SOCIAL VULNERABILITY AND ADJUSTMENT OF CEREBRAL PALSIED CHILDREN

Social adjustment of forty cerebral palsied children was studied by means of the Düss Fable Test, and interviews with parents and teachers. More cerebral palsied than normal children apperceived the fables as containing rejective and frustrating elements and responded with feelings of hostility, jealousy and defiance. The cerebral palsied children revealed a more dependent and conflict-laden relationship with their parents. One third of the cerebral palsied children showed a poor social adjustment in school but those with harmonious family background obtained a satisfactory social adjustment in school. The data gave no support for the existence of a typical psychological syndrome of cerebral palsy.     

Validation of a Self-Concept Scale for Lynch Syndrome in Different Nationalities

Learning about hereditary cancer may influence an individual’s self-concept, which otherwise represents a complex but stable cognitive structure. Recently, a 20-statement self-concept scale, with subscales related to stigma-vulnerability and bowel symptom-related anxiety, was developed for Lynch syndrome. We compared the performance of this scale in 591 mutation carriers from Denmark, Sweden and Canada. Principal component analysis identified two sets of linked statements—the first related to feeling different, isolated and labeled, and the second to concern and worry about bowel changes. The scale performed consistently in the three countries. Minor differences were identified, with guilt about passing on a defective gene and feelings of losing one’s privacy being more pronounced among Canadians, whereas Danes more often expressed worries about cancer. Validation of the Lynch syndrome self-concept scale supports its basic structure, identifies dependence between the statements in the subscales and demonstrates its applicability in different Western populations.     

Contextual modulation of the motion aftereffect

The authors examined center-surround effects for motion perception in human observers. The magnitude of the motion aftereffect (MAE) elicited by a drifting grating was measured with a nulling task and with a threshold elevation procedure. A surround grating of the same spatial frequency, temporal frequency, and orientation significantly reduced the magnitude of the MAE elicited by adaptation to the center grating. This effect was bandpass tuned for spatial frequency, orientation, and temporal frequency. Plaid surrounds but not contrast-modulated surrounds that moved in the same direction also reduced the MAE. These results provide psychophysical evidence for center-surround interactions analogous to those previously observed in electrophysiological studies of motion processing in primates. Collectively, these results suggest that motion processing, similar to texture processing, is organized for the purpose of highlighting regions of directional discontinuity in retinal images.     

Personality traits of Russians from the observer's perspective

Data were collected by the members of the Russian character and personality survey from 39 samples in 33 administrative areas of the Russian Federation. Respondents (N = 7065) identified an ethnically Russian adult or college‐aged man or woman whom they knew well and rated the target using the Russian observer rating version of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory, which measures neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness. Factor analyses within samples showed that the factor structure of an international sample combining data from 50 different cultures was well replicated in all 39 Russian samples. Sex differences replicated the known pattern in all samples, demonstrating that women scored higher than men on most of the neuroticism, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness facet scales. Cross‐sectional analyses demonstrated consistent age differences for four factors: Older individuals compared to younger ones were less extraverted and open but more agreeable and conscientious. The mean levels of traits were similar in all 39 samples. Although in general personality traits in Russians closely followed the universal pattern, some reliable culture‐specific effects were also found that future studies can help interpret. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Blind children recognizing tactile pictures respond like sighted children given guidance in exploration

Theory of tactile pictures argues that untrained blind subjects can recognize raised, outline pictures. It contends the blind person’s knowledge of the shapes of common objects is like that of the sighted, and the blind person’s pictorial abilities use the same principles as the sighted person’s. To test this theory, blind children (aged 8–13) and blindfolded age-matched sighted children were asked to identify raised-line drawings of common objects. Their performances were correlated. In addition, the blind children identified more than sighted children exploring the pictures actively, but the same number of pictures as sighted children who were given passive, guided exploration. We argue blind and sighted children use the same principles to identify the pictures, but the blind have superior exploration skills. The differences in the effects of exploration skills on recognition scores are minimized when the sighted children are given guidance, since the sighted children then have efficient contact with the displays, and the performance of the sighted and the blind is then governed by the same principles, without one group benefitting from advantages in exploration skills.     

Comparability of Self‐Reported Conscientiousness Across 21 Countries

In cross‐national studies, mean levels of self‐reported phenomena are often not congruent with more objective criteria. One prominent explanation for such findings is that people make self‐report judgements in relation to culture‐specific standards (often called the reference group effect), thereby undermining the cross‐cultural comparability of the judgements. We employed a simple method called anchoring vignettes in order to test whether people from 21 different countries have varying standards for Conscientiousness, a Big Five personality trait that has repeatedly shown unexpected nation‐level relationships with external criteria. Participants rated their own Conscientiousness and that of 30 hypothetical persons portrayed in short vignettes. The latter type of ratings was expected to reveal individual differences in standards of Conscientiousness. The vignettes were rated relatively similarly in all countries, suggesting no substantial culture‐related differences in standards for Conscientiousness. Controlling for the small differences in standards did not substantially change the rankings of countries on mean self‐ratings or the predictive validities of these rankings for objective criteria. These findings are not consistent with mean self‐rated Conscientiousness scores being influenced by culture‐specific standards. The technique of anchoring vignettes can be used in various types of studies to assess the potentially confounding effects of reference levels. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Early life adversity potentiates the effects of later life stress on cumulative physiological dysregulation

Background and Objectives: Previous research indicates that early life adversity may heighten stress reactivity and impair mechanisms for adaptive coping, suggesting that experience of stress in early life may also potentiate adults' physiological vulnerability to stress in later life. The study tested this hypothesis by investigating whether the experience of stressful events and circumstances (SEC) in childhood or adolescence amplified the effect of adulthood SEC on physiological dysregulation (allostatic load, AL) in later midlife. Design: Observational data were used in the present study. Physiological functioning was measured in later midlife (participants' age ranged from 49 to 63 years). Both childhood/adolescence and adulthood SEC were reported retrospectively on the same occasion. Methods: Participants were 5309 Danish men and women from Copenhagen Aging and Midlife Biobank (CAMB). SEC included socioeconomic and family factors. The AL index was based on nine cardiovascular, metabolic, and immune biomarkers. Results: Experience of SEC in both early life and adulthood independently predicted higher AL. In men, experience of SEC in early life also potentiated the effect of SEC in adulthood on AL. Conclusions: The results provide further insight into the mechanisms behind the “biological embedding” of childhood stress.     

The effect of situation-evoked anxiety and gender on pain report using the cold pressor test

The aims of the present study were to investigate the influence of anxiety on pain perception and to test whether gender differences in pain perception are anxiety dependent. Sixty male and female university students exposed to situation-evoked anxiety or a control procedure were measured for their pain threshold, tolerance, and perceived intensity during a cold pressor test. Both subjective and autonomic responses indicated that anxiety was successfully induced in participants exposed to the anxiety condition. Increased situational anxiety had no significant effect on pain threshold or pain tolerance. Significant increases in pain intensity were found for the anxiety group. Levels of anxiety, however, did not correlate with this increased intensity, raising doubt as to the role of anxiety in producing this effect. No gender differences were found for pain tolerance or pain intensity. Gender differences were found for pain threshold in the anxiety group with, contrary to past findings, females showing significantly higher pain thresholds than males. The results are discussed in the light of related studies.