The Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale Short Form (DERS-SF): Validation and Replication in Adolescent and Adult Samples

Emotion dysregulation often emerges early in development and is a core feature of many psychological conditions. The Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) is a well validated and widely used self-report measure for assessing emotion regulation problems among adolescents and adults. The DERS has six subscales with five to eight items each (36 total), suggesting multiple questions may assess similar underlying constructs. In an effort to reduce respondent burden and streamline this widely-used instrument, we created a short-form version of the DERS (DERS-SF) using confirmatory factor analysis on data from three adolescent (n?=?257) and two adult samples (n?=?797). Scores on the DERS-SF yielded similar correlation patterns relative to the full measure, ranging from .90 to .98 and reflecting 81–96 % shared variance. This instrument maintains the excellent psychometric properties and retains the total and subscale scores of the original measure with half the items.     

Spatial habit competes with effort to determine human spatial organization

Despite the important role that the physical environment plays in shaping human cognition, few studies have endeavoured to experimentally examine the principles underlying how individuals organize objects in their space. The current investigation examines the idea that humans organize objects in their space in order to minimize effort or maximize performance. We devised a novel spatial organization task whereby participants freely arranged objects in the context of a writing task. Critically, we manipulated the frequency with which each object was used and assessed participants’ spontaneous placements. In the first set of experiments, participants showed a counterintuitive tendency to match pen pairs with their initial placements rather than placing pens in the less effortful configuration. However, in Experiment 2, where the difference in physical effort between different locations was increased, participants were more likely to reorganize the pens into the less effortful configuration. We begin developing a theory of human spatial organization wherein the observed initial bias may represent a kind of spatial habit formation that competes with effort/performance considerations to shape future spatial organization.     

How to be an infallibilist

Philosophical Studies - While fallibilism has been the dominant view in epistemology in recent times, the field has witnessed the rise of a new form of infallibilism. In a recent book, Jessica...     

Reciprocal pathways between intimate partner violence and sleep in men and women

Toward explicating associations and directionality of effects between relationship processes and a fundamental facet of health, we examined cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between the perpetration of intimate partner violence (IPV) and men and women's sleep. During two assessments, a diverse community sample of couples reported on their perpetrated acts of psychological and physical IPV and their sleep quality. Cross-sectional associations between IPV and sleep were evident for both partners, in particular between psychological IPV and sleep. A dyadic path analysis controlling for the autoregressive effects and within-time correlations revealed longitudinal links between men's perpetration of IPV and their sleep quality. Even though high levels of stability in all IPV and sleep measures were observed over time, results indicated that sleep problems predicted increases in the perpetration of psychological IPV over time for both men and women. Cross-partner effects emerged for men, revealing that men's sleep problems were strongly affected by their partner's earlier perpetration of IPV and sleep difficulties. Findings illustrate the significance of contemporaneous, dyadic assessments of relationship processes and sleep for a better understanding of both facets of adaptation, and have implications for those wishing to understand the etiology and consequences of the perpetration of IPV for both men and women.     

Attention bias modification for reducing speech anxiety

The mechanisms mediating the anxiolytic effects of attention bias modification (ABM) remain unclear. Accordingly, we randomly assigned speech-anxious subjects to receive four sessions of one of three training conditions: ABM, inverse ABM, and control. In the ABM condition, subjects viewed pairs of photographs of models displaying facial expressions of disgust and joy on a computer screen. Probes always replaced the positive face, and subjects pushed a button to indicate the identity of the probe (E or F) as rapidly as possible. In the inverse condition, the probes always replaced the negative face, and in the control condition, the probes replaced each face type equally often. After four training sessions, all groups exhibited statistically indistinguishable, but significant, reductions on self-report, behavioral, and physiological measures of speech anxiety. Self-report and behavioral measures of attentional control improved likewise. Contrary to early studies, ABM was not superior to control procedures in producing reductions on measures of social anxiety.     

Children's sleep and cognitive performance: a cross-domain analysis of change over time

Relations between changes in children's cognitive performance and changes in sleep problems were examined over a 3-year period, and family socioeconomic status, child race/ethnicity, and gender were assessed as moderators of these associations. Participants were 250 second- and third-grade (8-9 years old at Time 1) boys and girls. At each assessment, children's cognitive performance (Verbal Comprehension, Decision Speed) was measured using the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Cognitive Abilities, and sleep problems (Sleepiness, Sleep/Wake Problems) were collected via self-report. Individual growth models revealed that children who reported increases in Sleepiness exhibited little growth in Verbal Comprehension over time compared with their peers who reported decreases in Sleepiness, resulting in a nearly 11-point cognitive deficit by the end of the study. These associations were not found for Sleep/Wake Problems or Decision Speed. Child race/ethnicity and gender moderated these associations, with Sleepiness serving as a vulnerability factor for poor cognitive outcomes, especially among African American children and girls. Differences in cognitive performance for children with high and low Sleepiness trajectories ranged from 16 to 19 points for African American children and from 11 to 19 points for girls. Results build substantially on existing literature examining associations between sleep and cognitive functioning in children and are the first to demonstrate that children's sleep trajectories over 3 waves were associated with changes in their cognitive performance over time.     

Facilitating relational empowerment in couple therapy

Couples in distressed relationships often get caught up in power struggles, "Power Over" interactions that are informed by both neurobiology (e.g., the fight-flight reaction) and by cultural assumptions (e.g., competition, individualism, and patriarchy). This article seeks to widen the discourse about power by highlighting "Power To" and "Power With." Power To includes the ability to self-regulate, to read and manage one's own emotions, and to have voice while respecting the other's voice. Power With reflects the couple's commitment to conurture the relationship through empathy, respect, and generosity. Power To and Power With are proposed to constitute relational empowerment, the ability to navigate one's inner world and the interpersonal realm. The neurobiology of both couples' reactivity and relational empowerment are considered. Techniques are offered to facilitate Power To and Power With, interventions that interrupt couples' cycles of reactivity and allow them to make more thoughtful choices. Emotion regulation and empathy are particularly important skills of relational empowerment, and examples are offered to increase these capacities in couple therapy. The therapeutic perspective offered in this article challenges cultural practices and assumptions that keep intimate partners polarized in power struggles, and explores how relational empowerment can foster an egalitarian, mutually respectful relationship.     

Developmental trajectories of delinquency symptoms in childhood: the role of marital conflict and autonomic nervous system activity

Trajectories of delinquency symptoms across middle and late childhood were examined through latent growth modeling, with a focus on the role of interactions among parental marital conflict, child sex, and multiple indices (baseline, reactivity) of either parasympathetic nervous system activity, indexed by respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), or sympathetic nervous system activity, indexed by skin conductance level (SCL), as predictors of growth. At Time 1, 128 girls and 123 boys (mean age = 8.23 yrs ± 0.73) and their parents participated. The sample comprised 64% European American and 36% African American children. Families participated in second and third waves of data collection with a 1-year lag between each wave. Interactions among marital conflict, sex, baseline RSA, and RSA reactivity from baseline to a frustrating lab task were significant predictors of growth in delinquent behavior from age 8 to age 10, with overall patterns indicating increasing symptoms for boys who lived in high-conflict homes and had an RSA response profile comprising lower RSA during the baseline and RSA augmentation (increase from baseline to the frustrating task). Furthermore, increases in delinquency symptoms over time were observed for children from high-conflict homes and with an SCL profile characterized by higher baseline levels and lower reactivity (less pronounced SCL increases from baseline) to the frustrating task. Findings highlight the importance of contemporaneous assessments of resting and reactivity levels when examining relations among the environment, physiological functioning, and psychopathology. Results are discussed in the context of interactions between biology and environment as relevant to the development of psychopathology.     

The Role of Pre- and Postnatal Timing of Family Risk Factors on Child Behavior at 36 months

Children growing up in disharmonious families with anxious/depressed mothers are at risk for emotional and behavioral difficulties, however whether these associations reflect postnatal environment, prenatal exposure, or an overall liability is still unclear. This study used prospectively collected data from 24,259 participants of the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa). Mothers reported on anxiety/depression and family disharmony twice in pregnancy and twice post pregnancy, as well as on their child’s physical aggression and crying behavior at age 36 months. First, results from an autoregressive cross-lagged model showed a substantial stability in both maternal anxiety/depression and family disharmony from pregnancy to 18 months postnatal, but there was no indication that family disharmony led to maternal anxiety/depression, or the other way around. Second, structural equation models further suggests that the main risk derived from an overall liability, that is, a lasting effect of family risks that spanned the two time periods.     

Evaluation of the effectiveness of an anti‐bullying programme in primary schools

A nationwide programme to prevent and manage bullying in Irish schools, based on that implemented in Norway in 1996, is currently being developed, and pilot work with a sample of primary schools within a single county of Ireland has been conducted and evaluated (the staff and pupils of 42 primary schools having been involved). A network of professionals (11 teachers) were trained to co‐ordinate the anti‐bullying programme in the schools, subsequent activities involving their training teachers (a total of 197) and parents in three to five schools each. In evaluation, pupils from 22 of the schools completed modified versions of the Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire [Olweus, 1989; Whitney and Smith, 1993]. Teachers completed a questionnaire (concerning their knowledge and feelings about bullying [Rigby, 1997]) both before and after the implementation of the anti‐bullying training programme. Significant reductions were found in pupils' reports of having been victimised after the implementation of the programme. Overall, 19.6 per cent fewer children were victimised. There was a reduction of 50.0 per cent amongst those frequently victimised within the last school term, and of 43.0 per cent in reports of having been bullied within the last five school days. A reduction of 17.3 per cent in pupils' reports of having taken part in bullying others was also observed after the implementation of the programme. There were, in particular, significant reductions (69.2 per cent) in reports of frequently bullying others within the last school term, and of 51.8 per cent in reports of having taken part in bullying others within the last five school days. Whilst the programme was shown to reduce the incidence of pupils' involvement in bullying behaviour, the perennial challenge of attempting to increase the levels of pupils' reporting of bullying to teachers and parents remains a challenge for the authors to attend to in the further development of the nationwide anti‐bullying programme. Aggr. Behav. 00:1–14, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.