Terror management and adults' attachment to their parents: the safe haven remains

Six studies examined the role of young adults' parental attachment in terror management. Studies 1-3 revealed that activating thoughts of one's parent in response to mortality salience (MS) reduced death-thought accessibility and worldview defense and increased feelings of self-worth. Studies 4-5 demonstrated that MS led to greater ease of recalling positive maternal interactions and greater difficulty recalling negative interactions, and increased attraction to a stranger who was described as being similar to one's parent. If reliance on parents for terror management purposes reflects the operation of attachment mechanisms, then such effects should vary on the basis of an individual's attachment style. Study 6 demonstrated that, after MS, insecure individuals were more likely to rely on relationships with their parents, whereas secure individuals were more likely to rely on relationships with romantic partners.     

Majority versus minority influence: the role of message processing in determining resistance to counter‐persuasion

Two experiments examined the extent to which attitudes changed following majority and minority influence are resistant to counter‐persuasion. In both experiments participants' attitudes were measured after being exposed to two messages, delayed in time, which argued opposite positions (initial message and counter‐message). In the first experiment, attitudes following minority endorsement of the initial message were more resistant to a second counter‐message only when the initial message contained strong versus weak arguments. Attitudes changed following majority influence did not resist the second counter‐message and returned to their pre‐test level. Experiment 2 varied whether memory was warned (i.e., message recipients expected to recall the message) or not, to manipulate message processing. When memory was warned, which should increase message processing, attitudes changed following both majority and minority influence resisted the second counter‐message. The results support the view that minority influence instigates systematic processing of its arguments, leading to attitudes that resist counter‐persuasion. Attitudes formed following majority influence yield to counter‐persuasion unless there is a secondary task that encourages message processing. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Long-term effects of the death of a child on parents' adjustment in midlife.

The death of a child is a traumatic event that can have long-term effects on the lives of parents. This study examined bereaved parents of deceased children (infancy to age 34) and comparison parents with similar backgrounds (n = 428 per group) identified in the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. An average of 18.05 years following the death, when parents were age 53, bereaved parents reported more depressive symptoms, poorer well-being, and more health problems and were more likely to have experienced a depressive episode and marital disruption than were comparison parents. Recovery from grief was associated with having a sense of life purpose and having additional children but was unrelated to the cause of death or the amount of time since the death. The results point to the need for detection and intervention to help those parents who are experiencing lasting grief.     

President Bush's false [flashbulb] memory of 9/11/01

Many people claim to remember how they heard about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001—including George W. Bush, the President of the United States at the time. On at least three occasions, the President was asked how he heard the news of the attacks. His answers contained substantial inconsistencies and provide a near‐perfect example of a false flashbulb memory. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Caffeine, Cognition, and Persuasion: Evidence for Caffeine Increasing the Systematic Processing of Persuasive Messages

Caffeine is known to increase arousal, attention, and information processing–all factors implicated in facilitating persuasion. In a standard attitude-change paradigm, participants consumed an orange-juice drink that either contained caffeine (3.5 mg/kg body weight) or did not (placebo) prior to reading a counterattitudinal communication (anti-voluntary euthanasia). Participants then completed a thought-listing task and a number of attitude scales. The first experiment showed that those who consumed caffeine showed greater agreement with the communication (direct attitude: voluntary euthanasia) and on an issue related to, but not contained in, the communication (indirect attitude: abortion). The order in which direct and indirect attitudes were measured did not affect the results. A second experiment manipulated the quality of the arguments in the message (strong vs. weak) to determine whether systematic processing had occurred. There was evidence that systematic processing occurred in both drink conditions, but was greater for those who had consumed caffeine. In both experiments, the amount of message-congruent thinking mediated persuasion. These results show that caffeine can increase the extent to which people systematically process and arc influenced by a persuasive communication.     

Change in maternal criticism and behavior problems in adolescents and adults with autism across a 7-year period

In a previous study, high levels of maternal criticism predicted increased behavior problems in adolescents and adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) over an 18-month period (Greenberg, Seltzer, Hong, & Orsmond, 2006). The current investigation followed these families over a period of 7 years to examine the longitudinal course of criticism and behavior problems, to assess the association between their trajectories, and to determine the degree to which change in each of these factors predicted levels of criticism and behavior problems at the end of the study period. A sample of 118 mothers coresiding with their adolescent and adult children with ASD provided open-ended narratives about their children and reported on the children's behavior problems at 4 waves. Maternal criticism was derived from expressed emotion ratings of the narratives. Criticism exhibited low but significant stability over the 7-year period, and behavior problems exhibited high stability. Through latent growth curve modeling, (a) criticism was found to have increased over time, but only for the group of families in which the sons or daughters transitioned from high school services during the study period; (b) individual changes in criticism and behavior problems were positively correlated over the 7-year period; and (c) changes in criticism predicted levels of behavior problems at the conclusion of the study. Changes in behavior problems were not predictive of end levels of criticism. Implications for intervention and prevention efforts are discussed.     

Positive reactions to tobacco predict relapse after cessation

Among chronic smokers, individual differences in subjective reactions to smoking may characterize important facets of nicotine dependence that relate to abstinence-induced craving, withdrawal symptom profiles, and risk for relapse. Although the negative reinforcing properties of smoking have achieved prominent positions in models of relapse (Baker, Brandon, & Chassin, 2004), vulnerability to relapse risk may also arise from seeking positive reinforcement from smoking (Shiffman & Kirchner, 2009). In this study, 183 cessation-motivated smokers provided subjective craving, positive and negative reactions to standardized cigarettes following overnight abstinence. Level of craving, negative mood, and positive mood after overnight abstinence were significantly predictive of withdrawal on quit-day. Increased positive reactions to smoking were uniquely predictive of relapse after quitting (Hazard Ratio = 1.22, p < .001). Individual differences in positive reactions to smoking may be important markers of neurobiological systems that promote dependence and interfere with cessation efforts.     

Impact Challenges in Community Science-with-Practice: Lessons from PROSPER on Transformative Practitioner-Scientist Partnerships and Prevention Infrastructure Development

At present, evidence-based programs (EBPs) to reduce youth violence are failing to translate into widespread community practice, despite their potential for impact on this pervasive public health problem. In this paper we address two types of challenges in the achievement of such impact, drawing upon lessons from the implementation of a partnership model called PROSPER. First, we address five key challenges in the achievement of community-level impact through effective community planning and action: readiness and mobilization of community teams; maintaining EBP implementation quality; sustaining community teams and EBPs; demonstrating community-level impact; and continuous, proactive technical assistance. Second, we consider grand challenges in the large-scale translation of EBPs: (1) building, linking and expanding existing infrastructures to support effective EBP delivery systems, and (2) organizing networks of practitioner-scientist partnerships-networks designed to integrate diffusion of EBPs with research that examines effective strategies to do so. The PROSPER partnership model is an evidence-based delivery system for community-based prevention and has evolved through two decades of NIH-funded research, assisted by land grant universities' Cooperative Extension Systems. Findings and lessons of relevance to each of the challenges are summarized. In this context, we outline how practitioner-scientist partnerships can serve to transform EBP delivery systems, particularly in conjunction with supportive federal policy.     

Modeling multiple risks during infancy to predict quality of the caregiving environment: contributions of a person-centered approach

The primary goal of this study was to compare several variable-centered and person-centered methods for modeling multiple risk factors during infancy to predict the quality of caregiving environments at six months of age. Nine risk factors related to family demographics and maternal psychosocial risk, assessed when children were two months old, were explored in the understudied population of children born in low-income, non-urban communities in Pennsylvania and North Carolina (N = 1047). These risk factors were (1) single (unpartnered) parent status, (2) marital status, (3) mother's age at first child birth, (4) maternal education, (5) maternal reading ability, (6) poverty status, (7) residential crowding, (8) prenatal smoking exposure, and (9) maternal depression. We compared conclusions drawn using a bivariate approach, multiple regression analysis, the cumulative risk index, and latent class analysis (LCA). The risk classes derived using LCA provided a more intuitive summary of how multiple risks were organized within individuals as compared to the other methods. The five risk classes were: married low-risk; married low-income; cohabiting multiproblem; single low-income; and single low-income/education. The LCA findings illustrated how the association between particular family configurations and the infants' caregiving environment quality varied across race and site. Discussion focuses on the value of person-centered models of analysis to understand complexities of prediction of multiple risk factors.