Autonomy, competence, and social relatedness in task interest within project-based education

To prepare students for instructive collaboration, it is necessary to have insight into students' psychological needs and interest development. The framework of self-determination theory was used to conduct a field experiment involving 114 students in vocational education. These students followed a practical business course which required they work in small learning groups. During the course, students were asked to complete the Quality of Working in Groups Instrument, an online measure of how strong autonomy, competence, social relatedness, and task interest are fulfilled. SEM showed that students' psychological needs were jointly and uniquely related to task interest over time. The significance of this on-line test for the assessment of interest within project-based education is discussed.     

Responses to Conflict and Cooperation in Adolescents with Anxiety and Mood Disorders

This study examined patterns of behavioral and emotional responses to conflict and cooperation in adolescents with anxiety/mood disorders and healthy peers. We compared performance on and emotional responses to the Prisoner’s Dilemma (PD) game, an economic exchange task involving conflict and cooperation, between adolescents with anxiety/depressive disorders (A/D) (N=21) and healthy comparisons (n = 29). Participants were deceived to believe their co-player (a pre-programmed computer algorithm) was another study participant. A/D adolescents differed significantly from comparisons in patterns of play and emotional response to the game. Specifically, A/D participants responded more cooperatively to cooperative overtures from their co-players; A/D girls also reported more anger toward co-players than did comparison girls. Our findings indicate that A/D adolescents, particularly females, respond distinctively to stressful social interchanges. These findings offer a first step toward elucidating the mechanisms underlying social impairment in youth with internalizing disorders. This research was supported by the Intramural Research Program of the NIH, NIMH.     

Profiles of adversity and resilience resources: A latent class analysis of two samples

Adversities refer to events that are characterized by perceived or actual threat to human functioning. Often considered deleterious for health and well-being, recent work supports an alternative picture of the effects of adversity on human functioning, such that a moderate amount of adversity – when compared with none or high levels – can be beneficial. We extend this body of work in the current study by considering the breadth or type of adversities experienced simultaneously (referred to as polyadversity), with a focus on individual profiles of lifetime adversities. Latent class analysis was employed to explore different configurations of lifetime adversity experiences in two independent samples and examine how these latent classes differed with regard to resilience resources (i.e., optimism, hope, self-efficacy, and bounce-back ability). University students (N = 348) and members from the broader community (N = 1,506) completed measures of lifetime adversity exposure and resilience resources. Three polyadversity classes were revealed in each sample, with both producing a high and a low polyadversity class. The third class differed between samples; in the student sample, this class represented experiences of vicarious adversity, whereas in the community sample, it represented moderate levels of exposure to adversity. Support for the adaptive nature of a moderate amount of adversity exposure was found in the community sample but not in the student sample. This study produces initial evidence of how lifetime adversity experiences group together and how class membership is related to resilience resources.     

Sleep-competing behaviours among Australian school-attending youth: Associations with sleep,mental health and daytime functioning

Sleep problems are highly prevalent among school-attending youth, and impact on school performance and outcomes. Sleep-competing behaviours are likely factors in the inadequate sleep time and related functional outcomes observed in this population. We examined a range of sleep-competing behaviours and their associations with sleep variables in Australian school-attending youth. We also assessed whether these behaviours indirectly affected mental health and daytime functioning through poorer sleep quality. A total of 353 school-attending youth (mean age = 14.6 years, 53% female) were recruited from high schools in Australia, and completed a range of self-report measures. Approximately 50% of the youth obtained sub-optimal levels of sleep and reported having a problematically long sleep onset latency. Sleep competing behaviours, related and unrelated to electronic media use, were reported as occurring frequently, and were associated with a range of sleep variables. These behaviours were also related to poorer mental health and daytime sleepiness, with this association explained by indirect effects through sleep quality. Sleep-competing behaviours are prevalent on school nights in Australian youth, and may have adverse associations with mental health and functioning. Prevention and intervention programs might address the risk factors identified in the current study.     

Precueing imminent conflict does not override sequence-dependent interference adaptation

Interference effects are largely reduced after cognitive conflicts in previous trials. This sequence-dependent interference adaptation is often seen as a consequence of strategic executive control. We sought to investigate whether sequential modulations are comparable with cue-induced strategic adjustments in spatial interference tasks. If so, reliable cues indicating the next compatibility condition should override effects caused by prior events. To this end, cues were introduced in a spatial stimulus-response compatibility task and a Simon task that either indicated the upcoming trial compatibility (rule cues) or the target position, which was not related to the S-R rule (position cues). The proportion of valid cues was either completely or predominantly valid. In both tasks cueing benefits for absolutely reliable rule cues were clearly present. Remarkably, sequential modulations were not influenced by effective rule cueing and vice versa. Even absolutely reliable information about prospective control demands did not cancel out sequence-dependent interference adaptation. In addition, the contingent negative variation—an event-related brain potential in the cue-target interval that is related to response preparation and readiness—showed additive effects of preceding compatibility and cue reliability. The present results indicate that processes underlying sequence-dependent interference adaptation differ from cue-induced strategic processes of cognitive control.     

French native speakers in the making: From language-general to language-specific voicing boundaries

By examining voice onset time (VOT) discrimination in 4- and 8-month-olds raised in a French-speaking environment, the current study addresses the question of the role played by linguistic experience in the reshaping of the initial perceptual abilities. Results showed that the language-general −30- and +30-ms VOT boundaries are better discriminated than the 0-ms boundary in 4-month-olds, whereas 8-month-olds better discriminate the 0-ms boundary. These data support explanations of speech development stressing the effects of both language-general boundaries and linguistic environment (attunement theory and coupling theory). Results also suggest that the acquisition of the adult voicing boundary (at 0 ms VOT in French vs. +30 ms VOT in English) is faster and more linear in French than in English. This latter aspect of the results might be related to differences in the consistency of VOT distributions of voiced and voiceless stops between languages.     

The connection between cognitive development and specific fears and worries in normal children and children with below-average intellectual abilities: a preliminary study.

The present study explored the relationship between cognitive development and anxiety phenomena in 4-12-year-old children. Fears and worries of normal children (n=176) were compared to those of children with below-average intellectual abilities (children with BAIA; n=105). We evaluated to what extent level of cognitive development as indexed by a Piagetian conservation task was associated with the presence of fears and worries. While normal children and children with BAIA did not differ with regard to the content of their fears and worries, normal children more frequently reported such anxiety phenomena during the semi-structured Anxiety Interview than did children with BAIA. Furthermore, in normal children, evidence was found to suggest that level of cognitive development contributes to the experience of fears and worries. That is, anxiety phenomena were more prevalent among those children who passed a Piagetian conservation task. However, when anxiety phenomena were assessed by means of the Koala Fear Questionnaire (KFQ), a different picture emerged. KFQ data suggested that fears were less frequent in normal children and those children with BAIA who had a higher level of cognitive functioning. Apparently, the Anxiety Interview and the KFQ tap quite different aspects of anxiety. The KFQ seems to measure primitive fears that are likely to be prevalent among children with limited cognitive capacity, whereas the Anxiety Interview assesses more sophisticated anxiety phenomena that probably depend on high levels of cognitive functioning.