Changes in Interviewers' Use of Supportive Techniques during the Revised Protocol Training

Summary: Although many children are reluctant to disclose abuse due to embarrassment, fear, and the anticipation of negative consequences, researchers have only recently begun to examine whether forensic interviewers can be trained to manage children's reluctance. In this study, the supportiveness of 53 experienced interviewers was assessed in their interviews with 321 3‐ to 14‐year‐old alleged victims, each conducted during the course of training to use the Revised Protocol (RP). The use of support increased, especially between levels evident at baseline and in the last two interviews assessed. Over time, instances of inadequate support and insensitivity to children's reluctance became less common. Younger children received proportionally more support, including inadequate support, than older children. The RP training did not affect the extensive use of free recall‐based questions. Findings highlight the benefits of continued supervision and training.Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fathers’ Emotional Resources and Children’s Socioemotional and Behavioral Adjustment Among Children with Learning Disabilities

This study examined a cumulative model of risk/protective factors at the individual level (child’s sense of coherence; attachment with father) and family level as manifested by fathers’ emotional resources (fathers’ negative/positive affect; attachment avoidance/anxiety), to explain socioemotional adjustment among children age 8–12 years with or without learning disabilities (LD). Participants were 205 father–child dyads: 107 fathers and their children with LD; 98 fathers and their non-LD children. Preliminary analyses indicated significant group differences on all child measures. Path analysis revealed high fit between the theoretical model and empirical findings; moreover, the model’s components revealed partially different patterns of relations for the two populations. Thus, the current study suggested the potentially important role of fathers’ positive and negative affect and fathers’ avoidant and anxious attachment for children’s socioemotional and behavioral adjustment and children’s mediating variables. Discussion focused on understanding the value of these fathers’ emotional factors and their children’s characteristics for well-adjusted functioning.     

Self‐esteem is dominated by agentic over communal information

We present a Double Perspective Model (DPM) explaining why agency (competence) and communion (warmth) constitute two basic content dimensions of social cognition. Every social action involves two perspectives: of the agent (a person who performs an action) and of the recipient (a person at whom the action is directed). Immediate cognitive goals of the agent and recipient differ, which results in heightened accessibility and weight of content referring either to agency (from the agent's perspective) or to communion (from the recipient's perspective). DPM explains why evaluations of other persons are dominated by communal over agentic considerations and allows a novel hypothesis that self‐esteem is dominated by agentic over communal information. We present several studies supporting this hypothesis. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A serial test of the laterality of familiar face recognition

The purpose of the present study was to address the issue of laterality of familiar face recognition. Seventy-two participants judged familiar faces presented laterally or centrally for their "faceness," familiarity, occupation, and name (which represent four stages of familiar face processing) using one of three response modes-verbal, manual, or combined. The pattern of reaction times (RTs) implied a serial process of familiar face recognition. Centrally presented stimuli were recognized faster than laterally presented stimuli. No RT differences were found between the left and right visual fields (VFs) across all judgments and response modes. The findings were interpreted as supporting the notion that there are no significant hemispheric differences in familiar face recognition.     

Word length and orthographic neighborhood size effects in the left and right cerebral hemispheres

Previous studies have reported an interaction between visual field (VF) and word length such that word recognition is affected more by length in the left VF (LVF) than in the right VF (RVF). A reanalysis showed that the previously reported effects of length were confounded with orthographic neighborhood size (N). In three experiments we manipulated length and N in lateralized lexical decision tasks. Results showed that length and VF interacted even with N controlled (Experiment 1); that N affected responses to words in the LVF but not the RVF (Experiment 2); and that when length and N were combined, length only affected performance in the LVF for words with few neighbors.     

Adolescent Female Aggression: Functions and Etiology

Despite the narrowing gap between male and female use of aggressive behavior, much of the extant aggression research has centered on males. Various internal, or psychological factors, including attachment, emotion regulation, and impulsivity, are typically examined independently from external, or social, factors, such as the quality of the family environment and exposure to community violence. Additionally, the studies rarely distinguish among forms and functions of aggression. The current study was the first to simultaneously examine these factors and their relationships to the distinct functions of aggression in a low-income urban community sample of adolescent females. Participants (N = 214) were recruited from grades 8 through 12 at a diverse all-girls public school in a city in the northeastern United States. Results indicated that greater attachment security and emotion regulation reduced the impact of a more negative family environment upon the use of reactive and proactive aggression. The results also demonstrated that impulsivity and the family environment mediated the relationships between exposure to community violence and the presence of reactive aggression. With higher levels of impulsivity, an increased use of reactive aggression was demonstrated. Lastly, in the context of greater exposure to community violence, a positive family environment decreased the use of reactive aggression. Overall, the results from this study suggested the role of these internal and external factors in the development of aggressive behavior in female adolescents. Further empirical experimental investigation may shed light on the most optimal interventions to prevent the development of aggression.     

Religiosity,Meaning in Life and Suicidal Tendency Among Jews

The study examines the impact that meaning in life, or lack thereof, has on suicidal tendencies among youth, as well as the nexus between level of religiosity, meaning in life and suicidal tendencies. Subjects were 450 students from both Jewish religious and Jewish secular schools aged 15–18. Findings: a significant and negative correlation was found between a sense of meaning in life and suicidal tendencies, beyond gender or level of religiosity. In addition, no difference was found in level of suicidal tendency between Jewish religious and Jewish secular youth; however, among Jewish religious teens, a lower level of depression was reported in comparison with their secular peers. The study therefore concludes that meaning in life is the dominant variable in minimizing suicidal tendencies among youth. The results of this study may promote the establishment of prevention, intervention and therapy plans, especially in the age range that is crucial for suicide. Such programs should be based upon finding meaning in life.     

Resource loss,resource gain,PTSD, and dissociation among Ethiopian immigrants in Israel

The aim of this study was to examine the loss and gain of resources, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and dissociation among Jewish Ethiopian immigrants in Israel following exposure to stressful events occurring pre‐, peri‐, and post‐migration. Resources are defined as objects (e.g., housing), conditions (e.g., employment), personal (e.g., self‐esteem), or energy (e.g., culture). A random sample (N = 478) of three waves of immigrants participated in the research (N1 = 165; N2 = 169; N3 = 144). The data were collected in 2001. Age, loss and gain of resources, traumatic events peri‐migration, post‐migration difficulties, posttraumatic symptoms, and dissociation were assessed. The relationships between the variables were assessed with multiple hierarchical regressions predicting PTSD and dissociation with gain and loss of resources, over and above age, immigration wave, and trauma. A significant relationship was found between PTSD symptoms and loss of self‐esteem resources (r = 0.17 p < 0.001), while dissociation was positively associated with gain of housing resources (r = 0.20, p < 0.001). Both PTSD and dissociation were predicted by younger age. The findings are discussed in light of the conservation of resources (COR) theory (Hobfoll, 1988 ), of resource loss and gain among Ethiopian immigrants.     

Epistemic Motivation and the Structure of Moral Intuition: Dispositional Need for Closure as a Predictor of Individualizing and Binding Morality

Moral foundations theory argues that morality encompasses both group‐preserving binding concerns about in‐group loyalty, authority and purity and individualizing concerns about harm avoidance and fairness. Although studies have examined the relationship between sociopolitical attitudes and the moral foundations, the relationship between individual differences in epistemic motivation—as indexed by need for cognitive closure—and moral intuition remains unexplored. Given the role of groups in providing epistemic security, we hypothesized that the need for closure would be most strongly related to support for the foundations most central to the regulation of group ties, that is, the binding foundations as opposed to the individualizing ones. Data from three samples provided evidence for this. Unpacking this pattern, we also found that those high in need for closure endorsed all foundations, whereas those low in need for closure emphasized only the individualizing ones. Finally, we found that the relationship between need for closure and the binding foundations was mediated by right‐wing authoritarianism, an orientation closely linked to a desire for the preservation of conventional in‐group morality. Copyright © 2016 European Association of Personality Psychology