Six-Letter Words

Journal of Medical Humanities -     

Psychological Outcomes in Fathers of Critically Ill Children in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit: A Systematic Review

Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings - Systematically review evidence of psychological distress in fathers of children admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU). Two...     

Parenting Characteristics Protective Against Substance Use and Deviant Peer Involvement in High-Risk Neighborhoods

Robust research shows that poor parenting practices are related to adverse outcomes among adolescents; however, few have examined the interaction between parenting variables and adolescent outcomes within the context of exposure to relentless crime. The current study examined the combined effects of parental monitoring and discipline on marijuana involvement and deviant peer affiliation among adolescent males living in Los Angeles neighborhoods with concentrated crime. For this study, areas with higher-than-average crime rates were selected based on census data, published statistics, and law-enforcement data. The study included 349 males between 13 and 17 years of age, mostly Latino (70.2%) and African American (28.4%). Data were collected using questionnaires to interview participants and analyzed using logistic regression. Results suggest that among adolescent males in geographic areas of high violence and crime, the interaction between parental monitoring and discipline was significantly related to marijuana involvement and deviant peer affiliation. Follow-up analyses showed parental monitoring was only an effective tool at higher levels of consistent parental discipline. In the absence of consistent discipline, good parental monitoring was ineffective at preventing marijuana involvement and affiliation with deviant peers. Results suggest that if time and resources are limited, clinicians should consider focusing on the use of consistent discipline with parents residing in high-crime neighborhoods.

     

Using behavioral economics to optimize safer undergraduate late-night transportation

Many universities sponsor student-oriented transit services that could reduce alcohol-induced risks but only if services adequately anticipate and adapt to student needs. Human choice data offer an optimal foundation for planning and executing late-night transit services. In this simulated choice experiment, respondents opted to either (a) wait an escalating delay for a free university-sponsored “safe” option, (b) pay an escalating fee for an on-demand rideshare service, or (c) pick a free, immediately available “unsafe” option (e.g., ride with an alcohol-impaired driver). Behavioral-economic nonlinear models of averaged-choice data describe preference across arrangements. Best-fit metrics indicate adequate sensitivity to contextual factors (i.e., wait time, preceding late-night activity). At short delays, students preferred the free transit option. As delays extend beyond 30 min, most students preferred competing alternatives. These data depict a policy-relevant delay threshold to better safeguard undergraduate student safety.     

Avoiding affect in intergroup relations: The roles of dispositional and intergroup empathy in the relationship between alexithymia and prejudice

Alexithymia, that is, difficulties in recognizing, communicating, and processing one's own emotions, is associated with poorer interpersonal relations. Emotional processes are key drivers and mechanisms of prejudice and its reduction, and alexithymia is thought to influence individuals' empathic responses. This research examined the relationship between alexithymia and prejudice, and the role of empathy in this relationship. Three studies were conducted in three intergroup contexts to test whether alexithymia is also associated with poorer intergroup relations with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender+ individuals (Study 1, N = 126 heterosexual late adolescents) and Asian British people (Study 3, N = 300 White adults) in the United Kingdom, and immigrants in Italy (Study 2, N = 381 Italian adults). Participants completed the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), measures on dispositional and intergroup empathic concern (EC) and perspective taking (PT) as well as measures of prejudice (anti-outgroup hostility, anti-outgroup attitudes, and anti-outgroup behavioral intentions). Lower dispositional EC (Studies 1, marginal effect in Study 2) and intergroup EC and PT (Study 3) mediated the relationship between the Externally Oriented Thinking subscale of the TAS-20 (i.e., avoiding emotions and affective thinking) and greater prejudice. The findings are important for understanding the challenges of late adolescents and adults with alexithymia in intergroup relations, highlighting the role of dispositional and intergroup empathy for individual differences such as alexithymia in endorsing prejudice.     

On the border: young adults with LGBQ parents navigate LGBTQ communities

Little research has examined the perspectives of young adults with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) parents, particularly in relation to their identification with the LGBTQ community. To address this gap, we conducted a qualitative study of 42 young adults (ages 18-29) who were raised by LGBQ parents. We found that participants often described their sense of belonging to the LGBTQ community as shifting over the life course. Some participants, particularly those whose parents had always been out, felt connected to the LGBTQ community as children. Of these, most maintained those connections over time. However, some increasingly deidentified with the LGBTQ community, which they sometimes attributed to their own heterosexual identification. Others, particularly those whose parents came out later in life, described a lack of connection to the LGBTQ community as children. Of these, most became increasingly identified with the community, which they often attributed to their own and their parents' increasing sense of comfort with their parents' sexuality. Heterosexual participants who sought out LGBTQ-oriented groups in young adulthood sometimes encountered resistance from these groups, whereby participants' reasons for wanting to become involved were not readily apparent or appreciated. Our findings highlight the need for practitioners to understand the complex and often changing role of the LGBTQ community in the lives of young adults with LGBQ parents.     

Word length and age influences on forward and backward immediate serial recall

The present research is aimed at understanding the processes involved in short-term memory and how they interact with age. Specifically, word length effects were examined under forward serial recall, backward serial recall, and item recognition tasks, with performance being interpreted within an item-order theoretical framework. The interaction of age, word length, and direction of recall was examined in two experiments, the first of which confirmed that the word length was present with forward recall and absent with backward recall. In addition, age effects were stronger in backward recall than in forward recall. In the second experiment, an item-order trade-off methodology was utilized with backward recall. When order memory was required, there was no word length effect and strong age effects. When memory was tested via an item recognition test, there was a reverse word length effect and no age effect. While word length effects can be interpreted within the item-order framework, age effects cannot.     

Context change and retrieval difficulty in the list-before-last paradigm

Using the "list-before-last" paradigm (Jang & Huber, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 34, 112-127, 2008; Shiffrin, Science, 168, 1601-1603, 1970), we examined whether the difficulty involved in retrieving a previously studied list affects the recall of the current list. Participants studied three lists (L1, L2, and L3), and between L2 and L3 study they either engaged in retrieval of L1 or solved math problems for the same duration of time. After L3 encoding, all participants recalled L2. We examined accurate recall of L2, intrusions from L3, and also the first-response function from L2 across all four experiments. In Experiments 1 and 2, retrieval difficulty was manipulated by presenting participants with variable numbers of letter cues for the L1 words, with some participants receiving more cues than others. In Experiment 1, L1 and L2 words shared the first two letters in common to create potential item interference, whereas in Experiment 2, they did not share common cues. In Experiments 3 and 4, we manipulated retrieval difficulty using a delay manipulation-L1 was encoded 1, 24, or 72?h prior to the session during which L2 and L3 were encoded. In Experiment 3, L1 retrieval involved a cued recall test, whereas in Experiment 4, it involved a free recall test. The results of all of these experiments showed that, as compared to solving math problems, retrieving L1 led to forgetting of L2, reduced intrusions from L3, and reduced first-response functions from L2. However, all of the dependent measures were invariant across the various manipulations of retrieval difficulty. We discuss the results in terms of the context-change interpretation of prior-list retrieval.     

Developing Cognitive Control: Three Key Transitions

The ability to flexibly break out of routine behaviors develops gradually and is essential for success in life. We discuss three key developmental transitions toward more flexible behavior. First, children develop an increasing ability to overcome habits by engaging cognitive control in response to environmental signals. Second, children shift from recruiting cognitive control reactively, as needed in the moment, to recruiting cognitive control proactively, in preparation for needing it. Third, children shift from relying on environmental signals for engaging cognitive control to becoming more self-directed. All three transitions can be understood in terms of the development of increasingly active and abstract goal representations in prefrontal cortex.     

The growth of reading skills in children with Down Syndrome

There appears to be a close and probably causal relationship between early variations in phoneme skills and later reading skills in typically developing children, though the pattern in children with Down Syndrome is less clear. We present the results of a 2-year longitudinal study of 49 children with Down Syndrome (DS) and 61 typically developing (TD) control children with similar initial levels of reading skill. Phoneme awareness and vocabulary were strong concurrent predictors of initial levels of reading skill in both groups. However, longitudinally phoneme awareness was a predictor of the growth of reading skills in TD children but not in children with DS. There was a very high degree of longitudinal stability in reading skills in children with DS, and initial levels of reading skills seemed to be highly constrained by general language skills, as indexed by vocabulary knowledge, in this population. We conclude that reading development in children with DS shows similarities and differences to the pattern observed in TD children and that phoneme awareness appears to be a less powerful influence on the development of reading skills in children with DS.