Globalization, Neo-Liberalism and Community Psychology

A longitudinal analysis (1984–2005) of media language in Norway is presented, demonstrating how the current globalized capitalist market ideology is now permeating this long-established Scandinavian welfare state. This ideological shift carries powerful implications for community psychology, as traditional welfare state values of equal services based on a universalistic principle are set aside, and social and material inequalities are increasingly accepted. The methodology developed in the present study may serve as a “barometer of community changes”, to borrow a metaphor used by Sarason (2000).     

Attachment, Marital Satisfaction, and Divorce During the First Fifteen Years of Parenthood

This study examines two overlapping longitudinal samples of U.S. couples with children, covering a period of 15 years after the first child's birth. The first sample extended from the pregnancy with a first child until that child was 5.5 years old; the second from ages 4.5 to 14.5. Growth curve analyses revealed that marital satisfaction declined over 15 years for both husbands and wives. Attachment security measured in the second sample was associated with greater marital satisfaction, but did not buffer against declines in marital satisfaction over time. Husbands' lower initial level of marital satisfaction measured around the first child's transition to school was the only significant predictor of marital dissolution. The discussion emphasizes theoretical and practical implications of these findings.     

Attachment security in couple relationships: a systemic model and its implications for family dynamics

Theory and research on adult attachment style emphasize the crucial role that the sense of attachment security plays in the formation and maintenance of couple relationships. In the present article, we review studies that have examined the contribution of adult attachment style to relational cognitions, emotions, and behaviors as well as to the formation, quality, and stability of dating and marital relationships. We discuss some of the measurement and design issues raised by this research. Based on the reviewed findings, we provide an integrative, systemic theoretical model delineating how the links between partners' attachment security and the quality of their couple relationship occurs. Finally, we discuss the implications of this model for the understanding of how attachment style and couple relationships combine to affect the family system in general, and parent-child relationships and children's developmental outcomes, in particular.     

Psychological characteristics of elderly insomniacs

Sixty insomniacs, aged 60 years or over, fulfilling the DSM-IV criteria for primary insomnia, completed a set of questionnaires measuring psychological distress. These included the Sleep Impairment Index (SIM), the Symptom Check List 90-Revised (SCL-90-R), the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ), the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 (TAS-20) and the Elders Life Stress Inventory (ELSI). The insomniacs were compared on these measures with two contrast groups, one of elderly good sleepers and one an elderly community sample. As norms were developed for the SCL-90-R and PSWQ, insomniacs were also contrasted with the norm groups on these measures. In general, the results indicated a higher level of psychological distress among insomniacs than among the good sleepers, while there were negligible differences between insomniacs and the community sample on most measures. Overall, elderly insomniacs scored higher on measures of worry compared with the other groups, followed by measures of somatization, obsessive-compulsion and depression. It is concluded that excessive worrying was the most characteristic feature of elderly insomniacs.     

Preparatory processes in the task-switching paradigm: evidence from the use of probability cues

The purpose of the investigations was to dissociate processes of task preparation from task execution in the task-switching paradigm. The basic assumption was that task repetitions have 2 advantages over task shifts: an activation advantage as a result of the execution of the same task type in the pretrial, and an expectation advantage, because participants, in general, implicitly expect a repetition. In Experiments 1-3, the authors explicitly manipulated expectancies by presenting cues that announced a shift and/or a repetition with probabilities of 1.00, .75, .50, or .25. Increasing latencies with decreasing probability for shifts and repetitions show that the expectation advantage can be equalized by preparation. However, the activation advantage represented by constant shift costs between tasks of the same probability is not penetrable by preparation. In Experiments 4 and 5, the authors found evidence that preparation involves activation of the expected task and inhibition of distracting tasks.     

Identification of genes expressed in the amygdala during the formation of fear memory

In this study we describe changes of gene expression that occur in the basolateral complex of the mouse amygdala (BLA) during the formation of fear memory. Through the combination of a behavioral training scheme with polymerase chain reaction-based expression analysis (subtractive hybridization and virtual Northern analysis) we were able to identify various gene products that are increased in expression after Pavlovian fear conditioning and are of potential significance for neural plasticity and information storage in the amygdala. In particular, a key enzyme of monoamine metabolism, aldehyde reductase, and the protein sorting and ubiquitination factor Praja1, showed pronounced and learning-specific induction six hours after fear conditioning training. Aldehyde reductase and Praja1, including a novel alternatively spliced isoform termed Praja1a, were induced in the BLA depending on the emotional stimulus presented and showed different expression levels in response to associative conditioning, training stress, and experience of conditioned fear. Stress and fear were further found to induce various signal transduction factors (transthyretin, phosphodiesterase1, protein kinase inhibitor-alpha) and structural reorganization factors (e.g., E2-ubiquitin conjugating enzyme, neuroligin1, actin, UDP-galactose transporter) during training. Our results show that the formation of Pavlovian fear memory is associated with changes of gene expression in the BLA, which may contribute to neural plasticity and the processing of information about both conditioned and unconditioned fear stimuli.     

An approach to preventing coparenting conflict and divorce in low-income families: strengthening couple relationships and fostering fathers' involvement

In the context of current concern about levels of marital distress, family violence, and divorce, the SFI study is evaluating the effectiveness of an intervention to facilitate the positive involvement of low-income Mexican American and European American fathers with their children, in part by strengthening the men's relationships with their children's mothers. The study design involves a randomized clinical trial that includes assignment to a 16-week couples group, a 16-week fathers group, or a single-session control group. Couples in both group interventions and the control condition include partners who are married, cohabiting, and living separately but raising a young child together. This article presents the rationale, design, and intervention approach to father involvement for families whose relationships are at risk because of the hardships of their lives, many of whom are manifesting some degree of individual or relationship distress. We present preliminary impressions and qualitative findings based on our experience with 257 families who completed the pretest, and the first 160 who completed one postintervention assessment 9 months after entering the study. Discussion centers on what we have learned and questions that remain to be answered in mounting a multisite preventive intervention to strengthen relationships in low-income families.     

Does perceived teacher affective support matter for middle school students in mathematics classrooms?

The purpose of the present study was to explore the importance of perceived teacher affective support in relation to sense of belonging, academic enjoyment, academic hopelessness, academic self-efficacy, and academic effort in middle school mathematics classrooms. A self-report survey was administered to 317 seventh- and eighth-grade students in 5 public middle schools. Structural equation modeling indicated significant associations between perceived teacher affective support and middle school students' motivational, emotional, and behavioral outcomes. The structural model explained a significant proportion of variance in students' sense of belonging (42%), academic enjoyment (43%), self-efficacy beliefs (43%), academic hopelessness (18%), and academic effort (32%) in mathematics classrooms. In addition to providing the basis for a concise new measure of perceived teacher affective support, these findings point to the importance of students' perceptions of the affective climate within learning environments for promoting academic enjoyment, academic self-efficacy, and academic effort in mathematics.     

A forced-attention dichotic listening fMRI study on 113 subjects

We report fMRI and behavioral data from 113 subjects on attention and cognitive control using a variant of the classic dichotic listening paradigm with pairwise presentations of consonant-vowel syllables. The syllable stimuli were presented in a block-design while subjects were in the MR scanner. The subjects were instructed to pay attention to and report either the left or right ear stimulus. The hypothesis was that paying attention to the left ear stimulus (FL condition) induces a cognitive conflict, requiring cognitive control processes, not seen when paying attention to the right ear stimulus (FR condition), due to the perceptual salience of the right ear stimulus in a dichotic situation. The FL condition resulted in distinct activations in the left inferior prefrontal gyrus and caudate nucleus, while the right inferior frontal gyrus and caudate were activated in both the FL and FR conditions, and in a non-instructed (NF) baseline condition.