Childhood depression and reading ability: Is there a relationship?

Vincenzi (Journal of School Psychology, 25, 155–160, 1987) reported an association between childhood depression and reading ability. An examination of the methodology of this report does not support such a conclusion. We extend this examination to the general literature on depression and cognitive impairment and argue that a clear association has yet to be demonstrated.     

The relationship of young adolescent Children's Depression Inventory (CDI) scores to their social and cognitive functioning

The relationship of young adolescents' scores on the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI) to subjective and objective indices of their social and cognitive functioning was examined. Subjects were 89 young adolescents (11–15 years old), their parents, and their social studies teachers. The correlations of adolescents' CDI scores with recent school grades, objective ratings of overt social behavior, and measures of adolescent social and cognitive competence as perceived by the adolescent, both parents, and the teacher were examined. CDI scores were significantly and negatively correlated with school grades, behavioral ratings of positive social communication, and adolescent, mother, father, and teacher perceptions of the adolescents' social and cognitive competence. The relationship of these findings to those of other CDI validity studies is discussed.This research was supported, in part, by the William T. Grant Foundation and the University of Georgia's Institute for Behavioral Research.     

The importance of conduct problems and depressive symptoms in predicting adolescent substance use

The current study assessed the relative importance of conduct problems and depressive symptoms, measured at two ages (11 and 15), for predicting substance use at age 15 in an unselected birth cohort of New Zealand adolescents. Among males, when the relative predictive utility of both conduct problems and depressive symptoms was assessed, only pre-adolescent depressive symptoms were found to predict multiple drug use 4 years later. No predictive relation was found between early symptomatology and later substance use among females. The strongest association between predictors and substance use emerged between age 15 multiple drug use and concurrent conduct problems for both males and females. Finally, both conduct problems and depressive symptoms at age 15 were also found to be associated with concurrent self-medication among females.This work was supported by USPHS grants MH-43746 and MH-45070 from the Antisocial and Violent Behavior Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health to Terrie Moffitt. Bill Henry was funded by a Fulbright Travel Award. The Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit is supported by the Medical Research Council and Health Research Council of New Zealand. Appreciation is expressed to the interviewers who collected the data, and to the young New Zealanders who were members of the sample.     

Subjective Wellbeing and its Influence on Consumer Sentiment Towards Marketing: A New Zealand Example

Consumption is a central component of many peoples’ lives. Providing satisfaction and happiness with the products and services we buy and with the institutions that supply them is a fundamental part of marketing (Wilkie and Moore in J Macromark 26(2):224–232, 2006). Many studies investigate the influence of various microaspects of products/services—or of specific situational customer characteristics—on satisfaction evaluations. This study examines how a macro-variable, Subjective Wellbeing (SWB), relates to consumer satisfaction and illustrates the importance of SWB in studies examining determinants of the concept. Using the idea of spill-over effects, a well established concept in psychology and marketing that has received little attention in the area of consumer satisfaction research, it investigates whether attitudes towards marketing activities, measured by the Index of Consumer Sentiment Towards Marketing, are influenced by SWB. The research finds that Subjective Wellbeing, as determined by the International Wellbeing Index, contributes significantly to the explanation of consumer sentiment and makes a case for its inclusion in more consumer satisfaction studies.     

Considering J.Lo and Ugly Betty: a qualitative examination of risk factors and prevention targets for body dissatisfaction, eating disorders, and obesity in young Latina women

Latina women are vulnerable to poor body image, eating disorders, and obesity, particularly during the college years. This study sought to identify common cultural antecedents of these concerns in order to inform the development of prevention programs for this population. Six groups of university students who identified as Latina (N=27) discussed cultural aspects of body image, eating disorders, and obesity. Thematic analysis identified four main themes: (a) cultural disparities in body-ideal, including the influence of the media and acculturation issues; (b) messages about body shape and weight received by family, peers, and society; (c) difficulties making healthy eating and physical activity choices as a function of college life; and (d) the influence of peers and potential male partners on body satisfaction and body-ideals. These results have implications for the development of programs targeting body dissatisfaction and risk for eating disorders and obesity in Latina college women.     

Context-dependent motor skill and the role of practice

Research has shown that retrieval of learned information is better when the original learning context is reinstated during testing than when this context is changed. Recently, such contextual dependencies have also been found for perceptual-motor behavior. The current study investigated the nature of context-dependent learning in the discrete sequence production task, and in addition examined whether the amount of practice affects the extent to which sequences are sensitive to contextual alterations. It was found that changing contextual cues-but not the removal of such cues-had a detrimental effect on performance. Moreover, this effect was observed only after limited practice, but not after extensive practice. Our findings support the notion of a novel type of context-dependent learning during initial motor skill acquisition and demonstrate that this context-dependence reduces with practice. It is proposed that a gradual development with practice from stimulus-driven to representation-driven sequence execution underlies this practice effect.     

The relationship between emotion awareness and somatic complaints in children and adolescents: Investigating the mediating role of anxiety and depression

The objective of this study was to examine if emotion awareness in children and adolescents (age 7-18 years old) is directly related to somatic complaints, and if this relationship holds when considering symptoms of anxiety and depression as mediating factors. A number of questionnaires measuring emotion awareness, symptoms of anxiety and depression and somatic complaints were administered to Dutch schoolchildren (N?=?617). A path model was constructed, with the use of structural equation modelling. The results showed that two aspects of emotion awareness (bodily awareness and differentiating between emotions) contributed to the prediction of somatic complaints. However, this was no longer the case when controlling for symptoms of anxiety and depression. Thus, in this study, no direct relation was found between emotion awareness and somatic complaints. Instead, the relation was perfectly mediated by symptoms of anxiety and depression. The results suggest that focusing only on the relation between emotion awareness and somatic complaints is an oversimplified perspective that falls short as a starting point to find therapeutic solutions for children who suffer from somatic complaints.     

Temporal order judgment criteria are affected by synchrony judgment sensitivity

Synchrony perception for audio-visual stimulus pairs is typically studied by using temporal order judgment (TOJ) or synchrony judgment (SJ) tasks. Research has shown that estimates of the point of subjective simultaneity (PSS) obtained using these two methods do not necessarily correspond. Here, we investigate the hypothesis that the PSS estimate obtained in a TOJ task is shifted in the direction of the most sensitive part of the synchrony judgment curve, as obtained in an SJ task. The results confirm that criterion shifts in the TOJ task move the PSS toward regions of the audio-visual temporal interval continuum where discriminations are most sensitive.