The average rate of change for continuous time models

The average rate of change (ARC) is a concept that has been misunderstood in the applied longitudinal data analysis literature, where the slope from the straight-line change model is often thought of as though it were the ARC. The present article clarifies the concept of ARC and shows unequivocally the mathematical definition and meaning of ARC when measurement is continuous across time. It is shown that the slope from the straight-line change model generally is not equal to the ARC. General equations are presented for two measures of discrepancy when the slope from the straight-line change model is used to estimate the ARC in the case of continuous time for any model linear in its parameters, and for three useful models nonlinear in their parameters.     

Assessing Children’s Exposure to Intimate Partner Violence

Child exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) is widely acknowledged as a threat to the psycho-social and academic well-being of children. Unfortunately, as reflected in the literature, the specific link between such exposure and childhood outcomes is ambiguous. Based on a review of the literature, this article suggests that this state of affairs is due, in part, to the manner with which exposure to IPV is operationally defined. After reviewing the dominant strategies for operationally defining exposure to IPV and the problems associated with those strategies, this article reports original data contrasting three measures derived from maternal reports, three measures derived from child reports, and the limited concordance among those different indices of exposure to IPV. The implications of these findings for research on child outcomes and the clinical assessment of children who might have been exposed to IPV are discussed.     

Benchmarking Community-Based Couple Therapy: Considering Measurement Reactivity

Couple therapy has been shown to be effective in randomized clinical trials; however, results from naturalistic couple therapy have been less consistent. This study utilized a benchmarking approach to compare the effectiveness of couple therapy in a community-based setting with findings from efficacy treatments, such as treatment within randomized clinical trials. The current study is the largest couple therapy sample published to date (N = 3,347 couples). Clients in couple therapy were asked to provide initial and weekly ratings of symptomology on the Outcome Questionnaire (OQ-45.2). We found that treatment effect sizes found at community clinics were smaller than efficacy studies (i.e., the benchmark). However, when taking into account measurement reactivity, the effect sizes were comparable. This is the first benchmarking study for community-based couple therapy, allowing for meaningful comparisons and understanding of outcomes in real-world couple therapy. Implications for the field are offered in terms of evaluating community-based psychotherapy studies with benchmarking for couple therapy. Results of this study provide clinicians and researchers a way to meaningfully compare couple therapy outcomes, accounting for differences in community-based practices and randomized clinical trials. This benchmark also underscores the impact of measurement sensitivity, an issue commonly overlooked in psychotherapy research and practice.     

Change it Up: Inactivity and Repetitive Activity Reduce Creative Thinking

Across three experiments, we show that a change in the levels of physical activity increases creative thinking, whereas inactivity or repetitive activity lowers it. Participants walking forward were more creative the first few minutes of initiating physical activity than those sitting, or those merely watching changing scenery, and these effects dissipated when they continued the forward movement over time (within 8 minutes). Furthermore, merely anticipating a change in physical activity, for example, when participants were aware a task is coming to its conclusion, also increased creative thinking. We hypothesize that a change in physical activity cues the need to navigate new situations, and thus, can increase mental flexibility and creative thinking to deal with new circumstances. But once people habituate to their physical state, either of being at rest or being in motion, their level of creative thinking also returns to baseline levels. We confirm that mood, feelings of achievement, and energy are not responsible for the observed effects.     

Unwanted teenage pregnancies: incidence, interpretation, and intervention.

North American and western European cultures are more permissive than they were before World War II about the increased incidence of teen sexual activity. Societies may be more open and teens are having more premarital sex than they used to, but they surely are not using contraception as often as they should. As such, there is a great deal of unintended and unwanted teenage pregnancies, especially in the US. Even the threat of contracting and/or transmitting HIV has not caused heterosexual youths to change their sexual or contraceptive behaviors. The authors conceptualize explanations for this lack of adolescent behavioral change, including procedures designed to identify deficiencies and to bring about necessary changes in contraception-relevant information, motivation, behavioral skills, and situational constraints. Examples of successful intervention programs are outlined. Sections consider the incidence of premarital intercourse, contraceptive use, and unwanted pregnancies; contraceptive neglect; unintended and unwanted pregnancies; and why teenagers have unprotected sexual intercourse. The conceptual framework of intervening to prevent unwanted teenage pregnancies is presented in sections on providing improved contraceptive information, increasing precontraceptive motivation, improving contraceptive skills, altering situational factors which inhibit contraception, and evaluation research.     

Use of geometry for spatial reorientation in children applies only to symmetric spaces

Proponents of the geometric module hypothesis argue that following disorientation, many species reorient by use of macro‐environment geometry. It is suggested that attention to the surface layout geometry of natural terrain features may have been selected for over evolutionary time due to the enduring and unambiguous location information it provides. Paradoxically, however, tests of the hypothesis have been exclusively conducted in symmetric (hence ‘unnatural’ and geometrically ambiguous) environments. The present series of studies examines reorientation by 18‐month–3‐year‐old children in a rectangular versus irregular quadrilateral enclosure (Study 1), a rectangular versus irregular quadrilateral array (Study 2) and an isosceles versus irregular triangular array (Study 3). Children were successful in symmetric but not asymmetric environments, casting doubt on the functional argument for an empirical basis of the geometric module hypothesis.     

The emergence of a novel representation from action: evidence from preschoolers

Recent work in embodied cognition has proposed that representations and actions are inextricably linked. The current study examines a developmental account of this relationship. Specifically, we propose that children’s actions are foundational for novel representations. Thirty‐two preschoolers, aged 3.4 to 5.7 years, were asked to solve a set of simple gear‐system problems. Participants’ motions and verbalizations were coded to establish the strategies they used. The preschoolers initially solved the problems by simulating the turning and pushing of the gears. Subsequently, most participants discovered a new representation of the problems: the turning direction of the gears alternates. Results show that the number of actions that embodied alternation information, during their simulation of the system, predicted the later emergence of the higher‐order representation (i.e. that the gears alternate turning direction). Thus, it appears that the preschoolers discovered a new representation based on their own actions. These results are consistent with the developmental embodiment hypothesis: actions are central to the emergence of new representations.