Parental Cognitive Errors Mediate Parental Psychopathology and Ratings of Child Inattention

We investigate the Depression‐Distortion Hypothesis in a sample of 199 school‐aged children with ADHD‐Predominantly Inattentive presentation (ADHD‐I) by examining relations and cross‐sectional mediational pathways between parental characteristics (i.e., levels of parental depressive and ADHD symptoms) and parental ratings of child problem behavior (inattention, sluggish cognitive tempo, and functional impairment) via parental cognitive errors. Results demonstrated a positive association between parental factors and parental ratings of inattention, as well as a mediational pathway between parental depressive and ADHD symptoms and parental ratings of inattention via parental cognitive errors. Specifically, higher levels of parental depressive and ADHD symptoms predicted higher levels of cognitive errors, which in turn predicted higher parental ratings of inattention. Findings provide evidence for core tenets of the Depression‐Distortion Hypothesis, which state that parents with high rates of psychopathology hold negative schemas for their child's behavior and subsequently, report their child's behavior as more severe.     

The Metaphysical Consequences of Counterfactual Skepticism

A series of recent arguments purport to show that most counterfactuals of the form if A had happened then C would have happened are not true. These arguments pose a challenge to those of us who think that counterfactual discourse is a useful part of ordinary conversation, of philosophical reasoning, and of scientific inquiry. Either we find a way to revise the semantics for counterfactuals in order to avoid these arguments, or we find a way to ensure that the relevant counterfactuals, while not true, are still assertible. I argue that regardless of which of these two strategies we choose, the natural ways of implementing these strategies all share a surprising consequence: they commit us to a particular metaphysical view about chance.     

FATHER–CHILD PLAY DURING THE PRESCHOOL YEARS AND CHILD INTERNALIZING BEHAVIORS: BETWEEN ROBUSTNESS AND VULNERABILITY

Play observations with a total of 400 toddlers and preschoolers were videotaped and rated for Intensity and Quality of play with their parents. Parents were asked about perceived stress and personality characteristics (Big 5). Child's motor, cognitive skills, temperament, and internalizing behaviors were assessed. Study 1 investigated the robustness of play across child age and gender, and examined differences between fathers and mothers. Study 2 explored the vulnerability of play with fathers of children born preterm (PT‐fathers) and fathers who had experienced adverse childhoods (AC‐fathers). Study 3 investigated child internalizing behaviors. Intensity of play was maintained almost independently of child age and gender. It was similar for AC‐ and PT‐fathers, and similar to maternal Intensity. In contrast, paternal Quality of play was higher with boys and independent of fathers’ personality and perceived parenting stress whereas maternal Quality of play was higher with girls and linked to mothers’ perceived parenting competence, acceptability of the child, and neuroticism. AC‐fathers scored significantly low on Quality, as did PT‐fathers, but the Quality of their play became better with growing child age, birth weight, and cognitive (but not motor and temperament) scores. Finally, child internalizing behaviors were negatively related to paternal Quality of play.     

Academic Cheating in Mathematics Classes: A Motivational Perspective

We investigated the frequency of secondary school students’ self-reported cheating in mathematics and relationships between cheating and motivational beliefs, as well as neutralizing attitudes. Two types of cheating were examined: active cheating, which is aimed to increase a person’s own success, and second-party cheating, aimed to help other students achieve success. Students use second-party cheating very often and more than active cheating. Motivational beliefs are significantly related to active cheating but uncorrelated with second-party cheating. Thus, although active and second-party cheating are both classified as dishonest acts, they do not have the same motivational mechanisms in their background.     

Incorporating Imagery Into Thought Records: Increasing Engagement in Balanced Thoughts

Thought records are one of the most effective CBT interventions. However, clients can find them overly intellectual. While clients may logically understand that their balanced thought is accurate, they may not be emotionally convinced, thus reducing the thought record’s effectiveness. In the present paper we describe how imagery can be used throughout the thought record process to enhance clients’ emotional engagement. We describe how imagery can be used to identify negative automatic thoughts, to increase the believability of evidence against negative automatic thoughts, and to increase emotional engagement with balanced thoughts.     

The Mediating Role of Resiliency in the Relationship Between Temperament and Posttraumatic Growth

The purpose of the research is to investigate the mediating role of resiliency in the relation between temperamental traits and posttraumatic growth. Data of 74 persons who have experienced the death of someone close were analyzed. The range of age of the participants was 21–74 years (M = 38.4; SD = 15.5). The Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI), the Formal Characteristics of Behavior–Temperament Inventory (FCB-TI), and the Resiliency Assessment Scale were used in the study. Resiliency plays a mediating role among four traits of temperament (Briskness, Emotional Reactivity, Endurance, and Activity) and posttraumatic growth. Resiliency seems to modify the direct impact of temperamental traits on positive posttraumatic changes.     

Predicting complex syntactic structure in real time: Processing of negative sentences in Russian

In Russian negative sentences the verb’s direct object may appear either in the accusative case, which is licensed by the verb (as is common cross-linguistically), or in the genitive case, which is licensed by the negation (Russian-specific “genitive-of-negation” phenomenon). Such sentences were used to investigate whether case marking is employed for anticipating syntactic structure, and whether lexical heads other than the verb can be predicted on the basis of a case-marked noun phrase. Experiment 1, a completion task, confirmed that genitive-of-negation is part of Russian speakers’ active grammatical repertoire. In Experiments 2 and 3, the genitive/accusative case manipulation on the preverbal object led to shorter reading times at the negation and verb in the genitive versus accusative condition. Furthermore, Experiment 3 manipulated linear order of the direct object and the negated verb in order to distinguish whether the abovementioned facilitatory effect was predictive or integrative in nature, and concluded that the parser actively predicts a verb and (otherwise optional) negation on the basis of a preceding genitive-marked object. Similarly to a head-final language, case-marking information on preverbal noun phrases (NPs) is used by the parser to enable incremental structure building in a free-word-order language such as Russian.     

A picture is worth a thousand words: a comparison of pupils’ images of intelligence in Finnish and Russian Karelia

The study set out to examine Finnish and Russian children’s images of intelligence as contextualized in the systems of the school and gender. Finnish and Russian pupils, aged 11–12 years, were asked to draw pictures of an intelligent and an ordinary pupil and a good and an ordinary pupil. A distinctive feature shared by the children in both countries was that intelligent pupils were depicted as positively orientated to knowledge and studies and as similar to good pupils. The Russian children’s pictures emphasized academic performance, suggesting that the contribution of the school to children’s representations was greater in Russia than in Finland. In regard to gender appearance, the intelligent pupil was usually pictured in gender-neutral or childish features, suggesting that being defined as intellectually competent entailed deviating from the heterosexual ideal. In the discussion, the ambivalence associated with social definitions of intelligence is addressed.     

Internet-based treatment of depression: a randomized controlled trial comparing guided with unguided self-help

Internet-delivered self-help for depression with therapist guidance has shown efficacy in several trials. Results from meta-analyses suggest that guidance is important and that self-help programs without support are less effective. However, there are no direct experimental comparisons between guided and unguided internet-based treatments for depression. The present study compared the benefits of a 10-week web-based unguided self-help treatment with the same intervention complemented with weekly therapist support via e-mail. A waiting-list control group was also included. Seventy-six individuals meeting the diagnostic criteria of major depression or dysthymia were randomly assigned to one of the three conditions. The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II) was used as the primary outcome measure. Secondary outcomes included general psychopathology, interpersonal problems, and quality of life. Sixty-nine participants (91%) completed the assessment at posttreatment and 59 (78%) at 6-month follow-up. Results showed significant symptom reductions in both treatment groups compared to the waiting-list control group. At posttreatment, between-group effect sizes on the BDI-II were d = .66 for unguided self-help versus waiting-list and d = 1.14 for guided self-help versus waiting-list controls. In the comparison of the two active treatments, small-to-moderate, but not statistically significant effects in favor of the guided condition were found on all measured dimensions. In both groups, treatment gains were maintained at 6-month follow-up. The findings provide evidence that internet-delivered treatments for depression can be effective whether support is added or not. However, all participants were interviewed in a structured diagnostic telephone interview before inclusion, which prohibits conclusions regarding unguided treatments that are without any human contact.     

Measuring the approximate number system

Recent theories in numerical cognition propose the existence of an approximate number system (ANS) that supports the representation and processing of quantity information without symbols. It has been claimed that this system is present in infants, children, and adults, that it supports learning of symbolic mathematics, and that correctly harnessing the system during tuition will lead to educational benefits. Various experimental tasks have been used to investigate individuals' ANSs, and it has been assumed that these tasks measure the same system. We tested the relationship across six measures of the ANS. Surprisingly, despite typical performance on each task, adult participants' performances across the tasks were not correlated, and estimates of the acuity of individuals' ANSs from different tasks were unrelated. These results highlight methodological issues with tasks typically used to measure the ANS and call into question claims that individuals use a single system to complete all these tasks.