Maternal depression and infant temperament characteristics

One hundred-thirty-nine women participated in this longitudinal study from the third trimester of pregnancy through 8-months postpartum. Women completed depression scales at several time points and rated their infant's characteristics and childcare stress at 2- and 6-months postpartum. Mothers' reports of infant temperament were significantly different for depressed and non-depressed mothers, with depressed mothers reporting more difficult infants at both measurement points. These differences remained after controlling for histories of maternal abuse or prenatal anxiety, which occurred more often in the depressed mothers. There were no significant differences in childcare stress or perceived support between the groups. Infant temperament and childcare stress did not change over time. Recommendations for practice include consistent ongoing evaluations of the "goodness of fit" within the dyad and exploring interventions for depressed mothers that provide guidance about interactions with their infants and the appropriateness of the infant behaviors.     

Perfectionism and Depression Among Low-Income Chronically Ill African American and White Adolescents and Their Maternal Parent

Most research on perfectionism is based on convenience samples of university students or clinically distressed samples, and therefore relatively less is known about the development and implications of perfectionism for other groups. In this study, we examined perfectionism and depression in low-income African American (n = 39) and White (n = 55) adolescents with chronic illnesses (most with diabetes, asthma, and/or hypertension) and their primary parents. We specifically examined the association between parent and child perfectionism, and the link between perfectionism and depression in both groups. The African American adolescents reported significantly more maladaptive perfectionism than did the White adolescents, and the African American parents reported significantly higher scores on depression than did the White parents. Correlations and regression analyses revealed similarities and differences in perfectionism-depression associations that might be explained in light of cultural differences and the unique physical and emotional challenges faced by youth with chronic illnesses. The word “parent” in this study is used to represent a parent or other adult who was identified as a primary caregiver for the adolescent.     

Colored-Speech Synaesthesia Is Triggered by Multisensory, Not Unisensory, Perception

ABSTRACT— Although it is estimated that as many as 4% of people experience some form of enhanced cross talk between (or within) the senses, known as synaesthesia, very little is understood about the level of information processing required to induce a synaesthetic experience. In work presented here, we used a well-known multisensory illusion called the McGurk effect to show that synaesthesia is driven by late, perceptual processing, rather than early, unisensory processing. Specifically, we tested 9 linguistic-color synaesthetes and found that the colors induced by spoken words are related to what is perceived (i.e., the illusory combination of audio and visual inputs) and not to the auditory component alone. Our findings indicate that color-speech synaesthesia is triggered only when a significant amount of information processing has occurred and that early sensory activation is not directly linked to the synaesthetic experience.     

Potential performance theory (PPT): Describing a methodology for analyzing task performance

Based on potential performance theory (PPT), a methodological paradigm is developed that allows for individual-level analyses. The proposed methodology distinguishes among observed performance, strategy, and consistency, with the idea that changes in observed performance can be caused by changes in strategy or consistency. Equations are presented that allow the computation of strategy and consistency scores for groups and individuals, with the goal of enabling researchers to find the reasons why performance improves or does not improve. More specifically, people may (1) develop better strategies, (2) use them more consistently, (3) both, or (4) neither. It is even possible to have strategy—consistency trade-offs, as individuals focus on one at the expense of the other. Data obtained from an experiment illustrate these possibilities.     

Acquisition and Manifestation of Prejudice in Children

Three major categories of prejudice have been identified in this article: Conscious/Intentional, Conscious/Unintentional, and Unconscious/Unintentional. Prejudice plays a large role in the development of our children, and through exposure to and understanding of the development of prejudice, the strength that it holds can be understood and diminished.     

Some developmental characteristics of adult psychotherapy groups

This paper highlights some developmental characteristics of adult psychotherapy groups and the relationships among them. It argues that members of a therapy group will experience and have an opportunity to resolve within the group itself normal developmental conflicts of adult life such as learning to establish intimate relationships. In addition, members will reexperience unresolved developmental conflicts of childhood and adolescence that frequently prevent adequate resolution of adult developmental tasks, and have an opportunity to rework them. Lastly, because of the essential isomorphism of therapy groups, members' developmental conflicts will be experienced and dealt with when the group-qua-group is dealing with parallel developmental struggles in its own life.     

Reliability of the Attitudes Toward Women Scale (AWS) and the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ)

The stability and internal consistency of Spence and Helmreich's Attitudes Toward Women Scale (AWS) and Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ) are reported. An entire first-year class of 1,007 male and 78 female cadets at the U.S. Military Academy were given a battery of psychological tests before and after cadet basic training, a 2 1/2-month period. The AWS and PAQ proved to be highly reliable, comparable to other frequently used psychological tests. This psychometric information encourages researchers to make further use of these gender-related instruments.This research was conducted under research grants from the Army Research Institute (Alan G. Vitters and Jerome Adams, Principal Investigators). The views expressed herein are opinions of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the policy of the U.S. Army, the U.S. Military Academy, or the Army Research Institute. The authors appreciate the editorial comments of Dr. Brenda Major.