Correction to: Suicidal Mental Imagery in Psychiatrically Hospitalized Adolescents

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-021-00827-8     

Interpersonal Psychotherapy—Adolescent Skills Training With Youth From Asian American and Immigrant Families: Cultural Considerations and Intervention Process

Although research has identified effective evidence-based depression prevention interventions for diverse youth, little is known about how the intervention process unfolds with immigrant family youth. This study utilized a qualitative approach to explore cultural and clinical differences in the implementation of Interpersonal Psychotherapy–Adolescent Skills Training (IPT-AST) in two schools, one serving youth from primarily immigrant, Asian American families and the second, youth from mostly nonimmigrant, non-Hispanic White families. A total of 131 IPT–AST sessions were audio recorded, transcribed, and coded for presence and patterns of cultural and clinical constructs. Results revealed that sessions with immigrant family youth were more likely to contain discussions of interpersonal problems characterized by estrangement, goals of spending time together with important others, mentions of emotion suppression and academic achievement expectations, conversations about acculturation, differences in value orientation, and discomfort with implementing new intervention skills. Dialogue from interventionist and youth exchanges is presented to illustrate how these themes emerged and were addressed by interventionists in a culturally responsive manner. The study highlights how IPT–AST with immigrant family and Asian American youth may unfold differently compared to youth from nonimmigrant families. Implications of findings for providers are discussed.     

Back to sleep: Teaching adults to arrange safe infant sleep environments

There are over 3,000 sleep related infant deaths each year in the United States. Attempts to teach medical personnel and parents safe infant sleep practices in the infant sleep training literature have demonstrated mixed results. Thus, strategies to teach arrangements of safe infant sleep environments warrant further investigation. Behavioral skills training (BST) is an evidence-based teaching strategy shown to successfully teach various safety skills to children and adults. The current study evaluated the effectiveness of behavioral skills training to teach safe infant sleep practices to typically developing adults. Specifically, differential responding was assessed across multiple environmental arrangements typical of contexts parents may be exposed to when putting an infant to sleep. BST significantly improved appropriate arrangement of a safe sleep environment for infants for all 8 participants.     

The association between risky decision making and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms: A preregistered assessment of need for cognition as underlying mechanism

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is related to suboptimal decision making in experimental tasks and to real-life risk-taking behavior (RTB) such as substance abuse and unsafe traffic conduct. In this preregistered study, we tested whether these associations are mediated by need for cognition—the extent to which one tends towards, and enjoys, analytical thought. In a large sample of young adults (N = 463, M_age = 19.7 years), we tested whether need for cognition mediated the association between self-reported ADHD symptoms on the one hand and decision-making strategy complexity on an experimental gambling task and self-reported real-life RTB on the other hand. Preregistered confirmatory analyses indicated first that ADHD symptoms were positively associated with real-life RTB, but the association was not mediated by need for cognition. Second, ADHD symptoms were not related to decision-making strategy complexity, and need for cognition was not a significant mediator. Explorative analyses revealed that (a) need for cognition was associated with higher decision-making accuracy and slower reaction time; (b) need for cognition was related to inattentive but not to hyperactive/impulsive ADHD symptoms; (c) need for cognition was associated with health-related RTB but not interpersonal RTB; and (4) only the association between inattention and health-related RTB was mediated by need for cognition. We conclude that need for cognition is not a mediator in the association between ADHD symptoms and RTB. Additionally, we conclude that neither ADHD symptoms nor need for cognition predict decision-making strategy complexity. Implications for both future research and clinical practice are discussed.     

Intruders of differing reproductive status alter aggression differentially in early and late pregnant mice

Independent groups of early and late pregnant mice, housed individually, were observed with an intruder in their home cage. The intruders were either males, virgin, early, or late pregnant females. Male intruders were sniffed less, but more frequently and more severely attacked, than any type of female intruder, both by early and by late pregnant residents. While early pregnant females behaved similarly with the three types of female intruders, late pregnant animals treated them differently: they showed practically no aggression to late pregnant intruders, more to early pregnant ones and were most aggressive towards virgin female intruders. The possible relation of these findings to reproductive behaviour is discussed.     

Assessing Parenting Skills and Attitudes: A Review of the Psychometrics of Parenting Measures

There are many measures that assess parenting skills or practices, such as behavior, beliefs, coping mechanisms, reactions to stress, or discipline. However, little is known about the psychometric quality of these parenting measures. This information is essential for practitioners and researchers to aide in the selection of the most valid and reliable measures to assess parenting behavior or attitudes. This study examined the psychometric quality among parenting measures published from 1985 to 2009. After the initial search 164 measures were identified, but were reduced to 25 measures that supplied some degree of psychometric information, were published in the United States or Canada, and were in English. Measures were compared across numerous categories including respondent type, norming data, administration type, and ten psychometric variables such as internal consistency, content validity, and predictive validity. Out of the 25 measures, seven had no acceptable psychometric properties, seven had only 1–2 acceptable ratings on psychometric properties, six had between 3 and 4 acceptable psychometric ratings, none had between 5 and 6 acceptable ratings, and only five had strong psychometric properties in seven or more of the 10 categories. Likewise, only five measures provided and norming information and 14 measures provided scoring procedures. Implications, limitations, and recommendations for future research are discussed.     

Transformation of Adolescent Peer Relations in the Social Media Context: Part 2—Application to Peer Group Processes and Future Directions for Research

As social media use becomes increasingly widespread among adolescents, research in this area has accumulated rapidly. Researchers have shown a growing interest in the impact of social media on adolescents’ peer experiences, including the ways that the social media context shapes a variety of peer relations constructs. This paper represents Part 2 of a two-part theoretical review. In this review, we offer a new model for understanding the transformative role of social media in adolescents’ peer experiences, with the goal of stimulating future empirical work that is grounded in theory. The transformation framework suggests that the features of the social media context transform adolescents’ peer experiences by changing their frequency or immediacy, amplifying demands, altering their qualitative nature, and/or offering new opportunities for compensatory or novel behaviors. In the current paper, we consider the ways that social media may transform peer relations constructs that often occur at the group level. Our review focuses on three key constructs: peer victimization, peer status, and peer influence. We selectively review and highlight existing evidence for the transformation of these domains through social media. In addition, we discuss methodological considerations and key conceptual principles for future work. The current framework offers a new theoretical perspective through which peer relations researchers may consider adolescent social media use.