Family Impact of Tourette's Syndrome

Tourette's syndrome (TS) is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by vocal and motor tics. TS is also associated with several behavior disorders such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, conduct disorder, and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. We examined the impact of Tourette's syndrome with and without comorbid psychiatric disorders on the family. TS complicated by comorbid disorders had a greater impact on the family than uncomplicated TS. Tourette's symptom severity was significantly correlated with the level of impact on the family and with the number of comorbid disorders. TS is a disorder with effects that extend beyond motor and vocal tics.     

Factorial Invariance of the PedsQL™ 4.0 Generic Core Scales Child Self-Report Across Gender: A Multigroup Confirmatory Factor Analysis with 11,356 Children Ages 5 to 18

The measurement of health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in pediatric medicine and health services research has grown significantly over the past decade. The paradigm shift toward patient-reported outcomes (PROs) in clinical trials and population studies has provided the opportunity to emphasize the value and critical need for pediatric patient self-report. In order for HRQOL/PRO outcome comparisons to be meaningful for gender group analyses, it is essential to demonstrate the factorial invariance of an instrument. This study examined factorial invariance of the 23-item PedsQL? 4.0 Generic Core Scales across gender groups for child self-report ages 5–18. Multigroup Confirmatory Factor Analysis (MGCFA) was performed specifying a five-factor model across gender groups. The analyses were based on 11,356 children recruited from clinic, school, and community populations. Strict factorial invariance across gender groups was demonstrated based on stability of the Comparative Fit Index (CFI) between the models, and indices of practical fit including the Root Mean Squared Error of Approximation (RMSEA), the Non-Normed Fit Index (NNFI), and the Parsimony Normed Fit Index (PNFI). The findings support an equivalent five-factor structure on the PedsQL? 4.0 Generic Core Scales across gender groups. Based on these data, it can be concluded that boys and girls studied interpreted items on the PedsQL? 4.0 Generic Core Scales in a similar manner. These findings have implications for studies of gender differences in health outcomes.     

A daily diary study of relationships between feelings of gratitude and well-being

Much of the research on relationships between gratitude and well-being has concerned between-person level relationships, and this research suggests that increasing people’s feelings of gratitude can increase their well-being. To complement this research, we examined such relationships at the within-person level. Participants (N = 130) in the present study described their well-being and how grateful they felt each day for two weeks. MLM analyses found that at the within-person level, daily feelings of gratitude and hedonic and eudaimonic well-being were positively related. Lagged analyses found that feelings of gratitude on one day were positively related to hedonic (but not eudaimonic) well-being on the next day, and well-being on one day was not related to gratitude on the next day. These results complement existing research and suggest that causal relationships between gratitude and well-being may vary as a function of whether gratitude is measured in more affective or cognitive terms.     

Set-Congruent Priming Stimuli Normalize the Information Processing of Psychopathic Offenders

Psychopathic individuals display characteristic deficits in processing emotion cues, the abstract meaning of words, and peripheral inhibitory cues, that have been linked to deficits in self-regulation and antisocial behavior. One view, supported by recent research, is that psychopathic individuals have difficulty processing set-incongruent information and that their difficulty may be ameliorated using task manipulations that establish a set-relevant focus of attention. We evaluated this characterization of the psychopathic deficit using a lexical decision (i.e., word recognition) task and priming manipulation that caused target stimuli to be set-congruent or set-incongruent. As predicted, low-anxious (i.e., primary) psychopathic participants displayed a significantly greater priming effect than low anxious non-psychopathic participants. The results highlight the potential value of priming relevant cognitive sets to overcome the costly information processing deficits associated with psychopathy. Treatment efforts emphasizing a balance of attention between primary and peripheral information may prove especially effective for reducing maladaptive behavior in psychopathic individuals.     

Space aliens and nonwords: Stimuli for investigating the learning of novel word-meaning pairs

We describe a set of pictorial and auditory stimuli that we have developed for use in word learning tasks in which the participant learns pairings of novel auditory sound patterns (names) with pictorial depictions of novel objects (referents). The pictorial referents are drawings of “space aliens,” consisting of images that are variants of 144 different aliens. The auditory names are possible nonwords of English; the stimulus set consists of over 2,500 nonword stimuli recorded in a single voice, with controlled onsets, varying from one to seven syllables in length. The pictorial and nonword stimuli can also serve as independent stimulus sets for purposes other than word learning. The full set of these stimuli may be downloaded fromwww.psychonomic.org/archive/.     

Research note: American children's time use in after-school activities

90 Grade 4 children from upstate New York completed a "what I usually do" questionnaire, reporting on their after-school activities. Contrary to the concerns of some psychologists, there was no evidence that the children were being "hurried" out of childhood or "hot-housed" to develop academic or other excellence. The children's time was largely spent in enjoyable, self-chosen, and nonacademic activities, most often play or television viewing.     

Lying words: predicting deception from linguistic styles

Telling lies often requires creating a story about an experience or attitude that does not exist. As a result, false stories may be qualitatively different from true stories. The current project investigated the features of linguistic style that distinguish between true and false stories. In an analysis of five independent samples, a computer-based text analysis program correctly classified liars and truth-tellers at a rate of 67% when the topic was constant and a rate of 61% overall. Compared to truth-tellers, liars showed lower cognitive complexity, used fewer self-references and other-references, and used more negative emotion words.     

The perils of partialling: cautionary tales from aggression and psychopathy

Although a powerful technique, the partialling of independent variables from one another in the context of multiple regression analysis poses certain perils. The present article argues that the most important and underappreciated peril is the difficulty in knowing what construct an independent variable represents once the variance shared with other independent variables is removed. The present article presents illustrative analyses in a large sample of inmates (n=696) using three measures from the psychopathy and aggression fields. Results indicate that in terms of relations among items on a single scale and relations between scales, the raw and residualized scores bore little resemblance to one another. It is argued that researchers must decide to which construct-the one represented by the original scale or the one represented by the residualized scale-conclusions are meant to apply. Difficulties in applying the conclusions to the residualized scale are highlighted and best practices suggested.