Reliability of DSM-IV anxiety and mood disorders: implications for the classification of emotional disorders

The reliability of current and lifetime Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.; DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association, 1994) anxiety and mood disorders was examined in 362 outpatients who underwent 2 independent administrations of the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for DSM-IV: Lifetime version (ADIS-IV-L). Good to excellent reliability was obtained for the majority of DSM-IV categories. For many disorders, a common source of unreliability was disagreements on whether constituent symptoms were sufficient in number, severity, or duration to meet. DSM-IV diagnostic criteria. These analyses also highlighted potential boundary problems for some disorders (e.g., generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder). Analyses of ADIS-IV-L clinical ratings (0-8 scales) indicated favorable interrater agreement for the dimensional features of DSM-IV anxiety and mood disorders. The findings are discussed in regard to their implications for the classification of emotional disorders.     

When are puppies receptive to emotion-induced human chemosignals? The cases of fear and happiness

Animal Cognition - We report an observational, double-blind, experimental study that examines the effects of human emotional odors on puppies between 3 and 6 months and adult dogs...     

Response latencies to the onset and offset of visual stimuli

Simple response times (RTs) are known to be slower to the offset of a visual stimulus than to its onset. This is called the onset advantage. In the first of four experiments, we discovered that a spurious onset advantage can be produced by the long persistence of P31 phosphor. In the remaining three experiments, we found that offset RTs were slower only when they were made in a context in which responses to the abrupt onset of some stimuli had to be suppressed. We tested this hypothesis of response suppression in two ways: (1) by mixing regular onset trials with other trials on which a response to an onset had to be suppressed, and (2) by ramping the emergence of "offset" stimuli over time, so that offsets were the only abrupt events in the display. In both cases, we found that the onset advantage depended critically on whether the responses were made in a context of response suppression. We conclude that the onset advantage is mediated not by sensory factors such as visible persistence, but by response programming factors that are strongly affected by contextual events.     

Psychological and overall well-being of Italian young adults in transition to adulthood: Evidence from a sequential explanatory mixed-methods study

Transitioning to adulthood is a fundamental yet challenging phase in human development. Despite its relevance, the literature has paid little attention to the impact that transitioning to adulthood has on multiple aspects of individual well-being. This is one of the few attempts that has employed a sequential explanatory mixed-methods study to explore how the path to adulthood impacted on the psychological and overall well-being of Italian young adults. In the quantitative phase, we employed two-step cluster analysis to assign 45 young adults, who had completed the Italian I COPPE scale of multidimensional well-being, to three clusters based on their level of change in psychological and overall well-being. Results from mixed design ANCOVA revealed that participants belonging to the high change cluster showed the highest significant positive change over time with respect to well-being. In the qualitative phase, 17 individuals took part in focalized narrative interviews, which aimed at exploring significant events, barriers, and facilitators, which had impacted on their well-being during the transition to adulthood. The textual material was analysed through the Grounded Theory Methodology. It emerged that the state of transition was associated with some triggering events and a temporary negative impact on the interviewees' well-being. However, findings also revealed that people assigned to different clusters had put in place or learned several resources, skills, and copying strategies, which led to different transitional and well-being outcomes.     

Attachment security and intergroup contact

The contact hypothesis suggests that the interaction between members of different groups decreases prejudice. Moderators and mediators shaping this link have been investigated. However, research about the factors that facilitate contact is not frequent. This article examines secure attachment as an antecedent of contact. Three studies provide information about various aspects of the relationship between secure attachment and contact: security is positively associated with (a) intergroup contact, which in turn is related to reduced prejudice (Study 1); (b) implicit approach tendencies toward the outgroup (Study 2); and, once again, (c) with contact through the indirect effect of openness to exploration (Study 3). In the discussion, we recommend priming both secure and insecure schemas to investigate their unique effects on intergroup contact.     

Running with emotion: When affective content hampers working memory performance

This study tested the hypothesis that affective content may undermine rather than facilitate working memory (WM) performance. To this end, participants performed a running WM task with positive, negative and neutral words. In typical running memory tasks, participants are presented with lists of unpredictable length and are asked to recall the last three or four items. We found that accuracy with affective words decreased as lists lengthened, whereas list length did not influence recall of neutral words. We interpreted this pattern of results in terms of a limited resource model of WM in which valence represents additional information that needs to be manipulated, especially in the context of difficult trials.     

Basic psychological needs and neurophysiological responsiveness to decisional conflict: an event-related potential study of integrative self processes

Fulfillment of the basic psychological needs for competence, relatedness, and autonomy is believed to facilitate people’s integrative tendencies to process psychological conflicts and develop a coherent sense of self. The present study therefore used event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine the relation between need fulfillment and the amplitude of conflict negativity (CN), a neurophysiological measure of conflict during personal decision making. Participants completed a decision-making task in which they made a series of forced choices according to their personal preferences. Three types of decision-making situations were created on the basis of participants’ unique preference ratings, which were obtained prior to ERP recording: low-conflict situations (choosing between an attractive and an unattractive option), high-conflict approach-approach situations (choosing between two similarly attractive options), and high-conflict avoidance-avoidance situations (choosing between two similarly unattractive options). As expected, CN amplitudes were larger in high- relative to low-conflict situations, and source localization analyses suggested that the anterior cingulate cortex was the generating structure of the CN. Most importantly, people reporting higher need fulfillment exhibited larger CN amplitudes in avoidance–avoidance situations relative to low-conflict situations; to a lesser extent, they also exhibited larger CN amplitudes in approach–approach situations relative to low-conflict situations. By contrast, people reporting lower need fulfillment exhibited CN amplitudes that poorly discriminated the three decision situations. These results suggest that need fulfillment may promote self-coherent functioning by increasing people’s receptivity to and processing of events that challenge their abilities to make efficient, self-congruent choices.     

Individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities: Do educators assign them a fully human status?

The present research investigates the humanity attributions to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). In three studies, professional educators, who worked in day‐care or community centers, were examined. Humanity attributions were assessed using emotion‐based and trait‐based measures. As expected, individuals with IDD were denied a fully human status: they were perceived as having more non‐uniquely than uniquely human attributes. Furthermore, a lower human status was assigned to individuals with IDD in relation to educators. We also discovered that humanity attributions, but not attitudes, were related to approach/avoidance responses. Altogether, findings show the importance of considering humanity perceptions in the study of social relationships of individuals with IDD. Dehumanizing perceptions can explain the differential treatment these individuals face in various social settings.