Reactive Attachment Disorder following Early Maltreatment: Systematic Evidence beyond the Institution

Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) remains one of the least evidence-based areas of DSM and ICD nosology. Recent evidence from severely deprived institutional samples has informed review of RAD criteria for DSM-V; however, this data is not necessarily generalizable to expectable child environments in the developed world. We provide the first systematic study of this important syndrome in maltreated non-institutionalized adolescents from a high-income country. 153 high-risk adolescents in English out-of-home Looked After Care (LAC: mean age 174 months, SD 23, 52 % male) and 42 low-risk (LR) community controls (mean age 168 months, SD 18, 38 % male) were assessed for RAD behaviors. Data on maltreatment and care history were collected from social work reports and concurrent psychopathology from caregiver report. Triangulated data sources informed independent researcher ratings of adaptive functioning. LAC adolescents showed high prevalence of RAD behaviors. Factor analysis showed four symptom groups; Disinhibited Indiscriminate, Attention Seeking, Superficial Relationships and Unpredictability. RAD was associated with multiple maltreatment experience, earlier entry to care and increased rates of psychopathology. Superficial Relationships and Attention Seeking factors showed strong independent association with particularly pervasive functional impairment. Disinhibited RAD behaviors are identifiable with high prevalence in non-institutionalized high-risk adolescents. They are strongly associated with psychopathology and functional impairment. Retention of this subtype in DSM-V is supported. Findings on the inhibited subtype in adolescence are less persuasive. RAD behavior is a relevant marker of developmental impairment, has significant clinical implications and is deserving of further study within non-institutionalized risk populations.     

Repression and high anxiety are associated with aberrant diurnal cortisol rhythms in women with metastatic breast cancer.

Previous research has provided evidence of autonomic, endocrine, and immunological dysregulation in repressers and a possible association with cancer incidence and progression. Recently published data from the authors' laboratory demonstrated that flatter diurnal cortisol slopes were a risk factor for early mortality in women with metastatic breast cancer. In the current analysis of this same sample (N=91), the authors tested differences at baseline between groups scored using the Weinberger Adjustment Inventory on diurnal cortisol slope and mean cortisol levels. When compared with self-assured and nonextreme groups, the represser and high-anxious groups had a significantly flatter diurnal slope. Diurnal slope was similar for repressers and high-anxious groups. Groups did not differ on mean cortisol levels, nor did they differ on intercept (morning) values.     

Discrimination and categorization of emotional facial expressions and faces in Parkinson's disease

Our objective was to compare the ability to discriminate and categorize emotional facial expressions (EFEs) and facial identity characteristics (age and/or gender) in a group of 53 individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD) and another group of 53 healthy subjects. On the one hand, by means of discrimination and identification tasks, we compared two stages in the visual recognition process that could be selectively affected in individuals with PD. On the other hand, facial expression versus gender and age comparison permits us to contrast whether the emotional or non‐emotional content influences the configural perception of faces. In Experiment I, we did not find differences between groups, either with facial expression or age, in discrimination tasks. Conversely, in Experiment II, we found differences between the groups, but only in the EFE identification task. Taken together, our results indicate that configural perception of faces does not seem to be globally impaired in PD. However, this ability is selectively altered when the categorization of emotional faces is required. A deeper assessment of the PD group indicated that decline in facial expression categorization is more evident in a subgroup of patients with higher global impairment (motor and cognitive). Taken together, these results suggest that the problems found in facial expression recognition may be associated with the progressive neuronal loss in frontostriatal and mesolimbic circuits, which characterizes PD.     

Help Me Play! Parental Behaviors,Child Temperament,and Preschool Peer Play

Social competence is a critical developmental milestone for preschoolers. Because play is the primary activity through which preschoolers interact socially with peers, it serves as an excellent indicator of social competence. The development of social competence in preschoolers is complex and multifaceted. In order to capture this complexity, we used Belsky’s differential susceptibility hypothesis as a framework for examining the contributions of child temperament and parenting styles in the prediction of peer interactive play behaviors. Using parent ratings of a sample of 44 preschool-age children, we hypothesized that child temperament (specifically, reactivity and regulation) acts as a susceptibility factor in the relationship between parenting styles (authoritarian and authoritative) and child peer play behaviors (disruptive and interactive). Our findings indicated that child reactivity moderated the relationship between authoritarian parenting style and both play outcomes, suggesting that reactivity serves as a potential susceptibility factor. More specifically, children with high reactivity who had more authoritarian parents demonstrated higher levels of disruptive play and lower levels of interactive play. Regulation did not act as a susceptibility factor in our sample. Findings are discussed in terms of implications for practice and in terms of an approach that considers temperament (specifically reactivity) and parenting behaviors in preschool assessment and intervention efforts. Additionally, we discuss how our findings partially support the differential susceptibility hypothesis.     

The Construct Validity of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire for Aboriginal Children Living in Urban New South Wales,Australia

The current study explores the construct validity of the standard Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) for Aboriginal children living in urban communities in New South Wales, Australia. Parent report SDQ data from the first 717 Aboriginal children aged 4–17 years who participated in the baseline survey of the Study of Environment on Aboriginal Resilience and Child Health were analysed. The overall construct validity of the SDQ in our sample was acceptable but not “good.” The internal consistency reliability was excellent overall and good for all subscales with the exception of peer problems, a concept that may have a different significance for urban Aboriginal parents. Removing the peer relationships subscale, however, did not improve the fit of the model. The convergent validity of the SDQ was good. The prosocial behaviours scale and both the peer and conduct problems scales were highly correlated suggesting Aboriginal parents conceptualise these differently and that prosocial behaviours may be considered a key indicator of well‐being for Aboriginal children. Overall, the SDQ is a promising tool for urban Aboriginal children in New South Wales. Those working with Aboriginal young people should focus on the SDQ total difficulties score and limit their reliance on the peer relationships subscale.     

Tele‐web Psychology in Rural South Australia: The Logistics of Setting Up a Remote University Clinic Staffed by Clinical Psychologists in Training

There is a significant shortage of clinical psychology services in rural and remote Australia. It is proposed that tele‐web psychology may provide one potential solution to this inequity in health provision. A tele‐web psychology project was developed through a partnership between a university and country health service setting in rural South Australia. Tele‐web psychology was conducted by Provisional Psychologists on their first clinical placement, with patients attending sessions in a community mental health team hub in a regional centre north of Adelaide. This article describes the logistics of setting up a collaborative tele‐web psychology service and makes recommendations on how to expedite the success of this type of venture.     

Moral responsibility,conversation, and desert: comments on Michael McKenna’s conversation and responsibility

In this paper, I engage with several of the intriguing theses Michael McKenna puts forward in his Conversation and Responsibility. For example, I examine McKenna’s claim that the fact that an agent is morally responsible for an action and the fact that an agent is appropriately held responsible explain each other. I go on to argue that despite the importance of the ability to hold people responsible, an agent’s being morally responsible for an action is explanatorily fundamental, and in this sense responsibility is response-independent. I then explore some of the specific aspects of McKenna’s conversational theory before turning to his suggestion that the conversational nature of our responsibility practices gives us special kinds of reasons for accepting that agents are deserving of the harms of blame. Finally, I conclude by raising questions for his argument that the scope of blameworthy actions extends beyond that of impermissible actions.     

Applying the Flanker Task to Political Psychology: A Research Note

One of the two stated objectives of the new “Research Note” section of Political Psychology is to present short reports that highlight novel methodological approaches. Toward that end, we call readers' attention to the “flanker task,” a research protocol widely employed in the study of the cognitive processes involved with detection, recognition, and distraction. The flanker task has increasingly been modified to study social traits, and we believe it has untapped value in the area of political psychology. Here we describe the flanker task—discussing its potential for political psychology—and illustrate this potential by presenting results from a study correlating political ideology to flanker effects.     

Reduced cognitive control in passionate lovers

Passionate love is associated with intense changes in emotion and attention which are thought to play an important role in the early stages of romantic relationship formation. Although passionate love usually involves enhanced, near-obsessive attention to the beloved, anecdotal evidence suggest that the lover’s concentration for daily tasks like study and work may actually be impaired, suggesting reduced cognitive control. Affect might also contribute to changes in cognitive control. We examined the link between passionate love and cognitive control in a sample of students who had recently become involved in a romantic relationship. Intensity of passionate love as measured by the Passionate Love Scale was shown to correlate with decreased individual efficiency in cognitive control as measured in Stroop and flanker task performance. There was no evidence that affective changes mediate this effect. This study provides the first empirical evidence that passionate love in the early stages of romantic relationship is characterized by impaired cognitive control.