability across species. However, only humans can declare their perceptions and memories of experienced events (episodes). The medial temporal lobe (MTL) is central to episodic memory, yet the neuronal code underlying the translation from sensory information to memory remains unclear. Recordings from neurons within the brain in patients who have electrodes implanted for clinical reasons provide an opportunity to bridge physiology with cognitive theories. Recent evidence illustrates several striking response properties of MTL neurons. Responses are selective yet invariant, associated with conscious perception, can be internally generated and modulated, and spontaneously retrieved. Representation of information by these neurons is highly explicit, suggesting abstraction of information for future conscious recall.     

The Association between Positive Parenting and Externalizing Behavior

The present study examined the role of positive parenting on externalizing behaviors in a longitudinal, genetically informative sample. It often is assumed that positive parenting prevents behavior problems in children via an environmentally mediated process. Alternatively, the association may be due to either an evocative gene-environment correlation, in which parents react to children's genetically-influenced behavior in a positive way, or a passive gene-environment correlation, where parents passively transmit a risk environment and the genetic risk factor for the behavioral outcome to their children. The present study estimated the contribution of these processes in the association between positive parenting and children's externalizing behavior. Positive parenting was assessed via observations at ages 7, 9, 14, 24, and 36 months and externalizing behaviors were assessed through parent report at ages 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, and 12 years. The significant association between positive parenting and externalizing behavior was negative, with children of mothers who showed significantly more positive parenting during toddlerhood having lower levels of externalizing behavior in childhood; however, there was not adequate power to distinguish whether this covariation was due to genetic, shared environmental, or nonshared environmental influences.