Race preferences in children: insights from South Africa

Minority-race children in North America and Europe often show less own-race favoritism than children of the majority (White) race, but the reasons for this asymmetry are unresolved. The present research tested South African children in order to probe the influences of group size, familiarity, and social status on children's race-based social preferences. We assessed South African children's preferences for members of their country's majority race (Blacks) compared to members of other groups, including Whites, who ruled South Africa until 1994 and who remain high in status. Black children (3-13 years) tested in a Black township preferred people of their own gender but not race. Moreover, Black, White, and multiracial children (4-9 years) tested in a racially diverse primary school showed in-group bias by gender but not by race: all favored people who were White. Relative familiarity and numerical majority/minority status therefore do not fully account for children's racial attitudes, which vary with the relative social status of different racial groups.     

An intervention that increases parental sensitivity in families referred to Child Protective Services also changes toddlers’ parasympathetic regulation

Experiencing maltreatment in early childhood predicts poor parasympathetic regulation, characterized by low baseline parasympathetic activity and strong withdrawal of parasympathetic influence in response to tasks. The Promoting First Relationships^® (PFR) program improves parental sensitivity toward young children in families identified as maltreating. Using a subsample from a randomized control trial, we examined whether parental participation in PFR had lasting effects on toddlers’ parasympathetic regulation, as measured by respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), relative to a resource and referral control condition. In addition, we examined whether parental sensitive and responsive behavior mediated or moderated associations between parent treatment group and children's RSA. More than 6 months after completing treatment, 29 families in the PFR condition and 30 families in the control condition were visited at home, and toddlers’ RSA was assessed at baseline and during five moderately challenging tasks. Groups did not differ in baseline RSA, but differed in RSA reactivity to the tasks. Across tasks, toddlers of parents in the control condition manifested significantly larger RSA decreases than toddlers of parents in the PFR condition. Parental behavior showed divergent associations with RSA change for toddlers of parents in the PFR versus control condition, with PFR treatment predicting RSA change ranging from small decreases to increases in toddlers of parents who showed the most sensitive, responsive behavior in the 6 months following treatment. This preliminary study showed that the same intervention that improved parenting also improved toddlers’ parasympathetic regulation in response to everyday activities, warranting further experimental investigation.     

What Drives OCD Symptom Change During CBT Treatment? Temporal Relationships Among Obsessions and Compulsions

Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) is an effective treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). However, less is known about how obsessions and compulsions change during treatment, either in tandem, sequentially, or independently. The current study used latent difference score analysis to show path-analytic dynamic modeling of OCD symptom change during CBT. Four competing models of the temporal relationship between obsessions and compulsions were examined: no coupling (obsessions and compulsions are not dynamically related), goal directed (obsessions lead to subsequent changes in compulsions), habit driven (compulsions lead to subsequent changes in obsessions), and reciprocal. Treatment seeking participants (N = 84) with a principal diagnosis of OCD completed 12 weeks of CBT group therapy and completed measures assessing obsession and compulsion severity at pretreatment, Sessions 4 and 8, and end of treatment. Bivariate results supported the goal directed traditional CBT model, where obsession scores are temporally associated with subsequent changes in compulsion scores. These results have implications for theoretical and treatment modelling of obsessions and compulsions in OCD treatment.     

Questions for a Millennium: Religion and Science from the Perspective of a Scientist

This essay addresses a series of eight questions about what religion can do for science. It explores the secular role of religion in contemporary science and the need for greater synthesis between science and religion. It concludes that, for survival in the twenty-first century, religion cannot exist without acknowledging and using the enormous information pool of science, and science can no longer shun or ignore religion. Humankind will always need the large, synthetic explanations that religion provides of why we are here and what we ought to do and believe. The world needs to mark this new millennium with a sense of respect, cooperation, and even synthesis between science and religion.     

The values of psychoanalytic psychotherapists at two points in time (1979 vs. 1993): A cross-over comparative study

Our purpose in this study is to view theories of psychotherapy from a general social-political context, especially insofar as they pertain to values. Beginning with Weisskopf-Joelson’s (1980) thesis that theories of psychotherapy may be “perceptual houses” with their own unique value structures, we studied the values of psychoanalytic psychotherapists within the framework of Rokeach’s ( 1968) system. Through the Rokeach Value Survey, we examined the values held by a group of psychoanalytic trainees in 1979 and those held by a group of practicing psychoanalysts in 1993. Because neither group of subjects can be regarded as randomly representative of the universe of psychoanalysts, we regard the resultant data as evocative and informative rather than definitive. Nonetheless, we examined the extent to which value profiles for the psychoanalytic trainees of 1979 were similar or dissimilar to those of practicing psychoanalysts in 1993. Such comparisons at the least provide some general indication as to whether values have shifted in the universe within this time period. Findings are presented about specific patterns of values, and implications are discussed. There appears to be more consistency than difference in values among the psychoanalytically-oriented psychotherapists we studied, lending support to this discipline’s designation of a “perceptual house” insofar as its values are concerned.     

Confidence--accuracy relations for real and suggested events

Participants completed a multiple item, multiple event version of a traditional misinformation procedure, as well as a battery of individual difference measures. The relation between memory accuracy and self-reported confidence was assessed through the comparison of items involving misinformation and items not involving misinformation. Selected individual differences in the confidence-accuracy relation were also examined for items that did and did not involve false post-event information. Results indicated significant differences between the measure of the confidence-accuracy relationship for misinformation and non-misinformation items. Several significant, although weak, individual difference correlates of the confidence-accuracy relations were also found.     

Relative efficacy of methylphenidate and behavior modification in hyperkinetic children: An interim report

Children reported to be hyperactive in school and with behavior difficulties at home were randomly assigned to methylphenidate, behavior therapy and placebo, or behavior therapy with methylphenidate for an 8-week period. Rating scales were obtained from teachers and parents. Independent blind observers rated childrens' classroom behavior on a weekly basis. A behavior therapy program was implemented in the home and at school. Methylphenidate dosage was individualized. Ratings of behavior deviance were significantly reduced by all treatments. However, a significant advantage for the groups receiving methylphenidate was found over the group receiving behavior therapy and placebo. No significant differences between methylphenidate alone and methylphenidate combined with behavior therapy were obtained. Global ratings of improvement done by teachers favored the combined treatment of behavior therapy and methylphenidate over behavior therapy and placebo. No differences among treatments were found in the mothers' global ratings of improvement. The results indicate that though all three treatments were effective, methylphenidate was significantly superior to behavior therapy alone.This study was supported in part by grant MH 18579, and by grant No. 3-621 from the Long Island Jewish-Hillside Medical Center. The authors wish to thank the behavior therapists, Drs. Jeffrey Felixbrod and Marion Pheterson, as well as Ms. Patricia Ramsey, who was responsible for data analysis.     

Psychoanalytic supervision of the difficult patient

Control cases from the broad group of non-neurotic but potentially analyzable patients appear with increasing frequency. The intense, complex transferences they develop place great stress on the psychoanalytic relationship and evoke marked countertransference reactions in psychoanalytic candidates, which reverberate within the supervisory relationship. Through application of a case study method, common themes emerge in the candidate-supervisor dyad: idealization of the supervisor and of classical technique, identification with the patient, parallel process enactments, difficulty maintaining the analytic frame, and the importance of concurrent training analysis. Classical supervisory techniques must be adapted to the "difficult" (non-neurotic) control case. Complex countertransference issues must be carefully addressed while maintaining the teach/treat boundary.     

Social learning of food types in zebra finches (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Taenopygia guttata</Emphasis>) is directed by demonstrator sex and feeding activity

In this study we examined how social learning of feeding preferences by zebra finches was affected by the identity of different demonstrators. We presented adult zebra finches with two demonstrators, one male and one female, that exhibited different food choices, and we recorded their subsequent preference when given a choice between the two food types. Previously it was found that young zebra finches' patterns of social learning are affected by the sex of the individual demonstrating a feeding behaviour. This result could be explained by the lack of exposure these animals had to the opposite sex, or by their mating status. Therefore, we investigated the social learning preferences of adult mated zebra finches. We found the same pattern of directed social learning of a different type of feeding behaviour (food colour): female zebra finches preferred the colour of food eaten by male demonstrators, whereas male zebra finches showed little evidence of any preference for the colour of food eaten by female demonstrators. Furthermore, we found that female observers' preferences were biased by demonstrators' relative feeding activity: the female demonstrator was only ever preferred if it ate less than its male counterpart. Electronic Publication