Lineup administrator influences on eyewitness identification and eyewitness confidence

Lineup administrators were trained to respond to witnesses in such a way as to redirect them from making non-identifications or foil identification responses toward making identifications of the suspect. Compared to a no-influence control condition, suspect identification rates in the influence condition increased substantially and proportionally for guilty and innocent suspects. Administrators steered witnesses more specifically toward the suspect when the suspect was guilty than when the suspect was innocent. Post-identification confidence for correct identifications of the guilty suspect did not differ significantly across the influence and no-influence groups. However, post-identification confidence for false identifications of the innocent suspect was significantly lower for the influence group than for the no-influence group because witnesses who were influenced to make false identifications tended to be those who were less confident prior to the lineup, and also because those witnesses became less confident from pre- to post-identification.     

Early life adversity potentiates the effects of later life stress on cumulative physiological dysregulation

Background and Objectives: Previous research indicates that early life adversity may heighten stress reactivity and impair mechanisms for adaptive coping, suggesting that experience of stress in early life may also potentiate adults' physiological vulnerability to stress in later life. The study tested this hypothesis by investigating whether the experience of stressful events and circumstances (SEC) in childhood or adolescence amplified the effect of adulthood SEC on physiological dysregulation (allostatic load, AL) in later midlife. Design: Observational data were used in the present study. Physiological functioning was measured in later midlife (participants' age ranged from 49 to 63 years). Both childhood/adolescence and adulthood SEC were reported retrospectively on the same occasion. Methods: Participants were 5309 Danish men and women from Copenhagen Aging and Midlife Biobank (CAMB). SEC included socioeconomic and family factors. The AL index was based on nine cardiovascular, metabolic, and immune biomarkers. Results: Experience of SEC in both early life and adulthood independently predicted higher AL. In men, experience of SEC in early life also potentiated the effect of SEC in adulthood on AL. Conclusions: The results provide further insight into the mechanisms behind the “biological embedding” of childhood stress.     

Jesus the Teacher

One of the strongest portraits of Jesus in the Gospels is that of a teacher (Lee, 1988).¹ Other than the title “Lord,” people call Jesus “Teacher” more often than any other epithet in the New Testament, and often with a great deal of respect and admiration (Mark 10:17; Matt 22:16).² Jesus also calls himself a “teacher.” In the story of the preparation for the Last Supper, for example, Jesus instructs his disciples to find a room for the paschal meal and to tell the owner that “the teacher” has need of it (Mark 14:14; Matt 26:18; Luke 22:11). Apart from the portrayal of him as an infant, the earliest picture we have of him is the episode of the 12-year-old Jesus amazing the teachers in the temple with his learning (Luke 2:46-47). Other depictions include the itinerant Jesus teaching multitudes (Matt 5–7), individuals (John 3 and 4), adversaries (Luke 15), and disciples (Mark 4:10-20, 33–34; 7:17-23; 10:10-11,23-31). He teaches in the temple (Matt 26:55; Mark 1117; John 7:14), in synagogues (Matt 4:23; Mark 6:2; Luke 4:15; John 6:59), in houses (Mark 7:17-18; 9:28), from a boat (Luke 5:3), on the hillside (Matt 5:1-2), at a well (John 4:7-30), at table (Luke 7:36-50),on the road (Luke 24:13-32), and by the shore (Mark 2:13; 4:1). In other words, Jesus teaches people wherever he is and wherever they are. In fact, Matt 26:55 evidences that Jesus taught on a daily basis. Today, in the Western world this traveling teacher is considered the most famous pedagogue (Highet, 1950, 190). With these thoughts in mind, let's (1) examine the words used to specify “teacher” in the ancient world and show how Jesus both corresponds to and differs from the perceptions this title implies, (2) suggest some teaching methods used by Jesus, and (3) propose a way modern teachers can learn from him.     

Assessment of Identity and Quality of Life in Diabetic and Renal Transplant Adolescents in Comparison to Healthy Adolescents

Identity development represents a central task of adolescence. Identity achievement is characterized by a coherent sense of who one is following a period of exploration and can help navigate the challenges of adulthood. This study examined identity within a quality of life (QOL) context in 85 adolescents with a renal transplant or with Type 1 diabetes in comparison to 90 healthy controls. Results revealed significant differences in ideological identity, with patients showing higher levels of diffusion and controls showing higher levels of foreclosure. No differences with respect to interpersonal identity, QOL, perceived control over the QOL domains, and perceived opportunities for growth and development were found. Future research should assess identity and QOL over a longer period of time to determine whether differences between chronically ill and healthy young adults can be detected.     

Integrating the Differentiated: A Review of the Personal Construct Approach to Cognitive Complexity

This article reviews personal construct psychology (PCP) research on cognitive complexity. It examines conceptual foundations, measures of cognitive complexity, and a large body of empirical findings. It identifies several ambiguities in the conceptualization of the two components of cognitive complexity: differentiation and integration. These ambiguities lead to inconsistent interpretations of indexes proposed for their measurement and consequently to an inconsistent interpretation of empirical findings. The review of empirical studies identifies many valuable findings that are, however, quite fragmented. After reviewing the relevant cognitive complexity literature, suggestions for future research are discussed. In accordance with PCP's organization corollary, two different types of integration that have different relationships to the component of differentiation are identified that enable researchers to consistently distinguish various types of construing in terms of cognitive complexity and to formulate hypotheses that are open to empirical testing.     

Interpersonal Violence,Depression, and Executive Function

This study considers links between the number of types of violence to which women have been exposed, depression, and executive functions (EFs). Substantial research has established EF deficits among depressed individuals as well as individuals exposed to trauma. Studies have also indicated a relationship between trauma exposure and depressive symptoms across a range of traumatic events, such as combat exposure, motor vehicle accidents, natural disasters, and assaults. This study examines this relationship in an ethnically diverse community sample of 93 women exposed to interpersonal violence who completed a battery of EF tasks that assessed processing speed, working memory, response inhibition, and set shifting. Women reported an average of 5.8 types of interpersonal violence events. The number of types of interpersonal violence events was significantly related to depressive symptoms, although not EF performance. Specific EFs, such as working memory and response inhibition, were positively related to depressive symptoms.     

Cognitive Control in the Face of Fear: Reduced Cognitive-Emotional Flexibility in Women with a History of Child Abuse

Child abuse can negatively affect neurobiological systems involved in regulating emotions. Adults who were maltreated as children show diminished capacity to flexibly integrate the prefrontal and limbic circuits underlying emotion regulation. Using a facial identification Stroop task with nonemotional and emotional stimuli, we found that women who reported more childhood abuse (N = 44) were no different from women reporting less childhood abuse (N = 45) on nonemotional conflict adaptation, but were significantly less able to adapt to emotional conflict. Women who reported more abuse were especially impaired in adapting to emotional conflict when incongruent stimuli involved a fearful face. These results help characterize the relation between cognitive control and emotion regulation and highlight the far-reaching effects of childhood abuse on cognitive-emotional flexibility.     

The Recognition of Adults' and Children's Facial Expressions of Emotions

The purpose of this study was to compare the recognition performance of children who identified facial expressions of emotions using adults' and children's stimuli. The subjects were 60 children equally distributed in six subgroups as a function of sex and three age levels: 5, 7, and 9 years. They had to identify the emotion that was expressed in 48 stimuli (24 adults' and 24 children's expressions) illustrating six emotions: happiness, surprise, fear, disgust, anger, and sadness. The task of the children consisted of selecting the facial stimulus that best matched a short story that clearly described an emotional situation. The results indicated that recognition performances were significantly affected by the age of the subjects: 5-year-olds were less accurate than 7- and 9-year-olds who did not differ among themselves. There were also differences in recognition levels between emotions. No effects related to the sex of the subjects and to the age of the facial stimuli were observed.     

Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology Subtest Scores of Professional and Traditional Clinical Psychology Program Graduates

Professional school clinical psychology graduates not only exhibit inferior performance on the research subtest of the Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology (EPPP; D. I. Templer & M. E. Tomeo, 1998), but they also perform less well on the four more professionally oriented subtests: diagnosis, intervention, professional/ethical/legal issues, and application to social systems. Graduates of free-standing professional schools exhibited performances inferior to those of graduates of non-free-standing professional schools on the diagnosis, intervention, and professional/ethical/legal subtests.