The Association Between Childhood Gender Atypical Behavior and Adult Psychiatric Symptoms is Moderated by Parenting Style

The association between childhood gender atypical behavior (GAB) i.e. behavior traditionally considered more typical for children of the opposite sex, and adult psychiatric symptoms as well as cold or over-controlling parenting style as a moderator of the association were studied in a sample of 1767 Finnish participants aged 33 to 43 years (M?=?37.5). Participants completed the Gender Identity/Gender Role Questionnaire, the Brief Symptom Inventory 18, and the Measure of Parenting Style. Regression analyses showed that women recalled more GAB than men did, and that participants who recalled more GAB reported significantly more psychiatric symptoms. Negative parenting style was associated with psychiatric symptoms. Structural equation modeling showed that parenting style significantly moderated the association between childhood GAB and adult psychiatric symptoms with positive parenting reducing the association and negative parenting sustaining it.     

Neue Medien für die gesundheitliche Versorgung

The rapid development of information and communication technologies and their broad availability open up new opportunities for psychosocial service provision. Information materials provided via the internet have the potential to improve users’ competences and thus influence their health care utilisation by allowing for more active participation. Furthermore, a great variety of e-health interventions have been developed to improve care. These interventions are not limited to specific areas of service provision but span the whole range from prevention to aftercare programs. It has been shown that such technology-enhanced interventions can help to bridge gaps in health care services in an effective way.     

Theory of mind, language and the temporoparietal junction mystery

Brain imaging of adults during false-belief story tasks consistently shows activation of the temporoparietal junction in English-speaking Americans and German-speaking Europeans. Kobayashi et al. find this observation in adult English speakers but not in English-speaking children or in English-Japanese bilingual persons. This finding suggests a cultural or linguistic influence on location of brain function and argues against maturation of innately specified neural substrates. It is reminiscent of effects of linguistic development, bilingualism and cultural differences on theory of mind development.     

Minds, persons, and space: an fMRI investigation into the relational complexity of higher-order intentionality

Mental state reasoning or theory-of-mind has been the subject of a rich body of imaging research. Although such investigations routinely tap a common set of regions, the precise function of each area remains a contentious matter. With the help of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we sought to determine which areas are involved when processing mental state or intentional metarepresentations by focusing on the relational aspect of such representations. Using non-intentional relational representations such as spatial relations between persons and between objects as a contrast, the results ascertained the involvement of the precuneus, the temporal poles, and the medial prefrontal cortex in the processing of intentional representations. In contrast, the anterior superior temporal sulcus and the left temporo-parietal junction were implicated when processing representations that refer to the presence of persons in relational contexts in general. The right temporo-parietal junction, however, was specifically activated for persons entering spatial relations. The level of representational complexity, a previously unexplored factor, was also found to modulate the neural response in some brain regions, such as the medial prefrontal cortex and the right temporo-parietal junction. These findings highlight the need to take into account the critical roles played by an extensive network of neural regions during mental state reasoning.     

How goal-fulfillment decreases aggression

We suggest that the goal to aggress increases accessibility of aggressive thoughts, and that after goal-fulfillment, accessibility of aggressive content is reduced. Experiment 1 showed an increase in accessibility of aggression after imagining an aggression-eliciting situation compared to non-aggressive content. After goal-fulfillment the accessibility of aggression was reduced, regardless of whether fulfillment was achieved by imagining physical or symbolic revenge. Experiment 2 showed similar effects for a non-aggressive conflict-resolution and, in addition, demonstrated a post-fulfillment reduction in actual aggressive behavior. Experiment 3 demonstrated that aggressive acts that do not constitute goal-fulfillment instead increase accessibility of aggression. Relations between our model and previous views on catharsis of aggression are discussed.     

The relationship between relational models and individualism and collectivism: evidence from culturally diverse work groups

Relational models theory (Fiske, 1991 ) proposes that all thinking about social relationships is based on four elementary mental models: communal sharing, authority ranking, equality matching, and market pricing. Triandis and his colleagues (e.g., Triandis, Kurowski, & Gelfand, 1994 ) have suggested a relationship between the constructs of horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism and Fiske's relational models. However, no previous research has examined this proposed relationship empirically. The objective of the current study was to test the association between the two frameworks in order to further our understanding of why members of culturally diverse groups may prefer different relational models in interactions with other group members. Findings from this study support a relationship between Triandis' constructs and Fiske's four relational models and uphold Fiske's ( 1991 ) claim that the use of the relational models is culturally dependent. As hypothesized, horizontal collectivism was associated with a preference for equality matching and communal sharing, vertical individualism was related to a preference for authority ranking, and vertical collectivism was related to a preference for authority ranking and communal sharing. However, contrary to expectations, horizontal individualism was not related to a preference for equality matching and market pricing, and vertical individualism was not associated with market pricing. By showing that there is a relationship between Triandis' and Fiske's frameworks, this study closes a gap in relational models theory, namely how culture relates to people's preferences for relational models. Thus, the findings from this study will enable future researchers to explain and predict what relational models are likely to be used in a certain cultural context.     

Buzzwords: early cortical responses to emotional words during reading

Electroencephalographic event-related brain potentials were recorded as subjects read, without further instruction, consecutively presented sequences of words. We varied the speed at which the sequences were presented (3 Hz and 1 Hz) and the words' emotional significance. Early event-related cortical responses during reading differentiated pleasant and unpleasant words from neutral words. Emotional words were associated with enhanced brain responses arising in predominantly left occipito-temporal areas 200 to 300 ms after presentation. Emotional words were also spontaneously better remembered than neutral words. The early cortical amplification was stable across 10 repetitions, providing evidence for robust enhancement of early visual processing of stimuli with learned emotional significance and underscoring the salience of emotional connotations during reading. During early processing stages, emotion-related enhancement of cortical activity along the dominant processing pathway is due to arousal, rather than valence of the stimuli. This enhancement may be driven by cortico-amygdaloid connections.     

Color and psychological functioning: the effect of red on performance attainment

This research focuses on the relation between color and psychological functioning, specifically, that between red and performance attainment. Red is hypothesized to impair performance on achievement tasks, because red is associated with the danger of failure in achievement contexts and evokes avoidance motivation. Four experiments demonstrate that the brief perception of red prior to an important test (e.g., an IQ test) impairs performance, and this effect appears to take place outside of participants' conscious awareness. Two further experiments establish the link between red and avoidance motivation as indicated by behavioral (i.e., task choice) and psychophysiological (i.e., cortical activation) measures. The findings suggest that care must be taken in how red is used in achievement contexts and illustrate how color can act as a subtle environmental cue that has important influences on behavior.     

The ups and downs of thinking about a successful other: self‐construals and the consequences of social comparisons

We hypothesized that the consequences of upward social comparisons are mediated by independent versus interdependent content of self‐construals. Independent self‐construals emphasize personal uniqueness; thus comparison to an outstanding other should undermine one's sense of uniqueness and lower current self‐evaluations. Conversely, interdependent self‐construals focus on interpersonal connectedness. Hence, interdependent individuals should be able to bask in the reflected success of a personally relevant other in an upward comparison task, thus increasing self‐evaluations. In a study involving 66 US undergraduates the latter predictions were supported. The psychological dimension of interdependence predicted differential outcomes of upward social comparisons, but this was not the case for the dimension of independence. Also, differential consequences of social comparison were more pronounced for current self‐evaluations than for participants' possible selves. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Rank‐based permutation approaches for non‐parametric factorial designs

Inference methods for null hypotheses formulated in terms of distribution functions in general non‐parametric factorial designs are studied. The methods can be applied to continuous, ordinal or even ordered categorical data in a unified way, and are based only on ranks. In this set‐up Wald‐type statistics and ANOVA‐type statistics are the current state of the art. The first method is asymptotically exact but a rather liberal statistical testing procedure for small to moderate sample size, while the latter is only an approximation which does not possess the correct asymptotic α level under the null. To bridge these gaps, a novel permutation approach is proposed which can be seen as a flexible generalization of the Kruskal–Wallis test to all kinds of factorial designs with independent observations. It is proven that the permutation principle is asymptotically correct while keeping its finite exactness property when data are exchangeable. The results of extensive simulation studies foster these theoretical findings. A real data set exemplifies its applicability.