You Wore Me Down: Self‐Control Strength and Social Influence

The ability to effectively regulate one’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior is at the heart of human agency. Numerous insights in self‐regulation have recently been gained utilizing the strength, or limited‐resource, model of self‐control. Much of this work has focused on the intrapersonal impact of self‐control; however, an emerging body of work has begun to shift attention toward the interpersonal realm with similar success. In this article, we review the role that regulatory strength has in social influence. Work from persuasion, compliance, and conformity demonstrate that (1) resisting social influences consumes regulatory resources and (2) when these resources are depleted, people become more susceptible to social influences. We conclude by highlighting important implications that remain unanswered and suggest potential areas of future development.     

Categorization and cognitive deficits in compulsive hoarding

According to the cognitive-behavioural model of compulsive hoarding, information-processing deficits in the areas of attention, memory, decision-making, and categorization contribute to hoarding behaviour. The purpose of the current study was to examine whether individuals with compulsive hoarding exhibited impairment on executive functioning and categorization tasks. Three groups of participants were recruited (N = 60): individuals with compulsive hoarding syndrome, individuals with an Axis I mood or anxiety disorder, and non-clinical control participants. All participants completed self-report measures of cognitive difficulties, neuropsychological tests of executive functioning and decision-making, and four categorization tasks. Results suggested that hoarding participants reported more cognitive failures and more problems with attention and decision-making than non-clinical control participants. In addition, hoarding participants performed worse than both control groups on the Stockings of Cambridge (SOC), a neuropsychological test of planning ability, and were slower and more anxious during a categorization task. These findings suggest that specific deficits in executive functioning may be associated with the difficulties hoarding patients have organizing their possessions.     

The role of comorbid disruptive behavior in the clinical expression of pediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder

This study explored the impact of disruptive behavior disorder (DBD) comorbidity on a number of theoretically relevant outcomes among 192 children and adolescents with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Youth were divided into three groups: OCD Only, OCD+DBD comorbidity and OCD+Other comorbidity. Relative to those without a comorbid condition and those with any non-DBD comorbidity, comorbid DBD was associated with greater family accommodation and less symptom resistance. Youth with comorbid DBD exhibited greater OCD symptom severity, OCD-related impairment, anxiety, and internalizing problems than those with no comorbidity. Those with comorbid DBD were over 3.6 times as likely to be taking an atypical antipsychotic medication relative to children without comorbidity. The present results suggest that comorbid DBD contributes to more severe illness presentation above and beyond an OCD diagnosis alone, and may be associated with differing pharmacotherapy prescribing practices.     

Gaze allocation in a dynamic situation: effects of social status and speaking

Human visual attention operates in a context that is complex, social and dynamic. To explore this, we recorded people taking part in a group decision-making task and then showed video clips of these situations to new participants while tracking their eye movements. Observers spent the majority of time looking at the people in the videos, and in particular at their eyes and faces. The social status of the people in the clips had been rated by their peers in the group task, and this status hierarchy strongly predicted where eye-tracker participants looked: high-status individuals were gazed at much more often, and for longer, than low-status individuals, even over short, 20-s videos. Fixation was temporally coupled to the person who was talking at any one time, but this did not account for the effect of social status on attention. These results are consistent with a gaze system that is attuned to the presence of other individuals, to their social status within a group, and to the information most useful for social interaction.     

Postural asymmetries in response to holding evenly and unevenly distributed loads during self-selected stance

The authors examined postural asymmetries during quiet stance and while holding evenly or unevenly distributed loads. Right-hand dominant subjects preferentially loaded their right lower limb when holding no load or a load evenly distributed in both hands, but no differences in center of pressure (CoP) were observed between the left and right limbs. However, longer CoP displacement was observed under the preferentially loaded limb, which may reflect a functional asymmetry that allows quick movement of one limb in response to a potential perturbation. When a load was held only in the nondominant hand, sample entropy decreased in the left (loaded) limb but increased in the right (unloaded) limb, suggesting the unloaded foot compensated for a loss of control flexibility in the loaded foot.     

Social influence modulates the neural computation of value

Social influence--individuals' tendency to conform to the beliefs and attitudes of others--has interested psychologists for decades. However, it has traditionally been difficult to distinguish true modification of attitudes from mere public compliance with social norms; this study addressed this challenge using functional neuroimaging. Participants rated the attractiveness of faces and subsequently learned how their peers ostensibly rated each face. Participants were then scanned using functional MRI while they rated each face a second time. The second ratings were influenced by social norms: Participants changed their ratings to conform to those of their peers. This social influence was accompanied by modulated engagement of two brain regions associated with coding subjective value--the nucleus accumbens and orbitofrontal cortex--a finding suggesting that exposure to social norms affected participants' neural representations of value assigned to stimuli. These findings document the utility of neuroimaging to demonstrate the private acceptance of social norms.     

Psychopathy as Predictor and Moderator of Multisystemic Therapy Outcomes among Adolescents Treated for Antisocial Behavior

Objective

The aim of the present study was to determine whether psychopathic traits act as a predictor and/or moderator of the effectiveness of Multisystemic Therapy (MST).

Method

The sample included N?=?256 adolescents (188 boys and 68 girls) referred for conduct problems, randomized to MST or Treatment As Usual (TAU). The mean age was 16 years (SD?=?1.31). Assessments were carried out before and immediately after treatment (6 months later). Three psychopathic traits (callous/unemotional traits, narcissism, and impulsiveness) were assessed with parent reports. Adolescents and parents were informants on externalizing problems.

Results

MST was more effective than TAU in decreasing externalizing problems for the “lower callous/unemotional” and “lower narcissism” group, but not for the “high callous/unemotional” and “high narcissism” group (moderators). Impulsiveness was found to predict more post-treatment externalizing problems rated by adolescents (predictor), but not more post-treatment externalizing problems rated by parents.

Conclusions

These findings point out the clinical relevance of adequately assessing psychopathic traits in adolescents referred for treatment of antisocial behaviour, and identifying those adolescents who show high levels of these traits. It is important to tailor MST specifically to meet the needs of juveniles with high levels of callous/unemotional traits and high levels of narcissism to obtain the same level of effectiveness as with juveniles scoring lower on these traits.     

A Multicultural Application of Attachment Theory with Immigrant Families: Contextual and Developmental Adaptations

This article explores attachment theory from a multicultural perspective to highlight adaptive considerations for immigrant families. The specific considerations of the theory reviewed are (1) attachment sensitivity based on social and cultural context and (2) the effect of maturation on families’ developmental needs and how this can be integrated within context. A case conceptualization of a Bosnian immigrant family living within the United States will highlight potential variations in the adaptation process. How therapists can support in providing culturally-sensitive applications of attachment theory to promote family relationships will be discussed.     

Armed and attentive: Holding a weapon can bias attentional priorities in scene viewing

The action-specific perception hypothesis (Witt, Current Directions in Psychological Science 20: 201–206, 2011) claims that the environment is represented with respect to potential interactions for objects present within said environment. This investigation sought to extend the hypothesis beyond perceptual mechanisms and assess whether action-specific potential could alter attentional allocation. To do so, we examined a well-replicated attention bias in the weapon focus effect (Loftus, Loftus, & Messo, Law and Human Behaviour 1, 55–62, 1987), which represents the tendency for observers to attend more to weapons than to neutral objects. Our key manipulation altered the anticipated action-specific potential of observers by providing them a firearm while they freely viewed scenes with and without weapons present. We replicated the original weapon focus effect using modern eye tracking and confirmed that the increase in time looking at weapons comes at a cost of less time spent looking at faces. Additionally, observers who held firearms while viewing the various scenes showed a general bias to look at faces over objects, but only if the firearm was in a readily usable position (i.e., pointed at the scenes rather than holstered at one’s side). These two effects, weapon focus and the newly found bias to look more at faces when armed, canceled out one another without interacting. This evidence confirms that the action capabilities of the observer alter more than just perceptual mechanisms and that holding a weapon can change attentional priorities. Theoretical and real-world implications are discussed.     

Attachment to God,Spiritual Coping,and Alcohol Use

We examined the effect of emotional God attachment on undergraduates' alcohol use generally and for coping purposes and whether spiritual coping styles (collaborative, deferring, and self-directing) drive this effect. As hypothesized, people who feel secure in their emotional relationship with God use significantly more deferring, more collaborative, and less self-directing coping styles than people who feel anxious-ambivalent in their emotional relationship to God. Anxious-ambivalents use significantly more deferring, more collaborative, and less self-directing coping than people who feel disengaged from God (avoidants). Secures use alcohol significantly less than anxious-ambivalents, who use alcohol significantly less than avoidants. The effect of God attachment on general alcohol use was mediated by the use of self-directing (but not deferring or collaborative) spiritual coping style.