An index of prenatal steroid exposure predicts adult face perception skills

Face perception skills are fundamental to social cognition, yet they vary markedly across individuals. This diversity has stimulated controversy over the relative contributions of genetic factors, prenatal environment, and postnatal experience to face perception. Recent twin studies have found that face perception is heritable, highlighting the potential for substantial prenatal determination of these skills. In contrast, previous work on potential influences of the prenatal hormonal environment on social cognition have found no association between 2D:4D, a marker for prenatal androgen exposure, and processing of facial emotional expressions, apparently precluding a major role for prenatal hormones in governing face perception. We propose that substantial predictive relationships between 2D:4D and face perception may have been masked in previous work because the task employed required both face perception and processing of others?? emotions, the latter component being greatly influenced by circulating hormones in adults. To assess prenatal hormone influences on face perception without requiring emotion processing, we related 2D:4D to the face inversion effect (FIE), a measure of the recruitment of specialist face processes to visual perception. The magnitude of the resulting predictive relationship (r = .52) compared surprisingly well with that found between identical twins?? face perception (rs = .27?C.61), suggesting that mechanisms of 2D:4D may account for a substantial proportion of perinatal influences on face processing. Furthermore, we employed 2D:4D as a common scale to map individual differences in the FIE onto prenatal testosterone:estrogen ratios, assayed by Lutchmaya, Baron-Cohen, Raggatt, Knickmeyer, and Manning (Early Human Development 77:23?C28, 2004). The substantial overlap between the two data sets further implicates prenatal steroids in adult face perception skills.     

Emerging perception of causality in action-and-reaction sequences from 4 to 6 months of age: Is it domain-specific?

Two experiments (N=136) studied how 4- to 6-month-olds perceive a simple schematic event, seen as goal-directed action and reaction from 3 years of age. In our causal reaction event, a red square moved toward a blue square, stopping prior to contact. Blue began to move away before red stopped, so that both briefly moved simultaneously at a distance. Primarily, our study sought to determine from what age infants see the causal structure of this reaction event. In addition, we looked at whether this causal percept depends on an animate style of motion and whether it correlates with tasks assessing goal perception and goal-directed action. Infants saw either causal reactions or noncausal delayed control events in which blue started some time after red stopped. These events involved squares that moved either rigidly or nonrigidly in an apparently animate manner. After habituation to one of the four events, infants were tested on reversal of the habituation event. Spatiotemporal features reversed for all events, but causal roles changed only in reversed reactions. The 6-month-olds dishabituated significantly more to reversal of causal reaction events than to noncausal delay events, whereas younger infants reacted similarly to reversal of both. Thus, perceptual causality for reaction events emerges by 6 months of age, a younger age than previously reported but, crucially, the same age at which perceptual causality for launch events has emerged in prior research. On our second question, animate/inanimate motion had no effect at any age, nor did significant correlations emerge with our additional tasks assessing goal perception or goal-directed object retrieval. Available evidence, here and elsewhere, is as compatible with a view that infants initially see A affecting B, without differentiation into physical or psychological causality, as with the standard assumption of distinct physical/psychological causal perception.     

Discrete emotions elucidate the effects of crossed-categorization on prejudice

Three studies integrated crossed-categorization and discrete emotion approaches to prejudice and prejudice reduction. Study 1 made salient crossed-categorization using naturally occurring groups and examined the ability of emotions to account for prejudiced evaluations. Study 2 constructed novel crossed-categorizations in the laboratory to examine the role of appraisal-based emotions in evaluations of crossed-categories. Study 3 crossed gender and sexual orientation, for which elicited discrete emotions predict different evaluative responses than do shared and unshared group memberships alone. In all three studies, discrete emotions were able to account for the effects of crossed-categorization on evaluative measures of prejudice and revealed emotional paths to prejudice reduction which would be obscured by the evaluative measures alone. In Study 3, a discrete emotions approach better predicted evaluations than did shared and unshared group membership alone. These results converge to highlight the importance of discrete emotions in understanding the evaluative implications of crossed-categorization, especially for prejudice reduction.     

Is the Continuity of Externalizing Psychopathology the Same in Adolescents and Middle–Aged Adults? A Test of the Externalizing Spectrum’s Developmental Coherence

Externalizing psychopathology (EXT) is a framework for understanding diagnostic comorbidity and etiology of antisocial and substance-use behaviors. EXT indicates continuity in adulthood but the structure of adolescent EXT is less clear. This report examines whether adolescent EXT is trait-like, as has been found with adults, or categorical. We use tests of measurement invariance to determine how diagnostic indicators of EXT differ in adolescents compared to adults. The EXT measures employed were DSM-IIIR diagnoses of adult antisocial behavior, conduct disorder, and alcohol, marijuana, and drug dependence. Latent trait, latent class, and hybrid models were fit to two separate data sets: 2,769 seventeen-year-old adolescents and 2,619 adults from the Minnesota Twin Family Study. The best model in both samples was a single-trait LT model. Parameters from the adolescent and adult models were equivalent for all disorders except alcohol dependence. It appears that EXT in adolescence can be accurately represented by a single-trait model, and the measurement properties of EXT are similar during these time periods with the exception of alcohol dependence.     

Using a Training-of-Trainers Approach and Proactive Technical Assistance to Bring Evidence Based Programs to Scale: An Operationalization of the Interactive Systems Framework’s Support System

Bringing evidence based programs to scale was a major initial impetus for the development of the Interactive Systems Framework for Dissemination and Implementation (ISF). The ISF demonstrates the importance of the Support System in facilitating the uptake of innovations in the community (the Delivery System). Two strategies that members of the Support System commonly use are training‐of‐trainers (TOT) models and technical assistance (TA). In this article, we focus on the role of the Support System in bringing evidence‐based programs (EBPs) to scale in the Delivery System using a case example, with special attention on two strategies employed by Support Systems—training‐of‐trainers (TOT) and proactive technical assistance. We then report on findings from a case example from the Promoting Science Based Approaches to Teen Pregnancy Prevention project that furthers our conceptualization of these strategies and the evidence base for them. We also report on the limitations in the literature regarding research on TOTs and proactive TA and provide suggestions for future research on TOTs and proactive TA that will enhance the science and practice of support in the ISF. Special Issue: Advances in Bridging Research and Practice Using the Interactive System Framework for Dissemination and Implementation; Guest Editors: Abraham Wandersman, Paul Flaspohler, Catherine A. Lesesne, Richard Puddy; Action Editor: Emilie Phillips Smith     

Development and validation of a revised measure of codependency

This study assessed the factor structure, internal consistency, and concurrent validity of a revised instrument, the Composite Codependency Scale (CCS), a 19‐item measure designed to assess codependent traits. Exploratory factor analysis of the CCS, using data from 301 adults from the general population and 49 attending members of Codependents Anonymous (CoDA), yielded three factors: self‐sacrifice, interpersonal control, and emotional suppression. The scale and its subscales exhibited good internal consistency. Consistent with the tenets of the codependency model, higher codependency scores were significantly associated with higher levels of depression, anxiety, stress, and familial dysfunction and lower levels of narcissistic tendencies, self‐esteem, and emotional expressivity. Furthermore, the revised measure effectively discriminated members of CoDA from those in the general population.     

The Coronary Health Improvement Project (CHIP) for lowering weight and improving psychosocial health

This study extends previous research evaluating the association between the CHIP intervention, change in body weight, and change in psychological health. A randomized controlled health intervention study lasting 4 wk. was used with 348 participants from metropolitan Rockford, Illinois; ages ranged from 24 to 81 yr. Participants were assessed at baseline, 6 wk., and 6 mo. The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and three selected psychosocial measures from the SF-36 Health Survey were used. Significantly greater decreases in Body Mass Index (BMI) occurred after 6 wk. and 6 mo. follow-up for the intervention group compared with the control group, with greater decreases for participants in the overweight and obese categories. Significantly greater improvements were observed in BDI scores, role-emotional and social functioning, and mental health throughout follow-up for the intervention group. The greater the decrease in BMI through 6 wk., the better the chance of improved BDI score, role-emotional score, social functioning score, and mental health score, with odds ratios of 1.3 to 1.9. Similar results occurred through 6 mo., except the mental health variable became nonsignificant. These results indicate that the CHIP intervention significantly improved psychological health for at least six months afterwards, in part through its influence on lowering BMI.     

Mindfulness predicts less texting while driving among young adults: Examining attention- and emotion-regulation motives as potential mediators

Many young adult drivers read and send text messages while driving despite clear safety risks. Understanding predictors of texting-while-driving may help to indentify relevant targets for interventions to reduce this dangerous behavior. The present study examined whether individual differences in mindfulness are associated with texting-while-driving in a sample of young-adult drivers. Using path analysis, we tested whether this relationship would be mediated by the degree to which individuals use text-messaging as a means of reducing unpleasant emotions (emotion-regulation motives) and the degree to which individuals limit texting in order to focus on present-moment experiences (attention-regulation motives). Individuals lower in mindfulness reported more frequent texting-while-driving and this relationship appeared to be mediated primarily by emotion-regulation motives. Results may help inform the development of mindfulness-based interventions to prevent texting-while-driving.