The Neurotherapy of Anxiety Disorders

Only five studies of patients met criteria for this review. Four of the five had a good clinical outcome. The only one without efficacy reported no enhancement of the target waveform. Of the other four, two reported some enhancement, whereas two gave no details about changes in the target waveform. There were 10 studies of nonpatients with generalized anxiety, of which eight had a good outcome. The decrease of anxiety in these eight studies was correlated with enhancement of the target waveform in five. Three of the eight had no increase of alpha, showing placebo plays a part in neurotherapy. There were nine studies of nonpatients with phobic anxiety, of which six had enhancement of the target waveform accompanied by good outcome. The remaining three studies had poor outcome in spite of enhancement of the target waveform.     

The Importance of Affective Beliefs and Attitudes in the Theory of Planned Behavior: Predicting Intention to Increase Physical Activity1

Standard theory of planned behavior (TPB) questions to elicit salient behavioral beliefs may elicit instrumental consequences of behavior, and overlook affective consequences. Two hundred thirteen English adults (35 to 75 years of age) completed a questionnaire that contained closed measures of TPB constructs, and open‐ended questions that asked not only about advantages and disadvantages, but also what respondents would like or enjoy and dislike or hate about being more physically active. Beliefs elicited by affective questions were associated more strongly with a closed affective attitude scale. Beliefs elicited by instrumental questions were associated more strongly with a closed instrumental attitude scale. Closed measures of the standard TPB variables explained 48% of the variance in intention to increase physical activity, while affective attitude explained an additional 11% of the variance. Applications of the TPB should consider affective and not just instrumental determinants of behavior.     

The influence of parenting on infant emotionality: A multi-level psychobiological perspective

Infant temperament is theorized to have a strong genetic basis. Yet, studies of the stability of temperament and molecular genetics research on temperament have revealed inconsistent findings. One reason may be because research has not taken into account the influence of early social experiences. We review research on aspects of infant emotionality presumed to be temperamental in origin, emotion reactivity and emotion regulation, and integrate research addressing parenting influences on physiology and genetics of infant emotionality with traditional research on behavioral expression of emotionality. Empirical research supports the theory that sensitive and appropriately responsive parenting in infancy is related to more optimal patterns of behavioral and physiological reactivity and regulation. Molecular genetics research with both animal and human populations has produced consistent results when environmental experiences are taken into account. Findings suggest that the short allele of the serotonin transporter gene and the long allele of the DRD4 dopamine receptor gene may be related to distinct patterns of infant emotionality and to later problems with depression, impulse control problems, and externalizing/antisocial behaviors, primarily when paired with insensitive parenting, abuse or neglect, or other adverse family environments. Future directions and limitations in the field are discussed.     

Are expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal associated with stress-related symptoms?

Emotion dysregulation is thought to be critical to the development of negative psychological outcomes. Gross (1998b) conceptualized the timing of regulation strategies as key to this relationship, with response-focused strategies, such as expressive suppression, as less effective and more detrimental compared to antecedent-focused ones, such as cognitive reappraisal. In the current study, we examined the relationship between reappraisal and expressive suppression and measures of psychopathology, particularly for stress-related reactions, in both undergraduate and trauma-exposed community samples of women. Generally, expressive suppression was associated with higher, and reappraisal with lower, self-reported stress-related symptoms. In particular, expressive suppression was associated with PTSD, anxiety, and depression symptoms in the trauma-exposed community sample, with rumination partially mediating this association. Finally, based on factor analysis, expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal appear to be independent constructs. Overall, expressive suppression, much more so than cognitive reappraisal, may play an important role in the experience of stress-related symptoms. Further, given their independence, there are potentially relevant clinical implications, as interventions that shift one of these emotion regulation strategies may not lead to changes in the other.     

The Disproportionality Dilemma: Patterns of Teacher Referrals to School Counselors for Disruptive Behavior

Disproportionality plagues schools nationwide in special education placement, dropout, discipline referral, suspension, and expulsion rates. This study examined predictors of teacher referrals to school counselors for disruptive behavior in a sample of students selected from the Educational Longitudinal Study 2002 (National Center for Education Statistics, n.d.). Findings demonstrated that students’ race predicted English teacher referrals; students’ gender, previous disciplinary infractions, and teachers’ postsecondary expectations for students predicted English and math teacher referrals. Implications for practice, policy, and research are discussed.     

The organisation of musical semantic memory: Evidence from false memories for familiar songs

By adapting a well-known paradigm for studying memory for words—the Deese-Roediger-McDermott or DRM paradigm (Deese, 1959, Roediger & McDermott, 1995)—the two experiments reported here explore memory for song titles and song clips. Participants were presented with five song titles (Experiment 1a) or five 30-second song clips (Experiment 1b) for each of nine popular artists (e.g., Robbie Williams). The most popular song identified for each artist in a pilot task was omitted from the sets of titles/clips. Following a distractor task, participants were asked to write down as many of the songs as they could recall. They were also asked to return a week later and complete a second recall task. Participants falsely recalled a significant number of the related but non-presented songs in both experiments and this increased a week later, while correct recall for presented items decreased. The results are discussed in terms of theory for musical memory as well as in the context of providing a novel method for exploring the organisation of musical memory.