Latent Profile Analysis of Traditional and Cyber-Aggression and Victimization: Associations with Dark Triad Traits and Psychopathology Symptoms

Research has shown that while traditional (e.g., physical and relational) and cyber aggression and victimization often co-occur, individuals may differ in terms of their experiences with aggression and victimization as well as social-psychological adjustment. The current study investigated whether there are distinct groups of college students who experience different forms of aggression and victimization using latent profile analysis (LPA), and whether these groups differ from one another in their maladaptive personality characteristics and psychopathology symptoms. Participants were 540 undergraduate students from a Midwestern university (53% female; 78.5% White; average age?=?19.27 years). Four profiles were identified: Non-Involved (80.7%), Traditional Victim-Only (10.3%), Traditional Aggressor/Victim (4.8%), and Combined Aggressor/Victim (traditional aggression, cyber aggression and victimization; 4.1%). Maladaptive personality traits and psychopathology symptoms differed across the four groups. Both the traditional aggressor/victim group and the combined aggressor/victim group, compared to the non-involved and traditional victim-only group, reported higher levels of narcissism, psychopathy, and callous-unemotional (CU) traits. The traditional aggressor/victim group, compared to the combined aggressor/victim group, reported higher levels of narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and CU traits. The combined aggressor/victim group reported higher levels of psychopathology symptoms (i.e., emotion dysregulation, depression, anxiety, and stress) compared to the traditional aggressor/victim group. These findings enhance our understanding of the heterogeneity in experiences with aggression and victimization among college students, and highlight the importance of developing interventions that target their specific mental health needs.

     

PARENTAL CHILDHOOD ADVERSITY,DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS,AND PARENTING QUALITY: EFFECTS ON TODDLER SELF‐REGULATION IN CHILD WELFARE SERVICES INVOLVED FAMILIES

Parents who are involved with child welfare services (CWSI) often have a history of childhood adversity and depressive symptoms. Both affect parenting quality, which in turn influences child adaptive functioning. We tested a model of the relations between parental depression and child regulatory outcomes first proposed by K. Lyons‐Ruth, R. Wolfe, A. Lyubchik, and R. Steingard (2002). We hypothesized that both parental depression and parenting quality mediate the effects of parental early adversity on offspring regulatory outcomes. Participants were 123 CWSI parents and their toddlers assessed three times over a period of 6 months. At Time 1, parents reported on their childhood adversity and current depressive symptoms. At Time 2, parents’ sensitivity to their child's distress and nondistress cues was rated from a videotaped teaching task. At Time 3, observers rated children's emotional regulation, orientation/engagement, and secure base behavior. The results of a path model partly supported the hypotheses. Parent childhood adversity was associated with current depressive symptoms, which in turn related to parent sensitivity to child distress, but not nondistress. Sensitivity to distress also predicted secure base behavior. Depression directly predicted orientation/engagement, also predicted by sensitivity to nondistress. Sensitivity to distress predicted emotion regulation and orientation/engagement. Results are discussed in terms of intervention approaches for CWSI families.     

Privilege and Oppression in Counselor Education: An Intersectionality Framework

Multiculturalism and social justice are considered major forces in the counseling profession, revolutionizing the complexity of social identity, cultural identity, and diversity. Although these major forces have influenced the profession, many challenges exist with their implementation within counselor education curriculum and pedagogy. A major challenge is the complex dynamics of privilege and oppression that both counselor educators and counseling students face. This article discusses the use of intersectionality to approach counselor education pedagogy and practice. El multiculturalismo y la justicia social están considerados como fuerzas importantes con las que la profesión de la consejería está revolucionando la complejidad de la identidad social, la identidad cultural y la diversidad. Aunque estas fuerzas importantes han influido en la profesión, existen desafíos relacionados con su implementación en los planes curriculares y pedagogía de la educación de consejeros. Un desafío significativo es la compleja dinámica entre privilegio y opresión que enfrentan tanto los formadores de consejeros como los estudiantes de consejería. Este artículo discute el uso de la interseccionalidad para enfocar la pedagogía de la educación de consejeros y la práctica.     

The Academic Conference as a Chilly Climate for Women: Effects of Gender Representation on Experiences of Sexism,Coping Responses,and Career Intentions

Across many disciplines, women are underrepresented in faculty positions relative to men. The present research focuses on the academic conference as a setting because it is a gateway to an academic career and a context in which women might experience sexism. We surveyed 329 presenters (63% women) from three U.S. national academic conferences, which differed in women-to-men ratios, about their perceptions of the conference climate, their coping tactics (e.g., gender performance, silence, or voice), and their intentions to exit the conference or academia. The greater the representation of women at the conference relative to men, the less likely were women to perceive sexism and to feel they had to behave in a masculine manner in that setting. In contrast, women who perceived the conference as sexist and felt silenced also expressed increased intentions to exit from academic careers. Men’s perceptions of sexism predicted increased intentions to exit from that particular conference, but not from academia. Because conferences signal the norms of a discipline, it is important to explore their climates as they relate to gender. Perhaps especially for new and aspiring female academics, they may signal devalued status and lack of fit and as such play an inadvertent role in the “leaky pipeline.” We discuss strategies that conference organizers could implement to mitigate sexist climates, including broader inclusion of women in speaking and leadership roles and explicit attention to cues that women belong.     

Exposure Quality in Cognitive Behavioral Treatment for Youth Anxiety Disorders—Predictors and Associations with Outcomes

Journal of Child and Family Studies - To optimize cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) outcomes for anxiety disorders in youth, more knowledge is needed about how specific CBT components work....     

Performance gains from directed training do not transfer to untrained tasks

Given the increasing complexity of the tasks and skills needed in modern society, developing effective training strategies is of tremendous practical importance. Furthermore, training that improves performance of both trained and untrained tasks would be highly efficient. In the present study, we examined how directed training contributes to skill acquisition, and more importantly, to engendering transfer of training to untrained tasks. Participants learned a complex video game for 30 h (Space Fortress, Donchin, Fabiani, & Sanders, 1989) using one of two training regimens: Hybrid Variable-Priority Training (HVT), with a focus on improving specific skills and managing task priority, or Full Emphasis Training (FET) in which participants simply practiced the game to obtain the highest overall score. We compared game performance, retention of training gains, and transfer of training to untrained tasks as a function of the training regimen. Compared to FET, HVT learners reached higher levels of mastery on the game and HVT was particularly beneficial for initially poor performing participants. This benefit persisted seven months after training. However, contrary to expectation, both HVT and FET were unsuccessful in producing transfer to untrained tasks compared to a group that received limited game experience, suggesting that directed training and practice can produce task-specific improvements, but improvements do not necessarily transfer from trained to untrained tasks.     

An evaluation of progressively increasing intertrial intervals on the acquisition and generalization of three social skills

We evaluated the effects of different intertrial intervals (ITIs; time between programmed learning opportunities) on the acquisition and generalization of 2 preschoolers' social skills. Independent and generalized skills were observed only when the daily ITI was gradually increased from short to progressively longer intervals.     

Phonological skills and their role in learning to read: a meta-analytic review

The authors report a systematic meta-analytic review of the relationships among 3 of the most widely studied measures of children's phonological skills (phonemic awareness, rime awareness, and verbal short-term memory) and children's word reading skills. The review included both extreme group studies and correlational studies with unselected samples (235 studies were included, and 995 effect sizes were calculated). Results from extreme group comparisons indicated that children with dyslexia show a large deficit on phonemic awareness in relation to typically developing children of the same age (pooled effect size estimate: -1.37) and children matched on reading level (pooled effect size estimate: -0.57). There were significantly smaller group deficits on both rime awareness and verbal short-term memory (pooled effect size estimates: rime skills in relation to age-matched controls, -0.93, and reading-level controls, -0.37; verbal short-term memory skills in relation to age-matched controls, -0.71, and reading-level controls, -0.09). Analyses of studies of unselected samples showed that phonemic awareness was the strongest correlate of individual differences in word reading ability and that this effect remained reliable after controlling for variations in both verbal short-term memory and rime awareness. These findings support the pivotal role of phonemic awareness as a predictor of individual differences in reading development. We discuss whether such a relationship is a causal one and the implications of research in this area for current approaches to the teaching of reading and interventions for children with reading difficulties.     

Eating-related problems among 13-15 year old Swedish adolescents: Frequency and stability over a one-year period

Viborg, N., Wångby‐Lundh, M., Lundh, L.‐G. & Johnsson P. (2012). Eating‐related problems among 13‐15 year old Swedish adolescents: Frequency and stability over a one‐year period. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 53, 401–406. The frequency of eating‐related problems in young adolescents, and their stability over a one‐year period, was studied by the RiBED‐8 (Risk Behaviours related to Eating Disorders, 8 items) in a community sample of 13–15 year old adolescents who took part in a prospective study with a 2‐wave longitudinal design. The RiBED‐8 was found to have good reliability and construct validity among the girls, although it did not show equally convincing psychometric properties among boys. With a cut‐off of at least three critical answers on the RiBED‐8, 28.5–31.0% of the girls were seen as risk cases for the development of eating disorder. Of those girls who were risk cases at Time 1, a majority (68.8%) remained so at Time 2; of those girls who were not risk cases at Time 1, 16.1% became risk cases at Time 2. It is suggested that the RiBED‐8 is a brief, easily administered instrument that may be potentially useful in screening for eating‐related problems among girls.