Prevention of Postpartum Depression in Low-Income Women: Development of the Mamás y Bebés/Mothers and Babies Course

A prenatal intervention designed to prevent the onset of major depressive episodes (MDEs) during pregnancy and postpartum was pilot tested at a public sector women’s clinic. The Mamás y Bebés/Mothers and Babies Course is an intervention developed in Spanish and English that uses a cognitive-behavioral mood management framework, and incorporates social learning concepts, attachment theory, and socio-cultural issues. The four goals of this project were to develop the intervention, assess its acceptability, test the feasibility of conducting a randomized trial with public sector patients, and obtain estimates of its effect size. Forty-one pregnant women at high risk for developing MDEs were randomized to the Mothers and Babies Course (n = 21) or a comparison condition (n = 20). Assessments occurred during pregnancy and at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months postpartum. Differences in terms of depression symptom levels or incidence of MDEs between the two groups did not reach statistical significance in this pilot trial. However, the MDE incidence rates of 14% for the intervention condition versus 25% for the comparison condition represent a small effect size (h = 0.28) that will be further examined in a larger scale study. The intervention was well received by the participants and implementation of a randomized trial appeared quite feasible as indicated by our follow-up rate of 91% at 12 months. Implications for the continuing development of preventive interventions for perinatal depression are discussed.     

Interpersonal factors and perinatal depressive symptomatology in a low-income Latina sample

Interpersonal factors are among the risk factors that predispose women to experiencing mood disturbances during the childbearing years. This study investigates the trajectory of change in depressive symptomatology over the course of the perinatal period as related to interpersonal risk factors (marital quality and social support) in a sample of 69 low-income, mostly immigrant Latina mothers at high and low risk for depression. We found a significant linear change in depressive symptomatology from baseline (pregnancy) through the postpartum period. This decline was steeper for high-risk women who reported high levels of social support compared with those who reported low levels of social support. In addition, a greater decline in depressive symptom scores was found for women who reported better postnatal marital quality, irrespective of risk group status. The results suggest the importance of considering marital quality and social support in estimations of risk for depression. These findings also have implications for targeting social support and marital quality in preventive interventions for perinatal depression in Latinas.     

Three‐year‐old children intervene in third‐party moral transgressions

We investigated children's moral behaviour in situations in which a third party was harmed (the test case for possession of agent‐neutral moral norms). A 3‐year‐old and two puppets each created a picture or clay sculpture, after which one puppet left the room. In the Harm condition, the remaining (actor) puppet then destroyed the absent (recipient) puppet's picture or sculpture. In a Control condition, the actor acted similarly but in a way that did not harm the recipient. Children protested during the actor's actions, and, upon the recipient's return, tattled on the actor and behaved prosocially towards the recipient more in the Harm than in the Control condition. This is the first study to show that children as young as 3 years of age actively intervene in third‐party moral transgressions.     

Tuning the developing brain to emotional body expressions

Reading others' emotional body expressions is an essential social skill. Adults readily recognize emotions from body movements. However, it is unclear when in development infants become sensitive to bodily expressed emotions. We examined event‐related brain potentials (ERPs) in 4‐ and 8‐month‐old infants in response to point‐light displays (PLDs) of happy and fearful body expressions presented in two orientations (upright and inverted). The ERP results revealed that 8‐month‐olds but not 4‐month‐olds respond sensitively to the orientation and the emotion of the dynamic expressions. Specifically, 8‐month‐olds showed (i) an early (200–400 ms) orientation‐sensitive positivity over frontal and central electrodes, and (ii) a late (700–1100 ms) emotion‐sensitive positivity over temporal and parietal electrodes in the right hemisphere. These findings suggest that orientation‐sensitive and emotion‐sensitive brain processes, distinct in timing and topography, develop between 4 and 8 months of age.     

When Searching Hurts: The Role of Information Search in Reactions to Gender Discrimination

Two laboratory studies conducted with Dutch students explored women’s motivation to search for evidence of gender discrimination and its effects on psychological well-being. Study 1 (N?=?161) considered situational self-relevance of one’s personal outcomes (personal failure or success) on women’s motivation to collect information about gender discrimination. Study 2 (N?=?106) manipulated information search and studied its effects on well-being when information contains evidence of gender discrimination or personal failure. Results revealed that women are motivated to search for evidence of discrimination when outcomes are highly self-relevant (Study 1) or the need to search is high (Study 2). Furthermore women suffer from evidence of prejudice, but only when they are personally affected by this prejudice and evidence suggests it is pervasive.     

Developmental trajectory of number acuity reveals a severe impairment in developmental dyscalculia

Developmental dyscalculia is a learning disability that affects the acquisition of knowledge about numbers and arithmetic. It is widely assumed that numeracy is rooted on the “number sense”, a core ability to grasp numerical quantities that humans share with other animals and deploy spontaneously at birth. To probe the links between number sense and dyscalculia, we used a psychophysical test to measure the Weber fraction for the numerosity of sets of dots, hereafter called number acuity. We show that number acuity improves with age in typically developing children. In dyscalculics, numerical acuity is severely impaired, with 10-year-old dyscalculics scoring at the level of 5-year-old normally developing children. Moreover, the severity of the number acuity impairment predicts the defective performance on tasks involving the manipulation of symbolic numbers. These results establish for the first time a clear association between dyscalculia and impaired “number sense”, and they may open up new horizons for the early diagnosis and rehabilitation of mathematical learning deficits.     

Sharing moral values: anticipated ingroup respect as a determinant of adherence to morality-based (but not competence-based) group norms

This research examines how moral values regulate the behavior of individual group members. It argues that group members behave in line with moral group norms because they anticipate receiving ingroup respect when enacting moral values that are shared by ingroup members. Data from two experimental studies offer evidence in support. In Study 1 (N = 82), morality-based (but not competence-based) ingroup norms determined whether members of a low-status group opted for individual versus collective strategies for status improvement. This effect was mediated by anticipated ingroup respect and emerged regardless of whether group norms prescribed collectivistic or individualistic behavior. These effects were replicated in Study 2 (N = 69), where no comparable effect was found as a result of moral norms communicated by a higher status outgroup. This indicates that social identity implications rather than interdependence or more generic concerns about social approval or importance of cooperation drive these effects.     

Is the world a just place? Countering the negative consequences of pervasive discrimination by affirming the world as just

Two studies (a) explored the role of pervasiveness of discrimination (pervasive vs. rare) in determining targets' responses to discrimination, and (b) examined the extent to which threats to participants' worldview can account, in part, for detrimental effects of pervasive discrimination. As predicted, across both studies, pervasiveness of discrimination moderated the relationship between attributions to prejudice for failure to obtain a job and psychological well-being (depressed affect and state self-esteem). When discrimination was presented as pervasive, attributions to prejudice related to lower state self-esteem and greater depressed affect. When discrimination was portrayed as rare, attributions to prejudice were related to higher state self-esteem and unrelated to depressed affect. Study 2 further showed that being able to affirm the world as just countered the negative consequences of pervasive discrimination, whereas it did not influence responses to discrimination that was perceived as rare.     

Emotional context, maternal behavior and emotion regulation

This study investigated the importance of emotion-eliciting context (positive and negative) and mother's behaviors (constrained and involved) on toddlers’ emotion regulation behavioral strategies, emotional expressiveness and intensity, during three episodes eliciting fear, frustration/anger and positive affect. Fifty-five children between 18 and 26 months of age and their mothers participated in the study. Toddlers’ regulatory strategies varied as function of emotion-eliciting context (children exhibited behavioral strategies more frequently during positive affect and frustration/anger episodes and less frequently during fear episodes) and maternal involvement. Toddlers’ expression of emotion varied as function of emotion-eliciting context (children exhibited more emotional expressions, both negative and positive during fear and frustration/anger episodes compared to positive affect episodes). Toddlers’ expression of emotion was not strongly related to maternal involvement, however, the intensity of emotional expression was related to the interaction of context and maternal involvement.     

Exposure to sexism can decrease implicit gender stereotype bias

Two studies examined the effect of exposure to sexism on implicit gender bias, focusing specifically on stereotypes of men as competent and women as warm. Male and female participants were exposed to sexism or no sexism. In both Experiment 1 (Implicit Association Task; N = 115) and Experiment 2 (Go/No‐go Association Task; N = 167), women who had been exposed to sexist beliefs demonstrated less implicit gender stereotype bias relative to women who were not exposed to sexism. In contrast, exposure to sexism did not influence men's implicit gender stereotype bias. In Experiment 2, process modelling revealed that women's reduction in bias in response to sexism was related to increased accuracy orientation and a tendency to make warmth versus competence judgments. The implications of these findings for current understandings of sexism and its effects on gender stereotypes are discussed.