Collateral Reports and Cross-Informant Agreement about Adult Psychopathology in 14 Societies

To advance international mental health assessment, instruments that have been internationally validated are needed. To this end, we analyzed ratings from 14 societies on the Adult Behavior Checklist (ABCL), a collateral-report form parallel to the Adult Self-Report (ASR; Achenbach and Rescorla 2003) for ages 18 to 59. Both the ABCL and the ASR assess problems, personal strengths, and adaptive functioning. For a sample of 8322 see note below collaterals, we found strong consistency across societies regarding which ABCL problem items tended to obtain relatively low, medium, or high ratings. Most societal effect sizes (ESs) for problem scale scores were small to medium (< 13.9 %), but the ES for the ABCL Personal Strengths scale was 25 %. For most of the same participants (N = 8,302), we analyzed cross-informant agreement between self-reports on the ASR and collateral reports on the ABCL. Cross-informant correlations for problem scale scores averaged .47, with considerable societal variation. Problem score means were higher on the ASR than the ABCL in every society, but the size of the difference varied across societies. Mean item ratings on the ABCL and ASR were highly correlated within every society (mean r = .92), but within-dyad item rating agreement varied widely in every society (mean r = .39). In all societies, non-corroboration of self-reported deviance and of collateral-reported deviance was common. Overall findings indicated considerable similarity but also some important differences in collateral-reported problems and adaptive functioning across 14 societies.     

Inhibitory attentional control in patients with frontal lobe damage

The performance of a group of frontal lobe lesion and a group of frontal lobe dementia patients was compared with the performance of their respective matched normal control groups on two tests of inhibitory attentional control-the stop-signal reaction time task and a negative priming task. Both patient groups responded significantly slower than their respective normal control groups, but they showed only marginally significant selective impairments on the measures of inhibition. The data suggest that the specific inhibitory processes evaluated by these two tests are, in general, spared in patients with focal frontal lobe lesions or frontal lobe degeneration.     

Inspired to get there: The effects of trait and goal inspiration on goal progress

The present investigation examined the effects of trait and goal inspiration on goal progress. Undergraduate students reported three goals they intended to pursue throughout the semester and completed measures of trait and goal inspiration as well as measures of personality traits. Participants then reported on goal progress three times at monthly intervals throughout the semester. Result showed that trait inspiration predicted goal progress, and that this effect was fully mediated by goal inspiration and held after controlling for the Big Five personality traits. Additional within-person analyses of goal inspiration showed that most of the variance in goal inspiration was due to between-person individual differences. Furthermore, analyses of the direction of causality between goal inspiration and goal progress revealed a bi-directional relationship. Discussion focused on the implications and future directions for research on inspiration.     

The Role Maturity of Parents of Emerging Adult Children: Validity of a Parental Maturity Measure

Parental maturity refers to parents’ ability to see their child as an independent adult with limitations and needs, and relate to him/her accordingly. In this study, we had two main aims: (a) develop a measure of parental maturity and test its construct validity in a sample of middle-aged parents with an emerging adult child, and (b) examine how the dimensions of parental maturity varied with a child’s gender and life course transitions (i.e., employment and leaving the parental home). A sample of 343 Portuguese parents (187 mothers and 156 fathers) aged 40–68 participated in this study. Factorial validity of the Parental Maturity Measure was tested using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and measurement invariance across mothers and fathers. Results gave support for a two-factor measure—Comprehending (6 items) and Letting Go (4 items)—with an equivalent meaning across parents. Dimensions of parental maturity were associated with differentiated and positive parent–child relationship qualities, but were quite independent of the child’s gender and life course transitions.     

Blood flow velocity changes in anterior cerebral arteries during cognitive tasks performance

Objective

Transcranial Doppler sonography (TCD) enables monitoring of blood flow velocities (BFVs) in basal cerebral arteries during different cognitive tasks performance with great temporal resolution. So far, BFVs changes during mental activity were monitored primarily in middle cerebral arteries (MCAs) and little is known about these changes in anterior cerebral arteries (ACAs).

Aim

To determine the effect of different cognitive tasks performance on BFV changes and hemispheric dominance in ACAs and to assess the most suitable activation test for monitoring of BFV changes in ACAs.

Methods

Fourteen right-handed, healthy subjects aged 20–26 were included in the study. BFVs in both ACAs were recorded simultaneously during performance of cognitive tasks designed to activate frontal lobes: phonemic verbal fluency test (pVFT), Stroop tests and Trail Making Tests (TMTs).

Results

A statistically significant BFV increase was recorded in both ACAs during performance of all cognitive tasks. Statistically significant right ACA dominance was found during performance of pVFT and TMTB. The most significant BFV increase was obtained during performance of TMTB.

Conclusion

Our result addressed cognitive tests with great activation potential for monitoring of ACAs that might be used in distinguishing of healthy individuals and patients with neurovascular or neurodegenerative diseases.     

Temporality in Psychosis: Loss of Lived Time in an Alien World

This article presents a model of the temporal structure of psychic life. Time is a rule-guided process. A person's psychic life, too, yields to an examination of necessary and regulated operations. To outline both the regular and the modified perception of time within psychic life, Sigmund Freud's model of the drive interaction is brought to bear on Jacques Marie Émile Lacan's understanding of psychosis. Both Freud's and Lacan's findings are explained with an eye on the temporal dimension of the psyche, temporal modifications manifested in states of psychotic delusion, and the role of time for one's meaningful engagement with the world. Psychic time is nonlinear. The future, the past, and the present must be engaged simultaneously, albeit not in the same way, to yield the sense of temporal fullness. For Freud, the cooperative functioning of the drives accounts for the sustainment of the lucid psychic life, whereas modifications in the drives’ interactions signal psychic disturbances. Lacan (1955/1993) stresses the atemporal character of the nonexistent, negated, or lost reality that pressures an individual to enter a psychotic delusion. This article makes the assumption that the psychological states in which the reckoning with time is lost are the consequences of an unsuccessful incorporation of traumatic stimuli that are caused both by outside phenomena and by the actions of an individual's inner drives. The findings of this article support the view that psychic traumas necessitate modifications to the sense of time. The findings also offer an understanding of the kinds of temporal modifications that occur in an individual's psychic life and the way in which these temporal changes lead to the experience of radical otherness that is present in some cases of psychological disturbances.     

Text anxiety in adolescents: the role of self-criticism and acceptance and mindfulness skills

The current study sets out to explore test anxiety in adolescent students. The effect of sociodemographic variables on test anxiety was controlled for and the relationship between test anxiety and other psychological constructs, such as self-criticism, social anxiety, acceptance and mindfulness, was examined. In addition, the predictive effect/power of these variables was analyzed and a comparative study between high and low test anxiety adolescents was conducted. Participants in this study were 449 high school students, 211 boys and 238 girls, with a mean age of 16.28 years. These participants completed a battery of self-report questionnaires composed by the Portuguese versions of Test Anxiety Inventory (TAI), Child Acceptance and Mindfulness Measure (CAMM), Forms of Self-Criticizing/Attacking and Self-Reassuring Scale (FSCRS), and the Social Anxiety and Avoidance Scale for Adolescents (SAASA). Results showed that gender, self-criticism and competencies for acceptance and mindfulness had a significant and an independent contribution on the prediction of test anxiety. The comparative study revealed that adolescents with high test anxiety score significantly higher in negative forms of self-criticism, social anxiety and lower in self-reassurance, acceptance and mindfulness, when compared to those with low test anxiety. Despite its exploratory nature, the current study adds to the existing knowledge on the influence of psychological processes, such as self-criticism and acceptance, on test anxiety. These findings might constitute a relevant contribution to psychological intervention with adolescents.