Convergence among multiple methods of measuring positivity and negativity in the family environment: relation to depression in mothers and their children

The present study addressed the following questions: (a) To what extent do different methods of measuring the family environment converge onto a single latent construct? (b) How are the constructs of positive and of negative family environment related? (c) Do the associations among various methods of measuring the family environment differ as a function of children's gender or of risk? and (d) How are the latent constructs of family environment related to depression in mothers and their children? Participants were 240 children (mean age = 11.86 years, SD = 0.57) and their mothers, who varied with regard to their history of depression. Family environment was measured with self-report questionnaires completed separately by mothers and by children, observations of mother-child interactions, and a 5-min speech sample of each mother talking about her child. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed that different methods for assessment of the family environment converged and that the constructs of positive and of negative family environments were significantly related to each other and to depression in both mothers and their children. These findings may help inform future intervention efforts by highlighting specific parenting dimensions that are strongly associated with maternal and with child depression.     

Aging affects acquisition and reversal of reward-based associative learning

Reward-based associative learning is mediated by a distributed network of brain regions that are dependent on the dopaminergic system. Age-related changes in key regions of this system, the striatum and the prefrontal cortex, may adversely affect the ability to use reward information for the guidance of behavior. The present study investigated the effects of healthy aging on different components of reward learning, such as acquisition, reversal, effects of reward magnitude, and transfer of learning. A group of 30 young (mean age = 24.2 yr) and a group of 30 older subjects (mean age = 64.1 yr) completed two probabilistic reward-based stimulus association learning tasks. Older subjects showed poorer overall acquisition and impaired reversal learning, as well as deficits in transfer learning. When only those subjects who showed evidence of significant learning were considered, younger subjects showed equivalently fast learning irrespective of reward magnitude, while learning curves in older subjects were steeper for high compared to low reward magnitudes. Acquired equivalence learning, which requires generalization across stimuli and transfer of learned contingencies to new stimuli, was mildly impaired in older subjects.     

Attachment style,attachment to God,religiosity, and moral disengagement: a study on offenders

The present study investigates religiosity, moral disengagement, attachment to God, and interpersonal attachment in 30 offenders within Italian jails. We administered a semi-structured interview to collect data about family, social and medical history, and the manner in which the deviant act was carried out; the Moral Disengagement Scale; the Attachment to God Inventory; the Revised Intrinsic/Extrinsic Religious Orientation Scale; and the Attachment Style Questionnaire. Results show how intrinsic religiosity negatively predicts moral disengagement; the “Preoccupation with Relationships” Scale (anxious/ambivalent attachment) predicts avoidant attachment to God; and the “Secondariety for Relationship” Scale (dismissing attachment) predicts personal extrinsic religiosity and negatively predicts intrinsic religiosity. Studying these constructs in offenders is important not only to increase the literature but also to implement interventions aimed at reeducation focused on issues relevant to personal adjustment.     

Predictors of Categorical At‐Risk High School Dropouts

The authors attempted to identify key contributing factors to school dropout among 3 categories of at‐risk students: those with low grade point averages, those who had been suspended, and those from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Logistic regression analysis of the data, which were derived from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth‐1997 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2002) indicated that student dropout rates were affected differently by students' membership in the 3 at‐risk categories.     

The time course of perceptual grouping: the role of segregation and shape formation

The time course of perceptual grouping was examined in two experiments, using a primed matching task. In different conditions, elements were grouped into columns/rows by common lightness, into a shape (triangle/ arrow or square/cross) by common lightness, and into a shape without segregation of elements. The results showed an early and rapid grouping into columns/rows by common lightness and into a shape when no segregation from other elements was involved. Goodness of shape (i.e., triangle/arrow vs. square/cross) had no influence on how early grouping was evident, but the relatively poorer shapes appeared to consolidate with time. In contrast, grouping into a shape that involved segregation and required resolving figure-ground relations between segregated units, as grouping into a shape by common lightness, consumed time, regardless of shape goodness. These results suggest that the time course of grouping varies as a function of the processes involved in it (e.g., segregation and shape formation) and the conditions prevailing for each process.     

Differential course of executive control changes during normal aging

Normal aging has been associated with executive control deficits, but it is as yet unclear whether different executive subprocesses are differentially affected during the course of aging. The present study aimed to investigate age effects on a range of executive control subcomponents. Four consecutive age groups (20-30 years, 31-45 years, 46-60 years, 61-75 years), matched on present state IQ and mood, were compared on tasks of strategic memory processing, verbal fluency, reasoning, inhibition, task management, and self-rating of executive abilities. Deficits concerning the suppression of habitual and experimentally induced prepotent response tendencies and the ability to efficiently divide attention were observed in subjects over 60 years of age compared to the younger groups, while memory, verbal fluency, and reasoning were largely unaffected. Results suggest a sharp decline of executive function after age 60 and a differential course of different executive subcomponents across aging, adding further support to a multi-dimensional model of executive function.     

Psychopathological profile of battered women according to age

In this paper, differential psychopathological consequences in battered women according to age were analysed in a sample of 148 victims seeking psychological treatment in a Family Violence Centre. The younger victims exposed to intimate partner violence suffered more often from physical violence and were at higher risk for their lives than the older ones. The prevalence rate of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was higher (42%) in the younger victims than in the older ones (27%). Likewise, younger victims were affected by more depressive symptoms and lower self-esteem than the older ones. The severity of PTSD in the younger victims was related to the presence of forced sexual relationship but in the older ones, it was related to the perceived threat to their lives. Implications of this study for clinical practice and future research in this field are commented upon.     

The influence of Afrocentric facial features in criminal sentencing

Prior research has shown that within a racial category, people with more Afrocentric facial features are presumed more likely to have traits that are stereotypic of Black Americans compared with people with less Afrocentric features. The present study investigated whether this form of feature-based stereotyping might be observed in criminal-sentencing decisions. Analysis of a random sample of inmate records showed that Black and White inmates, given equivalent criminal histories, received roughly equivalent sentences. However, within each race, inmates with more Afrocentric features received harsher sentences than those with less Afrocentric features. These results are consistent with laboratory findings, and they suggest that although racial stereotyping as a function of racial category has been successfully removed from sentencing decisions, racial stereotyping based on the facial features of the offender is a form of bias that is largely overlooked.     

Selection from perceptual and conceptual representations

The lateral prefrontal cortex has been implicated in a wide variety of functions that guide our behavior, and one such candidate function is selection. Selection mechanisms have been described in several domains spanning different stages of processing, from visual attention to response execution. Here, we consider two such mechanisms: selecting relevant information from the perceptual world (e.g., visual selective attention) and selecting relevant information from conceptual representations (e.g., selecting a specific attribute about an object from long-term memory). Although the mechanisms involved in visual selective attention have been well characterized, much less is known about the latter case of selection. In this article, we review the relevant literature from the attention domain as a springboard to understanding the mechanisms involved in conceptual selection.