Further Evidence Concerning Motivational Distortion on the Sixteen Personality Factor Primaries by Male Felons

A multiple regression analysis was used to determine the susceptibility of the 16 Personality Factor Test (16PF) to faking for a sample of male felons. The study is a replication of an earlier study of a similar sample. Motivational distortion (MID) correlated significantly with the 16 PF primary scores. The relationship was most evident when the structure coefficients rather than the beta weights were analyzed. The findings were consistent with the previous results which indicated a fairly high degree of support for the MD corrections provided in the manual. An important exception was that Dominance (E) was suppressed by individuals from both samples when MD was present.     

Facial reactions to violent and comedy films: Association with callous–unemotional traits and impulsive aggression

The current study adds to prior research by investigating specific (happiness, sadness, surprise, disgust, anger and fear) and general (corrugator and zygomatic muscle activity) facial reactions to violent and comedy films among individuals with varying levels of callous–unemotional (CU) traits and impulsive aggression (IA). Participants at differential risk of CU traits and IA were selected from a sample of 1225 young adults. In Experiment 1, participants (N?=?82) facial expressions were recorded while they watched violent and comedy films. Video footage of participants' facial expressions was analysed using FaceReader, a facial coding software that classifies facial reactions. Findings suggested that individuals with elevated CU traits showed reduced facial reactions of sadness and disgust to violent films, indicating low empathic concern in response to victims' distress. In contrast, impulsive aggressors produced specifically more angry facial expressions when viewing violent and comedy films. In Experiment 2 (N?=?86), facial reactions were measured by monitoring facial electromyography activity. FaceReader findings were verified by the reduced facial electromyography at the corrugator, but not the zygomatic, muscle in response to violent films shown by individuals high in CU traits. Additional analysis suggested that sympathy to victims explained the association between CU traits and reduced facial reactions to violent films.     

Assessing the social behavior of infants: Use of the ADBB Scale and relationship to mother's mood

Infants can show a range of social behavior when interacting with their main caregiver. Previous work has demonstrated that when the caregiver is depressed, the infant may demonstrate withdrawn behavior not only to this person but also to others. This pilot study used a relatively new assessment tool, the Alarme Distress de Bebe Scale (ADBB; Guedeney and Fermanian, 2001), to assess the social behavior of 44 infants during a routine physical checkup. Results indicated that withdrawn infant social behavior to the clinician was related to the mother's report of whether she had felt more irritable, sad, anxious, or depressed since the birth, but not to her current mood as rated by her score on the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (Cox, Holden & Sagovsky, 1987). The psychometric properties of the ADBB also were explored. The findings are further evidence for the need to screen for mood difficulties in women with infants not just by focusing on a woman's current mood but also her mood since the infant's birth.     

Latency‐based functional analysis in schools: Correspondence and differences across environments

Functional analyses were conducted for problem behavior of three girls with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Analyses conducted under analog conditions measured rate and latency. Latency‐based functional analyses were conducted in a classroom setting in multielement and reversal designs. Correspondence was identified between the standard functional analysis and the two latency analyses for one participant. Partial correspondence was found with the other two participants. These results are discussed in light of research on adaptions for functional analysis in classroom settings.     

Catching up with our changing (digital) world: A comment on Baier (this issue)

Many mental health clinicians participate in the use of social media in their professional and personal lives. There are a number of ethics issues and challenges associated with this social media use, particularly with regard to self-disclosure. In this comment, key issues relevant to social media use and self-disclosure are addressed including relevant ethics guidance for participating in social media; social media use, boundaries, and multiple relationships; informed consent and the social media policy; and preparation of our next generation for working ethically and effectively in the digital world. These challenges are examined and recommendations for addressing each of them in a thoughtful and proactive manner are made with a focus on each mental health professional’s overarching ethics obligations to those we serve.     

Politics,concern for future generations,and the environment: Generativity mediates political conservatism and environmental attitudes

Climate change and pollution impact those alive today as well as future generations, suggesting that attitudes toward future generations may be linked with environmental attitudes. Despite the widespread impact of the environmental on human lives, there is considerable partisan divide in the United States with regards to environmental issues. We investigated relationships between political conservatism, generativity, and environmental attitudes in two studies (N = 429 and N = 618). Political conservatism was associated with lower pro‐environmental attitudes; however, political conservatism was also associated with higher generativity and had a positive indirect effect on pro‐environmental attitudes through higher generativity. More politically conservative individuals may have greater concern for future life and thereby have more pro‐environmental attitudes even while having lower pro‐environmental attitudes overall. These results likely reflect partisan polarization with regard to environmental issues. Pro‐environmental messages may be more persuasive for conservatives if they are linked to concerns about future generations.     

Maximum Entropy Inference with Quantified Knowledge

We investigate uncertain reasoning with quantified sentencesof the predicate calculus treated as the limiting case of maximumentropy inference applied to finite domains.