Differential effects of social and non‐social reward on response inhibition in children and adolescents

An important issue in the field of clinical and developmental psychopathology is whether cognitive control processes, such as response inhibition, can be specifically enhanced by motivation. To determine whether non‐social (i.e. monetary) and social (i.e. positive facial expressions) rewards are able to differentially improve response inhibition accuracy in typically developing children and adolescents, an ‘incentive’ go/no‐go task was applied with reward contingencies for successful inhibition. In addition, the impact of children's personality traits (such as reward seeking and empathy) on monetary and social reward responsiveness was assessed in 65 boys, ages 8 to 12 years. All subjects were tested twice: At baseline, inhibitory control was assessed without reward, and then subjects were pseudorandomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions, including (1) social reward only, (2) monetary reward only, (3) mixed social and monetary reward, or (4) a retest condition without reward. Both social and non‐social reward significantly improved task performance, although larger effects were observed for monetary reward. The higher the children scored on reward seeking scales, the larger was their improvement in response inhibition, but only if monetary reward was used. In addition, there was a tendency for an association between empathic skills and benefits from social reward. These data suggest that social incentives do not have an equally strong reinforcing value as compared to financial incentives. However, different personality traits seem to determine to what extent a child profits from different types of reward. Clinical implications regarding probable hyposensitivity to social reward in subjects with autism and dysregulated reward‐seeking behaviour in children with attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are discussed.     

The relationship between counterfactual thinking and emotional reactions to event outcomes: Does one account fit all?

By enabling a comparison between what is and what might have been, counterfactual thoughts amplify our emotional responses to bad outcomes. Well-known demonstrations such as the action effect (the tendency to attribute most regret to a character whose actions brought about a bad outcome) and the temporal order effect (the tendency to undo the last in a series of events leading up to a bad outcome) are often explained in this way. An important difference between these effects is that outcomes are due to decisions in the action effect, whereas in the temporal order effect outcomes are achieved by chance. In Experiment 1, we showed that imposing time pressure leads to a significant reduction in the action but not in the temporal order effect. In Experiment 2, we found that asking participants to evaluate the protagonists (“who ought to feel worse?”) led to a significant reduction in the temporal order but not in the action effect. The results suggest that the action and temporal order effects require different explanations and are consistent with other work that suggests that when decisions lead to bad outcomes a comparison of decision quality is an important determinant of the emotional response attributed to the protagonists. The stimulus materials used in our experiments may be downloaded from pbr.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.     

Group membership,group norms,empathy, and young children's intentions to aggress

This study assessed the effect of ingroup norms and empathy on 6 and 9‐year‐old children's (N=161) attitudes and aggressive intentions toward outgroup members. Prior to an intergroup drawing competition against an outgroup, participants' empathy was measured, and they were randomly assigned to a simulated group with a norm of direct or indirect aggression, or no aggression norm. Results indicated participants' attitudes were less positive toward the outgroup vs. the ingroup, and that both direct and indirect aggressive intentions were displayed toward the outgroup. Most importantly, the ingroup was liked less when it had an aggression norm, and the participants' aggressive intentions were not enhanced by the group aggression norm. Empathy was a significant negative predictor of direct but not indirect aggression intentions. Implications for understanding the instigation and inhibition of children's aggression intentions are discussed. Aggr. Behav. 35:244–258, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Digging Deeper: An Object Relations Couple Therapy Update

Over the past two decades, neurobiology research has added clarity to the process of emotional and behavioral change. In turn, this has led to endorsement of interventions that appear to be most helpful in individual and couple therapy. In addition to research on emotional dysregulation, contemporary studies have focused on the construction of meaning and its relevance to interpersonal relationships. According to Lisa Barrett, Richard Lane, and others, the brain references concepts to rapidly arrive at the most probable conclusions. Encoded experience and memory fragments guide this process and are vital in understanding partners' emotional responses. These findings support an object relations perspective that emphasizes the importance of past relational experiences that inform the present. This is particularly relevant in work with couples, as each individual's beliefs, expectations, and capacity for intimacy are invariably tied to earlier relationships. Research findings on memory reconstruction provide a basis for interventions that can add to the existing treatment approach, as it is suggested that working in a specific way with emotionally based memories has the potential to modify and reduce their predictive power and ability to unleash beliefs and behaviors that work against intimacy. The therapist who is informed by emerging neuroscience research can better uncover and actively work with memories that may be compromising a couple's relationship.     

Cooperation and coordination across cultures and contexts: Individual,sociocultural, and contextual factors jointly influence decision making in the volunteer's dilemma game

What factors promote or hinder volunteering within organizations and groups? This paper simultaneously explores the impact of individual, contextual, and sociocultural variables on decision making in a special type of social dilemma: the volunteer's dilemma game (VDG). The VDG provides a controlled experimental method for studying volunteering behaviors in an anonymous interactive environment. We developed six variations of the VDG and administered them to economics students in five different cultures (N_total = 603). Among other things, these VDGs varied whether the potential benefits of volunteering were certain or uncertain. Although the overall level of volunteering did not vary substantially across most cultural groups, we found that culture interacted with the size and (un)certainty of the benefits associated with volunteering, to influence volunteering decisions. We also found that religiosity (but not religious affiliation per se) increases volunteering and that men are less likely to volunteer when the returns to doing so are certain. These results extend our knowledge of behaviors in the VDG, and their potential drivers, with clear implications for understanding how culture, individual characteristics, and context jointly influence prosocial behavior and coordination.     

Assessment of mothers' working models of relationships: Some clinical implications

The parent-child relationship exerts a powerful influence upon child behavior. Thus, it has been suggested that psychiatric diagnoses of infants and young children should include a characterization of parent-child relationships and interactions. In this article, we discuss one way of characterizing relationships, which is based upon interviews of parents' childhood histories and their conceptualizations or working models of early experiences (Adult Attachment Interview, George, Kaplan, & Main, 1985). The associations between mothers' working models, their parenting behavior, and the behavior of their children are discussed. Patterns of parent-child relationships described in mothers' subjective histories are discussed with respect to the patterns of interactional behavior of the mothers and their children observed in a laboratory play session. Case examples are given to illustrate the patterns, and implications for clinical use of this system are discussed. The interview appears to be a reliable tool for characterizing parental histories, assessing the associations between subjective conceptualizations and parenting behavior, exploring parental contributions to child behavior, and outlining patterns of relationships.     

Infant-parent psychotherapy with an autistic toddler

This paper describes the 3½ -year treatment of an autistic toddler, who by age 5 showed normal social relationships and only minor residual cognitive features of the disorder. The treatment approach integrated infant-parent psychotherapy with techniques of special education and involved a two-person team that worked simultaneously in the family's home. The early work focused on discovering ways to mediate environmental stimulation so as to enhance the child's availability for social interaction. The treatment helped the parents understand this and explored and interpreted misconceptions about their son that interfered with parental feelings and functions. Multiple issues in the parent-child relationship and in the child's social and cognitive development eventually were addressed. This case illustrates one scenario in the development of relationships when an infant lacks the biological fittedness for social interaction. It demonstrates the possibility of ameliorating the autistic condition through a modification of infant-parent psychotherapy. The successful outcome of the case seems to be the result of several factors: The child's age at the beginning of treatment, his areas of cognitive strength, and his parents' exceptional ability to use and extend the therapy.     

Infant attractiveness and perceived temperament in the prediction of attachment classifications

The influence of infant physical attractiveness and infant temperament on the mother-infant relationship at 12 months of age was examined. Physical attractiveness of the infant was rated by 48 adults, and infant temperament was assessed by use of the Toddler Temperament Scale, which yields indices of activity level, rhythmicity, approach, adaptability, intensity, mood, persistence, distractibility, and threshold. Mother-infant attachment was measured via the Strange Situation. Results showed that 46% of the variance in attachment classification was accounted for by five of the nine dimensions of temperament (withdrawal from new situations, high intensity of response, low distractibility, negative mood, and low threshold of response). Physical attractiveness and other dimensions of temperament did not add significant amounts of variance over and above that contributed by the first five dimensions to the prediction of attachment.