Parenting of 7‐month‐old infants at familial risk for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder

Patterns of interaction between parents and 7‐month‐old boys at familial risk for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and a comparison group were studied during a warm‐up and two play episodes. The sample included 78 (47 at‐risk, 31 comparison) mother–child and 45 (27 at‐risk, 18 comparison) father–child dyads. A coding system developed by G. Kochanska (1997, 1998) was used. Infants in the risk group did not differ from the comparison group in the rate of emission of infant‐related events. However, they received less adequate responsivity from both their fathers and their mothers to these events, and specifically to negative emotions or distress, than did the comparison group. Maternal psychopathology did not account for these findings. Mothers were more adequately responsive than were fathers, especially for physiological needs. The association between nonoptimal interaction in infancy and the development of ADHD is discussed.     

Sleep patterns of 7‐week‐old infants at familial risk for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Sleep patterns of 26 seven‐week‐old boys at familial risk for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and 18 control infants were compared by objective (actigraph) and subjective (maternal sleep diary) measures, over five consecutive 24‐hr periods. Actigraph findings indicated that the groups differed on stability (SD) of quiet sleep only during the day. Reports in maternal sleep diaries indicated that they also differed on stability of waking and stability of sleep duration, again only during the day. No group differences were found in terms of average scores, whether calculated for the entire 24‐hr periods, for nights, or for days. Mothers in the risk group reported that fathers were less involved in infant care than did those in the control group. These findings suggest that as early as 7 weeks of age, infants at risk for ADHD differ from controls only on stability of their sleep patterns during the day, when environmental regulatory factors are more intensive.     

Social learning modulates the lateralization of emotional valence

Although neuropsychological studies of lateralization of emotion have emphasized valence (positive vs. negative) or type (basic vs. complex) dimensions, the interaction between the two dimensions has yet to be elucidated. The purpose of the current study was to test the hypothesis that recognition of basic emotions is processed preferentially by the right prefrontal cortex (PFC), whereas recognition of complex social emotions is processed preferentially by the left PFC. Experiment 1 assessed the ability of healthy controls and patients with right and left PFC lesions to recognize basic and complex emotions. Experiment 2 modeled the patient’s data of Experiment 1 on healthy participants under lateralized displays of the emotional stimuli. Both experiments support the Type as well as the Valence Hypotheses. However, our findings indicate that the Valence Hypothesis holds for basic but less so for complex emotions. It is suggested that, since social learning overrules the basic preference of valence in the hemispheres, the processing of complex emotions in the hemispheres is less affected by valence.     

Accuracy of judging others’ traits and states: Comparing mean levels across tests

Tests of accuracy in interpersonal perception take many forms. Often, such tests use designs and scoring methods that produce overall accuracy levels that cannot be directly compared across tests. Therefore, progress in understanding accuracy levels has been hampered. The present article employed several techniques for achieving score equivalency. Mean accuracy was converted to a common metric, pi [Rosenthal, R., & Rubin, D. B. (1989). Effect size estimation for one-sample multiple-choice-type data: Design, analysis, and meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 106, 332–337] in a database of 109 published results representing tests that varied in terms of scoring method (proportion accuracy versus correlation), content (e.g., personality versus affect), number of response options, item preselection, cue channel (e.g., face versus voice), stimulus duration, and dynamism. Overall, accuracy was midway between guessing level and a perfect score, with accuracy being higher for tests based on preselected than unselected stimuli. When item preselection was held constant, accuracy was equivalent for judging affect and judging personality. However, comparisons must be made with caution due to methodological variations between studies and gaps in the literature.     

The Role of Women's Relationships With Their Partners in Their Adjustment Following Prenatal Genetic Testing1

This study explored how aspects of the couple relationship contributed to the adjustment of 95 women who underwent prenatal diagnostic (PND) testing because of advanced maternal age (AMA). Participants completed self‐report measures prior to genetic counseling (T1), during the waiting period for PND test results (T2), and after normal results were received (T3). At T2, distress was predicted by the degree to which women approached the PND decision jointly with their partners, and marital adjustment was predicted by women's satisfaction with the support received from their partners. Marital adjustment at T3 was predicted by earlier levels of partner agreement about PND‐related issues. Results suggest that the couple relationship has the potential to facilitate or hinder women's experience of PND testing.     

Liberation Psychology as the Path Toward Healing Cultural Soul Wounds

Oppression resulting in soul wounding has afflicted indigenous communities and the counseling profession. Internalized oppression has become part of oppressive practices inflicted on communities served. The authors delineate a liberation psychology that leads toward the psychological and spiritual emancipation of individual clients, communities, and the counseling profession.     

Effects of psychosocial and situational variables on substance abuse among homeless adults

Finding direct and indirect influences of salient psychosocial and situational variables on problem substance use among homeless people is important in designing evidence-based, effective, and relevant interventions for this special population. A stress-coping paradigm in conjunction with situational items specialized for homeless people was used to explore predictive relationships in a sample of homeless adults (N = 664) among (a) psychosocial variables of self-esteem, social support, positive and negative coping, and emotional distress, (b) situational variables of homelessness history and quality of recent housing, and (c) outcomes of alcohol use, injection drug use (IDU), and non-IDU. Lower self-esteem predicted greater emotional distress, lower positive coping, greater negative coping, and more alcohol use. Social support predicted less emotional distress and more positive coping. Chronic homelessness predicted more emotional distress, less positive coping, greater alcohol use, and IDU. Poor housing was associated with more alcohol use and IDU. Substance abuse interventions among the homeless should have a dual focus that includes attention to psychological issues and negative coping patterns while also addressing situational, environmental factors, including encouraging provision of permanent supportive housing.     

Sekundäre Traumatisierung

During the past several years there has been a growing interest in the negative effects that therapy may have on therapists. Of special interest is a phenomenon called secondary traumatization, which can arise while working with traumatized clients. As yet it has not been verified that secondary traumatization consists of posttraumatic symptoms and leads to clinically significant distress. In an exploratory study 21 therapists were interviewed who declared that they had experienced an incident of this form of work-related stress. The presented study reveals that in fact such a ?vicarious“ traumatization can arise, even without direct contact to the original trauma. It consists of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)-like symptoms, but in severe cases it can also manifest itself in symptoms which are far beyond the typical PTSD spectrum. Conditions for the development of secondary traumatization are high empathic ability and dissociative processing of the trauma material by the therapist.     

Why it pays to get inside the head of your opponent: the differential effects of perspective taking and empathy in negotiations

The current research explored whether two related yet distinct social competencies -- perspective taking (the cognitive capacity to consider the world from another individual's viewpoint) and empathy (the ability to connect emotionally with another individual) -- have differential effects in negotiations. Across three studies, using both individual difference measures and experimental manipulations, we found that perspective taking increased individuals' ability to discover hidden agreements and to both create and claim resources at the bargaining table. However, empathy did not prove nearly as advantageous and at times was detrimental to discovering a possible deal and achieving individual profit. These results held regardless of whether the interaction was a negotiation in which a prima facie solution was not possible or a multiple-issue negotiation that required discovering mutually beneficial trade-offs. Although empathy is an essential tool in many aspects of social life, perspective taking appears to be a particularly critical ability in negotiations.