Self-Concept and Sociometric Outcomes: A Comparison of Only Children and Sibling Children From Urban and Rural Areas in the People's Republic of China

We investigated differences in self-concept between 360 only children and 555 sibling children in the sixth grade of three urban schools and three rural schools in the People's Republic of China. Peer perceptions and teacher perceptions were also collected using sociometric measures. Self-concept was determined by the Self-Perception Profile for Children (Harter, 1985). Comparisons of sibling children and only children showed no differences on self-concept; however, urban residents had higher self-concept scores than children from rural areas, and boys scored higher than girls. No significant interaction effects between sibling status, gender, and residence were found.     

The Effects of Magnitude-Based Differential Reinforcement on the Skill Acquisition of Children with Autism

A common recommendation for teaching skills to children with autism is to apply differential reinforcement by reserving high-quality reinforcement for unprompted responses (Sundberg and Partington in Teaching language to children with autism or other developmental disabilities, Behavior Analysts Inc., Pleasant Hill, 1998). Earlier research focuses primarily on schedules or quality of reinforcement, rather than magnitude of reinforcement, when evaluating the use of differential reinforcement in practice. The utility of magnitude-based differential reinforcement may be dependent upon evidence that a learner responds differentially to large and small amounts of reinforcement such that he or she selects the large amount of reinforcement over the small amount of reinforcement and engages in more responses that produce the relatively larger magnitude reinforcement. Three individuals with autism participated in a treatment comparison of differential reinforcement. The manipulation of magnitude of differential reinforcement in a skill acquisition program did not have an appreciable effect on the rate of acquisition for any of the three participants.     

Clarifying Heterogeneity of Daytime and Nighttime Symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress in Combat Veterans With Insomnia

Daytime and nighttime symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are common among combat veterans and military service members. However, there is a great deal of heterogeneity in how symptoms are expressed. Clarifying the heterogeneity of daytime and nighttime PTSD symptoms through exploratory clustering may generate hypotheses regarding ways to optimally match evidence-based treatments to PTSD symptom profiles. We used mixture modeling to reveal clusters based on 6 daytime and nighttime symptoms of 154 combat veterans with insomnia and varying levels of PTSD symptoms. Three clusters with increasing symptom severity were identified (n1 = 50, n2 = 70, n3 = 34). These results suggest that, among veterans with insomnia, PTSD symptoms tend to exist on a continuum of severity, rather than as a categorical PTSD diagnosis. Hypotheses regarding possible targeted treatment strategies for veterans within each identified cluster, as well as ways to generalize these methods to other groups within the military, are discussed.     

Play Behavior and Playfulness in Adulthood

Although research has established play behavior and playfulness as important to the well‐being of children and animals, researchers have not typically considered the importance or implications of play in human adults. This is surprising given that play behavior is a topic of high relevance to social psychology. Definitional issues, a lack of a theoretical framework, and a dearth of standardized measures have posed obstacles in the advancement of this interesting research area, which is ripe for investigation. In this review, we summarize the extant literature, identify strengths and weaknesses of this literature, propose definitions to guide future work in this area, identify relevant theories that may be expanded to provide a framework for programmatic research on play in adulthood, and elucidate avenues for future research. Our aim is to encourage the development of this research area within social psychology.     

Counterfactual Reasoning for Regretted Situations Involving Controllable Versus Uncontrollable Events: The Modulating Role of Contingent Self-Esteem

We report a study that examined the modulating impact of contingent self-esteem on regret intensity for regretted outcomes associated with controllable versus uncontrollable events. The Contingent Self-Esteem Scale (e.g., Kernis & Goldman, 2006) was used to assess the extent to which a person’s sense of self-worth is based on self and others’ expectations. We found that there was an influence of self-esteem contingency for controllable but not for uncontrollable regret types. For controllable regret types individuals with a high contingent (i.e., unstable) self-esteem reported greater regret intensity than those with a low contingent (i.e., stable) self-esteem. We interpret this finding as reflecting a functional and adaptive role of high contingent self-esteem in terms of mobilizing the application of counterfactual reasoning and planning mechanisms that can enable personal expectations to be achieved in the future.     

Assessing the Role of Active Student Response During Error Correction in Discrete Trial Instruction

Research generally supports the use of error-correction procedures that require active student responses (ASRs). However, some recent research suggests that requiring ASRs after errors is not always advantageous for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We examined acquisition in a receptive identification task for two learners with ASD under three error-correction conditions: required ASRs, model, and modified model that minimized spontaneous ASR. In the model condition, both individuals emitted spontaneous responses to the model even though none was required, extending previous research to the receptive domain. For both learners, the model error-correction was effective; however, minimizing the spontaneous ASR in the modified model condition impacted its efficacy compared to the required ASR condition for one learner. For the other learner, error-correction procedures that required ASRs were not effective. Results are discussed in terms of empirical evaluation of error-correction procedures and suggest that imitative behavior (e.g., emitting an ASR when none is required) might function as a prerequisite skill that predicts the efficacy of model-based error-correction procedures for learners with ASD.     

Stress,coping, executive function,and brain activation in adolescent offspring of depressed and nondepressed mothers

This study examined the associations among chronic stress, activation in the prefrontal cortex (PFC), executive function, and coping with stress in at-risk and a comparison sample of adolescents. Adolescents (N = 16; age 12–15) of mothers with (n = 8) and without (n = 8) a history of depression completed questionnaires, neurocognitive testing, and functional neuroimaging in response to a working memory task (N-back). Children of depressed mothers demonstrated less activation in the anterior PFC (APFC) and both greater and less activation than controls in distinct areas within the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) in response to the N-back task. Across both groups, activation of the dorsolateral PFC (DLPFC; Brodmann area [BA9]) and APFC (BA10) was positively correlated with greater exposure to stress and negatively correlated with secondary control coping. Similarly, activation of the dACC (BA32) was negatively correlated with secondary control coping. Regression analyses revealed that DLPFC, dACC, and APFC activation were significant predictors of adolescents’ reports of their use of secondary control coping and accounted for the effects of stress exposure on adolescents’ coping. This study provides evidence that chronic stress may impact coping through its effects on the brain regions responsible for executive functions foundational to adaptive coping skills.