Parenting and Family Stress Treatment Outcomes in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): An Empirical Analysis in the MTA Study

Parenting and family stress treatment outcomes in the MTA study were examined. Male and female (579), 7–9-year-old children with combined type Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), were recruited at six sites around the United States and Canada, and randomly assigned to one of four groups: intensive, multi-faceted behavior therapy program alone (Beh); carefully titrated and monitored medication management strategy alone (MedMgt); a well-integrated combination of the two (Comb); or a community comparison group (CC). Treatment occurred over 14 months, and assessments were taken at baseline, 3, 9, and 14 months. Parenting behavior and family stress were assessed using parent-report and child-report inventories. Results showed that Beh alone, MedMgt alone, and Comb produced significantly greater decreases in a parent-rated measure of negative parenting, Negative/Ineffective Discipline, than did standard community treatment. The three MTA treatments did not differ significantly from each other on this domain. No differences were noted among the four groups on positive parenting or on family stress variables. Results are discussed in terms of the theoretical and empirically documented importance of negative parenting in the symptoms, comorbidities and long-term outcomes of ADHD.     

Levels-of-processing effects on Chinese character completion: The importance of lexical processing and test cue

The levels of processing (LoP) effect was studied in Chinese character completion tasks. The same stem cue, either graphemically or semantically related to the target character, was used to generate either a perceptual or a conceptual test. Participants received either direct or indirect instructions, so that the same stem cue also produced either an explicit or an implicit test of memory. This allowed us to examine simultaneously the roles of perceptual versus conceptual test and retrieval intentionality in the LoP effect. No LoP effects were found when the memory test was implicit. LoP effects were also not found for stems and characters related graphemically (perceptually), but were found for stems and characters related semantically (conceptually) when the memory test was explicit. The results are discussed in terms of the importance of lexical processing for character completion tests and the importance of reinstatement of the study process during retrieval for explicit memory tests.     

The Therapeutic Factors Inventory: Development of a Scale

Although Yalom's (1995) framework of the therapeutic factors facilitating outcome in group has been accepted by group specialists, no empirically based instrument assesses all of these factors. The Therapeutic Factors Inventory (TFI), with 11 scales based on the therapeutic factors, has been designed to fill this gap. This article summarizes the development and preliminary reliability testing of the TFI. Each scale of the instrument demonstrated high internal consistency; however, one scale obtained unacceptably low test-retest reliability. Further validity testing is needed. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

The Factor Structure of the Beavers Interactional Scales

Confirmatory factor analysis and regression analyses of the Beavers Interactional Scales did not appear to support the model offered by its developers, namely, several specified family attributes contributing respectively to two global factors of Family Competence and Family Style. Moreover, regression analysis indicated that only three of 12 items predicted raters' assessments of Global Family Health, and one of seven items predicted Global Family Style. Individuals interested in the family dynamic centripetal/centrifugal might best think of that as a unitary entity and rate it accordingly.     

Efficiency of multiple-choice tests as a function of spread of item difficulties

The validity of a univocal multiple-choice test is determined for varying distributions of item difficulty and varying degrees of item precision. Validity is a function of _d ² + _v ² , where _d measures item unreliability and _v measures the spread of item difficulties. When this variance is very small, validity is high for one optimum cutting score, but the test gives relatively little valid information for other cutting scores. As this variance increases, eta increases up to a certain point, and then begins to decrease. Screening validity at the optimum cutting score declines as this variance increases, but the test becomes much more flexible, maintaining the same validity for a wide range of cutting scores. For items of the type ordinarily used in psychological tests, the test with uniform item difficulty gives greater over-all validity, and superior validity for most cutting scores, compared to a test with a range of item difficulties. When a multiple-choice test is intended to reject the poorestF per cent of the men tested, items should on the average be located at or above the threshold for men whose true ability is at theFth percentile.This research was performed under contract Nop 536 with the Bureau of Naval Personnel, and received additional support from the Bureau of Research and Service, College of Education, University of Illinois.     

Thought suppression and its effects on thought frequency, appraisal and mood state in individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder

Leading models of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) implicate thought suppression as a key factor in the escalation and persistence of the disorder. This experiment examined the effects of suppression on the frequency of obsessional thoughts in 50 individuals with a primary diagnosis of OCD, and also investigated the effects of participants' appraisals regarding their failures in thought control on distress about intrusive thoughts and on mood. Participants' most upsetting obsessional thought was primed and they then monitored its occurrence over two 4-min intervals. In the first interval, half of the participants were instructed to suppress their obsessional thought and half were instructed not to suppress any thoughts. In the second interval, all participants were given the 'Do Not Suppress' instructions. Participants rated their suppression effort and discomfort over thought occurrences after each interval and recorded their appraisals of thought recurrences during the first interval. Mood state was then reassessed. No ironic effect of suppression on frequency was noted. However, negative appraisals of thought recurrences were associated with more discomfort over thought occurrences and more negative mood at Time 2. These findings suggest that interpretations regarding failures in thought control may be of central importance in understanding obsessional problems.     

Turnover intentions and voluntary turnover: the moderating roles of self-monitoring, locus of control, proactive personality, and risk aversion

This article explores moderators of the relationship between turnover intentions and turnover behavior to better explain why some employees translate intentions into behavior and other employees do not. Individual differences in self-monitoring, locus of control, proactive personality, and risk aversion were examined. Results indicate that self-monitoring and risk aversion moderate the intentions-turnover link. Specifically, the relationship between turnover intentions and turnover is stronger for low self-monitors and those lower in risk aversion. Locus of control moderated the relationship in 1 of 2 samples such that the relationship was stronger for those with an internal locus of control. Proactive personality, however, did not directly moderate the relationship between intentions and turnover behaviors.     

Personality Traits Beyond the Big Five: Are They Within the HEXACO Space?

Paunonen (2002) recently developed the Supernumerary Personality Inventory (SPI), a measure of 10 traits that have low loadings within the space of the Big Five personality factors. If the SPI personality traits are representative of the domain of non-Big Five personality traits, then the major source of the variance in the SPI traits would be expected to correlate strongly with the sixth factor of personality, Honesty-Humility. We tested this hypothesis using self-report measures (N = 200) of the SPI traits, of the Big Five, and of the new six-dimensional ("HEXACO") structure. Results indicated that the first unrotated factor underlying the 10 SPI traits was heavily saturated with variance from Honesty-Humility (r = .65). Nevertheless, the 10 SPI traits contained substantial amounts of unique variance not accounted for by the HEXACO or the Big Five variables, highlighting the importance of the facet-level assessment of personality traits.     

Socioeconomic status, resources, psychological experiences, and emotional responses: a test of the reserve capacity model

The current study used ecological momentary assessment to test several tenets of the reserve capacity model (L.C. Gallo & K. A. Matthews, 2003). Women (N = 108) with varying socioeconomic status (SES) monitored positive and negative psychosocial experiences and emotions across 2 days. Measures of intrapsychic and social resources were aggregated to represent the reserve capacity available to manage stress. Lower SES was associated with less perceived control and positive affect and more social strain. Control and strain contributed to the association between SES and positive affect. Lower SES elicited greater positive but not negative emotional reactivity to psychosocial experiences. Women with low SES had fewer resources relative to those with higher SES, and resources contributed to the association between SES and daily experiences.