Latent Profile Analysis of Observed Parenting Behaviors in a Clinic Sample

We examined typologies of parenting practices using latent profile analysis (LPA) in a sample of families with young children who had externalizing behavior disorders. We also examined mother and child characteristics associated with class membership using ratings from multiple informants. The sample included pooled data from five parenting treatment outcome research studies on oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and/or conduct disorder (CD) conducted throughout the past 20 years. These studies included 21 separate cohorts of children resulting in a total of 514 families. All children met diagnostic criteria for ODD or CD and 78 % were male. Parenting practices were observed by independent raters using the Dyadic Parent–child Interactive Coding System-Revised (DPICS-R). Four summary scores (i.e., total critical statements, total commands, total positive, total supportive) from the DPICS-R were used as class indictors in the LPA. Four classes best characterized the parenting practices of this clinic sample, roughly comprising a quarter of the sample each: Positive Only, Negative Only, Positive/Negative, and Neither Positive/Negative. High observed child negative behaviors, low observed child warmth, high socioeconomic status, and low academic performance distinguished the two classes with high negative behaviors (Negative Only, Positive/Negative) from the other classes. These results provide markers of the most common parenting profiles at entry into treatment programs for behavior disorders in young children. Findings have significant implications for the tailoring parenting interventions and supports to specific family needs.     

Physics,inconsistency, and quasi-truth

In this work, the first of a series, we study the nature of informal inconsistency in physics, focusing mainly on the foundations of quantum theory, and appealing to the concept of quasi-truth. We defend a pluralistic view of the philosophy of science, grounded on the existence of inconsistencies and on quasi-truth. Here, we treat only the ‘classical aspects’ of the subject, leaving for a forthcoming paper the ‘non-classical’ part.     

We are made,not born: Empiricism is existentially useful

The perennial “nativist-empiricist” debate in developmental science has far-reaching relevance in our existence. Two studies conducted under the terror management framework tested whether the empiricist developmental conception serves distal defensive purposes. Experiment 1 highlights the palliative existential effect of the empiricist conception since participants who read an empiricist essay exhibited less death thoughts than participants who read a nativist essay or a control essay. Experiment 2 gives support to the distal defensive function of the empiricist conception by showing that, unlike with the nativist or the control essay, people under mortality salience exhibited a higher need to rely on empiricism than participants in the control pain condition. The existential advantage of empiricism is explained by the fact that human development is shaped by a meaningful cultural blueprint. Our results are discussed in terms of the ontological and existential benefits of contemplating human intrinsic identity, ranging from its biology to its social behaviors as primarily influenced by the cultural environment.     

Wired for Society: Cognizing Pathways to Society and Culture

While cognitive scientists increase their tentative incursions in the social domains traditionally reserved for social scientists, most sociologists and anthropologists keep decrying those attempts as reductionist or, at least, irrelevant. In this paper, we argue that collaboration between social and cognitive sciences is necessary to understand the impact of the social environment on the shaping of our mind. More specifically, we dwell on the cognitive strategies and early-developing deontic expectations, termed naïve sociology, which enable well-adapted individuals to constitute, maintain and understand basic social relationships. In order to specify the way in which the demanding character of typical social relationships can be recognized in situ, we introduce the concept of “deontic affordances”. Finally, we shed light on the continuum that might relate a primitive naïve sociology, dedicated to the processing of invariant properties of the social life and a mature naïve sociology, necessary for dealing with the variable properties of cultural forms of life.     

Positive experiences of doctoral-level supervisors-in-training conducting group-format supervision: a qualitative investigation

Experiential learning opportunities are powerful in shaping positive supervisor behaviours. We were interested in examining the positive experiences of supervisors-in-training during their first practice experience as supervisors. Our study was guided by two research questions: (a) what are the experiences that supervisors-in-training viewed as positive during the course of providing clinical supervision to master's-level counselling trainees? and (b) how did these positive experiences contribute to their professional development? We employed a variation of the consensual qualitative research method developed by Hill, Thompson, and Nutt-Williams (1997) and interviewed 10 supervisors-in-training regarding their positive experiences in supervising master's-level counselling trainees. The results included five major categories of positive experiences: (a) the positive value of feedback; (b) enhanced confidence in using a wider variety of supervision tasks and procedures; (c) the impact of the experience on other aspects of professional practice; (d) increased familiarity with the multiple roles of the supervisor; and (e) for some, increased comfort navigating co-supervision dynamics. Each of these categories included subcategories. We discuss our findings within the context of supervision training in graduate education.     

Acceptability of virtual reality interoceptive exposure for the treatment of panic disorder with agoraphobia

Interoceptive exposure (IE) is a standard component of cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) for panic disorder and agoraphobia. The virtual reality (VR) program ‘Panic-Agoraphobia’ has several virtual scenarios designed for applying exposure to agoraphobic situations; it can also simulate physical sensations. This work examines patients' acceptability of the IE component as applied in two different ways: using VR versus traditional IE. Additionally, it explores the relationship between users' treatment expectations and satisfaction and clinically significant change. Results showed that VR and traditional IE were well accepted by all participants. Furthermore, treatment expectations predicted efficacy.     

Individual differences in cognitive plasticity: an investigation of training curves in younger and older adults

To date, cognitive intervention research has provided mixed but nevertheless promising evidence with respect to the effects of cognitive training on untrained tasks (transfer). However, the mechanisms behind learning, training effects and their predictors are not fully understood. Moreover, individual differences, which may constitute an important factor impacting training outcome, are usually neglected. We suggest investigating individual training performance across training sessions in order to gain finer-grained knowledge of training gains, on the one hand, and assessing the potential impact of predictors such as age and fluid intelligence on learning rate, on the other hand. To this aim, we propose to model individual learning curves to examine the intra-individual change in training as well as inter-individual differences in intra-individual change. We recommend introducing a latent growth curve model (LGCM) analysis, a method frequently applied to learning data but rarely used in cognitive training research. Such advanced analyses of the training phase allow identifying factors to be respected when designing effective tailor-made training interventions. To illustrate the proposed approach, a LGCM analysis using data of a 10-day working memory training study in younger and older adults is reported.     

On the validity and generality of transfer effects in cognitive training research

Evaluation of training effectiveness is a long-standing problem of cognitive intervention research. The interpretation of transfer effects needs to meet two criteria, generality and specificity. We introduce each of the two, and suggest ways of implementing them. First, the scope of the construct of interest (e.g., working memory) defines the expected generality of transfer effects. Given that the constructs of interest are typically defined at the latent level, data analysis should also be conducted at the latent level. Second, transfer should be restricted to measures that are theoretically related to the trained construct. Hence, the construct of interest also determines the specificity of expected training effects; to test for specificity, study designs should aim at convergent and discriminant validity. We evaluate the recent cognitive training literature in relation to both criteria. We conclude that most studies do not use latent factors for transfer assessment, and do not test for convergent and discriminant validity.     

Observer Effects without Demand Characteristics: An Inductive Investigation of Video Monitoring and Performance

Purpose

The purpose of these two studies was to explore the relationship between video monitoring and quantity of performance in the absence of demand characteristics.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were gathered via two experiments involving business students working on a motor task. Participants were randomly assigned to the monitored and unmonitored conditions. Experiment 1 (n = 75) was inductive while Experiment 2 (n = 139) was partially inductive.

Findings

Experiment 1 showed that monitored participants’ performance was lower than that of unmonitored participants. Further, monitoring reduced outliers, increased interquartile variance, and normalized the distribution. Experiment 2 replicated the effect of monitoring on performance controlling for cognitive ability and emotions, demonstrated that negative emotions interacted with monitoring condition, and suggested that differences in performance were not due to cheating or variation in task-related strategies. We offer a grounded theory of video monitoring proposing that different implicit decision rules are activated when people are monitored as compared to when they are not monitored.

Implications

Future research needs to determine the extent to which our results extend to similar settings in the workplace and to other forms of observation. At this time, we believe organizations should carefully consider the consequences of electronic monitoring. Controlling expectations in the lab or workplace does not necessarily eliminate the independent effect of monitoring. Therefore, researchers must beware misinterpretation of effect sizes and overlooking the role of observation in their data.

Originality/value

These studies demonstrate that video monitoring can create observer effects in the absence of demand characteristics. Our inductive approach revealed the nature of the effects beyond mean differences and served as the basis for developing a testable theory of monitoring that goes beyond what was previously known.     

Pain,pleasure, and the intentionality of emotions as experiences of values: A new phenomenological perspective

The article starts with a brief overview of the kinds of approaches that have been attempted for the presentation of Phenomenology’s view on the emotions. I then pass to Husserl’s unsatisfactory efforts to disclose the intentionality of emotions and their intentional correlation with values. Next, I outline the idea of a new, “normalized phenomenological” approach of emotions and values. Pleasure and pain, then, are first explored as affective feelings (reell lived-experiences). In the cases examined, it is shown that, primordially, pleasure and pain are recordings for our bodily and spiritual states resulting from our confrontation with beings and situations in the world. Delight and distress are, subsequently, approached as the first full-fledged emotive acts that animate or intentionally interpret pleasure and pain in specific ways. The elementary values of agreeableness and disagreeableness appear correspondingly to the latter in relation to the very pleasure or pain and to what has caused them. In other words, agreeable and disagreeable show how what we confront in the world weighs for us, what value it has for the embodied intentional consciousness, for its state and functioning as well as for its existentio-praxial possibilities in the lifeworld.