The association between temperament and depressive symptoms in adolescence: brooding and reflection as potential mediators

This study examined whether rumination subtypes (brooding and reflection) mediated prospective associations between temperament (negative emotionality and positive emotionality) and depressive symptoms in a community sample of 423 adolescents. Effortful control and sex were examined as potential moderators of the mediated pathway. Youth self-reported negative emotionality (NE), positive emotionality (PE), and effortful control (EC) at age 12; brooding and reflection subtypes of rumination at age 14; and depressive symptoms at ages 12, 14, and 15. Hierarchical linear regression analyses indicated that, controlling for initial levels of depressive symptoms, high NE, but not low PE, predicted increases in depressive symptoms from age 12 to age 15. Brooding, but not reflection, mediated the association between NE and depressive symptoms. Neither sex nor EC moderated either indirect pathway in the mediated model. The results confirm and extend previous findings on the association between affective and cognitive vulnerability factors in predicting depressive symptoms in adolescence.     

Psychological Correlates of Support for Compromise: A Polling Study of Jewish-Israeli Attitudes toward Solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

A representative national sampling of Israeli Jewish adults (n = 550) reported attitudes toward solutions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that were salient in Israeli public discourse in 2002. Negative attitudes toward compromise were associated with zero-sum threat perceptions of the conflict with Palestinians, such that improvement for the Palestinian side can only come at the expense of the Israeli side. Positive attitudes toward compromise were associated with feelings of sympathy toward Palestinians, but, surprisingly, attitudes toward compromise were not associated with feelings of fear toward Palestinians. The possibility is advanced that it is fear of harm to the group, not fear of harm to self and family, that is related to willingness to compromise. Zero-sum perceptions of collective threat were not strongly related to affective reactions, and, contrary to a realist analysis of intergroup conflict, sympathy for Palestinians predicted support for compromise beyond what zero-sum perceptions of threat could predict.     

Words, pictures, and priming: on semantic activation, conscious identification, and the automaticity of information processing

We investigated the encoding mechanisms involved in the perceptual recognition of words and pictures. Latencies in naming word and picture targets were analyzed as a function of several characteristics of a preceding prime, including whether it was a word or a picture, its duration of exposure, the interval between the prime and target onset, and whether or not the prime was consciously identified and reported by the subject. Results indicated that a common semantic code is available that can represent the meaning of either a word or a picture. This semantic representation, however, appears to be more easily activated by picture primes than by word primes and seems to benefit the naming of picture targets more than the naming of word targets. Despite the advantage for pictures with respect to semantic activation, overall processing in the naming task was slower and more attention demanding for pictures than for words. Comparison of our data with data on classification, in which an opposite pattern occurs (overall processing appears to be slower and more attention demanding for words than for pictures), suggests that, on the average, pictures have faster and more automatic access to their meanings than to their names but that words have faster and more automatic access to their names than to their meanings. This conclusion concerning the relative ability of stimuli to activate different kinds of internal representations has implications for a theory of the basis and development of automaticity.     

Differences in semantic encoding as a function of reading comprehension skill

Using a modified Stroop procedure, we examined the extent to which the semantic encoding of a word is governed by the context within which that word appears. Good and poor comprehenders named the color of target words following their reading of either sentences or single words representing the object nouns of the sentences. Target words represented contextually emphasized (appropriate) attributes of the object nouns, nonemphasized (inappropriate) attributes of these nouns, or object attributes not related to these nouns (neutral). For single-word contexts, all subjects exhibited equal semantic interference to appropriate and inappropriate targets, relative to neutral targets. For sentence contexts, however, good comprehenders exhibited semantic interference only to appropriate targets, whereas poor comprehenders again exhibited equal interference to appropriate and inappropriate targets. These findings suggest that differences in comprehension skill may be attributable, at least in part, to fundamental differences in the way in which sentences are semantically encoded.     

Semantic priming effects on picture and word processing

The effects of semantic priming on picture and word processing were assessed under conditions in which subjects were required simply to identify stimuli (label pictures or read words) as rapidly as possible. Stimuli were presented in pairs (a prime followed by a target), with half of the pairs containing members of the same semantic category and half containing unrelated concepts. Semantic relatedness was found to facilitate the identification of both pictures (Experiment 1) and words (Experiment 2), and obtained interactions of semantic relatedness and stimulus quality in both experiments suggested that semantic priming affects the initial encoding of both types of stimuli. In Experiment 3, subjects received pairs of pictures, pairs of words, and mixed pairs composed of a picture and a word or of a word and a picture. Significant priming effects were obtained on mixed as well as unmixed pairs, supporting the assumption that pictures and words access semantic information from a common semantic store. Of primary interest was the significantly greater priming obtained in picture-picture pairs than in word-word or mixed pairs. This suggests that, in addition to priming that is mediated by the semantic system, priming may occur in picture-picture pairs that results from the overlap in visual features common to the pictorial representations of objects from the same semantic category.     

Parent and peer attachment in early adolescent depression

Insecure attachment relations have been theorized to play a significant role in the development of depressogenic modes of adaptation and to thus form a vulnerability factor for the emergence of depressive disorder in children. This study examined security of parent and peer attachment among four groups of early adolescents: clinically depressed, nondepressed psychiatric controls, nonpsychiatric controls, and adolescents with resolved depression. Depressed adolescents reported significantly less secure parent attachment than either of the control groups, and less secure peer attachment than the nonpsychiatric control group. Attachment security of adolescents with resolved depression was on a par with the nonpsychiatric control group. Among all psychiatric patients, security of attachment to parents was negatively correlated with severity of depression according to interview and self-report ratings. Less secure attachment to parents, but generally not to peers, was also related to more maladaptive attributional styles, presence of separation anxiety disorder, and history of suicidal ideation.     

Family Functioning and Anxiety Symptoms in Adolescents: The Moderating Role of Mindfulness

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Anxiety disorders are one of the most prevalent psychiatric disorders among adolescents and can be associated with long-term adverse outcomes if untreated. Our...     

Measuring and Reducing Religious Bias in Post‐Conflict Zones: Evidence from Côte d'Ivoire

This article explores how religious bias, once it has been cultivated through politicization and violence, can be reduced. Using foundations from social identity theory and superordinate goal theory, I develop post‐conflict bias reduction strategies that include competing types of superordinate messages, economic and theological, as well as different sources of those messages. To test these strategies, I use video‐based information treatments coupled with Implicit Association Tests in Bouaké, Côte d'Ivoire. The experimental findings point to three conclusions. First, implicit Muslim‐Christian bias in the study area remains high. Second, Christians in the study tend to be more biased against Muslims than Muslims are against Christians. Third, the effectiveness of treatments depends on the subjects who receive those treatments: theological messages are most effective in reducing bias among Muslims, regardless of their source, and strategies that rely on political leaders to deliver messages perform best among Christians, regardless of the content.     

Stereotypes as Valid Categories of Knowledge and Human Perceptions of Group Differences

Stereotypes – beliefs about group differences – are more complex than is generally assumed. First, we address the multidimensionality of stereotypes under the framework of the Cubic EPA model which suggests that stereotypes are characterized by three dimensions: evaluation, potency, and accuracy. Specific attention is given to the relationship between stereotypes and totemic beliefs as collectively shared representations. Second, we review controversial research on the accuracy of stereotypes. Cultural stereotypes, personal stereotypes, judgment of individuals and groups, judgment criteria, and meta‐analytical results are examined, revealing the robust relationship between stereotypes and reality. Finally, we point to the importance of explanations of group differences, especially the perception of essence that is encouraged by group entitativity (perceptual “oneness”). We suggest that stereotyping is particularly powerful for groups with high entitativity and a perceived essence, and that a group's totem is the manifestation of the group's essence. Though we cannot resolve all the controversies relating to stereotyping, our perspective emphasizes stereotypes as categories useful for human interaction and survival.