Mediators of aggression among young adult offspring of depressed mothers

The current article explores the connection between maternal depression and offspring aggression during the transition to adulthood, expanding the scope of prior research on this topic. Both family-level factors (including parent-child relationship quality and maternal romantic relationship quality) and youth factors (including depression history and social functioning in midadolescence) were tested as potential mediators in a longitudinal community sample of 710 youth at ages 15 and 20. The results suggest that maternal depression confers a risk for higher levels of aggressive behavior by offspring at age 20. Structural equation models suggested that the association between maternal depression and youth aggression is fully mediated by youth history of depression by midadolescence, even when accounting for the stability of aggression between ages 15 and 20. Parent-child relationship quality, youth social functioning, and maternal relationship quality were not unique mediators of this association. Limitations and implications are discussed.     

Alone Together: Solitude and the Creative Encounter in Art and Psychoanalysis

This paper examines aspects of solitude in relation to creativity and personal transformation, especially as it pertains to artists and their objects. It argues that solitude is a core feature of the human condition and that it is inseparable from relatedness. Both solitude and relationship are layered and dynamically interactive states. The paper also considers the relational needs that art objects serve for their creators and specifically addresses the uniqueness of women's solitude. Finally, a clinical case is presented to illustrate the interplay between solitude and relatedness in psychoanalysis.     

Shakespeare,Psychoanalysis and Creativity: Commentary on Paper by Lauren Levine

This discussion speaks to the creative dimension in the clinical encounter described by Levine in her paper. In particular, it addresses the creativity necessary to move beyond impasses in the treatment. The positive and negative associations to enactments are discussed as well as the creative possibilities offered in dreamwork and the analytic relationship.     

Perspectives of Adults Living With Autism Spectrum Disorder: Psychosocial and Occupational Implications

The incidence of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has increased over the past decade suggesting a need for further research. This article describes a two phase phenomenological study which explored the lived experience of ASD and its psychosocial effects on relationships, socialization, and occupational participation. Phenomenological interviews were given to three women and three men with high functioning ASD. Phase two of the research included two additional individual interviews and four focus groups. Results indicated themes regarding participants' desires to engage in social occupations, and barriers caused by the nature of the ASD which may successfully be addressed by occupational therapy.     

Upward Social Projection and Attitude Certainty

Predicting the attitudes of a powerful out-group can influence attitude strength and the perceived status of in-group members. American farmers indicated their own attitude positions on eight issues relevant to conflict with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and then estimated the positions either of their in-group, the EPA, a control out-group, or participated in a no-estimation control condition. The estimation of attitude disagreement with EPA agents elicited negative thoughts about their power and control which mediated a decrease in self-certainty. Assumed attitude contrast also diminished the perceived status of farmers. Discussion focuses on relational and instrumental sub-group connections.     

Right-Wing Authoritarianism and Social Dominance Orientation in a Canadian Military Sample

The Sexual Experiences Questionnaire (SEQ) was administered to 1,060 male and 305 female soldiers from combat support and combat service support units in the U.S. Army. Eighty-four percent of women and 74% of men experienced at least 1 of the behaviors listed in the SEQ during the previous year. However, only 30% of women and 8% of men acknowledged having been sexually harassed in the same time period. Men who experienced SEQ behaviors were less likely to acknowledge harassment than women who experienced these behaviors. The 3 SEQ subscales—gender harassment, unwanted sexual attention, and coercion—were examined as predictors of organizational commitment, turnover wish, the perception of sexual harassment as a personal and work-unit problem, and as predictors of acknowledged harassment. The more serious behaviors were more likely to be acknowledged as harassment than the milder behaviors when the type of behavior was defined as either present or absent. On the other hand, when milder behaviors occurred frequently, they were the main predictors of the perception of sexual harassment as a personal and work-unit problem. Sexual harassment predicted turnover wish and Army commitment for male soldiers only.     

Perfectionism and health: A mediational analysis of the roles of stress,social support and health-related behaviours

This study tested a model derived from personality theory in which perceived stress, perceived social support, health-risk and health-promotion behaviours mediate the relationship between perfectionism and perceived physical health. A sample of 538 undergraduate students completed a web-based survey assessing multi-dimensional perfectionism, perceived stress, perceived social support, health behaviours, physical health and a scale tapping elements of the five-factor model of personality. Analyses that account for the effects of traits from the five-factor model (e.g., neuroticism, conscientiousness and extraversion) indicated that socially prescribed perfectionism was associated with poorer physical health and this association was fully mediated by higher levels of perceived stress and lower levels of perceived social support. Self-oriented perfectionism was related complexly to health such that it was related to poorer health via higher levels of perceived stress, but was also related to better health via higher levels of perceived social support. Our findings illustrate the need for considering key mediators of the link between perfectionism and poor health outcomes.     

The role of prior knowledge in error correction for younger and older adults

Previous work has demonstrated that, when given feedback, younger adults are more likely to correct high-confidence errors compared with low-confidence errors, a finding termed the hypercorrection effect. Research examining the hypercorrection effect in both older and younger adults has demonstrated that the relationship between confidence and error correction was stronger for younger adults compared with older adults. However, recent work suggests that error correction is largely related to prior knowledge, while confidence may primarily serve as a proxy for prior knowledge. Prior knowledge generally remains stable or increases with age; thus, the current experiment explored how both confidence and prior knowledge contributed to error correction in younger and older adults. Participants answered general knowledge questions, rated how confident they were that their response was correct, received correct answer feedback, and rated their prior knowledge of the correct response. Overall, confidence was related to error correction for younger adults, but this relationship was much smaller for older adults. However, prior knowledge was strongly related to error correction for both younger and older adults. Confidence alone played little unique role in error correction after controlling for the role of prior knowledge. These data demonstrate that prior knowledge largely predicts error correction and suggests that both older and younger adults can use their prior knowledge to effectively correct errors in memory.