Anxious Solitude and Clinical Disorder in Middle Childhood: Bridging Developmental and Clinical Approaches to Childhood Social Anxiety

It was hypothesized that children identified by their peers at school as anxious solitary would report more symptoms of social anxiety disorder on a self report questionnaire and, on the basis of child and parent clinical interviews, receive more diagnoses of social anxiety disorder and additional anxiety and mood disorders. Participants were 192 children drawn from a community sample of 688 children attending public elementary schools. Half of these children were selected because they were identified as anxious solitary by peers and the other half were demographically-matched controls. 192 children provided self reports of social anxiety disorder symptoms on a questionnaire, and 76 of these children and their parent participated in clinical interviews. Results indicate that children identified by their peers as anxious solitary in the fall of 4th grade, compared to control children, were significantly more likely to receive diagnoses of social anxiety disorder, specific phobia, and selective mutism based on parent clinical interviews. Additionally, there was a tendency for these children to be diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and post traumatic stress disorder based on parent clinical interviews. Furthermore, children who had been identified as anxious solitary at any time in the 3rd or 4th grades were more likely than control children to report symptoms of social anxiety disorder that fell in the clinical range and to receive diagnoses of social anxiety disorder and dysthymia (both trends) and major depression (a significant effect) according to parental clinical interview.     

A hit-and-miss investigation of asymmetries in wheelchair navigation

In contrast to the leftward inattention caused by right parietal damage, normal brain function shows a subtle neglect of the right and left sides in peripersonal and extrapersonal space, respectively. This study explored how these attentional biases cause healthy individuals to collide with objects on the right. In Experiment 1, participants navigated manual and electric wheelchairs through a narrow doorway. More rightward collisions were observed for the electric, but not the manual, wheelchair. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the rightward deviation for electric wheelchairs increased for wider doorways. Experiment 3 established that the rightward deviation is not the result of task-related vestibular input, using a remote control device to operate the wheelchair. The rightward deviation persisted in Experiment 4 when the doorway was removed, suggesting that the bias is the result of a mis-bisection of space. In Experiment 5, the rightward bias was replicated using an electric scooter, which is steered using handlebars. Finally, Experiment 6 required participants to point to the middle of the doorway, using a laser, before moving the scooter. Rightward mis-bisection was observed in both conditions. Rightward mis-bisection of lines in extrapersonal space provides the most parsimonious explanation of the rightward collisions and deviations.     

The Gender Gap in Language Achievement: The Role of School-Related Attitudes of Class Groups

The present study was designed to examine how the attitudinal composition of class groups is related to the gender gap in language achievement at the end of secondary education. Data were drawn from the LOSO project and multilevel analyses were used. The results showed that the attitudes of the class groups, and, more specifically, the attitudes of same-sex classmates, had a stronger impact on the language achievement of boys than on the language achievement of girls. No gender differences were found in classes where students had good relationships with teachers, were motivated, and where students felt integrated, whereas boys performed less well than girls in classes where students did not have good relationship with teachers, were not very motivated, and felt poorly integrated.     

Individual Differences in Emotional Mimicry: Underlying Traits and Social Consequences

Mimicry, the imitation of the nonverbal behaviour of others, serves to establish affiliation and to smoothen social interactions. The present research aimed to disentangle rapid facial reactions (RFRs) to affiliative emotions from RFRs to nonaffiliative emotions from a trait perspective. In line with the Mimicry in Social Context Model by Hess and Fischer, we expected that only the former are mimicry responses indicative of underlying social relating competence and predictive of social satisfaction, whereas the latter superficially resemble mimicry responses and are driven by social relating incompetence and have opposite effects on social satisfaction. Further, we assumed that social relating competence would moderate the relationship between stable individuals' tendencies to show (mal)adaptive RFRs and social satisfaction. To test these hypotheses, 108 participants first completed scales measuring social relating competence, then participated in a mimicry laboratory task and finally evaluated their naturally occurring social interactions for 10 days. Affiliative RFRs to sadness were related to proximal indices of social relating competence and predicted positive social interactions, whereas nonaffiliative RFRs to disgust were related to social relating incompetence and predicted negative social interactions. By contrast, neither affiliative RFRs to happiness nor nonaffiliative RFRs to anger were linked to proximal indices of social relating competence, and both RFRs were only (dys)functional for interaction quality in less social relating‐competent individuals. Copyright © 2015 European Association of Personality Psychology