Longitudinal Associations Between Perceived Parent-Adolescent Attachment Relationship Quality and Generalized Anxiety Disorder Symptoms in Adolescence

This longitudinal study examined the direction of effects between adolescents' generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) symptoms and perceived parent-adolescent attachment relationship quality, as well as the moderating role of gender and age. 1,313 Dutch adolescents (48.5% boys) from two age cohorts of early (n?=?923, M(age)?=?12 at W1) and middle (n?=?390, M(age)?=?16 at W1) adolescents completed questionnaires regarding their attachment relationship to parents and GAD symptoms in four waves. Cross-lagged path analyses demonstrated that adolescents' GAD symptoms and perceived father-adolescent attachment relationship quality bidirectionally negatively affected each other over time. For mothers, adolescents' GAD symptoms negatively predicted perceived mother-adolescent attachment relationship quality over time. The within-wave correlated residuals between perceived attachment relationship quality with fathers and GAD symptoms were stronger for boys than for girls and stronger for the cohort of middle adolescents than for the cohort of early adolescents. This study demonstrates that both the parents' and the adolescents' gender as well as the adolescents' age affects the relation between adolescents' GAD symptoms and perceived parent-adolescent attachment relationship quality.     

Searching for Sharks and a Second Self

Twenty years ago, Pastoral Psychology published “The Extra Mile—Case History of a Homicide” (Moss, Pastoral Psychology 42:107–136, 1993, p.134). In that autobiographical vignette, I argued that pastoral theology has a responsibility to: “1) articulate contemporary ultimate concerns, 2) clarify healthy avenues for compensation, and 3) tell stories about the hopeful revelations of God’s providence in a broken world” (Moss, Pastoral Psychology 42:107–136, 1993, p.134). This story illustrates all three of these points by recording a psychological fragmentation and restoration resulting from the death of a dear friend—“a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Prov. 18:24). Aristotle referred to this type of friend as “a second self.” In the Celtic church such a person was anam cara, a Gaelic expression for “soul friend.” A few years ago I lost such a friend to cancer. During my grieving process I created a private tribute from our unfulfilled wish to go on one more adventure together—specifically, a shark hunt. The capture and release of sharks is a unique extreme sport. It is also the vehicle by which I finally resolved my grief: I reunited with my second self by means of an image in the eye of a requiem shark, a reflection of anam cara. The interrelated layers of this occurrence—particularly its coincidences—evidence Providence, as well as provide an example of a “Contact with the Dead Experience” described by Andrew Greeley and myself some 20 years ago in the Journal of Religion and Health (Moss, Journal of Religion and Health 29:261–283, 1990).     

Maternal Criticism and Adolescent Depressive and Generalized Anxiety Disorder Symptoms: A 6-Year Longitudinal Community Study

This 6-year longitudinal study examined the direction of effects (i.e., parent effects, child effects, or reciprocal effects) between maternal criticism and adolescent depressive and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) symptoms, including adolescents’ perceptions of criticism as a potential mediator. Consistent with recent empirical findings on associations between parenting and adolescent internalizing symptoms, we hypothesized stronger child effects than parent effects. A community sample of 497 adolescents (M _age?=?13.03 at T₁, 57 % boys) reported annually on their depressive and GAD symptoms as well as their perceptions of parental criticism. Their mothers (M _age?=?44.41 at T₁) also reported annually on their own critical behavior toward their adolescent. As expected, cross-lagged panel models demonstrated stronger child effects (i.e., adolescent psychopathology predicting maternal criticism) than parent effects (i.e., maternal criticism predicting adolescent psychopathology) for both adolescent depressive and GAD symptoms, including adolescent perceived criticism as a significant mediator. Our results emphasize the importance of considering (1) potential bidirectional influences over time, contrary to a focus on parent effects on adolescent mental health, as well as (2) adolescent perceptions of parenting as an important potential mediator in associations between aspects of the parent-adolescent relationship and adolescent internalizing psychopathological symptoms.     

Persistent Heightened Cortisol Awakening Response and Adolescent Internalizing Symptoms: A 3-year Longitudinal Community Study

An atypical Cortisol Awakening Response (CAR) has been related to adult anxiety and depression, but little is known about the association between long-term atypical CAR and adolescent anxiety and depression. This study aimed to longitudinally identify subgroups of adolescents with distinct levels of CAR (i.e., adolescents with and without persistent atypical CAR) and to examine their development of anxiety and depressive symptoms over 3 successive years. A community sample of 184 Dutch adolescents (M _age?=?14.99 at T₁, 57 % boys) completed annual salivary cortisol assessments at home at time of awakening, and 30 and 60 min post-awakening (i.e., CAR) for 3 successive years. Adolescents also reported annually on their anxiety and depressive disorder symptoms. Latent Class Growth Analysis suggested two subgroups of adolescents with respect to CAR: a “low” group with stable low levels of AUC_g (Area Under the Curve with respect to the ground) over time and a “high” group with high and increasing levels of AUC_g over time. Controlling for sex, the high and low CAR groups significantly differed in depressive symptoms only, but none of the anxiety disorder symptoms. More specifically, adolescents in the high CAR group showed significantly higher mean levels of depressive symptoms over time compared to adolescents in the low CAR group. These results suggest that persistent heightened CAR is a more consistent, yet modest, correlate of adolescent depressive symptoms than anxiety disorder symptoms.     

The ability to recognize objects from bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) echoes generalizes across multiple orientations in humans and neural networks

Object constancy, the ability to recognize objects despite changes in orientation, has not been well studied in the auditory modality. Dolphins use echolocation for object recognition, and objects ensonified by dolphins produce echoes that can vary significantly as a function of orientation. In this experiment, human listeners had to classify echoes from objects varying in material, shape, and size that were ensonified with dolphin signals. Participants were trained to discriminate among the objects using an 18-echo stimulus from a 10° range of aspect angles, then tested with novel aspect angles across a 60° range. Participants were typically successful recognizing the objects at all angles (M = 78 %). Artificial neural networks were trained and tested with the same stimuli with the purpose of identifying acoustic cues that enable object recognition. A multilayer perceptron performed similarly to the humans and revealed that recognition was enabled by both the amplitude and frequency of echoes, as well as the temporal dynamics of these features over the course of echo trains. These results provide insight into representational processes underlying echoic recognition in dolphins and suggest that object constancy perceived through the auditory modality is likely to parallel what has been found in the visual domain in studies with both humans and animals.     

US Retirement Migration to Mexico: Understanding Issues of Adaptation,Networking, and Social Integration

This paper describes the cultural adaptation of American retirees living in two traditional retirement destinations in Mexico (Lake Chapala, state of Jalisco and San Miguel de Allende, state of Guanajuato). Based on 375 surveys and follow-up interviews, the authors discuss issues of adaptation, identity, and networking with the American and local community. Findings present a complex picture of adaptation and integration to the Mexican community as well as networking with other US residents. The comparative case study allows researcher to see the different social and economic dynamics taking place in the two destinations. This study contributes to understand a largely ignored migration flow that is directly related to the aging of the baby boomers generation.