Is heavy drinking really associated with attrition from college? The alcohol-attrition paradox

Student attrition at colleges across the United States poses a significant problem for students and families, higher educational institutions, and the nation's workforce competing in the global economy. Heavy drinking is a highly plausible contributor to the problem. However, there is little evidence that it is a reliable predictor of attrition. Notably, few studies take into account indicators of collegiate engagement that are associated with both heavy drinking and persistence in college. Event-history analysis was used to estimate the effect of heavy drinking on attrition among 3,290 undergraduates at a large midwestern university during a 4-year period, and student attendance at a number of college events was included as covariates. Results showed that heavy drinking did not predict attrition bivariately or after controlling for precollege predictors of academic success. However, after controlling for event attendance (an important indicator of collegiate engagement), heavy drinking was found to predict attrition. These findings underscore the importance of the college context in showing that heavy drinking does in fact predict attrition and in considering future intervention efforts to decrease attrition and also heavy drinking.     

Comparison of longitudinal phenotypes based on alternate heavy drinking cut scores: a systematic comparison of trajectory approaches III.

The goal of the present study was to empirically determine the effect of employing different cut scores for frequency of heavy episodic drinking (HED; an often-used indicator of problematic alcohol involvement) within a longitudinal framework. Using data from a large prospective (9-wave) college student sample, the authors used latent class growth analyses to characterize developmental trajectories of HED based on alternate cut scores that varied in frequency of HED (defined by 5+ drinks per occasion), as well as to measure very heavy episodic drinking (12+ drinks per occasion). As cut score severity increased and base rates for HED correspondingly decreased, individuals were increasingly categorized into less severe classes. Concordance between trajectories ranged from small to moderate, with concordance using highly discrepant definitions of frequent HED being particularly low. HED trajectories based upon different cut scores were validated against a range of etiological and consequential correlates. No single cut score was superior to others in explaining variance in external validity indicators, suggesting that the choice of cut score should be based upon theoretical and clinical considerations. This study further extends the authors' prior work examining the effects of methodological factors that are critical to characterizing the developmental course of alcohol involvement.     

Reading between the lies: identifying concealed and falsified emotions in universal facial expressions

The widespread supposition that aspects of facial communication are uncontrollable and can betray a deceiver's true emotion has received little empirical attention. We examined the presence of inconsistent emotional expressions and "microexpressions" (1/25-1/5 of a second) in genuine and deceptive facial expressions. Participants viewed disgusting, sad, frightening, happy, and neutral images, responding to each with a genuine or deceptive (simulated, neutralized, or masked) expression. Each 1/30-s frame (104,550 frames in 697 expressions) was analyzed for the presence and duration of universal expressions, microexpressions, and blink rate. Relative to genuine emotions, masked emotions were associated with more inconsistent expressions and an elevated blink rate; neutralized emotions showed a decreased blink rate. Negative emotions were more difficult to falsify than happiness. Although untrained observers performed only slightly above chance at detecting deception, inconsistent emotional leakage occurred in 100% of participants at least once and lasted longer than the current definition of a microexpression suggests. Microexpressions were exhibited by 21.95% of participants in 2% of all expressions, and in the upper or lower face only.     

Attitudes related to child sexual abuse: scale construction and explorative study among psychologists

A Child Sexual Abuse Attitude and Belief Scale was constructed and then answered by 242 child psychologists. Four CSA related attitude and belief subscales were identified through confirmatory factor analysis: (1) The Disclosure subscale reflecting favouring a disclosure at any cost; (2) The Pro-Child subscale reflecting unconditional belief in children's reports; (3) The Intuition subscale reflecting favouring an intuitive approach to CSA investigations; and (4) The Anti Criminal Justice System subscale reflecting negative attitudes towards the legal system. Beliefs that were erroneous according to empirical research were analyzed separately. The results suggest that some psychologists hold extreme attitudes and many erroneous beliefs related to CSA. Some misconceptions are common. Female participants tended to have stronger attitudes than male participants. The more training in interviewing children the participants had had, the more erroneous beliefs and stronger attitudes they had. Experience did not affect attitudes and beliefs.     

Parent-Rated Anxiety Symptoms in Children with Pervasive Developmental Disorders: Frequency and Association with Core Autism Symptoms and Cognitive Functioning

Background In addition to the core symptoms, children with Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD) often exhibit other problem behaviors such as aggression, hyperactivity, and anxiety, which can contribute to overall impairment and, therefore, become the focus of clinical attention. Limited data are available on the prevalence of anxiety in these children. We examined frequency and correlates of parent-rated anxiety symptoms in a large sample of children with PDD. Methods The goals of this study were to examine the frequency and correlates of parent-rated anxiety symptoms in a sample of 171 medication-free children with PDD who participated in two NIH-funded medication trials. Twenty items of the Child and Adolescent Symptom Inventory (CASI) were used to measure anxiety. Results Forty three percent of the total sample met screening cut-off criteria for at least one anxiety disorder. Higher levels of anxiety on the 20-item CASI scale were associated with higher IQ, the presence of functional language use, and with higher levels of stereotyped behaviors. In children with higher IQ, anxiety was also associated with greater impairment in social reciprocity. Conclusion Anxiety is common in PDD and warrants consideration in clinical evaluation and treatment planning. This study suggests that parent ratings could be a useful source of information about anxiety symptoms in this population. Some anxiety symptoms such as phobic and social anxiety may be closer to core symptoms of PDD. Further efforts to validate tools to ascertain anxiety are needed, as are studies to empirically test approaches to treat anxiety in PDD.     

Friendships with Peers Who are Low or High in Aggression as Moderators of the Link between Peer Victimization and Declines in Academic Functioning

This paper reports two prospective investigations of the role of friendship in the relation between peer victimization and grade point averages (GPA). Study 1 included 199 children (105 boys, 94 girls; mean age of 9.1 years) and Study 2 included 310 children (151 boys, 159 girls; mean age of 8.5 years). These children were followed for two school years. In both projects, we assessed aggression, victimization, and friendship with a peer nomination inventory, and we obtained children's GPAs from a review of school records. Peer victimization was associated with academic declines only when children had either a high number of friends who were above the classroom mean on aggression or a low number of friends who were below the classroom mean on aggression. These results highlight the importance of aggression levels among friends for the academic adjustment of victimized children.     

Genetic effects on male sexual coercion

The genetic and environmental influences on sexual coercion, and to what extent its associations with alcohol use and psychopathy depend on shared genetic and environmental effects, were explored in a Finnish population-based sample of 938 men, aged 33-43 years, using the classical twin study design. All three phenotypes were associated positively and affected by genes (sexual coercion 28%, alcohol use 60%, psychopathy 54%), with 46% of the correlation between sexual coercion and psychopathy, 89% of the correlation between alcohol use and psychopathy and 100% of the correlation between sexual coercion and alcohol use being explained by shared genetic effects. Further, the results showed that a proportion of the variance in sexual coercion was derived from a highly genetic source that was common with alcohol use and psychopathy. This latent factor was hypothesized to reflect a general tendency for antisocial behavior that is pervasive across different situations. Relevant theories on sexual coercion were discussed in light of the results.     

Need for cognition can magnify or attenuate priming effects in social judgment

This article hypothesizes that the individual-difference variable, need for cognition (NFC), can have opposite implications for priming effects, depending on prime blatancy. Subtle primes are argued to be more effective for high- versus low-NFC individuals. This is because for high-NFC individuals, (a) constructs are generally easier to activate, (b) their higher amount of thought offers more opportunity for an activated construct to bias judgment, and (c) their thoughtfully formed judgments are more likely to affect behavior. However, because high-NFC individuals are adept at identifying and correcting for bias, with blatant primes the activated construct should be less likely to exert its default influence. Furthermore, with blatant primes, low-NFC individuals may achieve sufficient activation for primes to affect judgment. Across three studies, it is shown that as NFC increases, the magnitude of priming effects increases with a subtle prime but decreases with a blatant prime.