Mothers,Fathers, Gender Role,and Time Parents Spend with Their Children

To examine the relationships among the sex of the parent, gender role, and the time parents spend with their children, 272 parents completed the Bem Sex-Role Inventory, a questionnaire about the time spent with their children, and a demographics questionnaire. Analyses indicated that neither the sex of the parent nor gender role was predictive of the amount of time parents were spending in direct interaction with or being accessible to their children. The sex of the parent, qualified by earning status, was predictive of the level of responsibility parents had for child-related activities. Further, the sex of the parent, qualified by femininity, was predictive of parental satisfaction with level of child-related responsibilities. These results emphasize the importance of examining parental characteristics in relation to the time parents spend with their children and their levels of responsibility for child-related activities.     

Cognitive Functioning in Treatment-Seeking Gulf War Veterans: Pyridostigmine Bromide Use and PTSD

Gulf War (GW) deployed veterans have reported health symptoms since returning from the war that suggest dysfunction of the central nervous system (CNS). These symptoms include memory and concentration difficulties, fatigue, and headaches. Leading hypotheses for the etiology of these cognitive complaints include psychological factors and/or exposures to chemicals with neurotoxic properties. In this study, cognitive functioning was compared in treatment-seeking GW-deployed veterans and a treatment-seeking non–GW-deployed veteran control group. Results indicated that GW-deployed veterans performed significantly worse than the comparison group on tests of attention, visuospatial skills, visual memory, and mood. GW-deployed veterans who reported taking pyridostigmine bromide (PB) performed worse than GW-deployed veterans without PB use on executive system tasks. Treatment-seeking GW-deployed veterans with diagnoses of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) did not differ on cognitive test measures compared with GW-deployed veterans without PTSD. No interaction effect of PTSD and PB use was found.     

Boosting the Potency of Resistance: Combining the Motivational Forces of Inoculation and Psychological Reactance

The efficacy of inoculation theory has been confirmed by decades of empirical research, yet optimizing its effectiveness remains a vibrant line of investigation. The present research turns to psychological reactance theory for a means of enhancing the core mechanisms of inoculation—threat and refutational preemption. Findings from a multisite study indicate reactance enhances key resistance outcomes, including: threat, anger at attack message source, negative cognitions, negative affect, anticipated threat to freedom, anticipated attack message source derogation, perceived threat to freedom, perceived attack message source derogation, and counterarguing. Most importantly, reactance‐enhanced inoculations result in lesser attitude change—the ultimate measure of resistance.     

Anxiety and Depression in Children: A Preliminary Examination of the Utility of the PANAS-C

Recent research has questioned the validity of identifying depression and anxiety as separate constructs in children. The current investigation examined the usefulness of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule for Children (PANAS-C) in differentiating between anxiety and depression in children while also providing needed reliability and validity data on the PANAS-C. In addition, the relationship between positive and negative affect and coping was examined. Subjects included 110 third through fifth graders from a semirural public school setting. Children completed the PANAS-C, as well as self-report measures of depression, anxiety, and coping strategies. Moderate item–total correlations and high internal consistency indicated that the PANAS-C has good reliability. Validity results were mixed: a two-factor solution resembled previous studies, and negative affect was associated with avoidance coping strategies whereas positive affect was associated with approach coping strategies, as expected. However, correlations of positive and negative affect, anxiety, and depression scales suggest that positive and negative affectivity are negatively related in children as opposed to separate and independent constructs. Results of the present investigation question the validity of the use of the PANAS-C for differentiating anxiety and depression with this age group and lend support to the possibility that high overlap between anxiety and depression in this age group may be specific for childhood depression.     

Specifying Associations Between Conscientiousness and Executive Functioning: Mental Set Shifting,Not Prepotent Response Inhibition or Working Memory Updating

Conscientiousness is characterized by self‐control, organization, and goal orientation and is positively related to a number of health and professional outcomes. Thus, it is commonly suggested that conscientiousness should be related to superior executive functioning (EF) abilities, especially prepotent response inhibition. However, little empirical support for this notion has emerged, perhaps due to oversimplified and underspecified modeling of EF. The current study sought to fill this gap by testing relations between conscientiousness and three facets of EF using a nested factors latent variable approach. Participants (N = 420; M_age = 22.5; 50% male; 91% Caucasian) completed a measure of conscientiousness and nine EF tasks designed to tap three related yet distinguishable facets of EF: working memory updating, mental set shifting, and prepotent response inhibition. Structural equation models showed that conscientiousness is positively associated with the EF facet of mental set shifting but not response inhibition or working memory updating. Despite the common notion that conscientiousness is associated with cognitive abilities related to rigid control over impulses (i.e., inhibition), the current results suggest the cognitive ability most associated with conscientiousness is characterized by flexibility and the ability to adapt to changing environmental contingencies and task demands.