Screening for Adolescent Substance‐Related Disorders Using the SASSI‐A2: Implications for Nonreporting Youth

In this study (N = 137), although 70.8% of participants reported no current substance use and 42.3% reported never using, the Adolescent Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory (SASSI‐A2; Miller & Lazowski, 2001) screened 39.41% of the participants for a high level of probability of having a substance‐related disorder. SASSI‐A2 classified more females in our sample as having a high probability of substance‐related disorder than males. Among African American participants, male adolescents had substantially higher levels of drug use and significantly lower levels of alcohol use than did female adolescents. Implications, limitations, and future directions are provided.     

A Developmental Shift in Black-White Differences in Depressive Affect across Adolescence and Early Adulthood: The influence of early adult social roles and socio-economic status

This study examined black-white differences in growth of depressive affect using a longitudinal sample of middle-class, suburban US subjects (n = 956) that spanned from adolescence to early adulthood. Specifically, this study examined whether black-white differences in growth of depressive affect shift over time, and the extent to which that shift, if any, was associated with racial differences in the rate and mental health consequences of early adult social roles (e.g., living arrangements, work/college status, and single-parenthood) and socio-economic status (SES). As expected, growth in depressive affect pivoted around the onset of early adulthood, with the trajectory pivoting upward for Black Americans and downward for White Americans. Due to deficits in SES, the relation between challenging early adult social roles - under/unemployment in particular - and growth in depressive affect was more positive for Black Americans. This differential "vulnerability" appears to underlie racial differences in early adult growth (and by connection contribute to racial differences in growth pivot). The extent to which Black Americans were at a greater risk (relative to White Americans) for an upward pivot increased as the number of challenging roles increased. Black Americans facing only optimal early adult social roles were not at a greater risk, while those facing only challenging social roles were at the greatest risk.     

Perception–production relationships and phase correction in synchronization with two-interval rhythms

Two experiments investigated the effects of interval duration ratio on perception of local timing perturbations, accuracy of rhythm production, and phase correction in musicians listening to or tapping in synchrony with cyclically repeated auditory two-interval rhythms. Ratios ranged from simple (1:2) to complex (7:11, 5:13), and from small (5:13 = 0.38) to large (6:7 = 0.86). Rhythm production and perception exhibited similar ratio-dependent biases: rhythms with small ratios were produced with increased ratios, and timing perturbations in these rhythms tended to be harder to detect when they locally increased the ratio than when they reduced it. The opposite held for rhythms with large ratios. This demonstrates a close relation between rhythm perception and production. Unexpectedly, however, the neutral “attractor” was not the simplest ratio (1:2 = 0.50) but a complex ratio near 4:7 (= 0.57). Phase correction in response to perturbations was generally rapid and did not show the ratio-dependent biases observed in rhythm perception and production. Thus, phase correction operates efficiently and autonomously even in synchronization with rhythms exhibiting complex interval ratios.     

Ability-performance relationships in education and employment settings: critical tests of the more-is-better and the good-enough hypotheses

The nature of the relationship between ability and performance is of critical importance for admission decisions in the context of higher education and for personnel selection. Although previous research has supported the more-is-better hypothesis by documenting linearity of ability-performance relationships, such research has not been sensitive enough to detect deviations at the top ends of the score distributions. An alternative position receiving considerable attention is the good-enough hypothesis, which suggests that although higher levels of ability may result in better performance up to a threshold, above this threshold greater ability does not translate to better performance. In this study, the nature of the relationship between cognitive ability and performance was examined throughout the score range in four large-scale data sets. Monotonicity was maintained in all instances. Contrary to the good-enough hypothesis, the ability-performance relationship was commonly stronger at the top end of the score distribution than at the bottom end.     

Examining the potential impact of a family session in therapeutic assessment: a single-case experiment

Most clinicians concede the benefits of conceptualizing children in systemic terms. Yet, many child assessments involve parents only on a limited basis. The Therapeutic Assessment model for children and families (TA-C) emphasizes parental involvement and family-driven collaboration throughout the intervention. Child TA has shown promise as an effective brief intervention (e.g., Smith, Handler, & Nash, 2010; Tharinger et al., 2009). Family intervention sessions (Finn, 2007; Tharinger, Finn, Austin, et al., 2008) are an integral component of the child TA model in facilitating familial changes. However, TA-C research has yet to empirically examine the potential impact of a family session on treatment trajectory. This case study includes an extended presentation of the development and execution of a family session. The authors use a daily measures time-series experiment to empirically examine the clinical effectiveness of the TA-C and the hypothesis that the family session was a tipping point in the trajectory of improvement.     

Evidence that gendered wording in job advertisements exists and sustains gender inequality

Social dominance theory (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999) contends that institutional-level mechanisms exist that reinforce and perpetuate existing group-based inequalities, but very few such mechanisms have been empirically demonstrated. We propose that gendered wording (i.e., masculine- and feminine-themed words, such as those associated with gender stereotypes) may be a heretofore unacknowledged, institutional-level mechanism of inequality maintenance. Employing both archival and experimental analyses, the present research demonstrates that gendered wording commonly employed in job recruitment materials can maintain gender inequality in traditionally male-dominated occupations. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated the existence of subtle but systematic wording differences within a randomly sampled set of job advertisements. Results indicated that job advertisements for male-dominated areas employed greater masculine wording (i.e., words associated with male stereotypes, such as leader, competitive, dominant) than advertisements within female-dominated areas. No difference in the presence of feminine wording (i.e., words associated with female stereotypes, such as support, understand, interpersonal) emerged across male- and female-dominated areas. Next, the consequences of highly masculine wording were tested across 3 experimental studies. When job advertisements were constructed to include more masculine than feminine wording, participants perceived more men within these occupations (Study 3), and importantly, women found these jobs less appealing (Studies 4 and 5). Results confirmed that perceptions of belongingness (but not perceived skills) mediated the effect of gendered wording on job appeal (Study 5). The function of gendered wording in maintaining traditional gender divisions, implications for gender parity, and theoretical models of inequality are discussed.     

Footwear and locomotor skill performance in preschoolers

The effect of footwear on locomotor skill performance was examined. 12 children (4 boys, 8 girls; M age = 56.3 mo., SD = 3.3) served as participants. Participants were randomly assigned to perform the locomotor subscale of Ulrich's Test of Gross Motor Development in two shoe conditions (Condition 1: Stride Rite athletic shoes, and Condition 2: flip flop sandals). Children scored significantly higher when wearing athletic shoes than flip-flop sandals. This finding is relevant for motor performance and safety in physical education and movement programs.     

Importance of considering testosterone-cortisol interactions in predicting human aggression and dominance

A novel "field" study recently published in Aggressive Behavior found that individual differences in baseline testosterone concentrations were positively correlated with endorsement of political aggression and that baseline cortisol concentrations were negatively correlated with self-reported aggression among Palestinian boys living in Gaza. Here, we discuss recent evidence indicating that testosterone and cortisol interact to predict competitive, aggressive, and dominant behaviors and urge researchers collecting both hormones to perform and report analyses that formally test for such interaction effects.     

Summation of reinforcement rates when conditioned stimuli are presented in compound

Three experiments used delay conditioning of magazine approach in rats to examine the summation of responding when two conditioned stimuli (CSs) are presented together as a compound. The duration of each CS varied randomly from trial-to-trial around a mean that differed between the CSs. This meant that the rats' response rate to each CS was systematically related to the reinforcement rate of that CS, but remained steady as time elapsed during the CS (Harris & Carpenter, 2011; Harris, Gharaei, & Pincham, 2011). When the rats were presented with a compound of two CSs that had been conditioned separately, they responded more during the compound than during either of the CSs individually. More significantly, however, in all three experiments, the rats responded to the compound at the same rate as they responded to a third CS that had been reinforced at a rate equal to the sum of the reinforcement rates of the two CSs in compound. We discuss the implications of this finding for associative models (e.g., Rescorla & Wagner, 1972) and rate-based models (Gallistel & Gibbon, 2000) of conditioning.