Validity of the Modified Child Psychopathy Scale for Juvenile Justice Center Residents

Adult psychopathy has proven to be an important clinical and forensic construct, but much less is known about juvenile psychopathy. In the present study, we examined the construct validity of the self report modified Child Psychopathy Scale mCPS; Lynam (Psychological Bulletin 120:(2), 209-234, 1997) in a sample of 57 adolescents residing in a Dutch juvenile justice center, aged between 13 and 22?years. The mCPS total score was reliably related to high externalizing problems, low empathy, high anger and aggression, high impulsivity, high (violent) delinquency, and high alcohol/drug use. Unique relations were found for the antisocial-impulsive (mCPS Factor 2), but not the callous-unemotional facet of psychopathy (mCPS Factor 1). Our findings support the validity of the mCPS in that it encompasses the antisocial-impulsive facet of psychopathy, but it is less clear whether the mCPS sufficiently captures the affective-interpersonal facet of psychopathy.     

Using segmentation to support the learning from animated soccer scenes: An effect of prior knowledge

ObjectivesWe used a cognitive load perspective to investigate the effects of levels of learner expertise and different forms of segmentation in learning from animated soccer scenes.MethodExpert and novice players (N = 48) completed a recall reconstruction-test and rated their invested mental effort after studying a continuous animation, a macro-step and a micro-step segmented animation.ResultsFindings demonstrated an expertise reversal effect for segmentation. It positively affected learning outcomes of novices but not experts (even though they still invested less mental effort and repeated the animation less often in the two segmented conditions). Additionally, novices benefited more from micro-step segmentation than from macro-step segmentation, while experts performed at the same level with both forms of segmentation.ConclusionsStudy results suggested that adapting instructional animation formats to players with different levels of expertise should be a crucial part of successful training.     

“It can save you if you just forget”: Closeness and Competence as Conditions for Coping among Ugandan Orphans

This article explores the coping strategies of orphaned children and their caregivers supported by a community-based organization in a Ugandan slum area. In-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with eight orphans (aged 12 to 16 years) and their caregivers selected by the community-based organization. The children had experienced several co-occurring risk factors such as loss and separation, poverty, disease, and an unsafe environment. Most caregivers were extended family members. One caregiver was an unrelated foster carer. Three of the households were child-headed. Data were analysed using an adapted approach of Giorgio's (Hafting, 1995; Malterud, 2001) psychological-phenomenological method. Participating children from child-headed households lacked protective factors associated with closeness (i.e., supportive dyadic relationships). All the children in the study experienced competence in the arenas of school and household chores. Cultural advice on handling adversity, including ‘forgetting’, ‘accepting’ and ‘adjusting’, appears to contradict Western theories of coping. Sommerschild's theoretical model on the conditions for coping was effective in identifying conditions in children's lives that may impair their coping, self-worth, and resilience.     

In search of patient characteristics that may guide empirically based treatment selection for personality disorder patients-a concept map approach

Using the concept map method, this study aimed to summarize and describe patient characteristics pertinent to treatment selection for patients with personality disorders (PDs). Initial patient characteristics were derived from the research literature and a survey among Dutch expert clinicians. Concept mapping is a formalized conceptualization procedure that describes the underlying cognitive structures people use in complex tasks, such as treatment allocation. Based on expert opinions of 29 Dutch clinicians, a concept map was generated that yielded eight domains of patient characteristics, i.e., Severity of symptoms, Severity of personality pathology, Ego-adaptive capacities, Motivation and working alliance, Social context, Social demographic characteristics, Trauma, and Treatment history and medical condition. These domains can be ordered along two bipolar axes, running from internal to external concepts and from vulnerability to strength concepts, respectively. Our findings may serve as input for the delineation of algorithms for patient-treatment matching research in PD.     

Body image satisfaction among Norwegian adolescents and young adults: a longitudinal study of the influence of interpersonal relationships and BMI

This study used a latent growth curve modeling approach to examine body image satisfaction in 1132 Norwegian adolescent and adult males and females measured at six times between ages 13 and 30. An additional model examined the long term influence of parent-child relationship, peer relationship (both relationships assessed at age 13), and BMI (measured at each interval) to the patterns of change. The results showed a linear growth in body image satisfaction through adolescence followed by a stabilizing of the latent curve in adulthood for both genders. There were gender and developmental variations in the relative contributions of parents and peers for the slope and quadratic growth and in the contribution of BMI to body image satisfaction. When controlling for BMI, initial parent-child relationships and peer relationship predicted the variance in slope growth for males. Parent-child relationship predicted quadratic growth for males. Among females, only initial peer relationships predicted linear growth. No effect was found for quadratic growth. BMI had an additional negative effect on body image satisfaction during adulthood.     

Commission errors but not critical lures decrease when you have to pay a price for them

Using the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm, we explored the effect of monetary penalty on false memories. Participants were presented 6 15-word lists of semantic associates that all converged on a nonpresented critical lure. Next, half of the participants received a monetary reward (0.10 Euro; about $0.10) for each correctly recalled word, whereas they lost money (0.20 Euro; about $0.20) for each incorrect response. Compared with control participants who received a fixed financial compensation, participants in the experimental group reported fewer commissions (i.e., incorrect responses other than the critical lure). Number of hits and critical lures did not differ between the groups.     

Saving Bulgaria's Jews: an analysis of social identity and the mobilisation of social solidarity

This paper investigates the arguments used in public documents to mobilise Bulgarians against the deportation of Jews in World War II. We focus on the key documents relating to the first wave of mobilisation in 1940–1941 as provided by Todorov in The Fragility of Goodness ( 2001 ). We demonstrate that these documents are based on three types of argument. The first, category inclusion, treats the Jews as part of a common ingroup rather than as constituting a separate outgroup. The second, category norms, proposes that help for those under attack is a core aspect of ingroup identity. The third, category interest, suggests that the ingroup will be harmed if Jews are persecuted. In each case, the predominant category on which arguments are based is national identity (i.e. ‘we Bulgarians …’). This analysis is used to validate and extend a social identity of model of helping. The theoretical and practical implications of such an approach are considered in the discussion. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Perceptual learning of noise vocoded words: effects of feedback and lexicality

Speech comprehension is resistant to acoustic distortion in the input, reflecting listeners' ability to adjust perceptual processes to match the speech input. This adjustment is reflected in improved comprehension of distorted speech with experience. For noise vocoding, a manipulation that removes spectral detail from speech, listeners' word report showed a significantly greater improvement over trials for listeners that heard clear speech presentations before rather than after hearing distorted speech (clear-then-distorted compared with distorted-then-clear feedback, in Experiment 1). This perceptual learning generalized to untrained words suggesting a sublexical locus for learning and was equivalent for word and nonword training stimuli (Experiment 2). These findings point to the crucial involvement of phonological short-term memory and top-down processes in the perceptual learning of noise-vocoded speech. Similar processes may facilitate comprehension of speech in an unfamiliar accent or following cochlear implantation.     

Lexical information drives perceptual learning of distorted speech: evidence from the comprehension of noise-vocoded sentences

Speech comprehension is resistant to acoustic distortion in the input, reflecting listeners' ability to adjust perceptual processes to match the speech input. For noise-vocoded sentences, a manipulation that removes spectral detail from speech, listeners' reporting improved from near 0% to 70% correct over 30 sentences (Experiment 1). Learning was enhanced if listeners heard distorted sentences while they knew the identity of the undistorted target (Experiments 2 and 3). Learning was absent when listeners were trained with nonword sentences (Experiments 4 and 5), although the meaning of the training sentences did not affect learning (Experiment 5). Perceptual learning of noise-vocoded speech depends on higher level information, consistent with top-down, lexically driven learning. Similar processes may facilitate comprehension of speech in an unfamiliar accent or following cochlear implantation.