Observed parenting behavior with teens: measurement invariance and predictive validity across race

Previous reports supporting measurement equality between European American and African American families have often focused on self-reported risk factors or observed parent behavior with young children. This study examines equality of measurement of observer ratings of parenting behavior with adolescents during structured tasks; mean levels of observed parenting; and predictive validity of teen self-reports of antisocial behaviors and beliefs using a sample of 163 African American and 168 European American families. Multiple-group confirmatory factor analyses supported measurement invariance across ethnic groups for four measures of observed parenting behavior: prosocial rewards, psychological costs, antisocial rewards, and problem solving. Some mean-level differences were found: African American parents exhibited lower levels of prosocial rewards, higher levels of psychological costs, and lower problem solving when compared to European Americans. No significant mean difference was found in rewards for antisocial behavior. Multigroup structural equation models suggested comparable relationships across race (predictive validity) between parenting constructs and youth antisocial constructs (i.e., drug initiation, positive drug attitudes, antisocial attitudes, problem behaviors) in all but one of the tested relationships. This study adds to existing evidence that family-based interventions targeting parenting behaviors can be generalized to African American families.     

A longitudinal analysis of anger and inhibitory control in twins from 12 to 36 months of age

Inhibitory control (IC) is a dimension of child temperament that involves the self-regulation of behavioral responses under some form of instruction or expectation. Although IC is posited to appear in toddlerhood, the voluntary control of emotions such as anger begins earlier. Little research has analyzed relations between emotional development in infancy and later emerging IC. We examined phenotypic associations and genetic and environmental influences on parent- and laboratory-assessed anger and IC in a twin sample from 12 to 36 months of age. Typically, twins with low levels of IC had high levels of anger. Behavioral genetic findings confirmed significant genetic influences on anger and IC as assessed by parents, and on lab-based anger assessments. Shared environmental factors contributed to twin similarity on lab-assessed anger and IC at 36 months. Phenotypic covariance between anger and IC was largely due to overlapping genetic factors for parent ratings, and environmental factors in the laboratory.     

Momentary Happiness: The Role of Psychological Need Satisfaction

Psychological well-being correlates positively with psychological need satisfaction—primarily the needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The current study explores momentary happiness (defined as experienced enjoyment minus experienced stress over the course of an hour) as a function of momentary psychological need satisfaction. Results demonstrate that hour-by-hour ratings of psychological need satisfaction were correlated with momentary happiness, with individual differences in life satisfaction moderating this relationship. Ratings of autonomy and relatedness correlated positively with momentary happiness, while competence was negatively correlated with momentary happiness. Thus, engagement in competence-promoting behaviors may come at an affective cost, at least in the moment. When autonomy and relatedness needs were met, individuals with high levels of life satisfaction experienced greater increases in happiness than individuals with low levels of life satisfaction. This finding supports a sensitization model of well-being. Results are discussed with respect to their implications for self-determination theory (SDT).     

Passion and burnout in elite junior soccer players: The mediating role of self-determined motivation

Objectives

The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between forms of passion (harmonious and obsessive; Vallerand et al., 2003) and athlete burnout, and whether these relationships are mediated by self-determined motivation. The proposed model posited that because harmonious passion originates from an authentic self, it will be positively associated with self-determined regulation. Conversely, because obsessive passion originates from ego-invested structures within the self, it will be negatively associated with self-determined regulation. In turn, consistent with research examining the relationship between motivation regulation and athlete burnout, self-determined regulation was expected to be negatively associated with athlete burnout.

Design

Cross-sectional survey.

Method

This model was tested in 149 (M age = 16.2, s = 2.0, range = 12–21) male junior athletes who attended soccer academies in the UK. Participants completed the Passion Scale (Vallerand et al., 2003), the Sport Motivation Scale (Pelletier et al., 1995), and the Athlete Burnout Questionnaire (Raedeke & Smith, 2001).

Results

Harmonious passion was negatively related to a latent athlete burnout factor, whereas obsessive passion was unrelated to a latent athlete burnout factor. The relationship between harmonious passion and burnout was fully mediated by self-determined regulation.

Conclusions

The results suggest that harmonious passion may offer some protection from burnout for athletes due to higher levels of self-determined motivation.     

When words and pictures come alive: Relating the modality of intrusive thoughts to modalities of hypnagogic/hypnopompic hallucinations

Hypnagogic and hypnopompic (H&H) hallucinations are those experienced on the borders of sleep and waking. Intrusive thoughts have been proposed to relate to the occurrence of such experiences. In a sample of students (N = 299), the present study investigated the relation between auditory and felt-presence H&H experiences, and specific modalities of intrusive thought (auditory and visual) whilst controlling for age, gender, depression, anxiety and thought suppression. The psychometric properties of the Durham Hypnagogic and Hypnopompic Hallucinations Questionnaire (DHQ) were also examined. Exploratory (N = 299) and, in a second sample, confirmatory (N = 502) factor analyses showed good internal and test-retest reliability for the auditory and felt-presence subscales of the DHQ, but not for the visual subscale. Regression analyses indicated that the sole predictor of auditory H&H hallucinations was intrusive auditory imagery, and the sole predictor of felt-presence H&H experiences was intrusive visual imagery. Explanations for these findings are considered and implications for future research are discussed.     

Binocular disparity magnitude affects perceived depth magnitude despite inversion of depth order

The hollow-face illusion involves a misperception of depth order: our perception follows our top-down knowledge that faces are convex, even though bottom-up depth information reflects the actual concave surface structure. While pictorial cues can be ambiguous, stereopsis should unambiguously indicate the actual depth order. We used computer-generated stereo images to investigate how, if at all, the sign and magnitude of binocular disparities affect the perceived depth of the illusory convex face. In experiment 1 participants adjusted the disparity of a convex comparison face until it matched a reference face. The reference face was either convex or hollow and had binocular disparities consistent with an average face or had disparities exaggerated, consistent with a face stretched in depth. We observed that apparent depth increased with disparity magnitude, even when the hollow faces were seen as convex (ie when perceived depth order was inconsistent with disparity sign). As expected, concave faces appeared flatter than convex faces, suggesting that disparity sign also affects perceived depth. In experiment 2, participants were presented with pairs of real and illusory convex faces. In each case, their task was to judge which of the two stimuli appeared to have the greater depth. Hollow faces with exaggerated disparities were again perceived as deeper.     

Let's Talk: Getting Out of the Counseling Center to Serve Hard‐to‐Reach Students

This article describes Let's Talk, a counseling center outreach program. Counselors hold walk‐in hours across campus to engage students who might not otherwise seek counseling. Locations are chosen to reach underserved communities. Counselors offer informal consultation, a less formal alternative to traditional counseling. Este artículo describe Let's Talk (Hablemos), un programa de acercamiento a los centros de consejería. Los consejeros mantienen horas de puertas abiertas sin cita previa en distintos lugares del campus para atraer a estudiantes que de otra forma no buscarían acceso a la consejería. Las ubicaciones se eligen para alcanzar comunidades con servicios insuficientes. Los consejeros ofrecen consultas informales, una alternativa menos formal a la consejería tradicional.     

Faith and Understanding: Specifying the Impact of Higher Education on Religious Belief

This study examines the impact of educational enrollment and attainment on several measures of religious belief using nationally representative panel data. Although college does not appear to substantially alter the religious beliefs of most emerging adults, findings do reveal a modest increase in skepticism toward super‐empirical religious beliefs among college students and graduates compared to those who have never attended any form of postsecondary education. This effect is dependent on college type, with students attending elite universities exhibiting the greatest increase in skepticism. Apart from changes in super‐empirical belief, graduating from college modestly increases preferences for institutionalized religion while simultaneously reducing adherence to exclusivist religious belief. Faculty commitment to secularism, the degree of student academic engagement, and developing social identities may play a role in religious belief change, particularly at elite universities.     

Inferential reasoning by exclusion in great apes, lesser apes, and spider monkeys

Using the cups task, in which subjects are presented with limited visual or auditory information that can be used to deduce the location of a hidden reward, Call (2004) found prima facie evidence of inferential reasoning by exclusion in several great ape species. One bonobo (Pan paniscus) and two gorillas (Gorilla gorilla) appeared to make such inferences in both the visual and auditory domains. However, common chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) were successful only in the visual domain, and Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) in neither. The present research built on this paradigm, and Experiment 1 yielded prima facie evidence of inference by exclusion in both domains for two common chimpanzees, and in the visual domain for two Sumatran orangutans (Pongo abelii). Experiments 2 and 3 demonstrated that two specific associative learning explanations could not readily account for these results. Because an important focus of the program of research was to assess the cognitive capacities of lesser apes (family Hylobatidae), we modified Call's original procedures to better suit their attentional and dispositional characteristics. In Experiment 1, testing was also attempted with three gibbon genera (Symphalangus, Nomascus, Hylobates), but none of the subjects completed the standard task. Further testing of three siamangs (Symphalangus syndactylus) and a spider monkey (Ateles geoffroyi) using a faster method yielded prima facie evidence of inferential reasoning by exclusion in the visual domain among the siamangs (Experiment 4).     

Perception of Mooney faces by young infants: the role of local feature visibility, contrast polarity, and motion

We examined the ability of young infants (3- and 4-month-olds) to detect faces in the two-tone images often referred to as Mooney faces. In Experiment 1, this performance was examined in conditions of high and low visibility of local features and with either the presence or absence of the outer head contour. We found that regardless of the presence of the outer head contour, infants preferred upright over inverted two-tone face images only when local features were highly visible (Experiment 1a). We showed that this upright preference disappeared when the contrast polarity of two-tone images was reversed (Experiment 1b), reflecting operation of face-specific mechanisms. In Experiment 2, we investigated whether motion affects infants' perception of faces in Mooney faces. We found that when the faces appeared to be rigidly moving, infants did show an upright preference in conditions of low visibility of local features (Experiment 2a). Again the preference disappeared when the contrast polarity of the image was reversed (Experiment 2b). Together, these results suggest that young infants have the ability to integrate fragmented image features to perceive faces from two-tone face images, especially if they are moving. This suggests that an interaction between motion and form rather than a purely motion-based process (e.g., structure from motion) facilitates infants' perception of faces in ambiguous two-tone images.