Event memory and suggestibility in abused and neglected children: trauma-related psychopathology and cognitive functioning

This study examined event memory and suggestibility in 3- to 16-year-olds involved in forensic investigations of child maltreatment. A total of 322 children were interviewed about a play activity with an unfamiliar adult. Comprehensive measures of individual differences in trauma-related psychopathology and cognitive functioning were administered. Sexually and/or physically abused children obtained higher dissociation scores than neglected children, and sexually abused children were more likely to obtain a diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder than physically abused children, neglected children, and children with no substantiated abuse histories. Overall, older children and children with better cognitive functioning produced more correct information and fewer memory errors. Abuse status per se did not significantly predict children’s memory or suggestibility whether considered alone or in interaction with age. However, among highly dissociative children, more trauma symptoms were associated with greater inaccuracy, whereas trauma symptoms were not associated with increased error for children who were lower in dissociative tendencies. Implications of the findings for understanding eyewitness memory in maltreated children are discussed.     

X-rated material and perpetration of sexually aggressive behavior among children and adolescents: is there a link?

Longitudinal linkages between intentional exposure to x-rated material and sexually aggressive behavior were examined among youth 10-15 year olds surveyed nationally in the United States. At Wave 1 in 2006, participants (n = 1,588) were queried about these exposures and outcomes in the preceding 12 months. Wave 2 data (n = 1,206) were collected approximately 12 months after Wave 1 and Wave 3 data (n = 1,159) were collected approximately 24 months after Wave 1. Thus, data for this project represent a 36-month time frame. A marginal model with generalized estimating equations was used to represent the population-average odds of sexually aggressive behavior over the 36 months as a function of exposure to x-rated material over the same time and to account for clustering in the data within person over time. An average of 5% of youth reported perpetrating sexually aggressive behavior and 23% of youth reported intentional exposure to x-rated material. After adjusting for other potentially influential proximal (i.e., sexual aggression victimization) and distal characteristics (e.g., substance use), we found that intentional exposure to violent x-rated material over time predicted an almost 6-fold increase in the odds of self-reported sexually aggressive behavior (aOR: 5.8, 95% CI: 3.2, 10.5), whereas exposure to nonviolent x-rated material was not statistically significantly related (aOR: 1.7, 95% CI: 0.94, 2.9). Associations were similar for boys and girls (boys nonviolent x-rated material aOR = 2.0, 95% CI: 0.8, 4.7; violent x-rated material aOR = 6.5, 95% CI: 2.7, 15.3; girls nonviolent x-rated material aOR = 1.2, 95% CI: 0.5, 3.2; violet x-rated material aOR = 6.1, 95% CI: 2.5, 14.8).     

Peer status in an ethnic context: Associations with African American adolescents' ethnic identity

This investigation examined the association between ethnic identity centrality and peer status for African American adolescents who represented a sizable proportion, yet numerical minority within a high school context. Initial analyses indicated that a traditional sociometric nomination procedure did not adequately characterize peer status for African American adolescents. A modified nomination procedure varying the ethnicity of nominators yielded measures of African American adolescents' peer acceptance/rejection and perceived popularity as rated by African American or European American peers. Results suggest that high levels of peer acceptance and popularity as rated by African American peers were associated with high ethnic identity centrality; however, acceptance and popularity as rated by European American peers were unrelated to ethnic identity centrality among African American adolescents. Findings suggest the importance of examining peer status of African American adolescents with consideration given to ethnicity as a relevant context.     

Facial Emotion Processing in Borderline Personality Disorder: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

A body of work has developed over the last 20 years that explores facial emotion perception in Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). We identified 25 behavioural and functional imaging studies that tested facial emotion processing differences between patients with BPD and healthy controls through a database literature search. Despite methodological differences there is consistent evidence supporting a negative response bias to neutral and ambiguous facial expressions in patients. Findings for negative emotions are mixed with evidence from individual studies of an enhanced sensitivity to fearful expressions and impaired facial emotion recognition of disgust, while meta-analysis revealed no significant recognition impairments between BPD and healthy controls for any negative emotion. Mentalizing studies indicate that BPD patients are accurate at attributing mental states to complex social stimuli. Functional neuroimaging data suggest that the underlying neural substrate involves hyperactivation in the amygdala to affective facial stimuli, and altered activation in the anterior cingulate, inferior frontal gyrus and the superior temporal sulcus particularly during social emotion processing tasks. Future studies must address methodological inconsistencies, particularly variations in patients’ key clinical characteristics and in the testing paradigms deployed.     

Effect of Parenting Interventions on Perinatal Depression and Implications for Infant Developmental Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review - Considering the significant impact of perinatal depression on both maternal wellbeing and infant development, it is important to examine the...     

She Looks Sad,But He Looks Mad: The Effects of Age,Gender, and Ambiguity on Emotion Perception

This study investigated how target sex, target age, and expressive ambiguity influence emotion perception. Undergraduate participants (N = 192) watched morphed video clips of eight child and eight adult facial expressions shifting from neutral to either sadness or anger. Participants were asked to stop the video clip when they first saw an emotion appear (perceptual sensitivity) and were asked to identify the emotion that they saw (accuracy). Results indicate that female participants identified sad expressions sooner in female targets than in male targets. Participants were also more accurate identifying angry facial expressions by male children than by female children. Findings are discussed in terms of the effects of ambiguity, gender, and age on the perception of emotional expressions.     

Comparison of tongue muscle characteristics of preterm and full term infants during nutritive and nonnutritive sucking

Background

Independent oral feeding requires coordination of suck, swallow and breathe and the lingual musculature plays a significant role in this coordinative action. However, clinical benchmarks of lingual function fundamental to successful feeding have not been explored.

Aims

The present study tests our model for quantifying infant lingual force and size and compares the muscle measures of interest in two cohorts: healthy full-term infants (FT) (N = 5) and healthy preterm infants (PT) (N = 6).

Method

Using an instrumented pacifier and bottle nipple, we determined the resultant compressive forces applied to the nipple by the tongue during nutritive (NS) and nonnutritive sucking (NNS). Muscle size was estimated from measures of posterior tongue thickness using ultrasonography.

Results

After controlling for weight and post menstrual age, statistically significant differences were found between FT and PT infants beginning to feed for NNS frequency and NS tongue force. Clinically significant differences were detected for NNS tongue force and posterior tongue thickness. Additionally, PT infants demonstrated a significant difference in mean tongue force between NS and NNS and FT infants did not. FT infants demonstrated a significant difference in mean frequency between NS and NNS and PT infants did not. Linear regression indicated that mean posterior tongue thickness alone predicted 55% of the variance in NS force.

Conclusions

Results demonstrate the feasibility of our approach and suggest that infant tongue muscle characteristics necessary for successful feeding differ between healthy full term infants and preterm infants who are beginning oral feeding.     

Transformation of Adolescent Peer Relations in the Social Media Context: Part 2—Application to Peer Group Processes and Future Directions for Research

As social media use becomes increasingly widespread among adolescents, research in this area has accumulated rapidly. Researchers have shown a growing interest in the impact of social media on adolescents’ peer experiences, including the ways that the social media context shapes a variety of peer relations constructs. This paper represents Part 2 of a two-part theoretical review. In this review, we offer a new model for understanding the transformative role of social media in adolescents’ peer experiences, with the goal of stimulating future empirical work that is grounded in theory. The transformation framework suggests that the features of the social media context transform adolescents’ peer experiences by changing their frequency or immediacy, amplifying demands, altering their qualitative nature, and/or offering new opportunities for compensatory or novel behaviors. In the current paper, we consider the ways that social media may transform peer relations constructs that often occur at the group level. Our review focuses on three key constructs: peer victimization, peer status, and peer influence. We selectively review and highlight existing evidence for the transformation of these domains through social media. In addition, we discuss methodological considerations and key conceptual principles for future work. The current framework offers a new theoretical perspective through which peer relations researchers may consider adolescent social media use.     

The March from Selma to Montgomery and the Nonviolent Movement in Analysis

From January 18, 1965 to March 25, 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr. and his civil rights lieutenants conducted a series of marches in Selma, Alabama, which ultimately won African Americans the right to vote. These marches would become the tipping point in the civil rights movement, leading to the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Selma marches provide a glimpse into the American psyche and the development of consciousness in culture through the implementation of nonviolence. Utilizing the Eightfold Path of Nonviolence, which combines Mahatma Gandhi’s two foundational principles of satyagraha and ahimsa, along with Martin Luther King, Jr.’s six tenets of nonviolence, the civil rights movement briefly closed the psychic split of racism in America. The archetypal experience of nonviolence confronts, mediates, and breaks apart violence, providing a path for peace, or psychological wholeness, in the individual or culture. Following three nodal points in the marches, the reader will begin to understand how the tenets of nonviolence are utilized in analysis as a powerful paradigm of the analytic stance.