What Do Mothers Make Adolescents Feel Guilty About? Incidents,Reactions, and Relation to Depression

We found mothers’ history of depression and symptoms of depression among their adolescent children were both associated with the type of events that mothers made adolescents feel guilty about and with the mothers’ reactions to those events. Adolescents (20 male, 23 female) described incidents in which their mothers made them feel guilty and what happened afterward. Offspring of mothers with (versus without) a history of depression more often reported guilt when not at fault and over failing to meet maternal needs; reactions did not resolve matters and involved unregulated maternal emotions. Adolescents of mothers without a depression history more often felt guilty about specific events (e.g., breaking rules, bad grades) and reactions resulted in closure (through discipline, apologies, or forgiveness). Adolescents’ depressive symptoms were more severe when incidents were unresolved and involved maternal emotions and less severe when incidents were specific. In addition, maternal use of self-serving forms of guilt induction related to adolescent and parent depression.     

Maternal depression and developmental disability: research critique

Maternal depression in families having a child with a disability has been the subject of considerable research over the past 25 years. This review was designed to describe the literature on maternal depression, critique its research methodology, identify consensus findings across studies, and make recommendations for future research. A particular emphasis is on the distinction between exhibiting depressive symptoms and meeting clinical criteria for a depressive disorder, how or whether research studies made this distinction, and implications for our understanding of maternal adaptation to disability in a family member. Of the 42 articles reviewed, only eight were clinically diagnosed depression; most of them used a scale rating depressive symptoms. Across the studies, mothers of children with disabilities generally exhibited a higher than average rate of depressive symptoms and are more at risk for clinical depression, but the incidence may be lower than reported in previous literature. Child behavior problems, maternal stress, coping style, and support were consistently associated with depressive symptoms. We conclude that we know relatively little about clinical depression in mothers of children with disabilities. The distinction between clinical depression and depressive symptoms may be important in conceptualizing how a child with a disability can influence family members and the nature of support that may need to be provided. Future research should incorporate gold standard diagnostic tools and assess history, severity, and type of depression. Research is also needed to study treatments to reduce the occurrence of both depressive symptoms and clinical depression.     

Psychological correlates of PTSD symptoms following stroke

This study assessed associations between a number of demographic, medical and psychological risk factors and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms following stroke. Individuals (N = 102) who had experienced a stroke within the previous year participated in the study. Participants completed questionnaires containing measures of PTSD symptoms and a range of psychological risk factors (i.e., anxiety, depression, negative affect, dissociation, cognitive appraisals). Regression analyses revealed the variables under consideration were able to explain large proportions of the variance in the number (R(2) = .54, p < 0.001) and severity (R(2) = .58, p < 0.001) of PTSD symptoms. Number of strokes, negative affect and cognitive appraisals emerged as significant predictors of both the number and severity of PTSD symptoms. The present findings suggest that a significant proportion of stroke patients may benefit from the detection and treatment of PTSD symptoms.     

Crawling is associated with more flexible memory retrieval by 9-month-old infants

In the present experiment, we used a deferred imitation paradigm to explore the effect of crawling on memory retrieval by 9-month-old human infants. Infants observed an experimenter demonstrate a single target action with a novel object and their ability to reproduce that action was assessed after a 24-hr delay. Some infants were tested with the demonstration stimulus in the demonstration context and some infants were tested with a different stimulus in a different context. Half of the infants in each test condition were crawling at the time of participation and half were not. Both crawling and non-crawling infants exhibited retention when tested with the demonstration stimulus in the demonstration context, but only infants who were crawling by 9 months of age exhibited retention when tested with a different stimulus in a different context. These findings demonstrate that the onset of independent locomotion is associated with more flexible memory retrieval during the first year of life.     

Alzheimer's disease patients' cognitive status and course years prior to symptom recognition

This is a prospective examination of the cognitive performance and cognitive course of persons in an asymptomatic "preclinical" phase who eventually developed Alzheimer's disease (AD). We compared performances on the Mayo Cognitive Factor Scales (MCFS) of 20 persons in a neurologically normal cohort who subsequently developed AD to the performances of 60 persons who remained free of dementia symptoms. For the AD patients, exams occurred prior to the appearance of dementia symptoms (an average of 4.2 and 1.5 years prior to symptom onset). Results reveal strong group differences on learning and retention, with eventual AD patients scoring lower than controls years prior to reporting symptoms of the disease. There was no significant interaction effect (group x testing session) for memory retention, suggesting that memory decline in this preclinical period may be too slow to be a useful indicator of future AD. A significant interaction (but no group effect) was seen for verbal comprehension.     

Aging Well in an Upscale Retirement Community: The Relationships Among Perceived Stress,Mattering, and Wellness

Residents (N = 142) of a southeastern, upscale retirement community completed measures of wellness, perceived stress, and mattering. Participants scored higher than did a group of adults under age 60 on 4 of 5 second‐order wellness factors and Total Wellness, with medium to large effect sizes. Implications for counselors are discussed.     

Julian of Norwich: Mysticism and Philosophy

Parts of Julian's Showings are examined for their didactic quality, and her work is briefly compared to that of Mechthild and Hildegard. The commentary of Tobin, Chervin and others is alluded to, and it is concluded that Julian is an exemplary teacher.     

Attitudes Toward Women and Motherhood: Their Role in Australian Women’s Childbearing Behaviour

Financial and employment concerns are frequently identified as salient factors in women’s childbearing behaviour in low fertility, developed countries. The contribution of attitudinal variables is not well understood. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between attitudes toward women and motherhood and women’s childbearing desires and outcomes. A broadly representative sample of 569 women aged 30–34 years living in Victoria, one Australian state, was recruited from the Australian Electoral Roll. Participants completed a self administered anonymous questionnaire which included a new measure of attitudes toward women and motherhood. Women with more traditional attitudes had larger desired and actual family sizes. The findings indicate that attitudes toward women and motherhood are related to women’s childbearing behaviour.     

Selective Visual Attention and Motivation: The Consequences of Value Learning in an Attentional Blink Task

ABSTRACT— Learning to associate the probability and value of behavioral outcomes with specific stimuli (value learning) is essential for rational decision making. However, in demanding cognitive conditions, access to learned values might be constrained by limited attentional capacity. We measured recognition of briefly presented faces seen previously in a value-learning task involving monetary wins and losses; the recognition task was performed both with and without constraints on available attention. Regardless of available attention, recognition was substantially enhanced for motivationally salient stimuli (i.e., stimuli highly predictive of outcomes), compared with equally familiar stimuli that had weak or no motivational salience, and this effect was found regardless of valence (win or loss). However, when attention was constrained (because stimuli were presented during an attentional blink, AB), valence determined recognition; win-associated faces showed no AB, but all other faces showed large ABs. Motivational salience acts independently of attention to modulate simple perceptual decisions, but when attention is limited, visual processing is biased in favor of reward-associated stimuli.     

Contributions of weight perceptions to weight loss attempts: Differences by body mass index and gender

Previous studies have consistently observed that women are more likely to perceive themselves as overweight compared to men. Similarly, women are more likely than men to report trying to lose weight. Less is known about the impact that self-perceived weight has on weight loss behaviors of adults and whether this association differs by gender. We conducted a cross-sectional analysis among an employee sample (n = 899) to determine the association of self-perceived weight on evidence-based weight loss behaviors across genders, accounting for body mass index (BMI) and demographic characteristics. Women were more likely than men to consider themselves to be overweight across each BMI category, and were more likely to report attempting to lose weight. However, perceiving oneself to be overweight was a strong correlate for weight loss attempts across both genders. The effect of targeting accuracy of self-perceived weight status in weight loss interventions deserves research attention.