Revisiting Hispanic Adolescents' Resilience to the Effects of Parental Problem Drinking and Life Stress

Two previous studies found that life stress and parental alcoholism were not as highly related to distress for Hispanic adolescents as they were for European American adolescents (M. Barrera Jr., S. A. Li, and L. Chassin, 1993, 1995). Those findings could be interpreted as evidence of Hispanic youths' resilience, but limitations of the stress measure and the homogeneity of the Hispanic sample threatened this interpretation. The present study improved on those previous studies by using a new measure of uncontrollable stressors and a more heterogeneous Mexican American sample. Participants in this study were 175 Mexican American and 59 European American adolescents and their parents. Unlike the previous studies, results did not show that Mexican American adolescents were more resilient to parental problem drinking or life stress than were European American adolescents. Overall, life stress was related to adolescents', mothers', and fathers' reports of adolescents' psychological distress above and beyond the effects of ethnicity and socioeconomic factors.     

Mental models change rapidly with implicitly acquired information about the local environment: a two-tone image study

The projection of 3-D objects to 2-D images necessitates a loss of information, thus the shape of volumetric objects depicted in images is inherently ambiguous. The results of 3 experiments suggest observers use mental models of the local visual environment to constrain image interpretation. These models change quickly and dramatically to accommodate implicitly acquired information. Observers viewed very high-contrast (2-tone) images of novel volumetric objects. Before priming, novel 2-tone images appeared 2-D. After incidental exposure to similar objects in grayscale or familiar objects in 2-tone, the test images appeared volumetric. Incidental leaming appears to alter observers' mental models, thus causing an alteration in image interpretation in the absence of any image change. Highlights were interpreted more accurately than shadows, suggesting shadows play a secondary role in shape recovery.     

A Test of Interpersonal Theory of Depression in Youth Psychiatric Inpatients

Coyne's (1976b) interpersonal theory of depression postulated that the combination of depressive symptoms and excessive reassurance-seeking leads to interpersonal problems (e.g., loneliness, devaluation). The present study is one of the first to test this model among youth, particularly a clinical sample of youth. Sixty-eight youth psychiatric inpatients (35 girls; 33 boys; mean age = 13.34 years, SD = 2.50) completed self-report measures of excessive reassurance-seeking, depressive symptoms, and interpersonal rejection. Results conformed to the hypothesis: The statistical interaction of excessive reassurance-seeking and depressive symptoms predicted interpersonal rejection, such that high-reassurance-seeking youth with depressive symptoms reported the most interpersonal rejection. Implications of the findings for interpersonal theory of depression in youngsters are discussed.     

Effects of training with added difficulties on RADAR detection

Three experiments simulating military RADAR detection addressed a training difficulty hypothesis (training with difficulty promotes superior later testing performance) and a procedural reinstatement hypothesis (test performance improves when training conditions match test conditions). Training and testing were separated by 1 week. Participants detected targets (either alphanumeric characters or vehicle pictures) occurring among distractors. Two secondary tasks were used to increase difficulty (a concurrent, irrelevant tone‐counting task and a sequential, relevant action‐firing response). In Experiment 1 , involving alphanumeric targets with rapid displays, tone counting during training degraded test performance. In Experiment 2, involving vehicle targets with both sources of difficulty and slower presentation times, training under relevant difficulty aided test accuracy. In Experiment 3, involving vehicle targets and action firing with slow presentation times, test accuracy tended to be worst when neither training nor testing involved difficult conditions. These results show boundary conditions for the training difficulty and procedural reinstatement hypotheses. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Letters, Notes, and Comments

Letter: Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the World's Religions
Commenting on Leaping into the Boundless: A Daoist Reading of Comparative Religious Ethics by Francisca Cho, Moral Reason, Risk, and Comparative Inquiry by Robin W. Lovin, Heuristic Power as the Test of Theory by Ronald M. Green, and The Author Replies by Francisca Cho     

Christian Couple Counseling by Professional,Pastoral, and Lay Counselors from a Protestant Perspective: A Nationwide Survey

Couple counseling is widely practiced by Christian counselors, but there are almost no empirical data investigating it. The present study presents data from a national web-based survey of counselors from the American Association of Christian Counselors (AACC). We describe the nature of Christian couple counseling, as well as counselors' religiousness and their attitudes toward integrating religion and spirituality into couple counseling. Christian couple counselors were highly religious and their personal religiosity affected their attitude toward incorporating religion in counseling. There were differences between professional, pastoral, and lay counselors suggesting that each be treated separately rather than be lumped generically as Christian couple counseling.     

Family therapy research: What are the most important variables?

This report summarizes the results of a nearly day-long session of a group of experienced and distinguished family therapy practitioners and researchers. The task the group set for itself was to begin delineating the most important variables to attend to in understanding family therapy and evaluating its effectiveness. With full recognition that such a task could be only partially and tentatively accomplished in the time allotted, a great many such variables were outlined.