Depressive implicit associations and adults' reports of childhood abuse

Theory and research suggest that negative events in childhood (e.g., childhood abuse) may contribute to the development of a cognitive vulnerability to depression. A limitation of past research, however, is that the majority has focused on explicit cognitions (e.g., attributional style) and it remains unclear whether similar relations would be observed for more implicit measures of depressive cognitions. This study investigated the relation between young adults' reports of childhood abuse and their implicit depressive cognitions, as measured by the Implicit Association Test. As hypothesised, young adults reporting a history of childhood abuse exhibited stronger implicit associations for depression-relevant stimuli than did individuals with no abuse history. These results were maintained even after statistically controlling for the influence of current depressive symptom levels.     

??Putting on?? Sexiness: A Content Analysis of the Presence of Sexualizing Characteristics in Girls?? Clothing

Objectification theory (Fredrickson and Roberts 1997) proposes that women from Western cultures are widely portrayed and treated as objects of the male gaze, leading to the development of self-objectification, in which girls and women internalize these societal messages and view their own bodies as objects to be evaluated according to narrow standards of (often sexualized) attractiveness. Prompted by findings from the American Psychological Association Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls (APA 2007), the present study considers girls?? clothing as a possible socializing influence that may contribute to the development of self-objectification in preteen girls. Accordingly, in this content analysis, we examined the frequency and nature of ??sexualizing?? clothing available for girl children (generally sizes 6?C14) on the websites of 15 popular stores in the US. Sexualizing clothing was defined as clothing that revealed or emphasized a sexualized body part, had characteristics associated with sexiness, and/or had sexually suggestive writing. Clothing was also coded for childlike characteristics, such as child-like fabric (e.g., polka dot pattern) or a modest, non-revealing cut. Across all stores and all articles of clothing, 69% of the clothing items were coded as having only childlike characteristics, 4% as having only sexualizing characteristics, 25.4% as having both sexualizing and childlike characteristics, and 1% as having neither sexualizing nor childlike characteristics. ??Tween?? stores like Abercrombie Kids had the highest proportion of sexualizing clothing. The findings are discussed within the framework of the development of self-objectification.     

Sexual orientation and shifts in preferences for a partner's body attributes in short-term versus long-term mating contexts

This study assessed the effects of short- and long-term mating contexts on preferences for body characteristics of potential relationship partners in lesbians and heterosexual women. Lesbians (n = 41) rated figure drawings and computer-generated images of women that varied in body fat, waist-to-hip ratio, and breast size; heterosexual women (n = 95) rated computer-generated images of men that varied in muscularity and body fat. Both lesbians and heterosexual women showed a shift in preferences toward more physically attractive partners for shortterm relationships. All body aspects were affected, except that heterosexual women did not show a preference shift for male body fat. The results were interpreted in terms of a mating trade-off strategy in which mate preferences are the consequence of cost/benefit analyses and suggest that preferences for physical attributes of sexual partners may be shared by members of the same sex regardless of sexual orientation.     

Perceived past, present, and future control and adjustment to stressful life events

Perceived control is a central construct in psychology and is key to understanding individual differences in poststress outcomes (Frazier, Berman, & Steward, 2001). The goals of the current studies (using 4 samples of undergraduate students, total N = 1,421) were to examine the relations between different aspects of perceived control and poststress outcomes and to differentiate perceived control over specific events from related constructs (i.e., general control beliefs, coping strategies). To accomplish these goals, we first developed a new measure of perceived past, present, and future control over stressful life events. The data supported the content validity, factor structure, internal consistency and test-retest reliability, and convergent and discriminant validity of the new measure. Consistent with the temporal model of control (Frazier et al., 2001), these 3 forms of control had very different relations with adjustment. Present control was consistently related to lower distress levels in cross-sectional, longitudinal, and prospective analyses. Present control also predicted outcomes beyond the effects of general control beliefs and coping strategies. Past and future control had nonsignificant or positive relations with distress, although future control was associated with better outcomes (i.e., course grades) when the stressor was controllable. Thus, our measure can be used to assess the relations between perceived past, present, and future control and outcomes across a range of stressors. Because the relations between these 3 forms of control and outcomes differ markedly, measures that combine these aspects of control hinder the understanding of the important role of perceived control in adjustment to stress.     

The Role of Repetitive Negative Thoughts in the Vulnerability for Emotional Problems in Non-Clinical Children

The current study examined the role of repetitive negative thoughts in the vulnerability for emotional problems in non-clinical children aged 8–13 years (N = 158). Children completed self-report questionnaires for assessing (1) neuroticism and behavioral inhibition as indicators of general vulnerability (2) worry and rumination which are two important manifestations of repetitive negative thoughts, and (3) emotional problems (i.e., anxiety, depression, and sleep difficulties). Results demonstrated that there were positive correlations between measures of general vulnerability, repetitive negative thoughts, and emotional problems. Further, support was found for a model in which worry and rumination acted as partial mediators in the relation between neuroticism and symptoms of anxiety and depression. In the case of sleep difficulties, no evidence was obtained for such a mediation model. In fact, data suggested that sleeping difficulties are better conceived as an epiphenomenon of high symptom levels of anxiety and depression or as a risk factor for the development of other types of psychopathology. Finally, besides neuroticism, the temperamental trait of behavioral inhibition appeared to play a unique direct role in the model predicting anxiety symptoms but not in the models predicting depressive symptoms or sleep difficulties. To conclude, the current findings seem to indicate that worry and rumination contribute to children’s vulnerability for anxiety and depression.     

Brooding Rumination and Risk for Depressive Disorders in Children of Depressed Mothers

The goal of the current study was to examine the role of brooding rumination in children at risk for depression. We found that children of mothers with a history of major depression exhibited higher levels of brooding rumination than did children of mothers with no depression history. Examining potential mechanisms of this risk, we found no evidence for shared genetic influences (BDNF or 5-HTTLPR) or modeling of mothers’ rumination. However, we did find that children with a history of prior depressive disorders exhibited higher current levels of brooding rumination than children with no depression history. Importantly, children’s brooding predicted prospective onsets of new depressive episodes over a 20-month follow-up even when we statistically controlled for depressive symptom levels at the initial assessment, suggesting that the predictive effect of brooding rumination in children was not due simply to co-occurring depressive symptoms.     

The latent variable approach as applied to transitive reasoning

We discuss the limitations of hypothesis testing using (quasi-) experiments in the study of cognitive development and suggest latent variable modeling as a viable alternative to experimentation. Latent variable models allow testing a theory as a whole, incorporating individual differences with respect to developmental processes or abilities in the model. Experiments, in contrast, aim at testing hypotheses that refer to a specific part of a theory; also they ignore individual differences or model the individual differences using age group as a proxy for developmental stage. Drawing on a sample of 409 5–13-year olds, we demonstrate the advantages of latent variable models in the area of transitive reasoning. A comparison of three models showed that the latent variable model that represented fuzzy trace theory had a better fit than the models representing Piaget's theory or linear ordering theory.     

The effects of ageing and divided attention on the self-reference effect in emotional memory: Spontaneous or effortful mnemonic benefits?

The self-reference effect (SRE) is a powerful memory advantage associated with encoding in reference to the self (e.g., Rogers, Kuiper, & Kirker, 1977). To explore whether this mnemonic benefit occurs spontaneously, the current study assessed how ageing and divided attention affect the magnitude of the SRE in emotional memory (i.e., memory for emotional stimuli). The sample included a young Full Attention group (young-FA), a young Divided Attention group (young-DA), and an older adult group. The division of attention was manipulated at encoding where participants incidentally studied positive, negative, and neutral trait adjectives in either a self-reference (i.e., rating how well each word describes themselves) or an other-reference condition (i.e., rating how well each word describes another person). Memory for these words was assessed with both recall and recognition tasks. The results from both tasks demonstrated equivalent SRE for all three groups across emotional valence categories of stimuli, suggesting that the SRE is a spontaneous, effortless, and robust effect in memory.     

Subliminal food images compromise superior working memory performance in women with restricting anorexia nervosa

Prefrontal cortex (PFC) is dysregulated in women with restricting anorexia nervosa (RAN). It is not known whether appetitive non-conscious stimuli bias cognitive responses in those with RAN. Thirteen women with RAN and 20 healthy controls (HC) completed a dorsolateral PFC (DLPFC) working memory task and an anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) conflict task, while masked subliminal food, aversive and neutral images were presented. During the DLPFC task, accuracy was higher in the RAN compared to the HC group, but superior performance was compromised when subliminal food stimuli were presented: errors positively correlated with self-reported trait anxiety in the RAN group. These effects were not observed in the ACC task. Appetitive activation is intact and anxiogenic in women with RAN, and non-consciously interacts with working memory processes associated with the DLPFC. This interaction mechanism may underlie cognitive inhibition of appetitive processes that are anxiety inducing, in people with AN.