Impact of Behavioral Inhibition and Parenting Style on Internalizing and Externalizing Problems from Early Childhood through Adolescence

Behavioral inhibition (BI) is characterized by a pattern of extreme social reticence, risk for internalizing behavior problems, and possible protection against externalizing behavior problems. Parenting style may also contribute to these associations between BI and behavior problems (BP). A sample of 113 children was assessed for BI in the laboratory at 14 and 24 months of age, self-report of maternal parenting style at 7 years of age, and maternal report of child internalizing and externalizing BP at 4, 7, and 15 years. Internalizing problems at age 4 were greatest among behaviorally inhibited children who also were exposed to permissive parenting. Furthermore, greater authoritative parenting was associated with less of an increase in internalizing behavior problems over time and greater authoritarian parenting was associated with a steeper decline in externalizing problems. Results highlight the importance of considering child and environmental factors in longitudinal patterns of BP across childhood and adolescence.     

Interpreting claims in offender profiles: the role of probability phrases,base‐rates and perceived dangerousness

Offender profilers use verbal and numerical probability expressions to convey uncertainty surrounding claims made about offender's characteristics. No previous research has examined how these expressions might affect the recipient's interpretation of the information. Seventy participants completed an online questionnaire and results showed a diverse range of interpretations of these uncertainty expressions. Moreover, characteristic base‐rates and dangerousness affected the perceived likelihood of the profiling claim, such that increased base‐rates and perceived dangerousness resulted in an increased perception of the claim being likely. Perceived likelihoods also depended on the framing of characteristics as well as the framing of the claim itself. Finally, where claims involved presenting a characteristic qualified by a low probability these claims were interpreted as more likely than not to be present. These findings have practical implications for profilers and more general theoretical implications for the study of risk perception. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Speech perception engages a general timer: Evidence from a divided attention word identification task

Time is essential to speech. The duration of speech segments plays a critical role in the perceptual identification of these segments, and therefore in that of spoken words. Here, using a French word identification task, we show that vowels are perceived as shorter when attention is divided between two tasks, as compared to a single task control condition. This temporal underestimation pattern is consistent with attentional models of timing and hence demonstrates that vowel duration is explicitly estimated using a central general-purpose timer.     

L’adhésion des populations immigrantes à la valeur de l’autonomie véhiculée en santé publique

Autonomy, a basic ethical value in public health, is regularly put under pressure by the demands of empowerment, rights of individuals and healthy communities. This article describes the results of a study about the support of non-immigrants and immigrants subjects (n?=?137) from the Montreal area on the value of autonomy conveyed in six public health programs. The results indicate that non-immigrants Quebecers and longstanding immigrants differ from recent immigrants concerning activities about commitment of fathers, poverty families, screening for sexually transmitted diseases and treatment of tuberculosis.     

“Hearts with one purpose alone”? Thinking personal sustainability in social movements

While attention is now being paid to emotions and personal sustainability in social movements, relatively little attention has been paid to difference between social movement situations or broader cultural contexts. This paper locates the question in the broader history of thinking about ordinary people's political engagement since the French Revolution. It explores various literatures relating to the topic, arguing that emotional sustainability is only one aspect of personal sustainability in social movements. Using the example of WB Yeats' response to the 1916 Easter Rising, it highlights the importance of locating this in place, time and culture. The paper offers a typological approach as a counter-strategy to the assumption of uniformity, focussing on difference in social situation, organising contexts and background cultures.     

Do Gender and Age Moderate the Relationship between Friendship Quality and Non-Suicidal Self-Injury in Community Children and Adolescents?

In the present study, we investigated the relationship between friendship quality (dimensions) and non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) as well as the moderating role of gender and age in this relationship. The sample consisted of 463 children and adolescents (50.10% female, age range: 9–17 years). Friendship quality and NSSI were measured using the Friendship Qualities Scale (FQS; Bukowski, Hoza, & Boivin, 1994) and the Self Harm Inventory (SHI; Sansone, Wiederman, & Sansone, 1998), respectively. Overall, total friendship quality and NSSI were significantly and negatively related. Additionally, the relationship between total friendship quality and NSSI was moderated by gender and age. Specifically, girls with low friendship quality reported more NSSI; whereas for boys an opposite effect was found. As for age, friendship quality and NSSI were positively related in older participants. In younger participants, a relationship between friendship quality and NSSI seemed rather absent. This study highlights the important association between friendship quality and NSSI, as well as gender- and age-related differences in this association, which should be taken into account in the prevention and treatment of NSSI.     

Looking forward, looking back: anticipation is more evocative than retrospection

The results of 5 experiments indicate that people report more intense emotions during anticipation of, than during retrospection about, emotional events that were positive (Thanksgiving Day), negative (annoying noises, menstruation), routine (menstruation), and hypothetical (all-expenses-paid ski vacation). People's tendency to report more intense emotion during anticipation than during retrospection was associated with a slight, but only occasionally significant, tendency for people to expect future emotions to be more intense than they remembered past emotions having been. The greater evocativeness of anticipation than retrospection was also associated with and statistically mediated by participants' tendency to report mentally simulating future emotional events more extensively than they report mentally stimulating past emotional events. The conclusion that anticipation is more evocative than retrospection has implications for research methodology, clinical practice, decision making, and well-being.     

The Influence of Media Coverage on Responses to a Hypothetical Burglary Scenario1

The present study examined whether media coverage was likely to have an effect on burglars' emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses to the offense. Questionnaires were distributed to 224 male students, who were asked to imagine that they had committed a “burglary under the influence of alcohol.” They were asked to express their thoughts, feelings, and possible actions, both before and after reading a newspaper article about the offense. A multidimensional scaling procedure identified 4 response themes: guilt, fear, forensic awareness, and pride. Two persuasion variables (inducing guilt and a hidden message) were found to have a multifaceted influence on the 4 themes. Implications for police use of the media as well as limitations of the study are discussed.     

When is profiling possible? Offense planning and aggression as moderators in predicting offender age from victim age in stranger rape

Debate continues with regard to the possibility of inferring an offender's characteristic features from crime scene details (the process of so-called "offender profiling"). We argue that psychology generally has benefited from appreciating context in predicting behavior. In the same way, profiling would benefit from an appreciation of context in predicting characteristics. This "reverse" process is contingent on various "if...then" relationships. As one example, this paper demonstrates how profiling offender age from victim age is contingent on (i) the level of planning and (ii) the level of aggression displayed during the offense. Eighty-five stranger rape case records formed the data set. Moderated regression analysis revealed that victim age is a significant predictor of offender age only in cases where the offender has (i) shown evidence of planning the attack and/or (ii) acts in a gratuitously aggressive manner. The theoretical bases for these findings may lie in the extent to which offenders disparately plan and target victims and how extreme aggressiveness in stranger rapes may relate to a near-peer proxy for an offender's anger. The implications of the results for the processes and methods involved in offender profiling suggest that certain crime scene factors can have differential moderating effects on predictive outcomes.