Optimism in close relationships: How seeing things in a positive light makes them so

Does expecting positive outcomes--especially in important life domains such as relationships--make these positive outcomes more likely? In a longitudinal study of dating couples, the authors tested whether optimists (who have a cognitive disposition to expect positive outcomes) and their romantic partners are more satisfied in their relationships, and if so, whether this is due to optimists perceiving greater support from their partners. In cross-sectional analyses, both optimists and their partners indicated greater relationship satisfaction, an effect that was mediated by optimists' greater perceived support. When the couples engaged in a conflict conversation, optimists and their partners saw each other as engaging more constructively during the conflict, which in turn led both partners to feel that the conflict was better resolved 1 week later. In a 1-year follow-up, men's optimism predicted relationship status. Effects of optimism were mediated by the optimists' perceived support, which appears to promote a variety of beneficial processes in romantic relationships.     

A multimethod examination of the stability of depressive symptoms in childhood and adolescence

In an 8-wave, 2-cohort longitudinal study, children and adolescents were followed from the fall of 5th grade to the spring of 8th grade. Participants (N = 1,269), their parents, and peers completed reports of depressive symptoms at 6-month intervals. The use of a 2-group latent variable autoregressive model to examine the stability of depressive symptomatology revealed several trends. First, the 6-month stability of depressive symptoms was high for boys and girls. Second, the stability of depressive symptomatology was lower between the spring of 6th grade and the fall of 7th grade than during any other point in the study. Finally, the stability of depressive symptoms did not differ with respect to gender.     

Characteristics of successful fakers versus unsuccessful fakers: is empathy, intelligence, or personality associated with faking PTSD on the MMPI-2?

Moyer, Burkhardt, and Gordon found in 2002 that some individuals could fake PTSD on the MMPI-2. In light of these results, a follow-up study was conducted to assess whether attributes such as empathy, intelligence, subjectivity, or insightfulness influenced ability to fake a PTSD profile on the MMPI-2. 35 subjects from the previous study were divided into two groups, successful fakers and unsuccessful fakers. Analysis indicated no significant differences between groups on the measures of empathy or intelligence. However, a significant difference was found between groups on the Schizophrenia and Cynicism scales and falling just short of significance on the Hypochondriasis scale. These results suggested that individuals able to fake PTSD are more insightful and less subjective, which makes them better at role-playing.     

Is Disgust a Homogeneous Emotion?

Many theoretical accounts consider disgust to be a unitary emotion, although others have challenged this notion. We predict that if core disgust and socio-moral disgust are different constructs, then their co-associated elicited emotions are likely to be different, and time as well as gender are likely to differentially affect their intensity (via a greater reliance of socio-moral disgust on cognitive appraisal). To test these predictions, participants were shown photographs of core and socio-moral disgust elicitors and asked to provide a wide ranging rating of their emotional response to each at 3 time points. Each elicitor generated a significantly different emotional response. Furthermore, the disgust response to core elicitors weakened over time whereas socio-moral responses intensified. Males and females showed similar levels of disgust to socio-moral elicitors, but females showed higher levels to core elicitors. Overall, the results suggest that a different emotional construct was activated by each type of elicitor.     

Handheld Devices: The Barrier for Parents with Mental Health Difficulties in Child Outcomes

Journal of Child and Family Studies - The parenting landscape has changed dramatically over the last decade with the increasing prevalence of screen time. There is a growing body of evidence that...     

The death crisis and pastoral counseling

Death is an event that presents a crisis to the family system. Conceptualizing death as a stressor event and recognizing the variety of coping resources present in and available to bereaved families and individuals, along with the meaning attached to death, can help interventionists to perceive stategies for providing assistance in time of grief. Pastoral counselors are often needed to interpret death from a faith perspective, yet they may need to interpret the family's reaction to the death crisis in order to facilitate their readjustment. Analysis of the death event using Reuben Hill's crisis equation provides a workable conceptual framework.     

The strategic use of alternative representations in arithmetic word problem solving

Multiple-step arithmetic problems can be solved by diverse strategies depending on the mental representation constructed by individuals from the situation described in the text of the problem. This representation will indeed determine the organization of subgoals to be reached or in other words the order of completion of calculations. This study aims at determining the conditions under which specific strategies are set up by adults. Using a paradigm that allows us to assess when calculations are performed, we show that adults usually organize their subgoals as they are explicitly mentioned in the problem, even though a strategy that is less demanding on working memory could have been used. However, we show that increasing the difficulty of the problem leads individuals to set up more economic strategies. Moreover, these economic strategies are even more likely to be used when the cognitive cost of the construction of the representation they rely on is low.