Reducing hopelessness: the interation of enhancing and depressogenic attributional styles for positive and negative life events among youth psychiatric inpatients

A recovery model of depression (Needles & Abramson, 1990 Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 99, 156-165) proposes that depressed individuals who exhibit an enhancing attributional style for positive events (i.e. make stable, global attributions) will be more likely to regain hopefulness and, thereby, recover from depression when positive events occur. While only a few studies have directly tested this model among clinical and nonclinical adult samples, none have tested a clinical sample of children and adolescents. Furthermore, prior studies testing this model have failed to examine the interactive role of an 'enhancing attributional style' for positive events with a 'depressogenic attributional style' for negative events, as prescribed by the hopelessness theory of depression (Abramson, Metalsky, & Alloy, 1989 Psychological Review, 96, 358-372). The current study presents data demonstrating that depressogenic and enhancing attributional styles interact to predict differential decreases in hopelessness. Implications of these findings and suggestions for future research also are presented.     

Sociopolitical Activist or Conversational Partner? Distinguishing the Position of the Therapist in Narrative and Collaborative Therapies

In this article, we explore the similarities and differences of two contemporary family therapy approaches: narrative and collaborative therapies. These therapies are contrasted by describing positioning of the narrative practitioner as sociopolitical activist and the collaborative practitioner as conversational partner. The article begins with a brief overview of the two therapies. Subsequently, we outline their epistemological genealogies and the practice similarities that arise from the theoretical assumptions underpinning these therapies. The remainder of the article addresses the theoretical and therapeutic differences in narrative and collaborative approaches reflected in the positioning of therapist as either sociopolitical activist or conversational partner. While narrative and collaborative approaches share more similarities than differences in relation to their emphasis on the constitutive characteristics of language, focus on sociorelational contexts, and critique of singular objective truths, prominence is given to the starker contrasts in narrative and collaborative understandings of politics, power, dialogue, and discourse. It is proposed that by outlining some provocative contrasts between narrative and collaborative approaches, new conversations and generative practices will emerge in the therapy room.     

Continuity of parenting practices across generations in an at-risk sample: a prospective comparison of direct and mediated associations

A prospective model of parenting and externalizing behavior spanning 3 generations (G1, G2, and G3) was examined for young men from an at-risk sample of young adult men (G2) who were in approximately the youngest one third of their cohort to become fathers. It was first predicted that the young men in G2 who had children the earliest would show high levels of antisocial behavior. Second, it was predicted that G1 poor parenting practices would show both a direct association with the G2 son's subsequent parenting and a mediated effect via his development of antisocial and delinquent behavior by adolescence. The young fathers had more arrests and were less likely to have graduated from high school than the other young men in the sample. Findings were most consistent with the interpretation that there was some direct effect of parenting from G1 to G2 and some mediated effect via antisocial behavior in G2.     

With sadness comes accuracy; with happiness, false memory: mood and the false memory effect

The Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm lures people to produce false memories. Two experiments examined whether induced positive or negative moods would influence this false memory effect. The affect-as-information hypothesis predicts that, on the one hand, positive affective cues experienced as task-relevant feedback encourage relational processing during encoding, which should enhance false memory effects. On the other hand, negative affective cues are hypothesized to encourage item-specific processing at encoding, which should discourage such effects. The results of Experiment 1 are consistent with these predictions: Individuals in negative moods were significantly less likely to show false memory effects than those in positive moods or those whose mood was not manipulated. Experiment 2 introduced inclusion instructions to investigate whether moods had their effects at encoding or retrieval. The results replicated the false memory finding of Experiment 1 and provide evidence that moods influence the accessibility of lures at encoding, rather than influencing monitoring at retrieval of whether lures were actually presented.     

The IRB paradox: could the protectors also encourage deceit?

The efforts of some institutional review boards (IRBs) to exercise what is viewed as appropriate oversight may contribute to deceit on the part of investigators who feel unjustly treated. An organizational justice paradigm provides a useful context for exploring why certain IRB behaviors may lead investigators to believe that they have not received fair treatment. These feelings may, in turn, lead to intentional deception by investigators that IRBs will rarely detect. Paradoxically, excessive protective zeal by IRBs may actually encourage misconduct by some investigators. The authors contend that, by fostering a climate in which investigators perceive that they receive fair and unbiased treatment, IRBs optimize the likelihood of collegial compliance with appropriate participant protections.     

The 2003 Survey of Academic Medical Center Psychologists: Implications and Outlook

This paper offers commentaries on Pate and Kohout’s (2005) report of data from the 1997 and 2003 surveys of psychologists in medical school settings. The commentaries reflect upon the significance of the survey findings and implications for psychology’s role in medical school and academic health science settings. Though the response rate to the survey was disappointing, the data indicate that psychologists are moving up in academic rank, and have made substantial gains in salary. The data also indicate that among psychologists who are medical staff members, who constitute half the 2003 sample, an increasing proportion are functioning autonomously as reflected in gains in the percentage having admitting privileges, staff voting privileges, and authority to write orders. Research continues to be a major focus for psychologists in academic medical centers. Overall, the findings indicate that psychologists can have productive, satisfying careers in medical school/academic health center settings—though there is one troubling sign, a sizeable drop in the number of positions being created for younger, more recently trained psychologists. Methodological enhancements are described that could improve the quality, scope, and usefulness of data from future studies, both for understanding long-term trends and for conducting salary negotiations. High quality data provide a solid foundation for advocating for psychologists’ full participation in the life of medical schools and academic health centers.     

Genes, environment, and race: quantitative genetic approaches

Understanding the origins of racial health disparities is currently a central focus of health-oriented funding agencies and the health policy community. In particular, the role of genetics in the origin of racial health disparities is receiving growing attention and has been susceptible to considerable misinterpretation. In this article, the authors provide a basic discussion about the concept of genes and race, an introduction to quantitative genetics, and some examples of quantitative genetic analyses of health conditions in an underserved population. The intent is to outline the conceptual limitations of exclusivist views of either environmental or genetic determination and to emphasize the coaction and interaction of genes and environments in health.     

Muscle activation is different when the same muscle acts as an agonist or an antagonist during voluntary movement

During movement, the intrinsic muscle force-velocity property decreases the net force for the shortening muscle (agonist) and increases it for the lengthening muscle (antagonist). The authors present a quantitative analysis of the effect of that muscle property on activation and force output of the same muscle acting as agonist and antagonist in fast and medium speed goal-oriented movements. They compared biceps activation and force output when that muscle was the agonist in a series of elbow flexions and when it was the antagonist in a series of elbow extensions. They performed the same analysis for the lateral, long, and medial heads of the triceps muscle. Muscle EMG was about 2 times larger and the angular impulse developed by the modeled contractile torque was up to 3 times larger when the muscle or muscles acted as the agonist than when the same muscle or muscles acted as the antagonist in movements with similar kinematics. The large effect of the muscle force-velocity property strongly suggests that the neural controller must account for intrinsic muscle properties to generate movements with a commonly observed bell-shaped velocity profile.     

How eyewitnesses resist misinformation: Social postwarnings and the monitoring of memory characteristics

Previous findings have been equivocal as to whether the postevent misinformation effect on eyewitness memory is reduced by warnings presented after the misinformation (postwarnings). In the present research, social postwarnings, which characterize the postevent source as a low-credibility individual, diminished the misinformation effect in both cued recall and recognition tests. Discrediting the source as being either untrustworthy or incompetent was effective (Experiment 1). Also, postwarned participants rated reality characteristics of their memories more accurately than did participants receiving no or high-credibility information about the postevent source (Experiment 2). A social postwarning yielded the same results as an explicit source-monitoring appeal and led to longer response times for postevent items, relative to a no-warning condition (Experiments 3 and 4). The findings suggest that the reduced misinformation effect was due to more thorough monitoring of memory characteristics by postwarned participants, rather than to a stricter response criterion or to enhanced event memory.     

The epistemic benefits of trait-consistent mood states: an analysis of extraversion and mood

One must consider both trait and state affect to predict individual differences in emotional processing. The present results document a novel trait-state interaction that is consistent with proposals concerning the epistemic functions of affect (A. R. Damasio, 1994). Four studies tested the effects of extraversion and mood on motivation-relevant processing. Study 1 measured naturally occurring mood, whereas Studies 2-4 manipulated mood. Extraverts were faster to link events to their personal motivations when in a positive mood state, whereas introverts were faster to do so in a neutral or negative mood state. Further findings indicate that this interaction affects attitude accessibility rather than event elaboration. Overall, the authors suggest that there are pragmatic benefits to trait-consistent moods, particularly for processing motivation-relevant stimuli.