Theory in Child Psychosocial Treatment Research: Have It or Had It? A Pragmatic Alternative

In the area of child psychosocial intervention research, substantial progress in addressing challenging methodological issues has been made. In this article we suggest that continued movement forward requires maintaining a balance between methodological and theoretical issues, and that it would be advantageous to begin to think about matching advances in methodological sophistication by similar advances in theoretical sophistication. The need to advance our understanding of theoretical issues is especially important in light of the challenges raised by postmodernism, particularly as these challenges relate to knowledge development. We discuss these challenges and describe how a pragmatic orientation may be a useful way to respond to them. We also describe how a pragmatic orientation has been useful in our work in developing, implementing and evaluating psychosocial interventions for children with phobic and anxiety disorders.     

The Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology at 25

This issue, redesigned in a new format, marks the beginning of Volume 25, the beginning of the silver anniversary year of the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology. Data were compiled from the first 24 volumes to study changes over time, and Pearson correlations were calculated to determine linear trends in the journal's development The number of articles per volume has doubled, from about 25 to 50. In recent years the first authors of articles were more likely to be located outside the U.S. (up from about 5% to about 25%). Also, in recent years the first authors of articles were less likely to be affiliated with nonmedical school university departments and more likely to be affiliated with medical schools or research institutes. An introduction to this special 25th anniversary issue is provided.     

Inattention-Hyperactivity and Reading Achievement in Children from Low-Income Families: A Longitudinal Model

This study examined how preschool inattention-hyperactivity is related to elementary school reading achievement. Prereading skills were hypothesized to be a link between them. This link was explored using longitudinal data on 105 low-socioeconomic-status (SES) children's inattentive-hyperactive behavior and prereading skills in Head Start and in kindergarten and their inattentive-hyperactive behavior and reading skills in first grade. A model of this relationship was tested using structural equation modeling. The results failed to show a significant path between inattention-hyperactivity and prereading skills at both the Head Start and kindergarten levels. A significant path was found between first grade inattention-hyperactivity and reading skills, confirming that the strong relationship between inattention-hyperactivity and poor reading achievement commonly found in children from other SES levels was also significant in this low-SES sample. Strong relationships were found between pre-reading skills and reading skills, as well as among hyperactivity levels at the three grades. The issue of the direction of the path of influence between attention-behavior and reading achievement is addressed briefly; however, the results indicate that further longitudinal work is necessary to resolve this issue.     

Stress-induced Fos-like Immunoreactivity in the Pons and the Medulla Oblongata of Rats

Immunoreactivity of the immediate early gene c-fos was used to investigate changes in the activity of brainstem neurons in response to acute stressors like immobilization, formalin-induced pain, cold exposure, hemorrhage and insulin-induced hypoglycemia. Different stressors induced Fos-like immunoreactivity in different pontine and medullary neurons. A single, 3 hour immobilization was found to be a very strong stimulus that activated brainstem catecholaminergic (tyrosine hydroxylase-immunopositive) neurons and cells in the raphe and certain pontine tegmental nuclei, as well as in the reticular formation. Pain, induced by a subcutaneous injection of formalin was also effective on catecholamine-synthesizing neurons and on others cells in the nucleus of the solitary tract. Cold exposure activated cells mainly in the sensory spinal trigeminal and parabrachial nuclei and in the so-called "pontine thermoregulatory area". Moderate Fos-like immunoreactivity was induced by a hypotonic (25%) hemorrhage in medullary catecholaminergic neurons, the nucleus of the solitary tract and the Barrington nucleus. Among stressful stimuli used, insulin-induced hypoglycemia elicited the smallest Fos activation in the lower brainstem. The present observations indicate that different stressors may use different neuronal pathways in the central organization of the stress response.     

Cognitive rehabilitation of chronic alcohol abusers

The current literature suggests that individuals who chronically abuse alcohol exhibit a wide variety of cognitive deficits resulting from cerebral dysfunction that is either directly or indirectly related to their alcohol consumption history. Cognitive deficits have been hypothesized as having implications for standard alcohol treatment efficacy as they may directly affect cognitively impaired individuals’ abilities to utilize various treatment modalities. Although evidence is accumulating that suggests this is actually the case, the majority of alcohol treatment programs neither directly consider the impact cognitive deficits have on treatment efficacy nor do they employ cognitive rehabilitation treatment strategies to remediate identified cognitive deficits. Few studies exist that investigate the remediability of neurobehavioral deficits or the efficacy of integrating cognitive rehabilitation strategies into more traditional treatment programs. Empirical investigations conducted to date indicate that some cognitive deficiencies secondary to alcoholism are amenable to cognitive rehabilitation and this remediation is generalizable. Rigorous well-controlled treatment outcome investigations are needed in order to determine the efficacy of cognitive rehabilitation techniques in naturalistic settings using ecological outcome measures. Also, emphasis should be placed on integrating cognitive rehabilitation techniques with proven efficacy into traditional alcoholism treatment programs.     

Automation bias: decision making and performance in high-tech cockpits

Automated aids and decision support tools are rapidly becoming indispensable tools in high-technology cockpits and are assuming increasing control of"cognitive" flight tasks, such as calculating fuel-efficient routes, navigating, or detecting and diagnosing system malfunctions and abnormalities. This study was designed to investigate automation bias, a recently documented factor in the use of automated aids and decision support systems. The term refers to omission and commission errors resulting from the use of automated cues as a heuristic replacement for vigilant information seeking and processing. Glass-cockpit pilots flew flight scenarios involving automation events or opportunities for automation-related omission and commission errors. Although experimentally manipulated accountability demands did not significantly impact performance, post hoc analyses revealed that those pilots who reported an internalized perception of "accountability" for their performance and strategies of interaction with the automation were significantly more likely to double-check automated functioning against other cues and less likely to commit errors than those who did not share this perception. Pilots were also lilkely to erroneously "remember" the presence of expected cues when describing their decision-making processes.     

The dimensionality of the flanker compatibility effect: A psychophysiological analysis

The psychophysiological approach was used to evaluate the effects of feature similarity and intrinsic response mapping on the flanker compatibility effect. Symbol (e.g., < > < and < / <) and letter arrays (e.g., HCH and SCS) were used. Results showed that delays in stimulus evaluation and both peripheral and central response competition contributed to the compatibility effect, with the contribution of these processes depending on feature similarity and the intrinsic response mapping of the stimuli. For letter stimuli, the difference in the size of the compatibility effect for similar and dissimilar arrays could be accounted for in terms of stimulus evaluation. For symbol arrays, differences in size of the compatibility effect could be accounted for by response competition. Thus, symbol and letter arrays do not appear to be processed differently; what is different is the degree to which stimulus and response-related processes are affected by incompatibility.     

Gender and Self-Reported Sexual Arousal in Response to Sexual Stimuli: A Meta-Analytic Review

Social constructionist theories and sociobiological perspectives have led to increased interest in gender differences in sexual behavior. This study involved a meta-analysis of gender differences in sexual arousal in response to sexual stimuli. Forty-six studies in which participants were presented with a sexual stimulus depicting males and females and in which participants responded using a self-report measure of arousal were compiled, and 62 independent effect sizes were aggregated. An overall effect size of d = .31 showed a small to moderate-sized gender difference in sexual arousal with men reporting more arousal than women across all studies. There was significant variation in the effect sizes, though, which was only partially explained by variables coded from the studies. It was found that the gender difference was slightly larger for studies using pornographic vs. erotic stimuli, was larger for studies where participants were tested in a private setting or small group compared to a large group, and was much larger for college age participants compared to those who were older than college age. Generally, the pattern of results provided more support for predictions from social influence theories compared to sociobiological theory.     

Some correlates of health locus of control among multicultural individuals

The relationship of locus of control to depression, anxiety, hostility, and physical health was assessed in a sample of multicultural college students (N = 162). Powerful Others Health Locus of Control was correlated with depression, anxiety, hostility, and recent physical symptoms while Chance Health Locus of Control (CHLC) was correlated with all of the above as well as chronic physical symptoms and major health problems. When controlling for a variety of health risk factors (viz., age, sex, body mass, exercise, smoking, salt, alcohol, and caffeine), only CHLC remained significant in the physical health models. Results support the cognitive model of mental health which emphasize the importance of adaptive beliefs. Specifically, they suggest that issues about control are related to negative affect and indicate that the often-cited relationship of an external locus of control to depression and anxiety also holds for hostility. The findings do not, however, support the view that anxiety and depression are associated with different types of external locus of control but rather suggest a unified set of locus of control beliefs underlying the three types of negative affect. In addition, evidence is provided for the external validity of the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control (MHLC) Scales with respect to mental health. Further, the results indicate that belief about one’s health may play a significant role in one’s physical health and that the health behavior model of the relationship between locus of control and physical health is insufficient to explain the relationship. As the Chance and Powerful Others MHLC scales were not related to health habits in this sample but were related to mental health (viz., depression, anxiety, and hostility), locus of control beliefs may be related to physical health via their relationship with mental health.     

Effects of Disaggregation on Managerial Assessment Center Validity

Assessment center validity data from a large, international petrochemical company were disaggregated by managerial level and business stream. As with previous research, the correlations were higher for the current job grade criterion than for performance ratings. Overall, disaggregating the data did not have the effect of increasing the assessment center—performance rating validities. However, when the validation data were disaggregated by business stream, there were differences in the pattern of the relationships between assessment factors and performance.