Severity of Children’s ADHD Symptoms and Parenting Stress: A Multiple Mediation Model of Self-Regulation

The goal of the current study was to determine the extent to which the perceived self-regulation deficits across behavioral, cognitive, and emotional domains seen in children with ADHD explain the association between the severity of ADHD symptoms and parenting stress. Participants for this study included 80 children (mean age = 10 years, 9 months) with a DSM-IV diagnosis of ADHD confirmed by a comprehensive clinical diagnostic assessment. Parents reported their own stress levels as well as the severity of their children’s ADHD symptoms, aggression, emotional lability, and executive functioning difficulties. Results indicated that the severity of children’s hyperactivity/impulsivity symptoms but not their inattention related to parenting stress. Multiple mediational analyses indicated that the association between hyperactivity/impulsivity and parenting stress was explained by children’s perceived comorbid aggression levels, emotional lability, and executive functioning difficulties. No significant differences in the strength of the mediators were found. The current study provides initial data showing that the perceived impairments in children’s self-regulation across emotional, cognitive, and behavioral domains are what parents report as stressful, not simply the severity of ADHD symptoms. Due to the cross-sectional nature of this study and shared variance from relying solely on parent report, it will be critical for future research to replicate our findings using longitudinal and multi-informant data such as teacher reports and standardized assessments.     

Facial Affect Recognition and Psychopathy: A Signal Detection Theory Perspective

Though emotional processing deficits are often conceptualized as a core feature of psychopathy, the common assessment of these deficits using the percentage correct (or hit rate) on affect recognition tasks may not provide a full or accurate picture of facial affect recognition in psychopathic individuals. Signal detection theory (SDT) provides a more informative statistical approach by providing independent measures of perceptual sensitivity (d’) and willingness to report perceiving a signal or response criterion (c). The current study employed signal detection methods to test the predictions of the integrated emotion systems and hostile attribution bias perspectives, two theoretical perspectives that make specific predictions regarding facial affect recognition. These perspectives were tested in a sample of 280 adult male incarcerated offenders who were assessed for psychopathy using the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised and who completed a novel test of facial affect recognition presenting 324 digital morphs of faces reflecting systematic combinations of pixels from neutral and affective face images (displaying six different types of emotion) as expressed by four different actors. The findings were generally not consistent with either of these perspectives. Psychopathy was negatively associated with d` for anger. Results also indicated an effect of psychopathy on response criterion for fear and effects of psychopathy on response criterion for anger and surprise that were evident only for some actors. The implications of these findings are considered through the lenses of several theoretical perspectives, and theoretical and methodological limitations of the current study are considered.

     

The effect of self‐identity alongside perceived importance within the theory of planned behaviour

Self‐identity often predicts behavioural intentions after standard theory of planned behaviour (TPB) components are accounted for. However, it has been claimed this is due to conceptual similarity between self‐identity and perceived importance of the behaviour. We examined this claim within the context of recycling food waste. Participants (N = 113) completed questionnaires assessing intentions, attitude, perceived behavioural control, perceived norms, perceived importance, self‐identity, and past behaviour. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that self‐identity and perceived importance were distinct constructs. Further, after accounting for TPB components and perceived importance, self‐identity explained a significant amount of additional variance in intentions. The present findings therefore do not support this particular argument against the predictive utility of self‐identity.     

Imagine Me and You,I Do: Effects of imagined intergroup contact on anti‐fat bias in the context of job interviews

Imagined intergroup contact (IIC) has been demonstrated to alleviate prejudice toward social groups as a whole, but the extent to which it prevents biases in ratings of individual job candidates has not yet been examined. This study uses a simulated employment interview where a female candidate either higher or lower in body fat is rated by participants who have undergone an IIC or a control manipulation. IIC successfully alleviated discrimination in ratings of interviewee competence but had no significant effect on ratings of warmth. Competence ratings fully mediated the effect of the two‐way interaction of IIC and interviewee body fat on a dichotomous hiring recommendation provided 1 week later. IIC may be an effective and inexpensive intervention for reducing bias in job interview contexts.     

Meta‐Ethical Realism with Good of a Kind

There is a difference between an object's being good simpliciter and an object's being good of its kind, and the vast majority of philosophers have supposed that it is the former variety of goodness that is relevant to ethics. I argue that one may be a meta‐ethical realist while employing the notion of good of a kind to the exclusion of good simpliciter; I call such a view kindism. I distinguish between two varieties of kindism, explicate the details of one of those varieties, and defend (that variety of) kindism against possible objections.     

Varieties of Reflection in Kant's Logic

For Kant, ‘reflection’ (Überlegung, Reflexion) is a technical term with a range of senses. I focus here on the senses of reflection that come to light in Kant's account of logic, and then bring the results to bear on the distinction between ‘logical’ and ‘transcendental’ reflection that surfaces in the Amphiboly chapter of the Critique of Pure Reason. Although recent commentary has followed similar cues, I suggest that it labours under a blind spot, as it neglects Kant's distinction between ‘pure’ and ‘applied’ general logic. The foundational text of existing interpretations is a passage in Logik Jäsche that appears to attribute to Kant the view that reflection is a mental operation involved in the generation of concepts from non-conceptual materials. I argue against the received view by attending to Kant's division between ‘pure’ and ‘applied’ general logic, identifying senses of reflection proper to each, and showing that none accords well with the received view. Finally, to take account of Kant's notion of transcendental reflection I show that we need to be attentive to the concerns of applied logic and how they inform the domain-relative transcendental logic that Kant presents in the first Critique.