Further refinement of video‐based brief multiple‐stimulus without replacement preference assessments

We compared the results of a brief video‐based multiple‐stimulus without replacement preference assessment with no access to chosen activities (MSWO‐NO) to the results of the same assessment with access (MSWO‐WA) with four children with autism. We also compared instructor rankings of activities to MSWO‐WA results. Strong to moderate correlations between MSWO‐NO and MSWO‐WA assessment results were found across all participants. The correlation between MSWO‐WA and instructor rankings ranged from strong to low across all participants. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Do actions speak louder than words? Examining children’s ability to follow instructions

The ability to encode, retain, and implement instructions within working memory is central to many behaviours, including classroom activities which underpin learning. The three experiments presented here explored how action—planned, enacted, and observed—impacted 6- to 10-year-old’s ability to follow instructions. Experiment 1 (N = 81) found enacted recall was superior to verbal recall, but self-enactment at encoding had a negative effect on enacted recall and verbal recall. In contrast, observation of other-enactment (demonstration) at encoding facilitated both types of recall (Experiment 2a: N = 81). Further, reducing task demands through a reduced set of possible actions (Experiment 2b; N = 64) led to a positive effect of self-enactment at encoding for later recall (both verbal and enacted). Expecting to enact at recall may lead to the creation of an imaginal spatial-motoric plan at encoding that boosts later recall. However, children’s ability to use the additional spatial-motoric codes generated via self-enactment at encoding depends on the demands the task places on central executive resources. Demonstration at encoding appears to reduce executive demands and enable use of these additional forms of coding.     

ADHD and Depression Symptoms in Parent Couples Predict Response to Child ADHD and ODD Behavior

Parents of children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) often have elevated ADHD and depressive symptoms, both of which increase the risk of ineffective parenting and interparental discord. However, little is known about whether child ADHD/ODD behavior and parent ADHD or depressive symptoms uniquely or synergistically predict the quality of parenting and interparental communication during triadic (mother-father-child) interactions. Ninety parent couples, including 51 who have children diagnosed with ADHD, were randomly assigned to interact with a 9–12 year-old confederate child (84 % male) exhibiting either ADHD/ODD-like behavior or typical behavior. Parents reported their own ADHD and depressive symptoms, and parents and observers rated the quality of parenting and interparental communication during the interaction. Actor-partner interdependence modeling indicated that child ADHD/ODD behavior predicted less positive and more negative parenting and communication, independent of adult ADHD and depressive symptoms. Parent couples including two parents with elevated ADHD communicated more positively while managing children exhibiting ADHD/ODD behavior than couples managing children behaving typically or couples with only one parent with elevated ADHD symptoms. Couples including one parent with, and one parent without, elevated ADHD or depressive symptoms parented less positively and more negatively, and communicated more negatively, when managing children exhibiting ADHD/ODD behavior than when managing children behaving typically. Taken together, depending on the similarity of ADHD and depressive symptom levels in parent couples, adults managing children exhibiting ADHD/ODD behavior may parent or communicate positively or negatively. Findings highlight the need to consider the psychopathology of both parents when treating children with ADHD in two-parent homes.     

Action or attention in social inhibition of return?

Psychological Research - When two individuals alternate reaching responses to targets located in a visual display, reaction times are longer when responses are directed to where the co-actor just...     

Feelings Matter: Depression Severity and Emotion Regulation in HIV/STI Risk-Related Sexual Behaviors

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/sexually transmitted infection (STI) prevention models may not address psychological complexities among adolescents with mental illnesses. This study examined contextual factors related to HIV/STI risk among heterosexually active Black adolescents with mental illnesses to inform the development of targeted HIV/STI prevention strategies. Black adolescent males and females (aged 14–17) were recruited from outpatient mental health programs in Philadelphia, PA to complete a computer-assisted personalized interview on sociodemographics, sexual behaviors, and emotion regulation (N?=?53). Two sample t-tests, Wilcoxon Rank Sum tests and regression modeling were used to examine differences in the study measures by gender and relationship status. Reports of sexual partner concurrency were high—both while already in a sexual relationship (67.3%) and multiple sexual partners in the same day (42.3%). Boys reported significantly more risk behaviors than girls. Sadness dysregulation predicted currently being in a relationship, older age at first oral sex, fewer vaginal sexual partners and fewer unprotected oral sexual encounters. Coping difficulties predicted a greater number of vaginal and oral sexual partners, and a lower age at first vaginal sex. Increasing depression severity was related to older age at first vaginal sex, fewer vaginal sexual partners and fewer unprotected oral sexual encounters in the past 3 months. This formative work suggests that coping mechanisms should be addressed in HIV/STI prevention research through the inclusion of activities targeted toward emotion regulation and decreasing sexual risk behaviors. Psycho-education and skills building may mitigate the psychopathology that contributes to HIV/STI risk in the target demographic.     

What can Examining the Psychology of Nationalism Tell Us About Our Prospects for Aiming at the Cosmopolitan Vision?

Opponents of cosmopolitanism often dismiss the position on the grounds that cosmopolitan proposals are completely unrealistic and that they fly in the face of our human nature. We have deep psychological needs that are satisfied by national identification and so all cosmopolitan projects are doomed, or so it is argued. In this essay we examine the psychological grounds claimed to support the importance of nationalism to our wellbeing. We argue that the alleged human needs that nationalism is said to satisfy are: (i) either more complex than initially one might think or (ii) do not necessarily provide very strong grounds for the theses advocated by nationalists or (iii) can be well met in alternate ways than through national identification. Moreover, commitment to cosmopolitanism is not antithetical to meeting these needs: rather, more cosmopolitan worldviews can do quite well in meeting the needs of interest. Moreover, we argue that since nationalism is a fluid and socially constructed phenomenon, quite open to the influence of other factors, the current evidence suggests that central aspects of cosmopolitanism are quite feasible and realistic.

GROUP-LEVEL COPING AS A MODERATOR BETWEEN HETEROSEXISM AND SEXISM AND PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTRESS IN SEXUAL MINORITY WOMEN

The purpose of this study was: (1) to examine concurrently the relationship between heterosexist events and sexist events and psychological distress and (2) to investigate sexual orientation–based and gender-based group-level coping as potential moderators of the heterosexism–distress and sexism–distress links among 282 lesbian and bisexual women. Findings from the Internet survey revealed that, when examined together, both heterosexism and sexism were unique and additive predictors of psychological distress. Results also supported a moderating role of feminist group-level coping in the link between number of sexist events and psychological distress, with the difference between the high– and low–feminist-activity groups occurring at the lower levels of sexism. Thus, it appears that high involvement in feminist activities may provide a buffer against the negative effects of sexism, but only when sexist events are relatively low in number.