Maternal Depression and Adolescent Emotions: The Role of Family Functioning

Maternal depression may affect children through various mechanisms, including the stressful contexts of the children’s lives and maternal maladaptive affection, behaviors, and cognition, which affect the psychopathological development of children and contribute to disorders. The aims of the present study were to explore how family functioning mediates the relationship between maternal depression and the positive and negative emotions of adolescents. A total of 430 paired questionnaires were collected from junior high school students and their mothers. The mothers completed the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CESD), and the adolescents completed the CESD, Mood and Anxiety Symptom Questionnaire, and Family Function Scale. The results revealed significant correlations among maternal depression, family functioning, and positive and negative emotions in the adolescents. The family functioning subscales of conflict and emotional expression partially mediated the relationship between maternal depression and the positive and negative emotions of the adolescents. Furthermore, the family functioning subscales of cohesion, problem solving, and responsibility fully mediated the relationship between maternal depression and positive moods in the adolescents. Analysis of the results for maternal depression, family functioning, and the emotional adjustment of the adolescents indicated that family functioning is the mediator between maternal depression and the positive and negative emotions of the adolescents. The current results suggest that adequate family functioning can prevent depression being transmitted from mothers to their adolescent children.     

Self-Reported Parenting of Clinic-Referred and Non-referred Mexican American Mothers of Young Children

Behavioral parent training (BPT) interventions for child behavior problems have been based on decades of research that demonstrate links between particular parent behaviors and child externalizing problems. However, the majority of this research has been conducted with European-American (EA) families, and less is known about whether these findings can be generalized to Mexican Americans (MAs). In the current study, we investigated self-reported parenting practices that have been associated with externalizing behavior problems among EA families (harsh parenting, inconsistency, and low parental warmth), to determine if those practices can also differentiate MA mothers whose young children have clinically significant behavior problems from MA mothers whose children do not have behavior problems. Participants were 115 MA families with young children, 58 with a child with clinically significant behavior problems and 57 with a child in the normal range for such problems. Results indicated that MA mothers whose children have behavior problems self-reported significantly less warmth and consistency and more harsh parenting compared to parents whose children’s behavior was in the normal range. These findings indicate that parenting behaviors that are associated with externalizing behavior problems among EA families are associated with the same problems among MA families with young children, suggesting that parent training interventions designed to target these behaviors are also likely to be relevant to MA families with children in this age range. However, findings also indicate that parenting behaviors differ depending on acculturation level, suggesting that BPT programs must respond to variation in normative parenting practices for MA families.     

Modeling geometric–optical illusions: A variational approach

Visual distortions of perceived lengths, angles, or forms, are generally known as “geometric–optical illusions” (goi). In the present paper we focus on a class of gois where the distortion of a straight line segment (the “target” stimulus) is induced by an array of non-intersecting curvilinear elements (“context” stimulus). Assuming local target–context interactions in a vector field representation of the context, we propose to model the perceptual distortion of the target as the solution to a minimization problem in the calculus of variations. We discuss properties of the solutions and reproduction of the respective form of the perceptual distortion for several types of contexts. Moreover, we draw a connection between the interactionist model of gois and Riemannian geometry: the context stimulus is understood as perturbing the geometry of the visual field from which the illusory distortion naturally arises. The approach is illustrated by data from a psychophysical experiment with nine subjects and six different contexts.     

中国儿童和青少年肤色色度的测定

采用色差测色计对548名3—17岁的中国儿童和青少年进行了脸颊部肤色色度测定,分别测出X、Y、Z三刺激值及x、y色度坐标。结果表明:中国儿童和青少年的平均肤色色度值为x=0,3828,y=0.3454;反射率为26.02%;主波长为590.2nm;刺激纯度(Pe)为27.4%。女性的反射率略高于男性,反射率有随着年龄增长而逐步下降的趋势。男性的肤色刺激纯度则略高于女性,饱和度随着年龄增长而有逐步增大的趋势。中国儿童和青少年的结果和成年人的比较,反射率较之成年人高3%左右,饱和度则低4%左右,主波长则较长约0.9nm。     

《大学生主观幸福感量表》的编制

根据国内外关于主观幸福感的文献和已有的研究经验,编制了大学生主观幸福感问卷。以往大多数研究认为,主观幸福感由生活满意度和情绪体验两个基本成分构成,本研究认为主观幸福感还应包括社会性行为和人际关系等成分。对376名大学生进行初测,通过探索性因素分析,表明大学生主观幸福感由自我满意、家庭满意、消极情绪、积极情绪、精力、生活满意、社会性行为和人际关系8个维度构成,共41个项目。对511名大学生施测41个项目的主观幸福感问卷,进行验证性因素分析,结果表明,上述结构是合理的。     

What makes a meaningful life? Examining the effects of interpersonal harmony,dialectical coping,and nonattachment

Past cross‐cultural research on well‐being has tended to base Eastern construction of well‐being on the interdependent self‐construal, mainly as an offshoot of Confucius relationalism. However, other influential philosophical traditions in East Asian societies (i.e., Taoism and Buddhism) that portray a different picture of well‐being have received scant scholarly attention. We aim to foreground the distinctiveness of three well‐being constructs salient to Chinese culture, namely, interpersonal harmony, dialectical coping, and nonattachment, by providing experimental evidence on their differential effects on perceived meaning in life. Participants were 173 Taiwanese college students. Using priming procedures, participants primed with interpersonal harmony and dialectical coping reported higher levels of meaning in life as compared to those in the nonattachment and neutral control conditions. In addition, comparisons among the three well‐being constructs revealed that although the effects of interpersonal harmony and dialectical coping on meaning in life were similar in strength, they were both significantly stronger than that of nonattachment. The findings attest to the importance of recognizing within‐culture differences when conducting research on well‐being. Results were considered in terms of their methodological and theoretical implications.     

Suppressor Effects of Positive and Negative Religious Coping on Academic Burnout Among Korean Middle School Students

Statistical suppressor effects in prediction models can provide evidence of the interdependent relationship of independent variables. In this study, the suppressor effects of positive and negative religious coping on academic burnout were examined using longitudinal data. First, 388 middle school students reported their type of religion and use of positive and negative religious coping strategies. Four months later, they also reported their level of academic burnout. From structural equation modeling, significant suppressor effects were found among religious students. That is, the coefficients became larger when both positive and negative religious coping predicted academic burnout simultaneously, compared to when each religious coping predicted academic burnout alone. However, suppressor effects were not found among non-religious students.     

肿瘤内科治疗的疗效评价

肿瘤内科治疗是肿瘤综合治疗三大手段之一,在肿瘤治疗中占有举足轻重的地位。肿瘤内科治疗的疗效评价也逐步发展和完善。新的疗效评价指标逐渐被接受,延长生存期和提高肿瘤病人的生存质量已成为肿瘤内科治疗疗效评价的原则,临床肿瘤学工作者应转变观念,以利于更好地开展临床工作。     

Effects of Age and Location in Chinese Relative Clauses Processing

Three experiments investigated Chinese relative clause processing with children, youths and elders using sentence-picture matching and self-paced reading methods. In Experiment 1, we found that object-extracted clause were easier to comprehend than subject-extracted clause , and object-modified relative clause (i.e., object-modified subject-extracted clause\(\backslash \)object-modified object-extracted clause) were difficult to comprehend than subject modified relative clause (subject-modified subject-extracted clause\(\backslash \)subject-modified object-extracted clause). Importantly, this paper also found 5–6.5 ages may be critical for children to comprehend RCs in Chinese. Experiment 2 also showed that S-ORCs were easier to comprehend than S-SRCs for youths and elders. Further, elders have more difficulty comprehending RCs than youths. Experiment 3 indicated that there were no significant differences in difficulty between O-SRCs and O-ORCs, and no differences were found between youths and elders. In general, our findings gave support to predictions of working memory-based theory, and also indicated that RCs processing has an intricate course. Many factors such as syntactic, language specificity, experience, personality, must all be considered in sentence processing.