Understanding the Effect of Social Capital on the Depression of Urban Chinese Adolescents: An Integrative Framework

Using data from an ongoing longitudinal study of 5,164 adolescents and their parents from seven cities in mainland China, this study investigated how social capital embedded in the family and the community, together with family human capital and financial capital, influenced the depressive symptoms of urban Chinese adolescents within an integrative framework. The structural equation modeling results suggested that higher community social capital was associated with lower level of adolescent depressive symptoms and was the strongest predictor among all these contextual factors. Family social capital played a significant role in mediating the effects of all other contextual factors on adolescent depressive symptoms. Unexpectedly, higher family financial capital predicted increased depressive symptoms both directly and indirectly through its negative effect on family social capital. As for gender, female adolescents reported more depressive symptoms as a result of less available family social capital. Implications of these findings for theory, practice, policy, and future research are discussed.     

Frontal cortex functioning in the infant broader autism phenotype

Atypical attention has been proposed as a marker of the broader autism phenotype. In the present study we investigated this and the related process of inhibitory control at the youngest possible age through the study of infant siblings of children with an autism spectrum disorder (Sibs-ASD). Both attention and inhibition have been related to the frontal cortex of the brain. Nine- to ten-month-old Sibs-ASD and low-risk control infants completed the Freeze-Frame task, in which infants are encouraged to inhibit looks to peripherally presented distractors whilst looking at a central animation. The attractiveness of the central stimulus is varied in order to investigate the selectivity of infants’ responses. In line with previous studies, it was found that a subset of Sibs-ASD infants had difficulty disengaging attention from a central stimulus in order to orient to a peripheral stimulus. The Sibs-ASD group also showed less Selective Inhibition than controls. However, Sibs-ASD infants did demonstrate Selective Inhibitory Learning. These results provide preliminary evidence for atypical frontal cortex functioning in the infant broader autism phenotype.     

Sound naming in neurodegenerative disease

Modern cognitive neuroscientific theories and empirical evidence suggest that brain structures involved in movement may be related to action-related semantic knowledge. To test this hypothesis, we examined the naming of environmental sounds in patients with corticobasal degeneration (CBD) and progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), two neurodegenerative diseases associated with cognitive and motor deficits. Subjects were presented with 56 environmental sounds: 28 sounds were of objects that required manipulation when producing the sound, and 28 sounds were of objects that required no manipulation. Subjects were asked to provide the name of the object that produced the sound and also complete a sound-picture matching condition. Subjects included 33 individuals from four groups: CBD/PSP, Alzheimer disease, frontotemporal dementia, and normal controls. We hypothesized that CBD/PSP patients would exhibit impaired naming performance compared with controls, but the impairment would be most apparent when naming sounds associated with actions. We also explored neural correlates of naming environmental sounds using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) of brain MRI. As expected, CBD/PSP patients scored lower on environmental sounds naming (p < 0.007) compared with the controls. In particular, the CBD/PSP patients scored the lowest when naming sounds of manipulable objects (p < 0.05), but did not show deficits in naming sounds of non-manipulable objects. VBM analysis across all groups showed that performance in naming sounds of manipulable objects correlated with atrophy in the left pre-motor region, extending from area six to the middle and superior frontal gyrus. These results indicate an association between impairment in the retrieval of action-related names and the motor system, and suggest that difficulty in naming manipulable sounds may be related to atrophy in the pre-motor cortex. Our results support the hypothesis that retrieval of action-related semantic knowledge involves motor regions in the brain.     

Fairness Reactions to Selection Methods: A Romanian study

This study examined fairness reactions to 10 selection methods in a sample of 240 Romanian employees. The results showed that Romanian employees rated work samples, interviews, written ability tests, and resumes as favorable, but graphology, ethnicity, and personal contacts as unfavorable. Perceived predictive validity was identified as the strongest predictor of process favorability ratings. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Resilience as positive coping appraisals: Testing the schematic appraisals model of suicide (SAMS)

Aims

The Schematic Appraisals Model of Suicide (SAMS) suggests that positive self-appraisals may be important for buffering suicidal thoughts and behaviours, potentially providing a key source of resilience. The current study aimed to explore whether positive self-appraisals buffered individuals from suicidality in the face of stressful life events.

Method

78 participants who reported experiencing some degree of suicidality were recruited from a student population. They completed a battery of questionnaires including measures of suicidality, stressful life events and positive self-appraisals.

Results

Positive self-appraisals moderated the association between stressful life events and suicidality. For those reporting moderate or high levels of positive self-appraisals, raised incidence of stressful life events did not lead to increases in suicidality.

Discussion

These results support the SAMS framework, and suggest that positive self-appraisals may confer resilience to suicide. Positive self-appraisals may be a promising avenue for further resilience research, and an important area to target for suicide interventions.     

Communal and exchange relationship perceptions as separate constructs and their role in motivations to donate

Researchers have operationalized communal and exchange relationship perceptions as either mutually exclusive categories or opposite ends of a continuum. This research conceptualizes these relationships as distinct constructs that should be measured separately. We develop multi-item measures of communal and exchange relationship perceptions and find that they are actually positively correlated. We also examine the way communal and exchange relationship perceptions combine to influence intrinsic, extrinsic, and social motivations to donate, a category stipulated in economics, but not in psychology. We find that both relationship perceptions influence consumer attitudes toward donating through a mix of intrinsic, extrinsic, and social motivations.     

Ethics in the Humanities: Findings from Focus Groups

This project examined the ethical issues faced by academics and professionals in the Humanities. We conducted focus groups to gather information about the ethical concerns in these fields and used the qualitative data arising from the discussions to create a taxonomy that represents the structure of ethical issues in the Humanities. A key implication of our findings is that while the focus of ethics research and interventions has been primarily on the sciences and engineering, academics and professionals in other fields also encounter some unique critical ethical dilemmas that require further research and methods of intervention.     

The Infectious Diseases Society of America Lyme guidelines: a cautionary tale about the development of clinical practice guidelines

Flawed clinical practice guidelines may compromise patient care. Commercial conflicts of interest on panels that write treatment guidelines are particularly problematic, because panelists may have conflicting agendas that influence guideline recommendations. Historically, there has been no legal remedy for conflicts of interest on guidelines panels. However, in May 2008, the Attorney General of Connecticut concluded a ground-breaking antitrust investigation into the development of Lyme disease treatment guidelines by one of the largest medical societies in the United States, the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA). Although the investigation found significant flaws in the IDSA guidelines development process, the subsequent review of the guidelines mandated by the settlement was compromised by a lack of impartiality at various stages of the IDSA review process. This article will examine the interplay between the recent calls for guidelines reform, the ethical canons of medicine, and due process considerations under antitrust laws as they apply to the formulation of the IDSA Lyme disease treatment guidelines. The article will also discuss pitfalls in the implementation of the IDSA antitrust settlement that should be avoided in the future.