The meeting of meditative disciplines and Western psychology: a mutually enriching dialogue

Meditation is now one of the most enduring, widespread, and researched of all psychotherapeutic methods. However, to date the meeting of the meditative disciplines and Western psychology has been marred by significant misunderstandings and by an assimilative integration in which much of the richness and uniqueness of meditation and its psychologies and philosophies have been overlooked. Also overlooked have been their major implications for an understanding of such central psychological issues as cognition and attention, mental training and development, health and pathology, and psychological capacities and potentials. Investigating meditative traditions with greater cultural and conceptual sensitivity opens the possibility of a mutual enrichment of both the meditative traditions and Western psychology, with far-reaching benefits for both.     

Measurement and structural invariance of parent ratings of ADHD and ODD symptoms across gender for American and Malaysian children

The purpose of this study was to examine the measurement (configural, metric, scalar, and residual) and structural (factor variance, factor covariance, and factor means) invariance of parent ratings of the attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder - inattention (ADHD-IN), ADHD - hyperactivity/impulsivity (ADHD-HI), and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) symptoms as described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.; American Psychiatric Association, 1994) across boys and girls. In an American pediatric sample (N = 1,015) and a Malaysian elementary school-age sample (N = 928), there was strong support for configural, metric, scalar, residual, factor variance, and covariance invariance across gender within each sample. Both American and Malaysian boys had significantly higher scores on the ADHD-IN and ADHD-HI factor means than did girls, whereas only in the American sample did boys score significantly higher on the ODD factor than did girls. The implications of the results for the study of gender, ethnic, and cultural differences associated with ADHD and ODD are discussed.     

Ethical Issues in Cancer Genetics: 1) Whose Information Is It?

This article presents and discusses four clinical cases that exemplify the complexity of ethical dilemmas concerning the provider's obligation to disclose or withhold genetic information from patients. Case 1: What is the responsibility of the cancer genetics provider to ensure that a positive test results is shared with distant relatives? Case 2: To ensure that results go to at-risk relatives, do we have the right to ignore the wishes of the designated next-of-kin? Case 3: Do we have the right to reveal a familial BRCA1 mutation to a patient's relative, who is at 50% risk? Case 4: Do we have an obligation to reveal that a patient is not a blood relative and therefore, not at risk to have inherited a familial mutation? These cases form the basis for discussing the provider's dual obligations to keeping patient confidentiality and informing patients and families about risk (i.e. duty to warn). We also provide a summary of consensus points and additional discussion questions for each case.     

Task and sex modulate the brain response to emotional incongruity in Asian listeners

In order to recognize banter or sarcasm in social interactions, listeners must integrate verbal and vocal emotional expressions. Here, we investigated event-related potential correlates of this integration in Asian listeners. We presented emotional words spoken with congruous or incongruous emotional prosody. When listeners classified word meaning as positive or negative and ignored prosody, incongruous trials elicited a larger late positivity than congruous trials in women but not in men. Sex differences were absent when listeners evaluated the congruence between word meaning and emotional prosody. The similarity of these results to those obtained in Western listeners suggests that sex differences in emotional speech processing depend on attentional focus and may reflect culturally independent mechanisms.     

The influence of activity choice on problem behaviors maintained by escape versus attention

This study assessed whether the function of an individual's problem behavior was related to the effectiveness of an intervention involving choice among tasks. Analogue functional analyses were conducted with 7 students with various diagnoses to determine whether problem behaviors were maintained by escape or attention. Following identification of the function of each student's problem behavior, reversal designs were used to assess the effectiveness of an intervention that allowed the students to choose their own instructional tasks. Results showed that students who displayed escape-maintained problem behavior showed substantial reductions in such behavior when they were provided with opportunities to choose among tasks. On the other hand, students who displayed attention-maintained problem behavior did not show any effects as a result of the choice intervention. These findings are discussed in terms of the effective use of behavior management programs involving choice and the reduction of problem behavior.     

Variations in a university subject pool as a function of earlier or later participation and self-report: a replication and extension

The present study replicated and extended earlier research on temporal sampling effects in university subject pools. Data were obtained from 236 participants, 79 men and 157 women, in a university subject pool during a 15-wk. semester. Without knowing the purpose of the study, participants self-selected to participate earlier (Weeks 4 and 5; n = 105) or later (Weeks 14 and 15; n = 131). Three hypotheses were investigated: (1) that the personality patterns of earlier and later participants on the NEO Personality Inventory-Revised and the Personality Research Form differ significantly, with earlier participants scoring higher on the latter scales reflecting social responsibility and higher on former Conscientiousness and Neuroticism scales; (2) that there are similar significant differences between participants in the earlier and later groups compared to the male and female college normative samples for the two tests: and (3) that earlier participants will have higher actual Scholastic Assessment Test scores and Grade Point Averages. Also investigated was whether participants' foreknowledge that their actual Scholastic Assessment Test scores and Grade Point Averages would be obtained would affect their accuracy of self-report. In contrast to prior research, neither the first nor second hypothesis was supported by the current study; there do not appear to be consistent differences on personality variables. However, the third hypothesis was supported. Earlier participants had higher actual high school Grade Point Average, college Grade Point Average, and Scholastic Assessment Test Verbal scores. Foreknowledge that actual Scholastic Assessment Test scores and Grade Point Averages would be obtained did not affect the accuracy of self-report. In addition, later participants significantly over-reported their scores, and significantly more women than men and more first-year than senior-year subjects participated in the early group.     

An evolutionary theory of human motivation

The authors review psychology's historical, competing perspectives on human motivation and propose a new comprehensive theory. The new theory is based on evolutionary principles as proposed by C. Darwin (1859) and modified by W. D. Hamilton (1964, 1996), R. L. Trivers (1971, 1972), and R. Dawkins (1989). The theory unifies biological, behavioral, and cognitive approaches to motivation. The theory is neuropsychological and addresses conscious and nonconscious processes that underlie motivation, emotion, and self-control. The theory predicts a hierarchical structure of motives that are measurable as individual differences in human behavior. These motives are related to social problem domains (D. B. Bugental, 2000; D. T. Kenrick, N. P. Li, & J. Butner, 2003), and each is hypothesized to solve a particular problem of human inclusive fitness.     

Relating derived relations as a model of analogical reasoning: reaction times and event-related potentials

The current study aimed to test a Relational Frame Theory (RFT) model of analogical reasoning based on the relating of derived same and derived difference relations. Experiment 1 recorded reaction time measures of similar-similar (e.g., "apple is to orange as dog is to cat") versus different-different (e.g., "he is to his brother as chalk is to cheese") derived relational responding, in both speed-contingent and speed-noncontingent conditions. Experiment 2 examined the event-related potentials (ERPs) associated with these two response patterns. Both experiments showed similar-similar responding to be significantly faster than different-different responding. Experiment 2 revealed significant differences between the waveforms of the two response patterns in the left-hemispheric prefrontal regions; different-different waveforms were significantly more negative than similar-similar waveforms. The behavioral and neurophysiological data support the RFT prediction that, all things being equal, similar-similar responding is relationally "simpler" than, and functionally distinct from, different-different analogical responding. The ERP data were fully consistent with findings in the neurocognitive literature on analogy. These findings strengthen the validity of the RFT model of analogical reasoning and supplement the behavior-analytic approach to analogy based on the relating of derived relations.     

Understanding source effects in ADHD rating scales: reply to DuPaul (2003)

G. J. DuPaul (2003) offered two suggestions for additional research to understand the strong source effects reported by R. Gomez, G. L. Burns, J. A. Walsh, and M. A. de Moura (2003) in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) rating scales. The first suggestion was to determine whether the source effects represent mostly bias or accuracy. The second suggestion was to minimize source effects through the development of better ADHD rating scales. Because source effects can represent bias or accuracy, it is important to minimize the bias aspect through content validation procedures prior to attempts to determine whether source effects better reflect bias or accuracy. This comment offers various suggestions to reduce the bias in ADHD rating scales.     

A multitrait-multisource confirmatory factor analytic approach to the construct validity of ADHD rating scales

Confirmatory factor analysis was used to model a multitrait-multisource design to evaluate the construct validity of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) rating scales. The 2 trait factors were the ADHD inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity dimensions. The 2 source factors were parents and teachers. In Study 1, parents and teachers rated 1,475 Australian elementary school children on the ADHD symptoms. In Study 2, parents and teachers rated 285 Brazilian elementary school children on the ADHD symptoms. Similar results occurred in both studies with most of the ADHD symptoms containing more source than trait variance, thus providing weak evidence for the convergent and discriminant validity of the symptoms as measured by rating scales. The study outlines the implications of such strong source effects for understanding ADHD.