Aroused at Home: Basic Autonomic Regulation during Orthostatic and Physical Activation is Altered in Children with Social Anxiety Disorder

Previous research has documented altered autonomic nervous system (ANS) reactivity to laboratory-based social stress tasks in children with social anxiety disorder (SAD). It is unclear, however, whether these alterations are caused by the unfamiliar and possibly threatening lab environment or whether they generalize to other, more representative contexts. Sympathetic and parasympathetic autonomic functioning was assessed in the home (minimizing environmental threat) during a supine baseline phase and two physical activation phases (orthostatic stress, stair stepping) in children (9–13 years) with SAD (n?=?27) and healthy control children (n?=?27). Relative to controls, children with SAD showed tonic autonomic hyperarousal as indicated by higher heart rate and electrodermal activity during the supine baseline phase. Further, there was evidence for stronger cardiac and vascular sympathetic reactivity (T-wave amplitude, pulse wave transit time) to moderate physical activation in children with SAD. Higher autonomic arousal during rest was related to measures of trait social anxiety and general psychopathology. Groups did not differ on parasympathetic parameters. Our results extend previous laboratory findings and provide the first evidence for alterations in children with SAD during basal autonomic regulation and in the absence of explicit social evaluative threat. They may further help to clarify conflicting study results from previous laboratory studies. The findings underline the importance of psychophysiological assessment using different environments and tasks to elucidate the physiological bases of SAD.     

The Semantic Processing of Motion Verbs: Coercion or Underspecification?

Underspecification and coercion are two prominent interpretive mechanisms to account for meaning variability beyond compositionality. While there is plentiful evidence that natural language meaning constitution exploits both mechanisms, it is an open issue whether a concrete phenomenon of meaning variability is an instance of underspecification or coercion. This paper argues that this theoretical dispute can be settled experimentally. The test case are standard motion verbs (e.g. walk, ride) in combination with ±telic directional phrases, for which both underspecifaction and coercion analyses have been proposed in the literature. A self-paced reading study which incorporates motion verbs, directional phrases and durative/completive temporal adverbials (1) aims at determining the aspectual value of such verbs, and (2) compares the hypotheses of the Underspecification and Coercion Accounts. The results of the reading time experiment (flanked by a corpus study and a completion study) indicate that motion verbs are aspectually underspecified. They combine with ±telic directional phrases with equal ease. The combination with a mismatching temporal adverbial is an instance of coercion, causing additional processing costs.     

Structure of the Objectified Body Consciousness Scale: Reevaluated 20 Years later

The Objectified Body Consciousness Scale (OBCS) is a prominent measure of key constructs in the body image literature. Despite the impact and popularity of the OBCS, however, investigations of its factor structure have been limited. To our knowledge, the present study is the first since the instrument’s development 20 years ago to provide a detailed evaluation of the replicability of the factor structure of OBCS data in a sample of U.S. college women, the population for which the measure was originally developed and is used most frequently. Specifically, we used confirmatory factor analyses to evaluate the structure of OBCS data and identify areas for measure refinement. Internal consistency reliability and convergent validity were also examined. A sample of 368 U.S. college women completed the OBCS along with measures of body esteem and thin-ideal internalization as convergent validity indicators. Findings revealed that OBCS Control Beliefs items were poor indicators of the factor. A two-factor structure composed of Body Surveillance and Body Shame was supported. Support for internal consistency reliability and convergent validity was also garnered. Additionally, abbreviated versions of the Body Surveillance and Body Shame subscales produced good model-data fit without sacrificing reliability or validity. These results support the use of the OBCS Body Surveillance and Body Shame subscales to assess critical aspects of body image in research and practice contexts; the abbreviated versions of these subscales can address demands for brevity in these contexts.     

Psychometric Properties of the Parenting Sense of Competence Scale in Treatment-Seeking Post-9/11 Veterans

Although evidence suggests deployment-related stress impacts parenting, few measures of parenting competency have been validated in returning post-9/11 veterans. As part of clinical care in a multidisciplinary clinic serving veterans and military families, 178 treatment-seeking OEF/OIF/OND veterans completed measures including the 16-item Parenting Sense of Competence Scale (PSOC), a widely-used measure of parental efficacy and satisfaction; the Family Assessment Device—general functioning subscale; and the depression, anxiety, and stress scale. Utilizing data from an IRB-approved de-identified data repository, we examined the psychometrics and factor structure of the PSOC. According to a proposed clinical cut-off, 10?% of our clinical sample of veterans exhibited low self-confidence in parenting. A confirmatory factor analysis of the 2-factor structure introducing correlated error terms between items 3 and 9, and between items 10 and 11, revealed to be a satisfactory fit to the data (Χ ² /df?=?1.57, RMSEA?=?0.056 [90?% CI 0.039–0.073]; CFI?=?0.928; TLI?=?0.914; SRMR?=?0.055). In addition, the PSOC exhibited good convergent validity with measures of parental distress (r?=??.22, p?<?0.01 with anxiety symptoms, and r?=??.33, p?<?.001 with depressive symptoms) and family functioning (r?=??.53, p?<?.0001), very good temporal stability (r?=?.81, p?<?.0.0001), and excellent internal consistency (α?=?.85). The PSOC exhibited satisfactory psychometric properties in treatment-seeking veterans and may be used by clinicians and researchers to assess parenting sense of competence, including satisfaction and sense of efficacy, in this population.     

Functional brain organization of working memory in adolescents varies in relation to family income and academic achievement

Working memory (WM) capacity reflects executive functions associated with performance on a wide range of cognitive tasks and education outcomes, including mathematics achievement, and is associated with dorsolateral prefrontal and parietal cortices. Here we asked if family income is associated with variation in the functional brain organization of WM capacity among adolescents, and whether that variation is associated with performance on a statewide test of academic achievement in mathematics. Participants were classified into higher‐income and lower‐income groups based on family income, and performed a WM task with a parametric manipulation of WM load (N‐back task) during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Behaviorally, the higher‐income group had greater WM capacity and higher mathematics achievement scores. Neurally, the higher‐income group showed greater activation as a function of WM load in bilateral prefrontal, parietal, and other regions, although the lower‐income group exhibited greater activation at the lowest load. Both groups exhibited positive correlations between parietal activations and mathematics achievement scores, but only the higher‐income group exhibited a positive correlation between prefrontal activations and mathematics scores. Most of these findings were maintained when higher‐ and lower‐income groups were matched on WM task performance or nonverbal IQ. Findings indicate that the functional neural architecture of WM varies with family income and is associated with education measures of mathematics achievement.     

A Mixed-Methods Analysis of Feminist Beliefs and Feminist Identity Development Among College Women Survivors of Gender-Based Violence

Using a mixed-methods approach, we explored how college women’s lifetime experiences of physical or sexual gender-based violence (GBV) were associated with appraisals of GBV and their feminist beliefs or identity (N = 32). Women commented on their increased awareness of the prevalence of GBV, their desire to help other women, and their beliefs about the trustworthiness of men and the current state of gender equality. Women who perceived no or minimal influence of sexism on GBV attributed their GBV experiences to a flaw in themselves or the perpetrators (i.e., self-blame, poor vigilance) or as a reasonable disciplinary measure for their ‘misbehavior.’ We also found that some women reported agreement with pro-feminist beliefs, yet rejected a feminist identity. Our findings illustrate how feminist stigma and sexism might prevent women who endorse core feminist beliefs from characterizing GBV as a sexist event. Given the potential harmful consequences of GBV and other forms of sexism, connecting women with meaningful resources, such as empowering educational programs, nurturing peer-to-peer women’s support groups, and awareness campaigns, may help to facilitate sisterhood and alleviate distress. Our findings also support the need for clinical assessment of how GBV may have affected beliefs about gender, self, world, and others.     

Changes in reality monitoring and episodic memory in early childhood

The purposes of this research were to examine the developmental relation between reality monitoring and episodic memory, to link reality monitoring to autobiographical memory by using extended naturalistic events, and to examine prefrontal functioning as a potential contributor to development in reality monitoring and episodic memory. In Experiment 1, 4-year-olds were worse than 6- or 8-year-olds at reality monitoring after a week delay, despite the fact that they remembered more about real than imagined events and remembered different aspects of each. In Experiments 2 and 3, reality monitoring and episodic memory were evaluated for 4- and 6-year-olds immediately after the events occurred and, in Experiment 3, again after a week delay. Reality monitoring was at higher levels for both age groups, but age differences remained. These data suggest that preschoolers' difficulties with reality monitoring result from a combination of episodic memory deficits and strategic differences. In addition, correlation analyses more directly linked preschoolers' reality monitoring to episodic memory and supported the hypothesis that episodic memory development is related to prefrontal functioning.     

Sensation seeking, aggression, and reckless behavior in high school students, college students, and adults

Replicating work of Arnett, males reported more frequent Reckless Behavior than females, and 27 high school and 48 college students did not differ in scores on Sensation Seeking or Aggression. As anticipated by Arnett, the 35 adults had significantly lower Sensation Seeking and Aggression scores than the two younger groups and less Reckless Behavior as well. In contrast to Arnett, Reckless Behavior did not rise for college students, and Sensation Seeking, but not Aggression, correlated with Reckless Behavior in all samples.