Parents’ postnatal depressive symptoms and their children's academic attainment at 16 years: Pathways of risk transmission

The aim of the study was to examine whether parents’ increased postnatal depressive symptoms predicted children's academic attainment over time and whether the parent–child relationship, children's prior academic attainment, and mental health mediated this association. We conducted secondary analyses on the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children data (12,607 mothers, 9,456 fathers). Each parent completed the Edinburgh-Postnatal Depression Scale at 8 weeks after the child's birth (predictor) and a questionnaire about the mother–child and father–child relationship at 7 years and 1 month (mediator). The children's mental health problems were assessed with the teacher version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire at 10–11 years (mediator). We used data on the children's academic attainment on UK Key Stage 1 (5–7 years; mediator) and Key Stage 4 (General Certificate of Secondary Education 16 years) (outcome). We adjusted for the parents’ education, and child gender and cognitive ability. The results revealed that parents’ depressive symptoms at 8 weeks predicted lower academic performance in children at 16 years. Mothers’ postnatal depressive symptoms had an indirect effect through children's mental health problems on academic outcomes at 16 years via negative mother–child relationship, and prior academic attainment. There was a significant negative indirect effect of fathers’ postnatal depressive symptoms on academic attainment at 16 years via negative father–child relationship on child mental health. The findings suggest that the family environment (parental mental health and parent–child relationship) and children's mental health should be potential targets for support programmes for children of depressed parents.     

Why and for whom does the pressure to help hurt others? Affective and cognitive mechanisms linking helping pressure to workplace deviance

Scholars are paying increasing attention to the “dark side” of citizenship behavior. One aspect of this dark side that has received relatively scant attention is “helping pressure”—an employee's perception that s/he is being encouraged to, or otherwise feels that s/he should, enact helping behavior at work. Drawing from theory associated with work stress, we examine affective and cognitive mechanisms that potentially explain why helping pressure, counterintuitively, may lead employees to engage in deviant behavior instead. Beyond examining these possible mechanisms, we also answer calls to identify a potential buffer to these effects. Drawing from self-determination theory, we examine how an employee's intrinsic motivation for citizenship may lessen the deleterious consequences of helping pressure at work. In two studies (a within-individual experience-sampling study and a two-wave between-individual study), we find consistent evidence that helping pressure has a positive indirect relationship with deviant behavior through increased negative affect. Further, we find evidence that intrinsic motivation for citizenship weakens the positive relationship of helping pressure with negative affect, buffering the indirect effect on subsequent deviant behavior. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings for the study of helping pressure at work are discussed.     

The persistence of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder into young adulthood as a function of reporting source and definition of disorder

This study examined the persistence of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) into young adulthood using hyperactive (N = 147) and community control (N = 71) children evaluated at ages 19-25 years. ADHD was rare in both groups (5% vs. 0%) based on self-report but was substantially higher using parent reports (46% vs. 1.4%). Using a developmentally referenced criterion (+2 SD), prevalence remained low for self-reports (12% vs. 10%) but rose further for parent reports (66% vs. 8%). Parent reports were more strongly associated with major life activities than were self-reports. Recollections of childhood ADHD showed moderate correlations with actual parent ratings collected in childd hood, which suggests some validity for such recollections. The authors conclude that previous follow-up studies that relied on self-reports might have substantially underestimated the persistence of ADHD into adulthood.     

Is there an effect of handedness on the position of the egocentric reference?

Forty normal subjects (20 left-handed; 20 right-handed) were submitted to a proprioceptive straight ahead pointing task while blindfolded to study the effect of the hand used and of the hand preference on the estimation of the subjective sagittal middle. Results showed that left-handed and right-handed subjects both deviated to the left of the objective sagittal middle and presented an effect of the hand used and of the starting point affecting their straight ahead performance in a similar way. In all subjects whatever their manual preference, using the left hand and starting 30 degrees to left induced a tendency to deviate to the same side, whereas using the right hand and starting 30 degrees to right induced a tendency to place the subjective middle to the right of the objective middle. These results are interpreted with regard to the hypothesis of a cortical control of the position of the egocentric reference.     

Mapping of olfactory memory circuits: region-specific c-fos activation after odor-reward associative learning or after its retrieval

Although there is growing knowledge about intracellular mechanisms underlying neuronal plasticity and memory consolidation and reconsolidation after retrieval, information concerning the interaction among brain areas during formation and retrieval of memory is relatively sparse and fragmented. Addressing this question requires simultaneous monitoring of activity in multiple brain regions during learning, the post-acquisition consolidation period, and retrieval and subsequent reconsolidation. Immunoreaction to the immediate early gene c-fos is a powerful tool to mark neuronal activation of specific populations of neurons. Using this method, we are able to report, for the first time, post-training activation of a network of closely related brain regions, particularly in the frontal cortex and the basolateral amygdala (BLA), that is specific to the learning of an odor-reward association. On the other hand, retrieval of a well-established associative memory trace does not seem to differentially activate the same regions. The amygdala, in particular, is not engaged after retrieval, whereas the lateral habenula (LHab) shows strong activation that is restricted to animals having previously learned the association. Although intracellular mechanisms may be similar during consolidation and reconsolidation, this study indicates that different brain circuits are involved in the two processes, at least with respect to a rapidly learned olfactory task.     

Win-shift and win-stay learning in the short-beaked echidna (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Tachyglossus aculeatus</Emphasis>)

Numerous previous investigators have explained species differences in spatial memory performance in terms of differences in foraging ecology. In three experiments we attempted to extend these findings by examining the extent to which the spatial memory performance of echidnas (or "spiny anteaters") can be understood in terms of the spatio-temporal distribution of their prey (ants and termites). This is a species and a foraging situation that have not been examined in this way before. Echidnas were better able to learn to avoid a previously rewarding location (to "win-shift") than to learn to return to a previously rewarding location (to "win-stay"), at short retention intervals, but were unable to learn either of these strategies at retention intervals of 90 min. The short retention interval results support the ecological hypothesis, but the long retention interval results do not. Electronic Publication     

Two Orientations to Sin in the Human Predicament

Two orientations to sin proposed in Valerie Saiving's feminine view of the human situation (1960) are analyzed and developed, suggesting different ways they can be manifested in the lives of both men and women. These ways (of trusting the world) are paired and contrasted with ways of trusting God in order to aid pastors in counseling and teaching about the human predicament.     

The properties of retention intervals and their affect on retaining prospective memories

Five experiments were conducted to explore how the character of the retention interval affected event-based prospective memory. According to the canons of retrospective memory, prospective performance should have been worse with increasing delays between intention formation and the time it was appropriate to complete an action. That result did not occur. Rather, prospective memory was better with increasing retention intervals in Experiments 1A, 1B, and 3. In manipulating the nature of the retention interval, the authors found that there were independent contributions of retention interval length and the number of intervening activities, with more activities leading to better prospective memory (Experiments 2 and 3). The identical retention intervals did not improve retrospective memory in Experiment 4. Theoretical explanations for these dissociations between prospective and retrospective memory are considered.