Prediction of adolescent and adult delinquency from childhood Rorschach ratings

Relatively few studies have predicted adolescent or adult delinquency from childhood Rorschach data. Incremental validity of Rorschach measures over other known consistent and more easily obtained predictors has typically not been investigated. We addressed Rorschach data's incremental validity over mother's reports of externalizing behavior and mother-child relations for predicting officially registered adolescent and adult delinquency in a longitudinal study of 122 Swedish men. The Rorschach measures we used were aggregates of blind, prospectively performed, global expert ratings based on a holistic evaluation of protocols. An aggregate of Rorschach-based ratings of ego strength significantly improved the prediction of delinquency in adolescence and adulthood over and above earlier identified best predictors (mother's ratings of mother-child relations and externalizing problem behavior).     

Day treatment of patients with personality disorders: experiences from a Norwegian treatment research network

This study sought to investigate the following research questions: Are time-limited day treatment programs for patients with personality disorder (PD) effective outside resourceful university settings, and what are the overall treatment results when the program is implemented on a larger scale? Do all categories and subtypes of PDs respond favorably to such treatment? How intensive should such day treatment programs be? All patients (n = 1,244) were consecutively admitted to eight different treatment programs in the Norwegian Network of Psychotherapeutic Day Hospitals from 1993 to 2000. Altogether, 1,010 patients were diagnosed with PD. Avoidant, borderline, not otherwise specified (NOS), and paranoid PD were the most common conditions. SCID-II and MINI were used as diagnostic instruments. Outcome measures included GAF Global Assessment of Functioning, (GAF; American Psychiatric Association, 1994), SCL-90R, CIP, Quality of Life, work functioning and parasuicidal behavior, measured at admittance, discharge and 1-year follow up. The attrition rate was 24%. The number of dropouts did not improve over time. As a group, completers with PD improved significantly on all outcome variables from admittance to discharge and improvement was maintained or increased at follow up. Treatment results were best for borderline PD, cluster C patients, PD NOS and No PD, and poorer for cluster A patients. Units with a high treatment dosage did not experience better outcomes than those with a low treatment dosage (10 hours per week). Results from the University unit were not better than those from units at local hospitals or mental health centers.     

On weighted exponential entropies

As an alternative to Shannon's classical entropy measure of information, an exponential entropy function was proposed by Pal and Pal in 1989 and 1991. To generalize Pal's entropy further, this author introduced two different families of exponential entropies that are one-parameter generalizations of Pal's entropy. The purpose of the present paper is to define weighted entropies corresponding to those one-parameter generalizations. Some properties and examples of such weighted exponential entropies are discussed.     

Methodology in subliminal psychodynamic activation: the next step in the debate

Subliminal psychdynamic activation methodology has recently been the subject of an exchange of views between Birgeg?rd and Sohlberg (1999) and Fudin (2000). The agreements and some remaining points of contention are summarized here. The main difference of opinion appears to concern unconscious verbal encoding in relation to subjective experience in subliminal stimulation and whether subliminal psychodynamic activation results are unreliable until a full explanation of how verbal encoding works is at hand. We conclude that clarifying perspectives is important and that those suggesting alternative explanations of results on subliminal psychodynamic activation must now empirically investigate their claims.     

Social inhibition and overfriendliness: two-year follow-up and observational validation

Studied socioemotional functioning in 3 groups (n = 15) of high-inhibited, low-inhibited-overfriendly, and low-inhibited-low-overfriendly children at age 9, who were identified by parental ratings in a sample (N = 392) at age 7. Ratings of social inhibition and overfriendliness were stable over the 2-year period from age 7 to age 9. Validity of rated social inhibition and overfriendliness is established with behavioral observations, both predictively and concurrently. The groups are contrasted along the dimensions of social inhibition and overfriendliness with respect to socioemotional distress, social problem solving, empathic ability, and the disinhibitory phenomena of thrill seeking and hyperactivity. The high-inhibited group shows heightened socioemotional distress. The overfriendly group shows heightened levels of thrill seeking and hyperactivity. Social problem solving and empathy are less well developed in the inhibited and in the overfriendly group as contrasted to the low-inhibited-low-overfriendly group. The results are interpreted in terms of risks for socioemotional problems at both ends of the dimension of social inhibition.     

The influence of control and related variables on commuting stress

Existing research on commuting stress has shown that it is affected by variables such as control, predictability, the duration of the commute and impedance. The present study investigates the impact of several factors on the stress that commuters experience and clarifies possible relations between variables. For the purpose of this study, an online questionnaire was completed by 363 commuters of the Vienna region. The relative strength of the relationship between predictors and commuting stress was determined by multiple regression analysis. Results suggest that control is the most powerful predictor of commuting stress, followed by the duration of the commute, predictability and impedance. Control significantly interacts with the duration of the commute and predictability. Based on these findings a research model is proposed, clearly depicting the moderating impact of the duration of the commute and incorporating a clear distinction between predictability and control.     

The Ackermann approach for modal logic,correspondence theory and second-order reduction

The problem of eliminating second-order quantification over predicate symbols is in general undecidable. Since an application of second-order quantifier elimination is correspondence theory in modal logic, understanding when second-order quantifier elimination methods succeed is an important problem that sheds light on the kinds of axioms that are equivalent to first-order correspondence properties and can be used to obtain complete axiomatizations for modal logics. This paper introduces a substitution-rewrite approach based on Ackermann?s Lemma to second-order quantifier elimination in modal logic. Compared to related approaches, the approach includes a number of enhancements: The quantified symbols that need to be eliminated can be flexibly specified. The inference rules are restricted by orderings compatible with the elimination order, which provides more control and reduces non-determinism in derivations thereby increasing the efficiency and success rate. The approach is equipped with a powerful notion of redundancy, allowing for the flexible definition of practical simplification and optimization techniques. We present correctness, termination and canonicity results, and consider two applications: (i) computing first-order frame correspondence properties for modal axioms and rules, and (ii) rewriting second-order modal problems to equivalent simpler forms. The approach allows us to define and characterize two new classes of formulae, which are elementary and canonical, and subsume the class of Sahlqvist formulae and the class of monadic inductive formulae.     

Friend influence over adolescent problem behaviors as a function of relative peer acceptance: to be liked is to be emulated

Friend influence over alcohol intoxication and delinquent behavior was examined as a function of relative peer acceptance in a 3-year study of Swedish youth (N = 184 girls, 145 boys). Participants were in the first year of secondary school (7th grade, M = 11.7 years old) or the first year of high school (10th grade, M = 15.3 years old) at the outset. Friends resembled one another before the friendship; resemblances were even greater after the friendship began. Resemblances continued to grow among those who remained friends one year later, but declined among those whose friendships dissolved. Partners were not equally responsible for increases in similarity. In stable friendships, the more accepted partner exerted greater influence over the less accepted partner, such that the greatest increases in problem behaviors were found among less accepted youth whose friends had higher initial levels of delinquency and alcohol intoxication. Unstable friends resembled random pairs of youth in that more- and less-accepted partners were comparably uninfluential.     

Consequence Mining

The standard semantic definition of consequence with respect to a selected set X of symbols, in terms of truth preservation under replacement (Bolzano) or reinterpretation (Tarski) of symbols outside X, yields a function mapping X to a consequence relation \(\Rightarrow_X\). We investigate a function going in the other direction, thus extracting the constants of a given consequence relation, and we show that this function (a) retrieves the usual logical constants from the usual logical consequence relations, and (b) is an inverse to—more precisely, forms a Galois connection with—the Bolzano–Tarski function.     

Exploring the associations between coping patterns for everyday stressors and mental health in young schoolchildren

The purposes of this study were to explore the structure of coping with everyday stressors in a young nonclinical population and examine the relationship between coping and mental health. A total of 1324 children from 91 second-grade classes in 35 schools participated. Mental health was assessed using the parent and teacher forms of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Goodman, 1997), and coping was assessed by the Kidcope (Spirito et al., 1988) self-report checklist. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses suggested a three-factor structure of coping. Latent-variable regression analysis indicated that coping categories including both active and emotional strategies were associated with fewer mental health problems, whereas withdrawal and oppositional coping strategies were associated with greater mental health problems. With some important exceptions, the results replicated previous studies of adults and adolescents. The need for new, more comprehensive coping assessments is highlighted.