Emotional difficulties in seventh grade children in Denmark

The present study investigates the prevalence of emotional difficulties and quality of life in a sample of 834 children from 56 seventh grade (aged 12-14 years) classes. Data was derived from a study of mental well-being developed by the National Council for Children, Denmark. The sample selection ensured that the children were nationally representative. Data was collected using the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC). Results indicated that 10.8% of children had concerns regarding emotional difficulties (6.6% definite concern; 4.2% some concern), and that significantly more girls than boys (44 girls and 10 boys) reported this concern. A novel finding was that emotional difficulties were related to children's perception of having low quality of life. Findings furthermore suggested that children's perception of a low home economy, less time spent on leisure activities, and female gender were all associated with emotional difficulties.     

The relationship between phonological skills and word decoding

Word decoding ability is a critical factor in reading performance. In the present study, we examined the relationship between word decoding ability and three different phonological skills; phonemic awareness, verbal short-term memory (V-STM), and rapid automatic naming (RAN) in 1007 Scandinavian third- and fifth-graders. In the first part of the study, we sought to investigate the influence of the three phonological skills on word decoding ability. Using multiple regression analysis, our result clearly demonstrated that phonemic awareness was the most powerful phonological skill explaining variance in word decoding ability among average decoders. Among children with poor decoding skills, however, RAN was the most important factor in Grade 3, whereas V-STM was the main contributor to decoding ability among children in Grade 5. In the second part of the research, we examined the relationship between poor phonological skills and word decoding ability. Interestingly, our result revealed that approximately one half of the children with phonological difficulties, still performed within the average range with regard to word decoding ability. However, our analyses confirmed earlier research concerning the severe word decoding difficulties children with both poor phonemic awareness and restricted V-STM, experience.     

Bus drivers' exposure to bullying at work: an occupation-specific approach

The present study employs an occupation-specific approach to examine bus drivers' exposure to bullying and their trait anger, job engagement, job satisfaction and turnover intentions. A total of 1,023 bus drivers from a large public transport organization participated in the study. The findings show that bus driving can be a high risk occupation with regard to bullying, since 70% of the bus drivers had experienced one or more acts typical of bullying during the last six months. As many as 11% defined themselves as victims of bullying, 33% of whom (i.e. 3.6% of the total sample) see themselves as victims of frequent bullying. Colleagues were most frequently reported as perpetrators. Exposure to bullying was negatively related to job engagement and job satisfaction and positively related to turnover intentions. Job engagement and job satisfaction mediated the relationship between bullying and intention to leave, respectively. Trait anger had an interaction effect on the relationship between bullying and turnover intentions. This study indicates that workplace bullying has context-specific aspects that require increased use of context-specific policies and intervention methods.     

A method for quantifying focused versus overview behavior in AOI sequences

We present a new measure for evaluating focused versus overview eye movement behavior in a stimulus divided by areas of interest. The measure can be used for overall data, as well as data over time. Using data from an ongoing project with mathematical problem solving, we describe how to calculate the measure and how to carry out a statistical evaluation of the results.     

BOLD response to motion verbs in left posterior middle temporal gyrus during story comprehension

A primary focus within neuroimaging research on language comprehension is on the distribution of semantic knowledge in the brain. Studies have shown that the left posterior middle temporal gyrus (LPMT), a region just anterior to area MT/V5, is important for the processing of complex action knowledge. It has also been found that motion verbs cause activation in LPMT. In this experiment we investigated whether this effect could be replicated in a setting resembling real life language comprehension, i.e. without any overt behavioral task during passive listening to a story. During fMRI participants listened to a recording of the story “The Ugly Duckling”. We incorporated a nuisance elimination regression approach for factoring out known nuisance variables both in terms of physiological noise, sound intensity, linguistic variables and emotional content. Compared to the remaining text, clauses containing motion verbs were accompanied by a robust activation of LPMT with no other significant effects, consistent with the hypothesis that this brain region is important for processing motion knowledge, even during naturalistic language comprehension conditions.     

Self-determination theory and diminished functioning: the role of interpersonal control and psychological need thwarting

Drawing from self-determination theory, three studies explored the social-environmental conditions that satisfy versus thwart psychological needs and, in turn, affect psychological functioning and well-being or ill-being. In cross-sectional Studies 1 and 2, structural equation modeling analyses supported latent factor models in which need satisfaction was predicted by athletes' perceptions of autonomy support, and need thwarting was better predicted by coach control. Athletes' perceptions of need satisfaction predicted positive outcomes associated with sport participation (vitality and positive affect), whereas need thwarting more consistently predicted maladaptive outcomes (disordered eating, burnout, depression, negative affect, and physical symptoms). In addition, athletes' perceptions of psychological need thwarting were significantly associated with perturbed physiological arousal (elevated levels of secretory immunoglobulin A) prior to training. The final study involved the completion of a diary and supported the relations observed in the cross-sectional studies at a daily level. These findings have important implications for the operationalization and measurement of interpersonal styles and psychological needs.     

When feeling attractive matters too much to women: A process underpinning the relation between psychological need satisfaction and unhealthy weight control behaviors

This study examined a process model linking psychological need satisfaction to unhealthy weight control behaviors. Female University students (N = 220; M age = 20.47; SD = 5.07) completed questionnaires measuring need satisfaction, appearance-contingent self-worth, weight-related appearance anxiety and unhealthy weight control behaviors. Structural equation modeling revealed that need satisfaction indirectly related to engagement in unhealthy weight control behaviors through appearance-contingent self-worth and weight-related appearance anxiety. The results indicate that appearance-contingent self-worth might help to explain how low levels of psychological need satisfaction are related to maladaptive weight-related outcomes in young women.     

Eye movement suppression interferes with construction of object-centered spatial reference frames in working memory

The brain’s frontal eye fields (FEF), responsible for eye movement control, are known to be involved in spatial working memory (WM).In a previous fMRI experiment (Wallentin, Roepstorff & Burgess, Neuropsychologia, 2008) it was found that FEF activation was primarily related to the formation of an object-centered, rather than egocentric, spatial reference frame. In this behavioral experiment we wanted to demonstrate a causal relationship between eye movement control and manipulation of spatial reference frames. Sixty-two participants recalled either spatial (“Was X in front of Y?”) or non-spatial (“Was X darker than Y?”) relations in a previously shown image containing two to four objects, each with an intrinsic orientation and unique luminance. During half of all recall trials a moving visual stimulus was presented, which participants had to ignore, thus suppressing eye movement. Response times were significantly slower for spatial relations with distraction while there was no effect on non-spatial relations. There was no effect on accuracy, i.e. WM maintenance. This is consistent with the hypothesis that in spatial representations the FEFs are involved in WM content manipulation, such as establishing an object-centered spatial frame of reference.     

Does retrieval strategy disruption cause general and specific collaborative inhibition?

The purpose of the experiment on collaborative memory was to investigate if the collaborative inhibition is due to collaborating pair's disruption of each others' retrieval strategies (the retrieval strategy disruption hypothesis, RSD). The participants' (N = 36) task was to recall a list of 60 words individually and collaboratively. Retrieval strategies were manipulated by presenting word lists organised either by categories or by country of origin and adoption of retrieval strategies were examined by the adjusted ratio of clustering score. Half of the dyads received word lists organised by the same strategy and half of the dyads received word lists organised by different strategies. The results revealed a main effect of collaboration, i.e., collaborative recalled items were significantly fewer than the sum of the non-redundant individually recalled items. Both conditions (same strategies vs different strategies) suffered to the same extent from collaboration, which did not support the RSD hypothesis. However, focusing on words recalled individually but not collaboratively, dyads with different strategies, as predicted by the RSD, forgot more items during collaboration than did dyads with the same strategy. Additional results suggest that collaborative forgetting is mainly manifested by forgetting of non-overlapping items (as measured by individual recalls).     

A longitudinal examination of coach and peer motivational climates in youth sport: implications for moral attitudes, well-being, and behavioral investment

Embedded in achievement goal theory (Ames, 1992; Meece, Anderman, & Anderman, 2006), this study examined how perceptions of coach and peer motivational climate in youth sport predicted moral attitudes, emotional well-being, and indices of behavioral investment in a sample of British adolescents competing in regional leagues. We adopted a longitudinal perspective, taking measures at the middle and the end of a sport season, as well as at the beginning of the following season. Multilevel modeling analyses showed that perceptions of task-involving peer and coach climates were predictive of more adaptive outcomes than were perceptions of ego-involving peer and coach climates. Predictive effects differed as a function of time and outcome variable under investigation. The results indicate the importance of considering peer influence in addition to coach influence when examining motivational climate in youth sport.