Economic Disadvantage and Young Children’s Emotional and Behavioral Problems: Mechanisms of Risk

This study aimed to establish potential mechanisms through which economic disadvantage contributes to the development of young children’s internalizing and externalizing problems. Prospective data from fetal life to age 3 years were collected in a total of 2,169 families participating in the Generation R Study. The observed physical home environment, the provision of learning materials in the home, maternal depressive symptoms, parenting stress, and harsh disciplining practices were all analyzed as potential mediators of the association between economic disadvantage and children’s internalizing and externalizing problem scores. Findings from structural equation modeling showed that for both internalizing and externalizing problems, the mechanisms underlying the effect of economic disadvantage included maternal depressive symptoms, along with parenting stress and harsh disciplining. For internalizing but not for externalizing problem scores, the lack of provision of learning materials in the home was an additional mechanism explaining the effect of economic disadvantage. The current results suggest that interventions that focus solely on raising income levels may not adequately address problems in the family processes that emerge as a result of economic disadvantage. Policies to improve the mental health of mothers with young children but also their home environments are needed to change the economic gradient in child behavior.     

Stability and predictors of psychopathic traits from mid‐adolescence through early adulthood

High levels of psychopathic traits in youth are associated with multiple negative outcomes including substance misuse, aggressive behavior, and criminality. Evidence regarding stability of psychopathic traits is contradictory. No previous study has examined long‐term stability of psychopathic traits assessed with validated clinical measures. The present study examined the stability of psychopathic traits from mid‐adolescence to early adulthood and explored adolescent factors that predicted psychopathic traits five years later. The sample included 99 women and 81 men who had consulted a clinic for substance misuse in adolescence. At an average age of 16.8 years, the adolescents were assessed using the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL: YV) and five years later using the PCL‐Revised (PCL‐R). Additionally, extensive clinical assessments of the adolescents and their parents were completed in mid‐adolescence. Among both females and males, moderate to high rank‐order stability was observed for total PCL and facet scores. Among both females and males, there was a decrease in the mean total PCL score, interpersonal facet score, affective facet score, and lifestyle facet score. However, the great majority of females and males showed no change in psychopathy scores over the five‐year period as indicated by the Reliable Change Index. Despite the measures of multiple family and individual factors in adolescence, only aggressive behavior and male sex predicted PCL‐R total scores in early adulthood after taking account of PCL:YV scores. Taken together, these results from a sample who engaged in antisocial behavior in adolescence suggest that factors promoting high psychopathy scores act early in life.     

Reliability and validity of the Leuven Perceptual Organization Screening Test (L‐POST)

Neuropsychological tests of visual perception mostly assess high‐level processes like object recognition. Object recognition, however, relies on distinct mid‐level processes of perceptual organization that are only implicitly tested in classical tests. Furthermore, the psychometric properties of the existing instruments are limited. To fill this gap, the Leuven perceptual organization screening test (L‐POST) was developed, in which a wide range of mid‐level phenomena are measured in 15 subtests. In this study, we evaluated reliability and validity of the L‐POST. Performance on the test is evaluated relative to a norm sample of more than 1,500 healthy control participants. Cronbach's alpha of the norm sample and test–retest correlations for 20 patients provide evidence for adequate reliability of L‐POST performance. The convergent and discriminant validity of the test was assessed in 40 brain‐damaged patients, whose performance on the L‐POST was compared with standard clinical tests of visual perception and other measures of cognitive function. The L‐POST showed high sensitivity to visual dysfunction and decreased performance was specific to visual problems. In conclusion, the L‐POST is a reliable and valid screening test for perceptual organization. It offers a useful online tool for researchers and clinicians to get a broader overview of the mid‐level processes that are preserved or disrupted in a given patient.     

It Pays to Pay Attention: A Mindfulness-Based Program for Injury Prevention With Soccer Players

The aim of this study was to examine the extent to which a mindfulness-based program could reduce the number of sport injuries in a sample of soccer players. A total of 41 junior elite soccer players were randomly assigned to the treatment or the attentional control group. The treatment group took part in a 7-session program based on the mindfulness, acceptance, and commitment approach. The attentional control group was offered 7 sessions of sport psychology presentations with a particular focus on soccer. There were no statistically significant differences in injury rates between the two groups, U(39) = 149.50, z = ?1.77, p =.077, but there was a medium effect size (adjusted Cohen's d = ? 0.59), approx. 80% confidence interval for d [?0.37, ?0.74]. Moreover, 67% of the players in the mindfulness group remained injury free in comparison to 40% in the control group. This result implies that an intervention program focusing on strategies for improving attention could decrease injury risk. Recommendations include applying mindfulness exercises in athletes’ daily training to help lower injury risk.     

Forgiveness in personal relationships: Its malleability and powerful consequences

The present chapter examines the nature and consequences of forgiveness. First we provide an overview of studies suggesting that the level of forgiveness tends to be quite malleable, as indicated by a number of empirical findings demonstrating that situational cues can subtly influence an individual's level of forgiveness. Extending the general view on forgiveness as a deliberative and intentional act, we review evidence indicating that forgiveness is at least partly determined by automatic and unconscious processes. In the second part of the chapter we provide an overview of studies demonstrating that, despite the notion that level of forgiveness can be malleable, seemingly small fluctuations in forgiveness can still have profound consequences both at the intrapersonal and interpersonal levels, and may have generalised effects on prosocial behaviour over people and situations. We conclude by proposing a model that not only summarises many of the findings reviewed in this chapter, but also may serve as a heuristic framework for testing predictions about the impact of forgiveness on individuals, relationships, and beyond.     

“If I Didn't Have My Faith I Would Have Killed Myself!”: Spiritual Coping in Patients Suffering From Schizophrenia

Spirituality, religiousness, and existential thought were qualitatively investigated in six patients suffering from schizophrenia spectrum disorders. The present study is a deepening of a recently published quantitative investigation by Danbolt, Møller, Lien, and Hestad (2011) Danbolt, L., Møller, P., Lien, L. and Hestad, K. 2011. The personal significance of religiousness and spirituality in patients with schizophrenia. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 21: 145–158. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]. The patients in the present study were chosen on the basis of diversity as to how they experienced their spirituality to be of significance when coping with their disorder. The informants displayed many signs of spiritual struggle and transitional spiritual coping strategies, all of which seemed to be linked to hallucinatory experiences. Even though their spirituality met the criteria of religious delusions, the patients described their spirituality to have vital importance. The informants showed little spiritual preknowledge and seemed to be left alone without any clerical support in their spiritual struggle. This may underline the importance of including spiritual issues in the treatment of these patients.     

Relationship between anxiety and dyspnea on exertion in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Abstract

Dyspnea limits exercise in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and is known to induce anxiety. Little is known whether anxiety contributes to exercise-induced dyspnea, which in turn might influence the outcome of diagnostic tests. The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between general anxiety and dyspnea on exertion in patients with COPD.

Ninety patients with stable COPD participated; 44 men, mean age 61 (standard deviation (SD) 10.4), and mean forced expiratory volume in 1 second (%pred.) 40.5 (SD 16.9). All participants performed pulmonary function tests and an incremental cycle ergometry. The Modified Borg Scale was used to measure the level of dyspnea on exertion. Anxiety symptoms were assessed with the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. Data were analyzed using Spearman's correlations and multivariate regression. Dyspnea on exertion was correlated with general anxiety (r=.31), age (r=–.30), and exercise capacity (r=.27). Regression analysis showed that general anxiety was associated with dyspnea on exertion, adjusted for sex, age, baseline dyspnea, and exercise capacity. Consequently, it is reasoned that results of exercise training and activities in daily living may be influenced negatively by anxiety-worsened dyspnea. Attention should be given to anxiety management in patients with COPD to optimize exercise training.     

Rapid Integration of Contour Fragments: From Simple Filling-in to Parts-based Shape Description

Line drawings are easy to recognize, although the only information to the visual system is the contour itself. Starting from information theory and a theory of decomposition in parts, we investigated whether certain regions of such a contour are perceptually more relevant than others, using a deletion detection paradigm. In this paradigm, high detectability means poor contour integration, and vice versa. Regions of interest were curvature singularities, namely positive maxima (M+), negative minima (m?) and inflection points (I), of smooth, closed contours. In Experiment 1, we performed a first exploration of the detectability of deletions around these three types of curvature singularities. M+ deletions were easier to detect than the deletions around the other two singularities, a result that is explained using a post hoc combination of both mentioned theoretical frameworks. In Experiment 2, we replicated these findings using figure-background reversal, so thatthe same physical deletions could either be M+ or m?. Again, the M+ deletions were easier to detect than m? deletions. Although both types of singularities involve regions of high curvature changes, they differ in that mdeletions create gaps that concur with spontaneous segmentation.     

Continuous time modelling with individually varying time intervals for oscillating and non‐oscillating processes

When designing longitudinal studies, researchers often aim at equal intervals. In practice, however, this goal is hardly ever met, with different time intervals between assessment waves and different time intervals between individuals being more the rule than the exception. One of the reasons for the introduction of continuous time models by means of structural equation modelling has been to deal with irregularly spaced assessment waves (e.g., Oud & Delsing, 2010). In the present paper we extend the approach to individually varying time intervals for oscillating and non‐oscillating processes. In addition, we show not only that equal intervals are unnecessary but also that it can be advantageous to use unequal sampling intervals, in particular when the sampling rate is low. Two examples are provided to support our arguments. In the first example we compare a continuous time model of a bivariate coupled process with varying time intervals to a standard discrete time model to illustrate the importance of accounting for the exact time intervals. In the second example the effect of different sampling intervals on estimating a damped linear oscillator is investigated by means of a Monte Carlo simulation. We conclude that it is important to account for individually varying time intervals, and encourage researchers to conceive of longitudinal studies with different time intervals within and between individuals as an opportunity rather than a problem.