Context-specificity of relapse: effects of therapist and environmental context on return of fear.

Context-specificity of fear extinction was tested among 65 participants who were fearful of spiders by manipulating the contexts used for exposure treatment and two-week follow-up assessment. Context was defined by both meaningful (presence of a particular therapist) and incidental (room location and furnishings) environmental cues. Distinct phobic stimuli were used to examine interactions of context with stimulus. Physiological, behavioral and verbal indices of fear were measured. Results provided modest support for context-specific return of fear. With one stimulus, participants assessed in a non-treatment context at follow-up exhibited greater returns in heart rate levels. In addition, three of four participants who could not touch the stimulus at follow-up had been tested in a non-treatment context. Future investigations may benefit from greater distinctions between contexts or manipulation of contextual features more directly relevant to fear. Finally, post hoc analyses identified high trait anxiety, slow treatment response, recovery of phobic cognitions and long duration/high intensity phobic encounters post-treatment as significant predictors of increased return of fear.     

Anxiety Symptomatology in Mexican-American Adolescents

Mexican-American adults and adolescents in general have been reported to have high levels of anxiety symptomatology. In our study of a tri-ethnic sample of 2528 junior and senior high school students, the Youth Self Report (YSR) version of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and a sociodemographic questionnaire was used to assess the anxiety symptoms of Hispanic youth. We compared the ratings on anxiety symptoms, using Achenbach's anxiety subscale on the YSR, between two populations. The anxiety levels of youth in coastal southeast Texas (Galveston County) were compared to the anxiety levels of youth in the lower Rio Grande Valley. We found that Mexican-Americans of the Lower Rio Grande Valley scored higher on anxiety symptoms than the tri-ethnic population of Galveston County. Other factors associated with higher anxiety scores for Mexican-American youths included being born outside the US, linguistic fluency, father absent from the home, mother's education, and household size. Multiple regression analyses showed that socio-economic status (SES), family composition, and linguistic fluency had a greater relative impact on anxiety symptomatology than all other factors, both for the total sample as well as for the Mexican-American sample. These results parallel previous findings, with Mexican-American adults, which suggest either higher risk for anxiety symptomatology or a culturally related bias in the reporting of such symptoms.     

Self as the Target and the Perceiver: A Componential Approach to Self-Enhancement

In this paper, we review the recent literature on the debate over the value of self-enhancement. Past studies fall into two distinct sets, each in the context of a different research tradition. The componential approach to self-enhancement integrates these two divergent perspectives and takes seriously the interplay of self-perception and interpersonal perception. Instead of global indices, the componential approach identifies specific components of person perception. By partitioning the components in self-perception, the componential approach allows for better understanding of the dynamic interactive effects of self-enhancement bias and other components in self-perception on adjustment. We conclude the paper by discussing the emerging attempts to advance a componential approach to examine self-perception in terms of components and outcomes.     

System justification and the defense of committed relationship ideology

A consequential ideology in Western society is the uncontested belief that a committed relationship is the most important adult relationship and that almost all people want to marry or seriously couple (DePaulo & Morris, 2005). In the present article, we investigated the extent to which the system justification motive may contribute to the adoption of this ideology. In Studies 1 and 2, we examined whether a heightened motive to maintain the status quo would increase defense of committed relationship values. In Study 3, we examined the reverse association, that is, whether a threat to committed relationship ideology would also affect sociopolitical system endorsement. As past research has found that the justification of political systems depends upon how much these systems are perceived as controlling, in Study 4 we tested whether the defense of the system of committed relationships would also increase when framed as controlling. Results from Studies 1-4 were consistent with our hypotheses, but only for men. In Study 5, using cross-cultural data, we sought to replicate these findings correlationally and probe for a cause of the gender effect. Results from more than 33,000 respondents indicated a relationship (for men) between defense of the sociopolitical system and defense of marriage in countries where the traditional advantages of men over women were most threatened. In Studies 6 and 7, we investigated when this gender difference disappears. Results revealed that when we measured (Study 6) or manipulated (Study 7) personal relationship identity rather than relationship ideology, effects also emerge for women.     

Evaluation of Affect in Mexico and Spain: Psychometric Properties and Usefulness of an Abbreviated Version of the Day Reconstruction Method

The aims of the present study were to assess the psychometric properties of the Spanish-language version of the abbreviated Day Reconstruction Method (DRM), and to investigate differences in affective experience in Mexico and Spain. A total of 2,629 adults from Mexico and 4,583 from Spain were interviewed. Information was obtained using an abbreviated version of the DRM, which had been translated into Spanish. Reliability, validity, and the structure of affect were assessed and compared between countries. The diurnal variation of affect, the changes in affect along the life span, time use, and the relationship between affect and socio-demographic characteristics were also analysed. Adequate psychometric properties for the Spanish-language version of the abbreviated DRM were found in both the Mexican and the Spanish samples, and affect tended to improve along the life span in both countries. However, net affect did not have the same distribution function (Kolmogorov–Smirnov statistic = 0.25, p < 0.001) in both countries, being higher in Spain. Moreover, both samples showed opposite patterns in the diurnal variation of affect. The results showed that the Spanish-language version of the DRM is a feasible and valid method to measure affect, its diurnal rhythms, and time use in large-scale surveys.     

Exploring the Hierarchical Structure of the MMPI–2–RF Personality Psychopathology Five in Psychiatric Patient and University Student Samples

In this study our goal was to examine the hierarchical structure of personality pathology as conceptualized by Harkness and McNulty's (1994) Personality Psychopathology Five (PSY–5) model, as recently operationalized by the MMPI–2–RF (Ben-Porath & Tellegen, 2011) PSY–5r scales. We used Goldberg's (2006) “bass-ackwards” method to obtain factor structure using PSY–5r item data, successively extracting from 1 to 5 factors in a sample of psychiatric patients (n = 1,000) and a sample of university undergraduate students (n = 1,331). Participants from these samples had completed either the MMPI–2 or the MMPI–2–RF. The results were mostly consistent across the 2 samples, with some differences at the 3-factor level. In the patient sample a factor structure representing 3 broad psychopathology domains (internalizing, externalizing, and psychoticism) emerged; in the student sample the 3-factor level represented what is more commonly observed in “normal-range” personality models (negative emotionality, introversion, and disconstraint). At the 5-factor level the basic structure was similar across the 2 samples and represented well the PSY–5r domains.     

Reduced susceptibility to confirmation bias in schizophrenia

Patients with schizophrenia (SZ) show cognitive impairments on a wide range of tasks, with clear deficiencies in tasks reliant on prefrontal cortex function and less consistently observed impairments in tasks recruiting the striatum. This study leverages tasks hypothesized to differentially recruit these neural structures to assess relative deficiencies of each. Forty-eight patients and 38 controls completed two reinforcement learning tasks hypothesized to interrogate prefrontal and striatal functions and their interaction. In each task, participants learned reward discriminations by trial and error and were tested on novel stimulus combinations to assess learned values. In the task putatively assessing fronto-striatal interaction, participants were (inaccurately) instructed that one of the stimuli was valuable. Consistent with prior reports and a model of confirmation bias, this manipulation resulted in overvaluation of the instructed stimulus after its true value had been experienced. Patients showed less susceptibility to this confirmation bias effect than did controls. In the choice bias task hypothesized to more purely assess striatal function, biases in endogenously and exogenously chosen actions were assessed. No group differences were observed. In the subset of participants who showed learning in both tasks, larger group differences were observed in the confirmation bias task than in the choice bias task. In the confirmation bias task, patients also showed impairment in the task conditions with no prior instruction. This deficit was most readily observed on the most deterministic discriminations. Taken together, these results suggest impairments in fronto-striatal interaction in SZ, rather than in striatal function per se.     

Establishing Sensible and Practical Guidelines for Desk Rejections

Publishing has become, in several respects, more challenging in recent years. Academics are faced with evolving ethics that appear to be more stringent in a bid to reduce scientific fraud, the emergence of science watchdogs that are now scrutinizing the published literature with critical eyes to hold academics, editors and publishers more accountable, and a barrage of checks and balances that are required between when a paper is submitted and eventually accepted, to ensure quality control. Scientists are often under increasing pressure to produce papers in an increasingly stringent publishing environment. In such a climate, timing is everything, as is the efficiency of the process. Academics appreciate that rejections are part of the fabric of attempting to get a paper published, but they expect the reason to be clear, based on careful evaluation of their work, and not on superficial or unsubstantiated excuses. A desk rejection occurs when a paper gets rejected even before it has entered the peer review process. This paper examines the features of some desk rejections and offers some guidelines that would make desk rejections valid, fair and ethical. Academics who publish are under constant pressure to do so quickly, but effectively. They are dependent on the editors’ good judgment and the publisher’s procedures. Unfair, unsubstantiated, or tardy desk rejections disadvantage academics, and editors and publishers must be held accountable for wasting their time, resources, and patience.     

Improving solitary play with a typically developing preschooler

We evaluated the effects of delivering specific instructions (e.g., “Here are some puzzles. Complete two of them while I read.”) on solitary play with a typically developing 3‐year‐old. We gradually increased the response requirements described in the specific instruction and found that specific instructions improved the number of solitary play responses and the duration of engagement. During a treatment extension, improvements in solitary play were observed with the classroom teacher and a novel toy. The father, teacher, and preschool director found the treatment to be highly effective and acceptable.