Self-Efficacy as a Mediator of Caregiver Coping: Development and Testing of an Assessment Model

Development and utilization of two self-efficacy measures thought to be relevant to stressed family caregivers, Caregiver Self-Care Self-Efficacy and Caregiver Problem-Solving Self-Efficacy, are described. Data obtained in the context of a psychoeducational intervention program are available for 217 caregivers of frail and/or cognitively impaired elders. Analyses of psychometric properties of the efficacy measures demonstrate good internal consistency and test-retest reliability for both measures. In addition, both measures of self-efficacy are related to depression as measured by the Beck Depression Inventory and caregiver distress as measured by the Zarit Burden Scale. Problem-Solving Self-efficacy also is related to subjective caregiver burden as measured by Zarit's Memory and Behavior Problem Checklist. Results are promising in terms of the utility of the measure and the application of self-efficacy theory to the caregiving situation. Limitations of these measures are discussed and suggestions made for improved second-generation self-efficacy scales.     

The specificity of memory enhancement during interaction with a virtual environment

Two experiments investigated differences between active and passive participation in a computer-generated virtual environment in terms of spatial memory, object memory, and object location memory. It was found that active participants, who controlled their movements in the virtual environment using a joystick, recalled the spatial layout of the virtual environment better than passive participants, who merely watched the active participants' progress. Conversely, there were no significant differences between the active and passive participants' recall or recognition of the virtual objects, nor in their recall of the correct locations of objects in the virtual environment. These findings are discussed in terms of subject-performed task research and the specificity of memory enhancement in virtual environments.     

The age prospective memory paradox: young adults may not give their best outside of the lab

Previous research has identified the age prospective memory paradox of age-related declines in laboratory settings in contrast to age benefits in naturalistic settings. Various factors are assumed to account for this paradox, yet empirical evidence on this issue is scarce. In 2 experiments, the present study examined the effect of task setting in a laboratory task and the effect of motivation in a naturalistic task on prospective memory performance in young and older adults. For the laboratory task (Experiment 1, n = 40), we used a board game to simulate a week of daily activities and varied features of the prospective memory task (e.g., task regularity). For the naturalistic task (Experiment 2, n = 80), we instructed participants to try to remember to contact the experimenter repeatedly over the course of 1 week. Results from the laboratory prospective memory tasks indicated significant age-related decline for irregular tasks (p = .006) but not for regular and focal tasks. In addition, in the naturalistic task, the age benefit was eliminated when young adults were motivated by incentives (F < 1). In conclusion, the present results indicate that the variability of age differences in laboratory prospective memory tasks may be due in part to differences in the features of the prospective memory task. Furthermore, increases in motivation to perform the prospective task seem to help remedy prospective memory deficits in young adults in the naturalistic setting.     

Psychology and Aging: the first 20 years

This article provides a review of the first 20 years of Psychology and Aging, the American Psychological Association's first and only scholarly journal devoted to the topic of aging. The authors briefly summarize its history, its contributions to the study of aging, and its broader status as a scholarly publication. One theme highlighted in our review is the diversity of content in the journal throughout its history. Another is the strong impact that articles published in the journal have had on both basic and applied topics in aging. Efforts to encompass the breadth of topics and methodologies in aging research while retaining excellent quality remain the exciting but essential challenge for Psychology and Aging.     

The Temple-Wisconsin Cognitive Vulnerability to Depression Project: lifetime history of axis I psychopathology in individuals at high and low cognitive risk for depression

The authors tested the cognitive vulnerability hypotheses of depression with a retrospective behavioral high-risk design. Individuals without current Axis I diagnoses who exhibited either negative or positive cognitive styles were compared on lifetime prevalence of depressive and other disorders and the clinical parameters of depressive episodes. Consistent with predictions, cognitively high-risk participants had higher lifetime prevalence than low-risk participants of major and hopelessness depression and marginally higher prevalence of minor depression. These group differences were specific to depressive disorders. The high-risk group also had more severe depressions than the low-risk group, but not longer duration or earlier onset depressions. The risk group differences in prevalence of depressive disorders were not mediated by current depressive symptoms.     

Trait impulsivity and callous-unemotional traits as predictors of inhibitory control and risky choices among high-risk adolescents

Trait impulsivity and callous-unemotional traits are associated with behavioural problems among high-risk adolescents. While both are known to influence behaviour, the nature of their expression in high-risk behaviours, particularly those related to inhibitory control, is not well understood. In the current, preliminary study, we examined whether and how these traits predicted deficits in behaviour driven by bottom-up, automatic versus deliberate, top-down inhibitory processes among high-risk adolescents. Two go/no-go task variants, emotional and non-emotional, were used to assess reactive response inhibition, and the Balloon Analogue Risk Task was used to assess the ability to resist deliberate risky choices. The results showed that the two types of self-reported trait measures were differentially associated with performance on the two types of behavioural inhibition tasks. Trait impulsivity predicted non-emotional inhibitory control whereas callous-unemotional traits predicted risky choices. The results also showed that the emotions task elicited slower reaction times and higher false alarm rates than did the letters task, and that participants had greater difficulty inhibiting responses to negatively than to positively valenced no-go stimuli. While preliminary, the results suggest that the interplay between trait impulsivity and callous-unemotional traits is an important determinant of inhibitory behaviour in this high-risk adolescents.     

Gettier Across Cultures1

In this article, we present evidence that in four different cultural groups that speak quite different languages (Brazil, India, Japan, and the USA) there are cases of justified true beliefs that are not judged to be cases of knowledge. We hypothesize that this intuitive judgment, which we call “the Gettier intuition,” may be a reflection of an underlying innate and universal core folk epistemology, and we highlight the philosophical significance of its universality.     

Assessing the generality and durability of interview‐informed functional analyses and treatment

Due to the limited research demonstrating socially valid outcomes of function‐based treatments in ecologically relevant environments (Santiago, Hanley, Moore, & Jin, 2016), we replicated and extended the effects of the interview‐informed functional analysis and skill‐based treatment procedure described by Hanley, Jin, Vanselow, and Hanratty (2014) with two children diagnosed with autism in a home setting. The assessment and treatment was implemented by a home‐based service provider and treatment was extended to the participants’ parents. Following the interview‐informed functional analyses, we taught the participants functional communication responses and to engage in less‐preferred activities when functional communication outcomes were delayed. We observed large reductions in problem behavior following the introduction of the function‐based treatment. The effects extended to novel settings, stimuli, and caregivers and the results maintained at 6‐week follow‐ups.     

Evaluating Elizabeth Grosz's Biological Turn

Elizabeth Grosz's interpretation of Darwinian evolutionary theory to ground a feminist ontology of biology has been particularly controversial. Most critics have understood Grosz as supporting her theory with empirical evidence, and they criticize her for being either inaccurate or uncritical of and overly dependent on science. I argue that Grosz reads Darwin as a philosopher in a Deleuzian and Irigarayan sense, and that Grosz's project is therefore better understood in terms of its ethical and political goals rather than in terms of empirical adequacy. Employing this evaluative framework leads to a novel route for critique of Grosz's ontology in terms of its reliance on the Darwinian distinction between organism and environment. I conclude that Grosz's work is valuable for the way it maintains ethical and political considerations in feminist ontological debates, and that introducing a more sensitive understanding of the organism–environment relation will lead us closer to a truly feminist ontology of biology.     

Sharenting: Pride,affect and the day‐to‐day politics of digital mothering

The coming together of parenting and routine posting on social networking sites has become a visible and recognisable theme, and the term “sharenting” has found a place in everyday talk to describe some forms of parental digital sharing practices. However, while social media has undoubtedly provided a space for parents to share experiences and receive support around parenting, sharenting remains a contestable issue. Thus, one reading of sharenting would be as a display of good parenting as mothers “show off” their children as a marker of success. However, the term also can be used pejoratively to describe parental oversharing of child‐focused images and content. In this paper, we explore the practice of sharenting in terms of pride, affect and the politics of digital mothering in a neoliberal context to conclude that sharenting can be best understood as a complex affective and intersectional accomplishment that produces motherhood and family as communicative activities within digital social practices.