A long‐term fatty fish intervention improved executive function in inpatients with antisocial traits and a history of alcohol and drug abuse

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of fatty fish consumption on cognitive functioning in a group of inpatients characterized by antisocial behavior. Eighty‐three male forensic inpatients participated in this study. Participants were randomly assigned into a Fish or a Control group (e.g., meat, chicken, pork). One decision‐making task, the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), and one planning task, the Tower of Hanoi (ToH), were administered before (pre‐test) and at the end of the intervention period (post‐test). For the IGT the Fish group showed improved performance from pre‐ to post‐ test. Moreover, the Fish group showed significantly better performance than the Control group on the IGT at post‐test. The Fish group also demonstrated improved performance from pre‐ to post‐test on the ToH; however, this was limited to participants with a history of substance abuse. Further, the improvement was only significant for tasks with high working memory load (5–7 move problems), and not for tasks with low working memory load (1–4 move problems). The Control group showed no improvement on any of the tasks regardless of alcohol or drug abuse history. The present study suggests that regular fatty fish consumption may improve executive functions in forensic inpatients with antisocial traits and a history of substance abuse. Thus, the current results may have important implications with regard to health care interventions.     

The Spanish version of the Wisconsin Personality Disorders Inventory-IV (WISPI-IV): tests of validity and reliability

Personality disorders (PD) are a prevalent class of mental disorders that interfere with functioning and cause subjective distress while increasing the intensity and duration of Axis I clinical syndromes, and therefore assessing PD is important even when PDs are not the focus of treatment. The purpose of these studies was to develop and test a new Spanish version of a self-report measure of PD, the Wisconsin Personality Inventory-IV (WISPI-IV) that would be psychometrically equivalent to the English version while also maintaining the same interpersonal content, which is based on Benjamin's analysis of the PD criteria using her Structural Analysis of Social Behavior (SASB) model (1974). Study 1 participants completed the WISPI-IV twice over a two-week interval. For Study 2, participants from two sites in Spain and one site in Argentina completed Spanish versions of the WISPI-IV and other personality measures. SASB-analysis of the translated items showed high correspondence between the interpersonal content of the English version and the Spanish version demonstrating theoretical validation in relation to other PD measures. The Spanish WISPI-IV showed satisfactory reliability based on test-retest correlations and alphas for internal consistency. Study 2 showed the Spanish WISPI-IV had good convergent validity with the Spanish versions of the IIP and SCID-II and performed similarly to the English versions of these measures. Our goal in translating the WISPI-IV was to extend this measure to Spanish-speakers in language that would be understood by different Hispanic sub-groups, however research team members and subjects had a variety of suggestions for changes in item wording. This reflects the difficulty with creating a "neutral" Spanish version of any assessment given regional differences.     

Mechanisms of health: Education and health-related behaviours partially mediate the relationship between conscientiousness and self-reported physical health

The personality trait of conscientiousness is an important predictor of health and longevity. The present research examined how conscientiousness, in combination with educational attainment and health-related behaviours, predicted self-reported physical health across adulthood. These relations were investigated in two studies, one using a large, representative sample of Illinois residents (N = 617) and the other using a community sample with a multi-method assessment of conscientiousness (N = 274). Across both studies, structural path analyses provided evidence for a model wherein conscientiousness predicted health, in part, through its relationship to both educational attainment and health-related behaviours. The findings suggest conscientiousness predicts health through a diverse set of mechanisms including, but not limited to, educational attainment and health-related behaviours.     

Elementary school teachers' strategies to handle externalizing classroom behavior: a study of relations between perceived control, teacher orientation and strategy preferences

Rydell, A.-M. & Henricsson, L. (2004). Elementary school teachers' strategies to handle externalizing classroom behavior: A study of relations between perceived control, teacher orientation and strategy preferences. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 45 , 93–102.
Strategies for dealing with problematic student behavior are an important part of the teacher role. Relations between teachers' perceptions of control over children's classroom behavior, teacher orientation and teachers' strategy preferences when confronted with externalizing child behaviors were investigated. Eighty-six primary school teachers, 91% of all first grade teachers in one municipality in Sweden, completed a questionnaire. Disciplinary strategy preferences were measured through vignettes describing externalizing child behaviors, with response alternatives modeled after the Parental Discipline Interview ( Scarr, Pinkerton & Eisenberg, 1991 ). Perceived control was measured with a subscale applied to teachers from the Parental Locus of Control Scale ( Campis, Lyman & Prentice-Dunn, 1986 ). Newly constructed measures of teacher orientation were used. The results indicated that perceived low control over one's classroom situation and a custodial teacher orientation were associated with preferences for authoritarian strategies (firm verbal reprimands, physical restraint) and perceived high control and a humanistic teacher orientation were associated with non-authoritarian strategies (e.g. reasoning with students). Teachers' strategy preferences and associations between perceived control, teacher orientation and strategy preferences were to some extent validated in relations to observed teacher behavior in a subsample of the classrooms.     

Sexual exhaustion and recovery in the male rat

Twelve male rats were left with receptive females and allowed to copulate and ejaculate until they reached a criterion of “sexual exhaustion” They were then retested after 1, 3, 6 and 15 days of sexual inactivity. Following these observations males were tested once each day or once every other day and allowed to achieve a single ejaculation.

In the course of a period of unlimited access to the receptive female males usually need approximately 10 intromissions to produce the initial ejaculation, but successive ejaculations are produced by fewer and fewer intromissions. The time to recover from the effects of an ejaculation increases progressively as exhaustion is approached.

Very few animals copulate when tested 24 hours after sexual exhaustion. Considerably more recovery is evident in tests conducted after a 3-day rest, but it is not complete and rats are not capable of achieving as many ejaculations as they tend to achieve after longer periods of inactivity. As measured by ejaculation-frequency, the curve of sexual recovery is negatively accelerated and probably reaches asymptote after 7 to 10 days of rest.

Various other measures in addition to ejaculation-frequency support this conclusion. Males allowed to ejaculate once each day or every other day are somewhat less responsive than fully rested animals, but do not show any progressive loss in sexual excitability or capacity.

A working hypothesis is proposed to explain most of the findings. It postulates the existence of an Arousal Mechanism which is distinct from a Copulatory Mechanism. The ways in which these hypothetical mechanisms are affected by sexual performance and sexual rest arc discussed.     

Decreased volume of the cerebral ventricles on CT images in Gilles de la Tourette's syndrome

The aim of the present study was to estimate the volume of the ventricular system comprising lateral plus third ventricles in patients with Gilles de la Tourette's syndrome on computed tomographic (CT) scannings using unbiased stereological principles and to compare that volume with a control group. We found a significantly reduced ventricular volume in 24 patients with Gilles de la Tourette's syndrome (GTS) compared with 28 controls.     

Preschool Children's Mastery of the Form/Content Distinction in Communicative Tasks

Preschoolers' mastery of the form/content distinction in language and communication, along its contingency on the characteristics of particular task requirements and test procedures, was investigated in two studies. The theoretical concepts principle of contrast and theory of mind are closely related to the studies. A paraphrase task and a referential communication task were used. In the paraphrase task, children from 3 to 6 years of age acted as messengers and judged whether or not a paraphrase of a message was the same as what the child had said. The results in Study 1 indicated that children as young as 3 years of age recognized this kind of form/content distinction. Fewer children, in particular the younger ones, succeeded with the referential communication task in Study 1. However, among the 6-year-olds, the two tasks showed a tendency to be significantly related. In Study 2, performance decreased among children of all ages, but in particular among the youngest children. In Study 2, the two form/content tasks were not correlated in any age group. The general conclusion is that there is a range of tasks, which may reveal awareness of the form/content distinction among young children, and that it is possible to construct tasks which would enable young children to pay attention to this distinction. Aspects of awareness of the form/content distinction may start to develop early during the preschool period, rather than appearing around the school start. However, the question of why only some children, and not the majority of them, develop this distinction at a very young age is unsettled, as well as the consequences of this early development later on at school.     

Assessing the Utility of Compound Trait Estimates of Narrow Personality Traits

It has been argued that approximations of narrow traits can be made through linear combinations of broad traits such as the Big Five personality traits. Indeed, Hough and Ones (2001 Hough, L. M., &; Ones, D. S. (2001). The structure, measurement, validity, &; use of personality variables in industrial, work, and organizational psychology. In N. Anderson, D. S. Ones, H. K. Sinangil, &; C Viswesvaran (Eds.), Handbook of industrial, work, and organizational psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 233–277). London, UK: Sage.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) used a qualitative analysis of scale content to arrive at a taxonomy of how Big Five traits might be combined to approximate various narrow traits. However, the utility of such compound trait approximations has yet to be established beyond specific cases such as integrity and customer service orientation. Using data from the Eugene-Springfield Community Sample (Goldberg, 2008 Goldberg, L. R. (2008). The Eugene-Springfield community sample: Information available from the research participants. Eugene: Oregon Research Institute. [Google Scholar]), we explore the ability of linear composites of scores on Big Five traits to approximate scores on 127 narrow trait measures from 5 well-known non-Big-Five omnibus measures of personality. Our findings indicate that individuals' standing on more than 30 narrow traits can be well estimated from 3 different types of linear composites of scores on Big Five traits without a substantial sacrifice in criterion validity. We discuss theoretical accounts for why such relationships exist as well as the theoretical and practical implications of these findings for researchers and practitioners.