You can't always get what you want: educational attainment, agency, and choice

Using educational attainment to indicate socioeconomic status, the authors examined models of agency and effects of choice among European American adults of different educational backgrounds in 3 studies. Whereas college-educated (BA) participants and their preferred cultural products (i.e., rock music lyrics) emphasized expressing uniqueness, controlling environments, and influencing others, less educated (HS) participants and their preferred cultural products (i.e., country music lyrics) emphasized maintaining integrity, adjusting selves, and resisting influence. Reflecting these models of agency, HS and BA participants differently responded to choice in dissonance and reactance paradigms: BA participants liked chosen objects more than unchosen objects, but choice did not affect HS participants' preferences. Results suggest that HS and BA models of agency qualitatively differ, despite overlap between HS and BA worlds.     

The effects of yoga on the attention and behavior of boys with Attention-Deficit/ hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

Boys diagnosed with ADHD by specialist pediatricians and stabilized on medication were randomly assigned to a 20-session yoga group (n = 11) or a control group (cooperative activities; n = 8). Boys were assessed pre- and post-intervention on the Conners' Parent and Teacher Rating Scales-Revised: Long (CPRS-R:L & CTRS-R:L; Conners, 1997), the Test of Variables of Attention (TOVA; Greenberg, Cormna, & Kindschi, 1997), and the Motion Logger Actigraph. Data were analyzed using one-way repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA). Significant improvements from pre-test to post-test were found for the yoga, but not for the control group on five subscales of the Conners' Parents Rating Scales (CPRS): Oppositional, Global Index Emotional Lability, Global Index Total, Global Index Restless/Impulsive and ADHD Index. Significant improvements from pre-test to post-test were found for the control group, but not the yoga group on three CPRS subscales: Hyperactivity, Anxious/Shy, and Social Problems. Both groups improved significantly on CPRS Perfectionism, DSM-IV Hyperactive/ Impulsive, and DSM-IV Total. For the yoga group, positive change from pre- to post-test on the Conners' Teacher Rating Scales (CTRS) was associated with the number of sessions attended on the DSM-IV Hyperactive-Impulsive subscale and with a trend on DSM-IV Inattentive subscale. Those in the yoga group who engaged in more home practice showed a significant improvement on TOVA Response Time Variability with a trend on the ADHD score, and greater improvements on the CTRS Global Emotional Lability subscale. Results from the Motion Logger Actigraph were inconclusive. Although these data do not provide strong support for the use of yoga for ADHD, partly because the study was under-powered, they do suggest that yoga may have merit as a complementary treatment for boys with ADHD already stabilized on medication, particularly for its evening effect when medication effects are absent. Yoga remains an investigational treatment, but this study supports further research into its possible uses for this population. These findings need to be replicated on larger groups with a more intensive supervised practice program.     

Overt and relational aggression and perceived popularity: developmental differences in concurrent and prospective relations

Relations of overt and relational aggression with perceived popularity among children and early adolescents were examined in 2 studies (Ns = 607 and 1,049). Among older youths, positive concurrent relations found between overt aggression and perceived popularity became nonsignificant when relational aggression was controlled, whereas positive associations found between relational aggression and perceived popularity held when overt aggression was controlled. Aggression and perceived popularity were not positively related for the younger participants. The 2nd study also examined the temporal ordering of these relations over 6 months. For older girls, positive relations between relational aggression and perceived popularity were bidirectional. For older boys, relational aggression did not predict increased perceived popularity, but perceived popularity predicted increased relational aggression. Implications for intervention are discussed.     

An outcome evaluation of the implementation of the Triple P-Positive Parenting Program in Hong Kong

The present study evaluated the effectiveness of the Positive Parenting Program (Triple P) with a sample of Chinese parents of children with early onset conduct-related problems in Hong Kong. The participants consisted of 91 parents whose children attended maternal and child health centers and child assessment centers for service, and were between three to seven years old. Participants were randomly assigned to the intervention (TP) and a waitlist control group (WL). There was no significant difference in pre-intervention measures between the two groups. However, at post intervention, participants in the TP group reported significantly lower levels of child behavior problems, lower dysfunctional parenting styles, and higher parent sense of competence, compared to the WL group. Implications of these findings for the use of Triple P with families of Chinese descent are discussed.     

Confidence judgments in event recall: developmental progression in the impact of question format

Two studies were conducted to examine developmental progression in children's and adults' ability to adequately monitor their own attempts to recall event details as well as the dependence of such metamemorial competencies on question formats. Eight and 10-year-old children as well as adults (Study 1, N=116; Study 2, N=60) rated their confidence when responding to specific questions about an observed event. Confirming most recent results, children and adults gave higher confidence ratings after correct than after incorrect answers. This ability, however, was limited to an unbiased question format. When being asked misleading questions, children's ability to differentiate was undermined, as reflected in equally high confidence judgments after correct and incorrect answers, even when the interview contained a mix of misleading and unbiased questions. When the interviewer "bombarded" the children with an uninterrupted series of misleading questions, children's difficulties appeared to be even more pronounced. These findings highlight the importance of the way in which questions are asked, and point to age-related progression in the relative impact of questioning style.     

Once hurt,twice hurtful: how perceived regard regulates daily marital interactions

A daily diary study examined how chronic perceptions of a partner's regard affect how intimates interpret and respond to daily relationship stresses. Spouses each completed a diary for 21 days. Multilevel analyses revealed that people who felt less positively regarded read more into stressful events than did people who felt highly regarded, feeling more hurt on days after acute threats, such as those posed by a moody or ill-behaved partner. Intimates who felt less valued responded to feeling hurt by behaving badly toward their partner on subsequent days. In contrast, intimates who felt more valued responded to feeling hurt by drawing closer to their partner. Ironically, chronically activated needs for belongingness might lead people who are trying to find acceptance to undermine their marriage.     

Endogenous shifts of covert attention operate within multiple coordinate frames: evidence from a feature-priming task

The locations of visual objects and events in the world are represented in a number of different coordinate frameworks. For example, a visual transient is known to attract (exogenous) attention and facilitate performance within an egocentric framework. However, when attention is allocated voluntarily to a particular visual feature (ie endogenous attention), the location of that feature appears to be variously encoded either within an allocentric framework or in a spatially invariant manner. In three experiments we investigated the importance of location for the allocation of endogenous attention and whether egocentric and/or allocentric spatial frameworks are involved. Primes and targets were presented in four conditions designed to vary systematically their spatial relationships in egocentric and allocentric coordinates. A reliable effect of egocentric priming was found in all three experiments, which suggests that endogenous shifts of attention towards targets defined by a particular feature operate in an egocentric representation of visual space. In addition, allocentric priming was also found for targets primed by their colour or shape. This suggests that attending to targets primed by nonspatial attributes results in facilitation that is localised in more than one coordinate frame of spatial reference.     

It does take a village: nonfamilial environments and children's behavior

Abstract - Family characteristics influence children's behavioral development, but so do variations in schools, neighborhoods, and communities. We documented extrafamilial environmental effects by fitting maximum likelihood models to questionnaire data collected from double dyads consisting of twins and their classmate controls. The classmate controls in each double dyad were genetic strangers living in separate households, but they shared school, neighborhood, and community environments with their yoked twin pair and with one another. At ages 11 to 12, the control classmates showed significant similarities in religious practices and smoking and drinking patterns, demonstrating that environmental influences outside the family affect children's behavioral development. Familial self-selection of residential neighborhoods may have contributed to these results, but direct effects of variation across communities, neighborhoods, and schools cannot be dismissed, and such effects warrant further study.     

Medical slang in British hospitals

The usage, derivation, and psychological, ethical, and legal aspects of slang terminology in medicine are discussed. The colloquial vocabulary is further described and a comprehensive glossary of common UK terms provided in appendix. This forms the first list of slang terms currently in use throughout the British medical establishment.