The Relationship between Parent-Child Conflict and Adolescent Antisocial Behavior: Confirming Shared Environmental Mediation

Prior studies have indicated that the relationship between parent-child conflict and adolescent antisocial behavior is at least partially shared environmental in origin. However, all available research on this topic (to our knowledge) relies exclusively on parent and/or adolescent informant-reports, both of which are subject to various forms of rater bias. As the presence of significant shared environmental effects has often been attributed to rater bias in the past (Baker et al. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 16:219–235, 2007; Bartels et al. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 42:1351–1359, 2003, Twin Research 7:162–175, 2004; Hewitt et al. Behavior Genetics 22:293–317, 1992), it would be important to confirm that findings of shared environmental mediation persist when even examining (presumably more objective) observer-ratings of these constructs. The current study thus examined the origins of the relationship between parent-child conflict and adolescent acting-out behavior, as measured using both observer-ratings and various informant-reports. Participants included 1,199 adopted and non-adopted adolescents in 610 families from the Sibling Interaction and Behavior Study (SIBS). Results indicated that parent-child conflict consistently predicts acting-out behavior in adopted adolescents, and moreover, that this association is equivalent to that in biologically-related adolescents. Most importantly, these findings did not vary across parent- and adolescent-reported or observer-ratings of parent-child conflict and acting-out behavior. Such findings argue strongly against rater bias as a primary explanation of shared environmental mediation of the association between parent-child conflict and adolescent antisocial behavior.     

Genetic relationships between personality and eating attitudes and behaviors

Genetic and environmental factors underlying relationships between personality traits and disordered eating were examined in 256 female adolescent twin pairs (166 monozygotic, 90 dizygotic). Eating behaviors were assessed with the Total Score, Body Dissatisfaction, Weight Preoccupation, Binge Eating, and Compensatory Behavior subscales from the Minnesota Eating Disorders Inventory (M-EDI; K. L. Klump, M. McGue, & W. G. Iacono, 2000). Personality characteristics were assessed with the Negative Emotionality, Positive Emotionality, and Constraint scales from the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ; A. Tellegen, 1982). Model-fitting analyses indicated that although genetic factors were more likely to contribute to MPQ and M-EDI phenotypic associations than environmental factors, shared genetic variance between the 2 phenotypes was limited. MPQ personality characteristics may represent only some of several genetic risk factors for eating pathology.     

An assessment of sleep architecture as a function of degree of handedness in college women using a home sleep monitor

The present study examined sleep architecture as a function of handedness in a population of undergraduate college women using a home sleep monitor. Compared to strongly handed individuals, participants with a tendency toward mixed-handedness had a shorter sleep latency and spent a greater percentage of their sleep period asleep and less awake. Increasing mixed-handedness was also associated with increased NREM; strong-handedness was associated with increased REM. Results are placed in a neurophysiological framework wherein corpus callosum mediated differences in interhemispheric interaction during Wake, REM, and NREM on the one hand, and individual differences in corpus callosum morphology and hemispheric communication as a function of handedness on the other, interact to result in handedness differences in sleep architecture.     

The effects of psychological therapies under clinically representative conditions: a meta-analysis

Recently, concern has arisen that meta-analyses overestimate the effects of psychological therapies and that those therapies may not work under clinically representative conditions. This meta-analysis of 90 studies found that therapies are effective over a range of clinical representativeness. The projected effects of an ideal study of clinically representative therapy are similar to effect sizes in past meta-analyses. Effects increase with larger dose and when outcome measures are specific to treatment. Some clinically representative studies used self-selected treatment clients who were more distressed than available controls, and these quasi-experiments underestimated therapy effects. This study illustrates the joint use of fixed and random effects models, use of pretest effect sizes to study selection bias in quasi-experiments, and use of regression analysis to project results to an ideal study in the spirit of response surface modeling.     

Intensional Completeness in an Extension of Gödel/Dummett Logic

We enrich intuitionistic logic with a lax modal operator and define a corresponding intensional enrichment of Kripke models M = (W, , V) by a function T giving an effort measure T(w, u) {} for each -related pair (w, u). We show that embodies the abstraction involved in passing from true up to bounded effort to true outright. We then introduce a refined notion of intensional validity M |= p : and present a corresponding intensional calculus iLC-h which gives a natural extension by lax modality of the well-known G: odel/Dummett logic LC of (finite) linear Kripke models. Our main results are that for finite linear intensional models L the intensional theory iTh(L) = {p : | L |= p : } characterises L and that iLC-h generates complete information about iTh(L).Our paper thus shows that the quantitative intensional information contained in the effort measure T can be abstracted away by the use of and completely recovered by a suitable semantic interpretation of proofs.     

"La manie d'ecrire": psychology, auto-observation, and case history

This essay examines the modern psychiatric case study as a scientific method and as a genre of writing about the self. As psychological discourse became a privileged language of selfhood at the fin de siècle, the penultimate signifier of the self came to be found in the realm of sexuality, in the particular contours of an individual's sexual desire. The investigative tool used to uncover these secrets of identity was the case history. This article concerns an influential project of sexual research based on "auto-observations"-autobiographical patient narratives-conducted by Dr. Georges Saint-Paul, who published under the inverted pseudonym "Laupts." The article focuses on the central autobiography of his collection, the "roman d'un inverti," and related sexological literature to suggest how this emphasis on patient stories in psychiatric writing engendered new narrative possibilities for doctors and patients alike. Putting patient stories at the center of psychiatric investigation created a new relationship between patient and doctor, observation and diagnosis, subject and discourse. The tools of psychological observation simultaneously placed a subject's confession more firmly at the center of the investigation and made it more open to interpretation by nonspecialists. Rather than simply confirming the authority of the trained observer, the story of Laupts's enquête suggests that the method actually authorized inquiry by others.     

Can We Use Hare’s Psychopathy Model within Forensic and Non-Forensic Populations? An Empirical Investigation

Although psychopathy construct (Self-Report Psychopathy Scale–Short Form [SRP–SF]) was assessed among various samples, prior research did not investigate whether the model proposed by Hare and colleagues can be used to capture psychopathy scores derived from forensic and nonforensic populations. The main objective of the current study was to test dimensionality, construct validity, and factorial invariance of the SRP–SF within prison (n = 730) and student (n = 2,506) samples. Our results indicate that the SRP–SF measure cannot be used in the same way within forensic and nonforensic samples, which may be due to the inclusion of criminal/antisocial traits as an integral part of psychopathy.     

The Carnival’s Edge: <Emphasis Type="Italic">Charlie Hebdo</Emphasis> and Theories of Comedy

This article reexamines the satire of Charlie Hebdo through the lens of comedy theory and cultural studies. Drawing upon Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of “the carnivalesque” and Linda Hutcheon’s concept of “irony’s edge,” it considers the wide variety of potential meanings that are encoded within Hebdo’s highly controversial comedy and religious representations. Introducing the notion of the “ambigramic carnival,” I argue that competing notions of hegemony in French culture encourage radically different understandings of the ethical and political implications of Hebdo’s content. Ultimately, I contend that while Hebdo’s approach to satire is in no way responsible for the terroristic violence visited upon the magazine, the publication nonetheless crafted a style intended to evoke a range of responses, including profound anger. As an empirical companion to this theoretical approach, the article then turns to coverage of the Hebdo massacre in the Jewish press, arguing that in the United States the Forward used the Hebdo story to represent Jewish empowerment and disempowerment simultaneously.     

Practical Skills and Practical Wisdom in Virtue

This paper challenges a frequent objection to conceptualizing virtues as skills, which is that skills are merely capacities to act well, while virtues additionally require being properly motivated to act well. I discuss several cases that purport to show the supposed motivational difference by drawing our attention to the differing intuitions we have about virtues and skills. However, this putative difference between virtue and skill disappears when we switch our focus in the skill examples from the performance to the performer. The ends of a practice can be used to judge not only the skilfulness of a performance, but also the motivational commitment of the performer. Being virtuous requires both acting well and being properly motivated to do so, which can be captured by viewing virtues as the moral subset of skills. In claiming this, though, I resist the idea that there is no element in virtue that is not found in other skills. Virtue requires being practically wise about how practices fit into a conception of the good life, but other skills do not. I further argue that this difference doesn't undermine the ‘virtue as skill’ thesis, as it's the connection between virtues and morality that requires practical wisdom.