Changing Perspectives in Social Psychology in India: A Journey Towards Indigenization

The popularity and success of social psychology in the U.S. have created the impression that social psychology is purely a Western, if not a U.S. product. Many scholars from African and Asian continents accept this claim that the roots of social psychology are American, and have tried to emulate their research strategies and methodology. Only recently, the European social psychologists have established their identity and distinctness different from the culture of American social psychology. Among Asian social psychologists, there is a growing awareness of a distinct identity and a rediscovery of their cultural heritage. In particular, Indian social psychologists emphasize functional interrelatedness of the self, relations, society, and universe. With this indigenization process, social psychology in India is taking on a character distinctive from that of the West, is imparting a new look to social psychology, and promises to provide what the mainstream social psychology lacks.     

Rise in the Population of the Elderly,Familial Changes and their Psychosocial Implications: The Scenario of the Developing Countries

The rapid rise in the elderly population and the structural changes in the family and the support system that are a result of “modernization” constitute an important social dimension of global changes. Their psychosocial impacts are far-reaching especially in the developing countries. Changes in the demographic profile of the aged, the nature of familial changes and their implications with regard to support systems for the elderly, their health, role in socialisation, economic dependency, overall lifestyle, satisfaction, cognitive capacities, attitudes and aspirations are discussed in this paper.     

Social support and self-control as variables in attitude toward life and Perceived control among older people in India

The authors examined the effects of social support and self-control in a representative sample of 300 older adults in high-density households in an urban area of Agra City, India. The authors administered the Social Support Questionnaire (I. G. Sarason, H. M. Levine, R. B. Basham, & B. R. Sarason, 1983) and the Self-Control Schedule (M. Rosenbaum, 1980) to form a 2 (age group: young-old vs. old-old) x 2 (social support: high vs. low) x 2 (self-control: high vs. low) factorial design. Scores on the Life Attitude Profile (G. T. Recker & E. J. Peacock, 1981) and the Perceived Control Scale (P. Nayyar, 1993) were the dependent variables. The authors hypothesized that social support and self-control would act as moderators for a more positive attitude toward life and increased perceived control. The results supported the predictions: Social support and self-control in interaction with age reduced the crowding stress of high density and enhanced the older participants' perceived control and positive attitudes toward life.     

Multivariate Response Patterning of Fear and Anger

This study examined whether differential response patterns are associated with the emotions of fear and anger as compared to neutral and physical action imagery conditions in 27 right-handed male volunteers screened for imagery ability and alexithymia. Fear, anger, neutral, and action states were significantly differentiated on the basis of autonomic measures and facial electromyographic (EMG) responses. Discriminant function analyses (DFAs) using autonomic and facial EMG measures conducted separately on data from two experimental sessions revealed 78% and 72% correct classification of fear and anger, and neutral conditions, respectively. Cross-validation of the DFA using discriminant weights of the first session to classify the second session data led to a 66.5% correct classification of the fear and anger, and neutral imagery conditions. The combined average of both sessions revealed an 84% correct classification rate. Further, when subjective ratings were added to the discriminant function as a manipulation check for the experimental procedure, a 99% correct classification rate was obtained. These data indicate that emotion-specific response patterns for fear and anger are accurately differentiable from each other and from neutral imagery conditions. The findings provide support for the cognitive-physiological network models of physiological emotion specificity.     

Effects of A Parenting-Focused Mindfulness Intervention on Adolescent Substance Use and Psychopathology: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Substance use and psychopathology symptoms increase in adolescence. One key risk factor for these is high parent stress. Mindfulness interventions reduce stress in adults and may be useful to reduce parent stress and prevent substance use (SU) and psychopathology in adolescents. This study tested the feasibility and effects of a mindfulness intervention for parents on adolescent SU and psychopathology symptoms. Ninety-six mothers of 11–17 year olds were randomly assigned to a mindfulness intervention for parents (the Parenting Mindfully [PM] intervention) or a brief parent education [PE] control group. At pre-intervention, post-intervention, 6-month follow-up, and 1-year follow-up, adolescents reported on SU and mothers and adolescents reported on adolescent externalizing and internalizing symptoms. Primary intent to treat analyses found that the PM intervention prevented increases in adolescent SU over time, relative to the PE control group. The PM intervention also prevented increases in mother-reported externalizing symptoms over time relative to the PE control group. However, PM did not have a significant effect on internalizing symptoms. PM had an indirect effect on adolescent-reported externalizing symptoms through greater mother mindfulness levels at post-intervention, suggesting mother mindfulness as a potential intervention mechanism. Notably, while mothers reported high satisfaction with PM, intervention attendance was low (31% of mothers attended zero sessions). Secondary analyses with mothers who attended?>??=?50% of the interventions (n?=?48) found significant PM effects on externalizing symptoms, but not SU. Overall, findings support mindfulness training for parents as a promising intervention and future studies should work to promote accessibility for stressed parents.

Clinical Trials Identifier: NCT02038231; Date of Registration: January 13, 2014

     

Childhood abuse and neglect and cognitive flexibility in adolescents

Childhood maltreatment (CM) has been associated with diminished executive functioning in children and adults; however, there is a relative paucity of study of executive function in adolescents exposed to CM. Yet, executive dysfunction in adolescence may have important adverse consequences including increased vulnerability to risky behaviors and impaired school functioning. This study investigates the relationship between self-reported CM and an executive function, cognitive flexibility, in adolescents without identified psychiatric disorders. Effects of physical and emotional, abuse and neglect, maltreatment subtypes were explored. Thirty adolescents ages 12-17 years, 50% females, completed the retrospective self-report Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) and were administered the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). Correlational analyses assessed the relationship between WCST perseverative error scores norm-referenced for age and education with CTQ total scores. The relationship with nonperseverative errors, as well as with physical and emotional abuse and neglect CM subscores, were explored. Total CTQ scores showed significant associations with perseverative errors on the WCST, but not with nonperseverative errors. Significant associations with perseverative errors were seen for physical abuse and physical neglect among the CTQ subscales. The results suggest both physical abuse and physical neglect are associated with diminished cognitive flexibility in adolescents. These effects were detected in adolescents without identified psychiatric diagnoses suggesting the importance of considering executive dysfunction in adolescents exposed to CM who may not meet diagnostic criteria for an Axis I disorder and that tests of perseverative errors, such as those of the WCST, may be sensitive indicators of this dysfunction.     

Identifying illness perception schemata and their association with depression and quality of life in cardiac patients

The purpose of this paper is to identify groups of cardiac patients who share similar perceptions about their illness and to examine the relationships between these schemata and psychosocial outcomes such as quality of life and depression. A total of 190 cardiac patients with diagnoses of myocardial infarction, stable angina pectoris or chronic heart failure, completed a battery of psychosocial questionnaires within four weeks of their admission to hospital. These included the Brief Illness Perceptions Questionnaire (BIPQ), Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI II) and The MacNew Health-related Quality of Life instrument (MacNew). BIPQ items were subjected to latent class analysis (LCA) and the resulting groups were compared according to their BDI II and MacNew scores. LCA identified a five-class model of illness perception which comprised the following: (1) Consequence focused and mild emotional impact, n?=?55, 29%; (2) Low illness perceptions and low emotional impact, n?=?45, 24%; (3) Control focused and mild emotional impact, n?=?10, 5%; (4) Consequence focused and high emotional impact, n?=?60, 32%; and (5) Consequence focused and severe emotional impact, n?=?20, 10%. Gender and diagnosis did not appear to reflect class membership except that class 2 had a significantly higher proportion of AMI patients than did class 5. There were numerous significant differences between classes in regards to depression and health-related quality of life. Notably, classes 4 and 5 are distinguished by relatively high BDI II scores and low MacNew scores. Identifying classes of cardiac patients based on their illness perception schemata, in hospital or shortly afterwards, may identify those at risk of developing depressive symptoms and poor quality of life.     

Dissociating Medial Temporal and Striatal Memory Systems With a Same/Different Matching Task: Evidence for Two Neural Systems in Human Recognition

The medial temporal lobe and striatum have both been implicated as brain substrates of memory and learning. Here, we show dissociation between these two memory systems using a same/different matching task, in which subjects judged whether four-letter strings were the same or different. Different RT was determined by the left-to-right location of the first letter different between the study and test string, consistent with a left-to-right comparison of the study and test strings, terminating when a difference was found. This comparison process results in same responses being slower than different responses. Nevertheless, same responses were faster than different responses. Same responses were associated with hippocampus activation. Different responses were associated with both caudate and hippocampus activation. These findings are consistent with the dual-system hypothesis of mammalian memory and extend the model to human visual recognition.     

Observing object motion induces increased generalization and sensitivity

Learning to recognize a new object requires binding together dissimilar images of that object into a common representation. Temporal proximity is a useful computational cue for learning invariant representations. We report experiments that demonstrate two distinct psychophysical effects of temporal association via observed object motion on object perception. First, we use an implicit priming criterion to demonstrate that observation of a dynamic object induces generalization over close temporal neighbors. Second, in contrast to predictions from previous work, we find that shape discrimination between images actually improves following the same training procedure. We suggest that these apparently conflicting sets of results, one demonstrating blurring and the other demonstrating sharpening of the perceived distinction between temporally proximate frames, are consistent with a highly redundant code for object appearance.