Longitudinal trajectories of bicultural identity integration in recently immigrated Hispanic adolescents: Links with mental health and family functioning

This study examined, in a sample of recently immigrated Hispanic adolescents in Miami and Los Angeles, the extent to which bicultural identity integration (BII; involving the ability to synthesise one's heritage and receiving cultural streams and to identify as a member of both cultures) is best understood as a developmental construct that changes over time or as an individual‐difference construct that is largely stable over time. We were also interested in the extent to which these trajectories predicted mental health and family functioning. Recent‐immigrant 9th graders (N = 302) were assessed 6 times from 9th to 12th grade. Latent class growth analyses using the first 5 timepoints identified 2 trajectory classes—one with lower BII scores over time and another with higher BII scores over time. Higher heritage and US identity at baseline predicted membership in the higher BII class. At the 6th study timepoint, lower BII adolescents reported significantly poorer self‐esteem, optimism, prosocial behaviour and family relationships compared with their higher BII counterparts. These findings are discussed in terms of further research on the over‐time trajectory of biculturalism, and on the need to develop interventions to promote BII as a way of facilitating well‐being and positive family functioning.     

Psychiatric chrono‐epidemiology: its relevance for the study of aggression

Chrono‐epidemiology is the study of the distribution of health events according to time. The time intervals taken into account have cyclic patterns and include circadian, weekly, seasonal, and circannual rhythms. In the behavioural field, chrono‐epidemiology can be and has been applied to studies concerning the causes of death (suicide and homicide), clinical events such as admissions to and contacts with mental healthcare services, and the seasonal distribution of crime involving the use of violence. Frequently reported findings include clear circadian and seasonal rhythms present in the phenomenon of suicide (rhythms more evident in the case of violent suicide); seasonal rhythms in the expression of aggression by patients hospitalised for mental illness; and a circannual recurrence of crimes with a violent component. The intrinsic circadian and seasonal rhythms of some neuronal systems, particularly those of serotonin, involved in the control of mood and impulses, are thought to favour the behavioural rhythms observed, although the contribution of socio‐environmental factors, such as the fluctuation of supportive networks according to time, is also acknowledged. By demonstrating non‐casual recurrence of certain behaviour and by exploring the socio‐biological basis of the rhythms beneath these recurrences, chrono‐epidemiology may offer important etiologic and preventive clues to the understanding of the biological and environmental correlates of aggressive behaviour. Aggr. Behav. 28:477–490, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Efectos de anticipación y de stroop en tareas de denominación y categorización de dibujos y de palabras

Resumen

Se llevó a cabo un experimento con vistas a estudiar el procesamiento de dibujos y de palabras en el marco de los paradigmas de Stroop y de anticipación. Las variables de tarea, modalidad y de relación semántica fueron equivalentes en ambos paradigmas. Según el intervalo temporal entre los estímulos se establecieron tres condiciones experimentales: condición previa—anticipación—, condición simultánea—Stroop—, y condición previa y simultánea—Stroop y anticipación—. Los resultados ponen de manifiesto la existencia de efectos de facilitación e interferencia de signo opuesto que se atribuyen a la interacción entre la secuencia temporal entre los estímulos componentes, las demandas de las respectivas tareas y la modalidad en la memoria activa. Los resultados se discuten en relación con el diferente procesamiento a que se someten los dibujos y las palabras y la naturaleza del formato de representación.     

How do Mandarin speakers conceptualize time? Beyond the horizontal and vertical dimensions

Cognitive Processing - Mandarin speakers, similar to speakers of most other languages around the world, tend to conceptualize time in terms of space. However, it has been supposed that Mandarin...     

Does inconsistency always lead to negative affect? The influence of need for closure on affective reactions to cognitive inconsistency

We present an experiment showing that need for closure (NFC)—defined as the epistemic desire for certainty—can moderate individuals' affective reactions to cognitive inconsistency. Informed by Kruglanski and colleagues' new theory, that cognitive inconsistency elicits negative affect particularly under certain circumstances, we find that NFC (i.e. the desire for certain, stable and unambiguous knowledge) influences the strength of consistency effects and resulting negative affect. More specifically, we find that individuals who are high on NFC experience more negative affect upon encountering an inconsistent (vs. consistent) cognition. However, when individuals are low on NFC, inconsistency is irrelevant, and their affect depends on whether the ultimate outcome of the cognition is positive or negative. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of this research.     

Be aware of the rifle but do not forget the stench: differential effects of fear and disgust on lexical processing and memory

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of discrete emotions in lexical processing and memory, focusing on disgust and fear. We compared neutral words to disgust-related words and fear-related words in three experiments. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants performed a lexical decision task (LDT), and in Experiment 3 an affective categorisation task. These tasks were followed by an unexpected memory task. The results of the LDT experiments showed slower reaction times for both types of negative words with respect to neutral words, plus a higher percentage of errors, this being more consistent for fear-related words (Experiments 1 and 2) than for disgust-related words (Experiment 2). Furthermore, only disgusting words exhibited a higher recall accuracy than neutral words in the memory task. Moreover, the advantage in memory for disgusting words disappeared when participants carried out an affective categorisation task during encoding (Experiment 3), suggesting that the superiority in memory for disgusting words observed in Experiments 1 and 2 could be due to greater elaborative processing. Taken together, these findings point to the relevance of discrete emotions in explaining the effects of the emotional content on lexical processing and memory.     

Are Conservatives Less Likely to be Prosocial Than Liberals? From Games to Ideology,Political Preferences and Voting

Do political preferences reflect individual differences in interpersonal orientations? Are conservatives less other‐regarding than liberals? On the basis of past theorising, we hypothesised that, relative to individuals with prosocial orientations, those with individualistic and competitive orientations should be more likely to endorse conservative political preferences and vote for conservative parties. This hypothesis was supported in three independent studies conducted in Italy (Studies 1 and 2) and the Netherlands (Study 3). Consistent with hypotheses, a cross‐sectional study revealed that individualists and competitors endorsed stronger conservative political preferences than did prosocials; moreover, this effect was independent of the association between need for structure and conservative political preferences (Study 1). The predicted association of social value orientation and voting was observed in both a four‐week (Study 2) and an eight‐month (Study 3) longitudinal study. Taken together, the findings provide novel support for the claim that interpersonal orientations, as measured with experimental games rooted in game theory, are important to understanding differences in ideology at the societal level. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Acoustic markers associated with impairment in language processing in Alzheimer's Disease

This study broaches in a novel way the analysis of cognitive impairment characteristic of the early stages of Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Specifically, we attempt to determine the acoustic speech parameters that are sensitive to the onset of the disease, and their association with the language deficit characteristic of AD. Speech analysis was carried out on 21 elderly patients with AD using Praat software, which analyzes the acoustic components of speech. The data obtained were subjected to stepwise regression, using the overall scores obtained in the test as the criterion variable, and the scores on the frequency, amplitude and periodicity variables as predictors of performance. We found that the percentage of voiceless segments explains a significant portion of the variance in the overall scores obtained in the neuropsychological test. This component seems to be related mainly to the patient's ability in phonological fluency. This finding could permit the creation of a diagnostic test for AD through analysis of the acoustic speech parameters at very low cost in terms of both time and resources.     

Morningness-eveningness and health-related quality of life among adolescents

Accumulating evidence suggests that evening-type adolescents are exposed to a number of determinants that might have a negative impact on their health condition. Given that few studies have investigated the association between chronotype and quality of life measures in large samples of adolescents, the aim of this study was to assess the relationship between morningness-eveningness and health-related quality of life among 1600 adolescents (aged 12-16 years). Adolescents completed the Ve?u et Santé Per?ue de L'adolescent (VSP-A) and the Morningness-Eveningness Scale for Children (MESC). Girls and older adolescents reported worse health indicators and were more evening oriented. Evening-type adolescents obtained lower scores on vitality, physical and psychological well-being, body image, relations with parents, relations with teachers, school work and global health scale.     

Screening utility of the social anxiety screening scale in Spanish speaking adolescents

The aim of this study was to analyse the screening utility of the Social Anxiety Screening Scale (SASS/EDAS) in a sample of 227 adolescents with social anxiety disorder and 156 Without it (14-17 years). Results showed that the EDAS subscales (Avoidance, Distress and Interference) scores were reliable in terms of internal consistency (alpha > .80). All the subscales discriminated between adolescents with and without the disorder. They also showed a positive and significant correlation with other empirically validated measures of social anxiety. The three subscales indicated relevant sensitivity (69.16-84.14%), specificity (63.46-66.03%) and areas under the curve (.74-.81%). Binary logistic regression analyses indicated the adequate predictive utility of EDAS subscales, with the Distress subscale as the best diagnostic predictor. The data provide empirical evidence of the usefulness of EDAS as a screener for adolescent social anxiety disorder in terms of reliability, convergent and discriminant validity, diagnostic accuracy and clinical usefulness.