Maternal and adolescent depressive symptoms and family conflict: An autoregressive cross-lagged examination of competing models in multi-stressed mothers and adolescents

Maternal and adolescent depression are challenges that often co-occur. Many studies have drawn bivariate associations between maternal depressive symptoms, adolescent depressive symptoms, and family conflict, but few have examined reciprocal effects. Even among extant studies, there is a lack of clarity related to directionality of influence. Three competing theoretical models may explain the relationship between maternal depressive symptoms, adolescent depressive symptoms, and family conflict, and these processes may differ by adolescents’ sex. Using three time points of data from 187 diverse mother-adolescent dyads, we fit a taxonomy of autoregressive cross-lagged structural equation models to simultaneously evaluate the competing theoretical models and also examine differences by sex using multiple-group analyses. Results indicate a symptom-driven model whereby adolescent depressive symptoms predicted increases in family conflict. Sex differences were also found. For males, but not females, greater adolescent depressive symptoms predicted subsequent increases in maternal depressive symptoms, which then predicted lower family conflict—possibly indicating maternal disengagement/withdrawal. Our findings suggest addressing adolescent depressive symptoms in order to prevent family conflict and that distinctive targets for the prevention/intervention of family conflict should account for differences by adolescents’ sex.     

Visual perception of direction when voluntary saccades occur: II. Relation of visual direction of a fixation target extinguished before a saccade to a subsequent test flash presented before the saccade

Previously reported experiments demonstrated changes in the relation of visual direction to retinal locus for stimulation during voluntary saccades as compared to this relation before saccade initiation. The quantitative features of these results led to the prediction, confirmed in the present experiments, that there are shifts in visual direction for stimulation presented before the saccade itself. In the present report, monotonically increasing shifts were mapped with stimuli presented as early as 240 msec before the saccade up to the saccade itself. Such shifts cannot be accounted for readily by “inflowing” processes, and while “outflowing” processes seem to be implicated, their quantitative characteristics would need to be considerably different from those required by classical outflow theories.     

The relationship of appraisal and coping to chronic illness adjustment

There is evidence that adaptation to chronic illness may be affected by psychological factors, especially how patients appraise and cope with the stress of their illness. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship of stress appraisal and coping responses to multiple behavioral indices of illness adjustment among patients with diverse chronic medical conditions. One hundred and one patients admitted to a multidisciplinary medicine/psychiatry unit completed measures of functional impairment, depression, symptom severity, and the Ways of Coping Checklist--Revised. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that emotion-focused coping was positively related to poor psychosocial adjustment and depression after controlling for physician rated disease severity. Appraising chronic illness as holding one back predicted greater emotion-focused coping responses and poorer adjustment to illness. The use of problem-focused coping strategies was generally unrelated to illness adjustment. These findings suggest the presence of an emotion-focused coping triad consisting of wishful thinking, self blame, and avoidance, all of which appear to be maladaptive strategies when coping with chronic medical conditions. Implications for coping skills training and the need for longitudinal research is discussed.     

Hume's Utilitarian Theory of Right Action

A theory of right action is implicit in Hume's delineation of the virtues. It gives qualified priority to 'rules of justice' as Hume's remarks on 'that species of utility which attends this virtue' require. It is a useful actual-rule, not an ideal possible-rule, purely utilitarian theory that discounts rules of justice in 'extraordinary cases', has a problem when rules conflict, and invites the question 'Why not hark directly to the supreme law of utility in every case?'. It does not reflect contractarian considerations of mutuality of interests evident in Hume's texts, which while sometimes relevant to what is reasonable, are in his view never also relevant to what is moral.     

Pascalian wagers

A person who does not have good intellectual reasons for believing in God can, depending on his probabilities and values for consequences of believing, have good practical reasons. Pascalian wagers founded on a variety of possible probability/value profiles are examined from a Bayesian perspective central to which is the idea that states and options are pragmatically reasonable only if they maximize subjective expected value. Attention is paid to problems posed by representations of values by Cantorian infinities. An appendix attends to Robinsonian hyperreals. Another appendix presents for comparison Newcomb's Problem and a problem in some ways like it suggested, I think, by ideas of John Calvin.     

Age differences in visual and kinesthetic short-term memory

30 elderly subjects were matched with 30 young subjects and tested on a kinesthetic short-term memory task which required the replication of criterion moves after a variable retention interval under conditions of either rest, differing interpolated movement tasks, or mental activity. A visual control condition was used. Differing interference and temporal decrements were observed. Both old and young subjects differed significantly between sighted and blindfold conditions; however, there was no difference between the performance of the old and the young in the blindfold (kinesthetic) condition. These findings were discussed with respect to practical implications for the retraining of old subjects on certain motor tasks.