Association of <Emphasis Type="Italic">ADAM10</Emphasis> and <Emphasis Type="Italic">CAMK2A</Emphasis> Polymorphisms with Conduct Disorder: Evidence from Family-Based Studies

Twin and family studies have shown that genetic factors play a role in the development of conduct disorder (CD). The purpose of this study was to identify genetic variants associated with CD using a family-based association study. We used 4,720 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from the Illumina Panel and 11,120 SNPs from the Affymetrix 10K GeneChips genotyped in 155 Caucasian nuclear families from Genetic Analysis Workshop (GAW) 14, a subset from the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA). 20 SNPs had suggestive associations with CD (p < 10⁻³), nine of which were located in known genes, including ADAM10 (rs383902, p = 0.00036) and CAMK2A (rs2053053, p = 0.00098). Our results were verified using the International Multi-Center ADHD Genetics Project (IMAGE) dataset. In conclusion, we identified several loci associated with CD. Especially, the two genes (ADAM10 and CAMK2A) have been reported to be associated with Alzheimer’s disease, bipolar disorder and depression. These findings may serve as a resource for replication in other populations.     

Sex differences of parental phubbing on online hostility among adolescents: A moderated mediation model

To explore the relationship between parental phubbing (PP) and adolescent online hostility and its' psychological mechanism, 689 Chinese adolescents were recruited to complete a paper-and-pencil questionnaire. We took cyber flaming (CF) as an overall category for hostile online communication to investigate the relationship between PP and CF and the mediating role of perspective-taking (PT) in this relationship and examined whether there is a sex difference in this process. After controlling the average daily online time, the results showed that PP predicted adolescent CF positively. The relationship between PP and CF was partially mediated by PT. The effect of PP on PT was moderated by sex, with the result being significant only for boys. Related findings and future directions were discussed.     

When the “Charm of Three” Fades: Mental Imagery Moderates the Impact of the Number of Ad Claims on Persuasion

Given the prevalence of imagery appeals in today’s marketplace, the current research studies the role of mental imagery in how consumers process and react to advertisements with different numbers of ad claims. Past research has proposed “three” as the magical number of ad claims that maximizes persuasion, with more than three ad claims increasing skepticism and reducing evaluation. In the current research, we replicate this so-called “charm of three” effect, but only when consumers do not engage in mental imagery; when they do, however, we find that the effect is moderated, in that more ad claims beyond three produces more favorable product evaluation. Additionally, we provide evidence that the moderating effect of mental imagery is driven by transportation and skepticism toward the ad claims, with mental imagery increasing transportation and decreasing skepticism when there are more than three ad claims. Our research contributes to a better understanding of the “charm of three” effect, its boundary conditions, and underlying mechanism.     

城镇化进程中离乡农民心理健康特点调查及心理素质、相对剥夺感的影响机制

为探讨城镇化进程中离乡农民的心理健康特点以及心理素质、相对剥夺感对其的影响,通过量表对1339名城乡居民进行调查。结果发现:离乡与留乡农民在幸福感、拥有生命意义感、感知控制感、心理素质方面显著低于城镇居民,在状态焦虑方面显著高于城镇居民; 离乡农民在抑郁上显著高于城镇居民,在感知控制感上显著高于留乡农民,在心理素质上显著低于留乡农民; 留乡农民在相对剥夺感上显著高于城镇居民; 离乡农民的幸福感、拥有生命意义感、感知控制感态与相对剥夺感呈显著负相关,与心理素质呈显著正相关; 离乡农民的抑郁、状态焦虑与相对剥夺感呈显著正相关,与心理素质呈显著负相关; 离乡农民的相对剥夺感与心理素质之间呈显著负相关。心理素质除了可以直接预测心理健康各项指标,还可以通过相对剥夺感的中介作用,间接预测幸福感、抑郁及状态焦虑。提升心理素质和降低相对剥夺感是离乡农民心理健康服务的重要切入点。     

Regulatory Focus as a Mediator between Perceived Parenting Style and Friendship Intimacy in Chinese Emerging Adulthood

Journal of Child and Family Studies - In this study, we examined the relationship continuity between parent–child relationships and friendships. Based on the theoretical framework of the...     

Children’s Life Satisfaction: Developmental Trajectories and Environmental and Personality Predictors

Life satisfaction is a key indicator of children’s healthy development. Although the developmental changes of life satisfaction during adolescence have been investigated, the developmental trajectories of life satisfaction and related predictors during childhood remain unclear. Thus, the current study aimed to identify the developmental trajectories of life satisfaction covering the period from middle to late childhood as well as to examine the predictive roles of environmental factors (i.e., family dysfunction and basic psychological needs satisfaction at school), personality factors (i.e., neuroticism and extraversion), and their interactions in these developmental trajectories. An accelerated longitudinal design was used with Chinese elementary school students (N?=?1069, 45.8% girls, M _age?=?9.43, SD?=?0.95) of 3 cohorts (grade 3, grade 4, and grade 5) on 4 occasions at 6-month intervals. Growth mixture modeling analyses revealed three distinct trajectories of life satisfaction: “High-Stable” (88.8%), “High-Decreasing” (6.8%), and “Low-Increasing” (4.4%). Multivariate logistic regression analyses revealed that family dysfunction and neuroticism served as risk factors for adverse developmental trajectories of life satisfaction; whereas basic psychological needs satisfaction at school served as a protective factor. Furthermore, the interaction between family dysfunction and extraversion suggested that higher levels of extraversion buffered children against the negative effect of family dysfunction on the development of life satisfaction. The identification of three heterogeneous trajectory groups of children’s life satisfaction and key personality and environmental predictors associated with the trajectories suggests that specific interventions need to be tailored to the unique characteristics of the relevant trajectory groups.

     

Effects of Father-Adolescent and Mother-Adolescent Relationships on Depressive Symptoms among Chinese Early Adolescents

Parent–adolescent relationships play an important role in protecting adolescents from depressive symptoms. However, there are no consistent conclusions about the extent to which fathers and mothers uniquely contribute to adolescents’ depressive symptoms. The present study aimed to acquire knowledge in this research area in two ways. First, this study separated the potential impacts of father–child and mother–child relationships on depressive symptoms in Chinese adolescents. Second, this study used a longitudinal design with nationally representative samples from the China Education Panel Survey. A total of 8794 middle school students in grade 7 completed measures of father–adolescent and mother–adolescent relationships, and depressive symptoms twice (T1 and T2; one-year interval). Results indicated that both positive father–adolescent and mother–adolescent relationships had negative effects on depressive symptoms in female adolescents. However, positive father-adolescent, not mother-adolescent, relationships had a negative effect on depressive symptoms in male adolescents. These findings suggest that positive parent–adolescent relationships could reduce early adolescents’ depressive symptoms, but positive father–adolescent and mother–adolescent relationships might have different protective effects on early adolescents’ depressive symptoms among male and female adolescents in China.

     

The beliefs that underlie autonomy-supportive and controlling teaching: A multinational investigation

We investigated the role of three beliefs in predicting teachers’ motivating style toward students—namely, how effective, how normative, and how easy-to-implement autonomy-supportive and controlling teaching were each believed to be. We further examined national collectivism–individualism as a predictor of individual teachers’ motivating style and beliefs about motivating style, as we expected that a collectivistic perspective would tend teachers toward the controlling style and toward positive beliefs about that style. Participants were 815 full-time PreK-12 public school teachers from eight different nations that varied in collectivism–individualism. All three teacher beliefs explained independent and substantial variance in teachers’ self-described motivating styles. Believed effectiveness was a particularly strong predictor of self-described motivating style. Collectivism–individualism predicted which teachers were most likely to self-describe a controlling motivating style, and a mediation analysis showed that teachers in collectivistic nations self-described a controlling style because they believed it to be culturally normative classroom practice. These findings enhance the literature on the antecedents of teachers’ motivating styles by showing that teacher beliefs strongly predict motivating style, and that culture informs one of these beliefs—namely, normalcy.     

A robust vision-based method for staircase detection and localization

A robust vision-based staircase identification method is proposed, which comprises 2D staircase detection and 3D staircase localization. The 2D detector pre-screens the input image, and the 3D localization algorithm continues the task of retrieving geometry of the staircase on the reported region in the image. A novel set of principal component analysis-based Haar-like features are introduced, which extends the classical Haar-like features from local to global domain and are extremely efficient at rejecting non-object regions for the early stages of the cascade, and the Viola–Jones rapid object detection framework is improved to adapt the context of staircase detection, modifications have been made on the scanning scheme, multiple detections integrating scheme and the final detection evaluation metrics. The V-disparity concept is applied to detect the planar regions on the staircase surface and locate 3D planes quickly from disparity maps, and then, the 3D position of staircase is localized robustly. Finally, experiments show the performance of the proposed method.