"I'm sorry, please don't hurt me": effectiveness of apologies on aggression control

The author attempted to replicate Ohbuchi, Kameda, and Agarie's (1989) study which found that giving an apology, with or without harm removal, reduced aggressive responses among a sample of Japanese college women. The author found similar results with a U.S. sample of college women. The results provide evidence for cross-cultural similarity in the effectiveness of apologies in reducing aggressive responses.     

Communication accommodation in text messages: Exploring liking,power, and sex as predictors of textisms

This mixed-methods study applies Communication Accommodation Theory to explore how liking, power, and sex predict one’s likelihood for using textisms in digital interpersonal interactions. Textisms are digital cues that convey nonverbal meaning and emotion in text communication. The main experiment used a hypothetical texting scenario to manipulate textism amounts (none/many) and participant’s perceived power levels (low/equal/high) during texting interactions to examine the number of textisms participants used in subsequent responses in comparison to the number of textisms they viewed. Primary results show that (1) participants moderately converged to use similar amounts of textisms, and (2) those with low power who viewed many textisms were more likely to use textisms themselves during subsequent responses. Through the examination of adaption behaviors in text messaging, scholars can better understand the contexts in which users will include textisms to intentionally convey nonverbal meaning and emotion in digital communication.     

Generalizability of evidence-based assessment recommendations for pediatric bipolar disorder

Bipolar disorder is frequently clinically diagnosed in youths who do not actually satisfy Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed., text revision; DSM-IV-TR; American Psychiatric Association, 1994) criteria, yet cases that would satisfy full DSM-IV-TR criteria are often undetected clinically. Evidence-based assessment methods that incorporate Bayesian reasoning have demonstrated improved diagnostic accuracy and consistency; however, their clinical utility is largely unexplored. The present study examines the effectiveness of promising evidence-based decision-making strategies compared with the clinical gold standard. Participants were 562 youths, ages 5 to 17 and predominantly African American, drawn from a community mental health clinic. Research diagnoses combined a semistructured interview with youths' psychiatric, developmental, and family mental health histories. Independent Bayesian estimates that relied on published risk estimates from other samples discriminated bipolar diagnoses (area under curve = .75, p < .00005). The Bayes and confidence ratings correlated at rs = .30. Agreement about an evidence-based assessment intervention threshold model (wait/assess/treat) was κ = .24, p < .05. No potential moderators of agreement between the Bayesian estimates and confidence ratings, including type of bipolar illness, were significant. Bayesian risk estimates were highly correlated with logistic regression estimates using optimal sample weights (r = .81, p < .0005). Clinical and Bayesian approaches agree in terms of overall concordance and deciding next clinical action, even when Bayesian predictions are based on published estimates from clinically and demographically different samples. Evidence-based assessment methods may be useful in settings in which gold standard assessments cannot be routinely used, and they may help decrease rates of overdiagnosis while promoting earlier identification of true cases.     

Reward Dysregulation and Mood Symptoms in an Adolescent Outpatient Sample

Research on bipolar spectrum disorders (BPSD) in adolescence has burgeoned in the last decade, but continued work is needed to identify endophenotypic markers associated with illness onset and course. The present study examined reward dysregulation—measured via the behavioral activation system (BAS)—as one putative marker of BPSD in adolescence. A diverse group of 425 outpatient adolescents between 11 and 17 years of age (52 % male) completed the Behavioral Inhibition and Activation Scale (BIS-BAS) scale to measure reward dysregulation. Semi-structured interviews determined diagnoses and severity of mood symptoms. Parent-reported BAS was associated with increased symptoms of mania, and parent and adolescent-reported BAS were associated with symptoms of depression. Parent-reported BIS scores were associated with increased symptoms of mania. Results held independent of diagnostic status. Furthermore, parent BIS/BAS reports were stronger predictors for manic symptoms compared to adolescent-reports. Results extend work in adults with BPSD, suggesting a transdiagnostic association between reward dysregulation and mood symptom severity in adolescence.     

Sub‐threshold autism traits: The role of trait emotional intelligence and cognitive flexibility

Theory and research suggests that features of autism are not restricted to individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), and that autism‐like traits vary throughout the general population at lower severities. The present research first investigated the relationship of autism traits with trait emotional intelligence and empathy in a sample of 163 adults aged between 18 and 51 years (44% male). It then examined performance on a set of tasks assessing social cognition and cognitive flexibility in 69 participants with either high or low scores on ASD traits. Results confirm that there is pronounced variation within the general population relating to ASD traits, which reflect similar (though less severe) social‐cognitive and emotional features to those observed in ASDs.     

Evidence of a highly specific relationship between rapid automatic naming of digits and text-reading speed

This paper explores the specificity of the relationship between rapid automatic naming and reading fluency. Reading accuracy, rate, and fluency was measured among a sample of 67 children, the majority of whom were very poor readers. Regression analyses revealed that phonological processing tasks predicted reading accuracy and comprehension whereas rapid digit (but not picture) naming predicted reading accuracy and rate. After further controlling reading accuracy, digit naming was still a significant predictor of reading rate. This suggests that rapid alphanumeric naming is a highly specific predictor of reading rate and that rapid digit naming and phonological processing are distinct contributors to different aspects of reading in poor readers.