The association between temperament and depressive symptoms in adolescence: brooding and reflection as potential mediators

This study examined whether rumination subtypes (brooding and reflection) mediated prospective associations between temperament (negative emotionality and positive emotionality) and depressive symptoms in a community sample of 423 adolescents. Effortful control and sex were examined as potential moderators of the mediated pathway. Youth self-reported negative emotionality (NE), positive emotionality (PE), and effortful control (EC) at age 12; brooding and reflection subtypes of rumination at age 14; and depressive symptoms at ages 12, 14, and 15. Hierarchical linear regression analyses indicated that, controlling for initial levels of depressive symptoms, high NE, but not low PE, predicted increases in depressive symptoms from age 12 to age 15. Brooding, but not reflection, mediated the association between NE and depressive symptoms. Neither sex nor EC moderated either indirect pathway in the mediated model. The results confirm and extend previous findings on the association between affective and cognitive vulnerability factors in predicting depressive symptoms in adolescence.     

Six-month-old infants perceive the hollow-face illusion

In this study we investigated infants' perception of the hollow-face illusion. 6-month-old infants were shown a concave mask under monocular and binocular viewing conditions and the direction of their reaches toward the mask was recorded. Adults typically perceive a concave mask as convex under monocular conditions but as concave under binocular conditions, depending on viewing distance. Based on previous findings that infants reach preferentially toward the parts of a display that are closest to them, we expected that, if infants perceive the hollow-face illusion as adults do, they would reach to the center of the mask when viewing it monocularly and to the edges when viewing it binocularly. The results were consistent with these predictions. Our findings indicated that the infants perceived the mask as convex when viewing it with one eye and concave when viewing it with two eyes. The results show that 6-month-old infants respond to the hollow-face illusion. Our finding suggests that, early in life, the visual system uses the constraint, or assumption, that faces are convex when interpreting visual input.     

The effects of managerial regulatory fit priming on reactions to explanations

We investigated the interactive effects of regulatory focus priming and message framing on the perceived fairness of unfavorable events. We hypothesized that individuals’ perceptions of fairness are higher when they receive a regulatory focus prime (promotion versus prevention) that is congruent with the framing of an explanation (gain versus loss), as opposed to one that is incongruent. We also hypothesized that these effects are mediated by counterfactual thinking. Three studies revealed that primed regulatory fit (promotion/gain or prevention/loss) led to higher levels of justice perceptions than regulatory misfit (promotion/loss or prevention/gain). Additionally, “could” and “should” counterfactuals partially mediated the relationship between regulatory fit and interactional justice (Study 3).     

Permanent Deacons and Non-profit Directors: Comparing Leadership Styles Among Facilitators of Community Agencies

Permanent deacons in the Roman Catholic Church (all male) are active in their local community and congregation mobilizing faith formation events, liturgical services, and community social action programs, yet not much is known about their leadership style. The present study compared U.S. 203 permanent deacons with 202 male community-based directors of non-profit agencies on their self-reported transformational leadership style, assessed by five subscales of competencies. Deacons and directors differed significantly on three subscales; deacons scored higher on the promoting positive values and leadership as service subscales, while directors scored higher on the building a sustainable organization subscale. Results suggested that the transformational leadership styles of U.S. permanent deacons is more value and service-centered, and, in comparison, community-based non-profit leaders seem to focus more on the group’s structure and health of their organization.     

Jean Baker Miller,MD, Visionary Pragmatist

ABSTRACT

Jean Baker Miller’s 1976 book, Toward a New Psychology of Women, was an overnight success. It struck a deep chord in many women because it was based on listening to women’s stories. Instead of seeing women through the lens of male psychology with its emphasis on separation and autonomy, Jean suggested that relationships are central to women’s experience of themselves and the world. Traits that were typically pathologized (needing other people, attending to the messages of emotions, wanting to participate in growth fostering relationships for all involved) were revisited by Jean and her colleagues who discovered strengths where others had seen weakness. The resulting work is known as Relational-Cultural Theory (RCT) and has offered new understandings of women’s and men’s development with a special emphasis on the impact of power and marginalization on personal and collective wellbeing. Jean’s work is carried forward by members of a collaborative group with whom Jean worked for many years. RCT theorists have written and edited over 20 books, 115 works in progress, and numerous chapters and articles that continue to elaborate on Jean’s groundbreaking work. RCT is applied to both clinical and social justice settings. Jean was devoted to contributing to the creation of a more just society.     

Too late to coordinate: Contextual influences on behavioral synchrony

The temporal coupling of behavior serves as a foundation for effective social exchange with synchronized actions moderating core components of social‐cognitive functioning. Questions remain, however, regarding the precise conditions under which this form of behavioral coordination emerges. In particular, do social factors moderate the extent to which people synchronize their movements with others? Given that synchrony serves as an important non‐verbal route through which interpersonal connections can be forged, the current investigation considered whether contextual influences moderate the emergence of behavioral coupling. To explore this issue, movements were recorded while participants performed a repetitive activity (i.e., stepping) with an interaction partner who either turned up for the experiment on time or was 15 minutes late. Results revealed that coordination (i.e., in‐phase synchrony) was substantially reduced when participants interacted with a tardy partner, a finding that highlights the impact that social factors exert on the spontaneous emergence of behavioral synchrony. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fire Setting Behavior in a Child Welfare System: Prevalence,Characteristics and Co-Occurring Needs

Fire setting is one of the most challenging behaviors for the child welfare system. However, existing knowledge about its prevalence and correlates has been limited to research on single programs. The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services initiated a uniform assessment process at entry into state custody using a trauma-informed version of the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS). By using information from these assessments it is possible to establish an estimate of the prevalence of fire setting behavior and identify clinical and functional correlates. A review of 4,155 children and youth entering state custody reveals an overall prevalence rate of 1.35%. However, the rate for children and youth, 10 years and older was 3.5%. The rate was higher for boys than girls but there was no relationship to race. In general, the children and youth who engaged in fire setting behaviors had much higher levels of needs, fewer strengths, and were lower functioning. Within group analysis suggests the children and youth who set fires represent a relatively homogeneous group.     

Accuracy of perceptually based and acoustically based inspiratory loci in reading

Investigations of speech often involve the identification of inspiratory loci in continuous recordings of speech. The present study investigates the accuracy of perceptually determined and acoustically determined inspiratory loci. While wearing a circumferentially vented mask connected to a pneumotach, 16 participants read two passages. The perceptually determined and acoustically determined inspiratory loci were compared with the actual loci of inspiration, which were determined aerodynamically. The results showed that (1) agreement across all three judges was the most accurate of the approaches considered here for detecting inspiratory loci based on listening; (2) the most accurate pause duration threshold for detecting inspiratory loci was 250 msec; and (3) the perceptually based breath-group determination was more accurate than the acoustically based determination of pause duration. Inconsistencies among perceptually determined, acoustically determined, and aerodynamically determined inspiratory loci are not negligible and, therefore, need to be considered when researchers design experiments on breath groups in speech.     

Selective attention and subjective confidence calibration

In the present experiments, failures of selective visual attention were invoked using the B. A. Eriksen and C. W. Eriksen (1974) flanker task. On each trial, a three-letter stimulus array was flashed briefly, followed by a mask. The identity of the two flanking letters was response congruent, neutral, or incongruent with the identity of the middle target letter. On half of the trials, confidence ratings were obtained after each response. In the first three experiments, participants were highly overconfident in the accuracy of their responding to incongruent flanker stimulus arrays. In a final experiment, presenting a prestimulus target location cue greatly reduced both selective attention failure and overconfidence. The findings demonstrate that participants are often unaware of such selective attention failures and provide support for the notion that, in these cases, decisional processing is driven largely by the identities of the incongruent flankers. In addition, responding was invariably slower and sometimes more accurate when confidence was required than when it was not required, demonstrating that the need to provide posttrial confidence reports can affect decisional processing. Moreover, there was some evidence that the presence of neutral contextual flanking information can slow responding, suggesting that such nondiagnostic information can, indeed, contribute to decisional processing.     

Patienten mit einer wahnhaften Depression in der Maßregel nach § 63 StGB

Delinquency of depressed patients numerically plays a minor role in criminal or civil law. Compared with the high prevalence of affective disorders in the general population, the frequency of patients in forensic psychiatric hospitals with the respective disorder as a main diagnosis is low. The spectrum of possible crimes committed by depressed subjects essentially comprises disease-characteristic offences, amongst which cases of extended suicide or attempted suicide are the foremost and most tragic offences. Based on 2 case reports notions of extended suicide as well as questions of forensic assessment are discussed.