Measurement of Impulsivity: Construct Coherence, Longitudinal Stability, and Relationship with Externalizing Problems in Middle Childhood and Adolescence

This study focused on the assessment of impulsivity in nonreferred school-aged children. Children had been participants since infancy in the Bloomington Longitudinal Study. Individual differences in impulsivity were assessed in the laboratory when children were 6 (44 boys, 36 girls) and 8 (50 boys, 39 girls) years of age. Impulsivity constructs derived from these assessments were related to parent and teacher ratings of externalizing problems across the school-age period (ages 7–10) and to parent and self-ratings of these outcomes across adolescence (ages 14–17). Consistent with prior research, individual measures of impulsivity factor-analyzed into subdimensions reflecting children's executive control capabilities, delay of gratification, and ability or willingness to sustain attention and compliance during work tasks. Children's performance on the main interactive task index, inhibitory control, showed a signficant level of stability between ages 6 and 8. During the school-age years, children who performed impulsively on the laboratory measures were perceived by mothers and by teachers as more impulsive, inattentive, and overactive than others, affirming the external validity of the impulsivity constructs. Finally, impulsive behavior in the laboratory at ages 6 and 8 predicted maternal and self-ratings of externalizing problem behavior across adolescence, supporting the longterm predictive value of the laboratory-derived impulsivity measures.     

MATERNITY LEAVE, ROLE QUALITY, WORK INVOLVEMENT, AND MENTAL HEALTH ONE YEAR AFTER DELIVERY

Employment status, maternity leave, and role quality were investigated as predictors of women's mental health one year after delivery. Homemakers and part-time and full-time employees did not differ on measures of depression, anxiety, anger, or self-esteem. There were no main effects of leave length. Distress was associated with job overload, role restriction, and infant distress. Leave length interacted with the relative salience of work and family, and employment status interacted with employment preference to predict distress. Depression was greatest among women relatively high in work salience when leaves were long. Anxiety and anger were greatest among women whose employment status was not congruent with their preferences. These interactions underscore the importance of individual differences in responses to leave and work.     

Depression in child psychiatric inpatients: Cognitive and attributional patterns

Cognitive and learned helplessness models of depression view maladaptive cognitive and attributional patterns as core features of depressive disorders. This study examined cognitive and attributional patterns in depressed children, nondepressed children, and a subgroup of remitting depressives who had histories of depression but were not reporting depressive symptoms when evaluated during the first 2 weeks of hospitalization. When compared with nondepressed controls, depressed children reported significantly more hopelessness, more negative self-perceptions, and negative self-perceptions across a wider variety of domains, and they displayed more dysfunctional attributional styles. While 55% of depressed children displayed pervasive maladaptive cognitive patterns, the other 45% of depressed children scored more similarly to nondepressed children, suggesting that childhood depressive disorders may be heterogeneous with respect to cognitive patterns. Contrary to the notion of traitlike depressive cognitive and attributional patterns that persist after the remission of depressive episodes, children with remitting depressions scored similarly to nondepressed children.Partial support for this project was provided by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation as part of their Network on Risk and Protective Factors in the Major Mental Disorders. I wish to thank Donald Guthrie for providing statistical consultation, Gwen Gordon for her computer assistance, and Niels Mueller and Jean Keller for their help with data collection.     

On the preservation of word order in aphasia: cross-linguistic evidence

Studies of language production in English-speaking aphasics (both fluent and nonfluent) generally lead to the conclusion that word order is preserved to a much greater degree than grammatical morphology and/or lexical retrieval. However, because word order is rigidly preserved even in normal English speech, this pattern might reflect nothing more than "the weak link in the chain." Using a constrained production paradigm, we provide evidence showing that canonical sentence order is well preserved in both fluent and nonfluent patients, in Italian and German (languages that permit much more pragmatic word-order variation) as well as English. Patients also retain the ability to order nouns around a preposition, and among Italian patients, access to a high-frequency form of pragmatic word-order variation is also retained. Syntactic difficulties seem to revolve not around loss of ordering principles, but (1) reduction in syntactic complexity, (2) overuse of canonical word order as a "safe harbor," (3) blend errors in which a form appears in legal but semantically incorrect position, and (4) abandonment of the effort to produce a complete sentence under stressful conditions. We offer a redefinition of syntactic impairment as a problem in the access of phrase structure types, resulting in a preference for higher frequency forms. Parallels between lexical retrieval and phrase structure retrieval suggest that similar mechanisms may be at work in both cases.     

TOWARD A SOUND PERSPECTIVE ON MODERN PHYSICS: CAPRA'S POPULARIZATION OF MYSTICISM AND THEOLOGICAL APPROACHES REEXAMINED

Abstract. Fritjof Capra's The Tao of Physics , one of several popularizations paralleling Eastern mysticism and modern physics, is critiqued, demonstrating that Capra gives little attention to the differing philosophies of physics he employs, utilizing whatever interpretation suits his purposes, without prior justification. The same critique is applied and similar conclusions drawn, about some recent attempts at relating theology and physics. In contrast, we propose the possibility of maintaining a cogent relationship between these disciplines by employing theological hypotheses to account for aspects of physics that are free from interpretive difficulties, such as the ability to create mathematical structures with extraordinary predictive success.     

Sex stereotyping of infants: A review of gender labeling studies

Studies that have addressed the question of whether adults and children respond differently to male and female infants because of actual differences in the infants or because of preconceived sex stereotypes are reviewed, and the overall conclusions from these studies are evaluated. Twenty-three studies were identified in which neutrally clothed infant stimuli were labeled male in some conditions and female in other conditions. The strength and consistency of gender labeling effects on perceptions and behaviors in these studies were appraised. The results indicate that knowledge of an infant's gender is not a consistent determinant of adults' reactions, but more strongly influences young children's reactions. The implications of these findings for research on early sex role socialization are considered.     

RACE AND RECOGNITION: <Emphasis Type="Italic">THE TIME OF OUR SINGING</Emphasis>

Literature affords the opportunity to consider the racial fear, hatred and hostility that can flare in moments when the otherness in the human face occludes the common bonds that join us together. Richard Powers’ (2003) compelling novel, The Time of Our Singing, highlights ways in which racial tensions continue to haunt us, impeding the efforts of successive generations to heal the wounds and move forward. In the novel, the parents’ efforts to move “beyond race” leave their children utterly unprepared for the ways in which race informs and obstruct their experience, as what has been denied returns to haunt them.     

Pre- and Postintervention Factor Analysis of the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale

The effects of a bystander education intervention program on the factor structure underlying a rape myth acceptance scale were examined using exploratory factor analyses on secondary data. The Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale was administered to college students at a northwestern university both before (n = 363) and after (n = 352) receiving a bystander education program. Results from exploratory factor analyses showed changes in the factor structure from pretest to posttest. This suggests some instability in the factor structure of the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale. These pre–post intervention differences in the rape myth acceptance factor structure suggest researchers use caution in using and interpreting scores based on the IRMA without regard to participants’ prevention program status.     

The Impact of the Birth of a Baby on the Time Structure and Social Mixture of a Couple's Daily Life and Its Consequences for Well-Being1

In order to investigate the temporal disruption and social dislocation resulting from the birth of a child, 37 couples were studied at 4 time points: pre-birth (second trimester), and at 1, 4, and 12 months postpartum. A diary-based instrument (the Social Rhythm Metric-SRM) was used to evaluate the habitual times at which 17 events during the day took place, the proportion of events done alone, as a couple only, and with nonfamily members. Also evaluated were perceptions of the quality of the marriage relationship, feelings of depressive symptoms, and feelings of anger. The baby's birth had a major effect on the timing with which daily events were done, and on differences between mothers' and fathers' habitual times, especially in the morning. There were also dramatic differences (50–80% reductions) in the proportion of events done alone, as a couple only, and with nonfamily members. However, these effects were much more marked in mothers than in fathers and were attenuated when there were prior children. Changes in marital quality and mood were also observed. The birth was associated particularly with a decline in marital quality and in the levels of anger and depressive symptoms felt by parents at 1 month postpartum, although these effects interacted with gender and prior parental experience. Furthermore, the changes in well-being were related to changes in SRM indices, though differentially for mothers and fathers.