Adolescent decisional autonomy regarding participation in an emergency department youth violence interview

Much attention has been given to determining whether an adolescent patient has the capacity to consent to research. This study explores the factors that influence adolescents' decisions to participate in a research study about youth violence and to determine positive or negative feelings elicited by being a research subject. The majority of subjects perceived their decision to participate to be free of coercion, and few felt badly about having participated. However, adolescents who were alone in the room during the assent process were more likely to report that they chose freely to be a research subject. This study may influence the ways physicians communicate with adolescent patients around research assent within a clinical care environment.     

Attribution in conversational context: Effect of mutual knowledge on explanation-giving

Attribution theorists typically have conceived the attribution process in terms of universal laws of cognitive functioning, independent of social interaction. In this paper we argue for the notion, grounded in recent ordinary language philosophy, that any consideration of the form of everyday explanation must take into account its function as an answer to a ‘why’ question within a conversational framework. Experiment 1 provides support for the idea that speakers should identify as causally relevant that necessary condition for the occurrence of an event about which the enquirer is ignorant. Experiment 2 replicates this basic finding and further demonstrates that speakers will change their explanations to enquirers believed to be sharing different knowledge about the same target event. Experiment 2 also assessed the role of individual differences in conversational rule-following, and found in apparent contrast some previous predictions that high self-monitoring individuals were no more likely than lows to tailor their explanations to suit the enquirer's knowledge state. If anything, the reverse occurred. Taken together, these experiments support the central contention of the abnormal conditions focus model (Hilton and Slugoski, 1986), that the common sense criterion of causality is that of an ‘abnormal condition’ rather than constant conjunction as instantiated in the ANOVA model of causal attribution (Kelley, 1967, 1973).     

Erratum to: Parental Anxiety and Child Symptomatology: An Examination of Additive and Interactive Effects of Parent Psychopathology

The current study examined relations between parent anxiety and child anxiety, depression, and externalizing symptoms. In addition, the study tested the additive and interactive effects of parent anxiety with parent depression and externalizing symptoms in relation to child symptoms. Forty-eight parents with anxiety disorders and 49 parents without any psychiatric disorder participated with one of their children (ages 6 to 14 years; 46.4% male; 75.8% Caucasian). Parent anxiety was related to both child anxiety and depression, but not child externalizing symptoms. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that only parent externalizing symptoms had additive effects, beyond parent anxiety symptoms, in relation to child anxiety symptoms. Further, parent anxiety symptoms moderated the relationship between parent and child externalizing symptoms, such that the strength of this relationship was reduced in the presence of high levels of parent anxiety symptoms. Results of this study illuminate the role of parent comorbidity in understanding relations between parent and child symptoms.     

Parental Anxiety and Child Symptomatology: An Examinzation of Additive and Interactive Effects of Parent Psychopathology

The current study examined relations between parent anxiety and child anxiety, depression, and externalizing symptoms. In addition, the study tested the additive and interactive effects of parent anxiety with parent depression and externalizing symptoms in relation to child symptoms. Forty-eight parents with anxiety disorders and 49 parents without any psychiatric disorder participated with one of their children (ages 6 to 14 years; 46.4% male; 75.8% Caucasian). Parent anxiety was related to both child anxiety and depression, but not child externalizing symptoms. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that only parent externalizing symptoms had additive effects, beyond parent anxiety symptoms, in relation to child anxiety symptoms. Further, parent anxiety symptoms moderated the relationship between parent and child externalizing symptoms, such that the strength of this relationship was reduced in the presence of high levels of parent anxiety symptoms. Results of this study illuminate the role of parent comorbidity in understanding relations between parent and child symptoms.     

All Anxiety is not Created Equal: Correlates of Parent/Youth Agreement Vary Across Subtypes of Anxiety

Research has examined patterns and correlates of parent/youth informant discrepancies in the reporting of youth anxiety. However, little work has examined whether it is better to conceptualize patterns and correlates of informant disagreement across anxiety broadly, or more useful to consider disagreement on specific symptom clusters. Using data from the Child Adolescent/Anxiety Multimodal Study (CAMS; N?=?488; Walkup et al. The New England Journal of Medicine, 359(26), 2753-2766. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa0804633, 2008), the current study applied the most recent recommended analytic strategies to study informant discrepancies and examined differences in the magnitude and patterns of disagreement for: (a) broadband anxiety symptoms, versus (b) symptoms of specific anxiety diagnoses (or anxiety subtypes; e.g., separation, social anxiety). Correlates of informant discrepancies were also examined. Results indicated that there was variability in agreement across anxiety subtypes, with parent/youth agreement higher on separation anxiety and school refusal symptoms relative to other domains. Parental psychopathology was associated with disagreement on broadband anxiety symptoms, such that parental psychopathology was highest when parents reported higher symptoms than their children; however, this finding was largely driven by a relationship between parental psychopathology and disagreement on separation anxiety symptoms. Age was associated with disagreement on total and separation anxiety symptoms. Gender was not associated with disagreement. Clinical implications are discussed.