Effects of repetition and response deadline on associative recognition in young and older adults

The present study examined the joint effects of repetition and response deadline on associative recognition in older adults. Young and older adults studied lists of unrelated word pairs, half presented once (weak pairs) and half presented four times (strong pairs). Test lists contained old (intact) pairs, pairs consisting of old words that had been studied with other partners (rearranged lures), and unstudied pairs (new lures), and participants were asked to respond "old" only to intact pairs. In Experiment 1, participants were tested with both short and long deadlines. In Experiment 2, the tests were unpaced. In both experiments, repetition increased hit rates for young and older adults. Young adults tested with a long deadline showed reduced (Experiment 1) or invariant (Experiment 2) false alarms to rearranged lures when word pairs were studied more often. Young adults tested with a short deadline and older adults tested under all conditions had increased false alarm rates forstrong rearranged pairs. Implications of these results for theories of associative recognition and cognitive aging are explored.     

Suicide ideation and its relationship to depressed mood in a community sample of adolescents in Hong Kong.

A sample of 996 Chinese adolescents in Hong Kong provided information about their suicide ideation. Their depressive symptoms were measured by the Chinese Beck Depression Inventory (C-BDI), and a broad range of stressors were also assessed as potential predictors to level of suicide ideation. The stressors and C-BDI scores predicted 33% of the variance in suicide ideation. In boys, most of the prediction was attributable to C-BDI scores, suggesting that depression mediated the effects of stressors. In girls, C-BDI scores, perceptions of low parental caring, and high conflict with parents had additive effects in predicting level of suicide ideation. This study contributes needed information about a non-Western population and highlights gender differences.     

Social comparison, individualism-collectivism, and self-esteem in china and the United States

Possible differences in social comparison choices between individualistic and collectivistic cultures and individuals were explored among a sample of 235 student participants from the United States and China, focusing on self-esteem as a possible mediating variable. A self-report social comparison measure was developed and factor analyzed. Correlations revealed that higher collectivism scores were associated with an increased desire to compare in general, an increased desire to make upward comparisons, and a decreased desire to make downward comparisons. It is speculated that upward self-improvement comparisons for the sake of the group may be more common for those high in collectivism.     

Vietnamese Amerasians: Predictors of Distress and Self-Destructive Behavior

There have been few empirical studies of Vietnamese Amerasians, children fathered by United States servicemen and civilians during the Vietnam War. In this study, the authors investigated pre- and postmigration variables that predict psychological distress and self-destructive behavior. The sample (N = 169) was selected from 10 cities throughout the United States. Multivariate regression analyses were used to determine the predictors of distress. Results revealed that observing traumatic events rather than actually experiencing trauma was a significant predictor of psychological distress. Participants with frequent cognitions about loss of significant people, places, or both were more likely to report psychological distress and self-destructive behavior. Implications for research and practice are discussed in relationship to cross-cultural counseling with at-risk populations, including individuals from inner cities and war-stricken environments.     

Resistance to Group or Personal Insults in an Ingroup or Outgroup Context

This experiment was designed to evaluate the effect of different types of insults in different social contexts on the victim's resistance to the attack. In a teaching exercise, which was purportedly measuring their intelligence, students were insulted for their incompetence by their teacher in various situations: when alone, in front of an ingroup member, or in front of an outgroup member. In half the cases this personal insult was augmented by one impugning the competence of the student's academic ingroup as well. Direct resistance showed a complex pattern of results, reflecting concerns about managing an impression of group loyalty and personal detachment. Measures of indirect resistance showed higher levels in the public, as opposed to the private contexts, and were conceptualised as reflecting esteem deflation. These results thus amplify and extend into the logic of a collectivist culture hypotheses (Felson, 1978) about aggression as impression management.     

Quantification of Conflicts of Interest in an Online Point-of-Care Clinical Support Website

Science and Engineering Ethics - Online medical reference websites are utilized by health care providers to enhance their education and decision making. However, these resources may not adequately...     

Relations between neighborhood factors, parenting behaviors, peer deviance, and delinquency among serious juvenile offenders

The present study examined relations among neighborhood structural and social characteristics, parenting practices, peer group affiliations, and delinquency among a group of serious adolescent offenders. The sample of 14-18-year-old boys (N=488) was composed primarily of economically disadvantaged, ethnic-minority youth living in urban communities. The results indicate that weak neighborhood social organization is indirectly related to delinquency through its associations with parenting behavior and peer deviance and that a focus on just 1 of these microsystems can lead to oversimplified models of risk for juvenile offending. The authors also find that community social ties may confer both pro- and antisocial influences to youth, and they advocate for a broad conceptualization of neighborhood social processes as these relate to developmental risk for youth living in disadvantaged communities.     

Item response theory analysis of diagnostic criteria for alcohol and cannabis use disorders in adolescents: implications for DSM-V

Item response theory (IRT) has advantages over classical test theory in evaluating diagnostic criteria. In this study, the authors used IRT to characterize the psychometric properties of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition (DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association, 1994) alcohol and cannabis use disorder symptoms among 472 clinical adolescents. For both substances, DSM-IV symptoms fit a model specifying a unidimensional latent trait of problem severity. Threshold (severity) parameters did not distinguish abuse and dependence symptoms. Abuse symptoms of legal problems and hazardous use, and dependence symptoms of tolerance, unsuccessful attempts to quit, and physical-psychological problems, showed relatively poor discrimination of problem severity. There were gender differences in thresholds for hazardous use, legal problems, and physical-psychological problems. The results illustrate limitations of DSM-IV criteria for alcohol and cannabis use disorders when applied to adolescents. The development process for the fifth edition (DSM-V) should be informed by statistical models such as those used in this study.     

Relation of study strategies to the academic performance of Hong Kong university students

A revised version of the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory was used to examine the relation of study strategies with academic performance of 100 Hong Kong university students. Analysis indicated the high academic-achieving group differed significantly from the low academic-achieving group in terms of intrinsic disposition factors of motivation, scheduling, concentration, and selecting main ideas.     

Young children can extend motion verbs to point-light displays

In the first study using point-light displays (lights corresponding to the joints of the human body) to examine children's understanding of verbs, 3-year-olds were tested to see if they could perceive familiar actions that corresponded to motion verbs (e.g., walking). Experiment 1 showed that children could extend familiar motion verbs (e.g., walking and dancing) to videotaped point-light actions shown in the intermodal preferential looking paradigm. Children watched the action that matched the requested verb significantly more than they watched the action that did not match the verb. In Experiment 2, the findings of Experiment 1 were validated by having children spontaneously produce verbs for these actions. The use of point-light displays may illuminate the factors that contribute to verb learning.