Anxiety sensitivity within the anxiety disorders: disorder-specific sensitivities and depression comorbidity

The tendency to perceive anxious states as aversive and harmful is hypothesized to confer vulnerability to the development of anxiety disorders. The most commonly used measure of anxiety sensitivity, the Anxiety Sensitivity Index [ASI; Reiss, S., Peterson, R.A., Gursky, D.M., & McNally R.J. (1986). Anxiety sensitivity, anxiety frequency, and the prediction of fearfulness. Behavior Research and Therapy, 24, 1-8], is composed of multiple lower-order factors, assessing fear of physical symptoms, fear of publicly observable anxious symptoms, and fear of cognitive dyscontrol. This study examined the convergent validity of the lower-order anxiety sensitivity dimensions in DSM-IV diagnosed anxiety disorders. Participants with primary diagnoses of panic disorder with agoraphobia, social phobia, and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) completed the ASI and measures of anxiety and depression severity. Support was found for the convergent validity of all ASI dimensions in reference to thematically related anxiety disorders and in the identification of patients presenting with and without secondary major depressive disorder (MDD). The ASI-fear of cognitive dyscontrol dimension displayed strong and nonredundant associations with GAD, dimensional depression scores, and secondary diagnoses of MDD. The conceptual implications of the shared importance of fear of cognitive dyscontrol in GAD and MDD are discussed.     

Mechanisms of change in ERP treatment of compulsive hand washing: does primary threat make a difference?

The present study sought to examine patterns of habituation in exposure and response prevention (ERP) treatment of compulsive hand washing. Sub-clinical compulsive washers (n=27) with illness or non-illness primary threats were compared in order to detect potential differences in response to a single session of ERP. Changes in anxiety, disgust, and urge to wash were analyzed, and significant reductions in both anxiety and disgust were noted. Urge to wash significantly declined among washers primarily concerned with illness; among those concerned with non-illness threats, urge to wash did not significantly decline. Moreover, anxiety was found to decline when controlling for disgust and vice versa. Lastly, when both anxiety and disgust were entered into a model predicting changes in urge to wash, anxiety but not disgust predicted urge to wash for those with illness-related threats; for washers with non-illness threats, the findings were the reverse. Several clinical and theoretical implications are discussed.     

Interactive Effects of Proactive and Reactive Service Recovery Strategies: The Case of Rapport and Compensation1

Researchers have recently investigated the efficacy of different strategies for recovery from service failure. This paper reports 2 studies that test the effects of a reactive (compensation) and a proactive recovery strategy (establishing prior rapport between service provider and customer). These strategies, plus aspects of the service problem, were manipulated using written scenarios. Consistent with predictions based on justice theory and the service recovery literature, customer evaluations were more favorable following high rapport, high compensation, minor service failures, and nonfinancial losses. Rapport and compensation interacted in a manner consistent with the fair process effect, although this interaction varied with failure severity and the dependent variable studied. The research underscores the importance of relationship building in the management of service failures.     

Selves creating stories creating selves: a process model of self-development.

This article is focused on the growing empirical emphasis on connections between narrative and self-development. The authors propose a process model of self-development in which storytelling is at the heart of both stability and change in the self. Specifically, we focus on how situated stories help develop and maintain the self with reciprocal impacts on enduring aspects of self, specifically self-concept and the life story. This article emphasizes the research that has shown how autobiographical stories affect the self and provides a direction for future work to maximize the potential of narrative approaches to studying processes of self-development.     

Visual category-selectivity for faces, places and objects emerges along different developmental trajectories

The organization of category-selective regions in ventral visual cortex is well characterized in human adults. We investigated a crucial, previously unaddressed, question about how this organization emerges developmentally. We contrasted the developmental trajectories for face-, object-, and place-selective activation in the ventral visual cortex in children, adolescents, and adults. Although children demonstrated adult-like organization in object- and place-related cortex, as a group they failed to show consistent face-selective activation in classical face regions. The lack of a consistent neural signature for faces was attributable to (1) reduced face-selectivity and extent of activation within the regions that will become the FFA, OFA, and STS in adults, and (2) smaller volumes and considerable variability in the locus of face-selective activation in individual children. In contrast, adolescents showed an adult-like pattern of face-selective activation, although it was more right-lateralized. These findings reveal critical age-related differences in the emergence of category-specific functional organization in the visual cortex and support a model of brain development in which specialization emerges from interactions between experience-dependent learning and the maturing brain.     

Psychological contracts and their implications for commitment: A feature-based approach

Two studies were conducted to examine the link between employee perceptions of the psychological contract and their affective and normative commitments to the organization. The authors adapt a new approach to the study of psychological contracts by developing a generalizable measure of contract features (e.g., scope; time frame). In Study 1 (N = 301), the authors predicted and found that employees’ perceptions of the contract’s features contributed beyond perceptions of contract type (i.e., transactional; relational) and fulfillment to the prediction of affective and normative commitment. In Study 2 (N = 147), the features measure was refined and results from the first study were largely replicated. In both studies, affective and normative commitment were greater when employees viewed the contract as broad, trust-based, equal, negotiated, tangible, and long-term, and weaker when they saw it as unequal, imposed, and short-term. We also found evidence for patterns of features that correspond to transactional and relational contracts, as well as to recently proposed balanced contracts and I-Deals. Implications for theory and the management of psychological contracts are discussed.     

Stepping Stones Triple P: An RCT of a Parenting Program with Parents of a Child Diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder

Whilst the Triple P Positive Parenting Program has a large evidence base (Sanders, Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review 2:71–90, 1999; Sanders, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 68:624–640, 2000) and preliminary evidence indicates that Stepping Stones Triple P is also efficacious (Roberts, Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 35(2):180–193, 2006), to date Stepping Stones has not been evaluated with the ASD population. Fifty-nine families with a child with ASD aged between 2 and 9 participated in this randomized controlled trial. The results demonstrate significant improvements in parental reports of child behaviour and parenting styles with the treatment effects for child behaviour, parental over reactivity and parental verbosity being maintained at follow-up 6 months later. Further, the results suggest significant improvements in parental satisfaction and conflict about parenting as well as a sleeper effect for parental efficacy. The results indicate that Stepping Stones Triple P is a promising intervention for parents of children with ASD. Limitations and future research are also addressed.     

The relationship between pain tolerance and trait aggression: effects of sex and gender role

The literature on pain and aggression has indicated that pain elicits aggression. However, research has generally examined pain as a situational variable and focused less on the dispositional ability of an individual to tolerate pain. The dearth of research on pain tolerance and aggression appears to contradict the existing theory on the aggression‐eliciting effect of pain, in that studies have found a positive relationship between pain tolerance and aggression. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the relationship between pain tolerance and aggression is moderated by sex and whether the positive relationship could be explained by masculine gender role conformity. A sample of 195 collegiate men and women completed trait measures and a laboratory assessment of pain tolerance. Results indicated that correlations between pain tolerance and trait aggression were significant and positive for men but not women. However, when men's conformity to masculine gender role was controlled for, the relationship between pain tolerance and trait aggression was nil and nonsignificant. Results are discussed in reference to socialization and maintenance of masculine status. Aggr. Behav. 35:422–429, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Neonatal physiological regulation is associated with perinatal factors: A study of neonates born to healthy African American women living in poverty

Maternal mental health and prenatal stress are linked with neurobehavioral differences in the offspring. The majority of studies documenting this effect have been conducted using either predominantly European American infants or minority infants exposed to teratogens in utero. In this study, we focus on healthy African American women from low‐income environments to investigate the earliest individual differences in biobehavioral regulation, including resting heart rate and variability (HRV). In 87 neonates, HRV was significantly lower in those born to mothers reporting past major depressive disorder (p = .01). The number of maternal life stressors also was associated with lower neonatal HRV (p = .03). Obstetrical complications were not associated with significant differences, but breast‐ versus bottle‐feeding in the first few days of life was related to higher HRV (p = .04). Early variation in physiological regulation may be linked to subsequent individual differences in response to stress. Thus, identifying the earliest point in development when such differences can be reliably measured may result in opportunities for prevention of later deficits in regulating response to stress.