Maternal Empathy and Changes in Mothers’ Permissiveness as Predictors of Toddlers’ Early Social Competence with Peers: A Parenting Intervention Study

The goal of the current study was to examine how changes in parenting due to a parenting intervention designed to decrease permissive parenting affected the quality of children’s peer interactions. Forty-nine mothers of toddlers aged 2–3 years participated in a 12-week intervention in which half got hands-on training and practice using positive guidance in a toddler classroom setting, while the other half learned positive guidance solely via a seminar format. To observe children’s peer interactions, toddlers were divided into 8 groups of 5–7 children mixed across condition. Observers coded mothers’ empathy, permissiveness, and positive guidance parenting strategies. Children’s peer interactions were coded for antisocial behaviors, verbal aggression, physical aggression, prosocial behaviors, positive social bids, and empathy. Prior analysis of this intervention indicated that mothers in both conditions showed reductions in permissiveness over the course of the intervention. Results from the present study indicated that reductions in permissiveness predicted decreases in toddlers’ verbal aggression. Maternal empathy was a moderator such that mothers low in empathy who got hands-on training in positive guidance had children who demonstrated the greatest reductions in antisocial behaviors.     

Cognitive Complexity and Dissociative Identity Disorder

Thirteen patients with dissociative identity disorder (DID), 13 with other mental disorders, and 10 nondiagnosed comparison participants were given individual grids. Results showed that displaying alternate personalities did not portend a more multidimensional level of thinking. Instead, the nonclinical comparison group had the greater degree of complexity in comparison to both clinical groups. A notable clinical observation was that DID patients, as compared to non-DID participants, had a greater understanding and speed in completing the grid. Findings are discussed in terms of the advantages of personal construct theory for conceptualizing the construct of dissociation.     

Reversed mnemic neglect of self-threatening memories in dysphoria

Previous research has suggested that people have difficulties remembering information which is threatening to the self—an effect known as mnemic neglect. Three experiments are presented that examined mnemic neglect in dysphoria and whether dysphoric individuals show enhanced memory for self-threatening information. Pilot work determined that dysphoric participants rated central negative traits as more important than nondysphoric participants. In Experiment 1, dysphoric participants were found to have better memory for self-threatening information than nondysphoric participants. Enhanced recall of self-threatening memories was also found for unmodifiable (Experiment 2), and highly diagnostic (Experiment 3) self-threatening traits. The findings suggest that dysphoric participants show reversed mnemic neglect effects indicating enhanced access to negative information relating to the self.     

Can inhibition resolve retrieval competition through the control of spreading activation?

Two experiments are reported in which the mechanisms underlying retrieval-induced forgetting for complex prose materials were investigated, using the independent probe technique pioneered by Anderson and Spellman (1995). These experiments provide additional empirical evidence in support of an inhibitory account of memory. Specifically, evidence emerged not only for the inhibition of nonpracticed items from practiced sets (i.e., first-order effects), but also for the inhibition of items from nonpracticed sets that were semantically related to practiced items in practiced sets (i.e., cross-category effects) and for items from nonpracticed sets that were semantically related to nonpracticed items in practiced sets (ie., second-order effects). These findings are considered in terms of Anderson and Spellman's model of inhibitory processing. We also outline an alternative inhibitory interpretation. Specifically, we consider how inhibition may function as a way of controlling the spread of activation and what implications this may have for the flexibility and adaptiveness of memory.     

Empirically and clinically useful decision making in psychotherapy: differential predictions with treatment response models

In the delivery of clinical services, outcomes monitoring (i.e., repeated assessments of a patient's response to treatment) can be used to support clinical decision making (i.e., recurrent revisions of outcome expectations on the basis of that response). Outcomes monitoring can be particularly useful in the context of established practice research networks. This article presents a strategy to disaggregate patients into homogeneous subgroups to generate optimal expected treatment response profiles, which can be used to predict and track the progress of patients in different treatment modalities. The study was based on data from 618 diagnostically diverse patients treated with either a cognitive-behavioral treatment protocol (n = 262) or an integrative cognitive-behavioral and interpersonal treatment protocol (n = 356). The validity of expected treatment response models to predict treatment in those 2 protocols for individual patients was evaluated. The ways such a procedure might be used in outpatient centers to learn more about patients, predict treatment response, and improve clinical practice are discussed.     

Age, memory load, and individual differences in working memory as determinants of class-inclusion reasoning.

We studied the effects of individual differences in speak-span scores and variations in memory demands on the class-inclusion performance of 10-, 13-, and 15-year-old children. The speak-span task was an age-appropriate modification of Daneman and Carpenter's (1980) reading-span task and was considered to be a measure of global resources. The age variable was assumed to be a global index of skill development, and some of the specific skills hypothesized to be important in class-inclusion reasoning were estimated using a mathematical model. The results from both regression analyses and the mathematical model indicated that differences in age, speak span, and memory load all affected performance. Surprisingly, the effects of speak span and memory load were independent. However, the effects of each of these variables depended on the age level of the participants. Based on these findings, we argued that (a) resources vary continuously with age, (b) both skill level and global resources should be varied in developmental studies of problem solving, and (c) resource theories (e.g., Norman & Shallice, 1986) should be modified to account for developmental change.     

Archetypes, complexes and self-organization

There has always been confusion and disagreement about the nature of the terms archetype and complex in Jungian circles, not to mention non-Jungian ones. Another ongoing concern is whether Jung's concept of the archetype and complex can be justified in terms of current scientific research, most notably that of neurophysiologists and others interested in the brain and consciousness. This paper proposes a theory of the formation of complexes, namely, that they are created through self-organization within the brain/mind. Self-organization is a process typical of large complex systems, and is generally accepted to operate within the brain and to be important in its functioning. Examples of self-organization in biology are related to the psychic processes that form the complexes. It is then natural to define the archetype in terms of the complex, and the authors propose a definition of the archetype as an equivalence class of complexes. On this view, the archetype is an emergent property of the activity of the brain/mind, and is, appropriately, defined at the level at which it emerges. This definition is in line with the original development of Jung's ideas, in that he derived the concept of the archetype from his earlier discovery of the feeling-toned complex.     

The effect of texture relief on perception of slant from texture

Texture can be an effective source of information for perception of slant and curvature. A computational assumption required for some texture cues is that texture must be flat along a surface. There are many textures which violate this assumption, and have some sort of texture relief: variations perpendicular to the surface. Some examples include grass, which has vertical elements, or scattered rocks, which are volumetric elements with 3-D shapes. Previous studies of perception of slant from texture have not addressed the case of textures with relief. The experiments reported here test judgments of slant for textures with various types of relief, including textures composed of bumps, columns, and oriented elements. The presence of texture relief was found to affect judgments, indicating that perception of slant from texture is not robust to violations of the flat-texture assumption. For bumps and oriented elements, slant was underestimated relative to matching flat textures, while for columns textures, which had visible flat top faces, perceived slant was equal or greater than for flat textures. The differences can be explained by the way different types of texture relief affect the amount of optical compression in the projected image, which would be consistent with results from previous experiments using cue conflicts in flat textures. These results provide further evidence that compression contributes to perception of slant from texture.