Family involvement for children with disruptive behaviors: The role of parenting stress and motivational beliefs

Children with disruptive behaviors are at risk for adverse outcomes. Family involvement is a significant predictor of positive child behavior outcomes; however, little research has investigated parent psychological variables that influence family involvement for children with disruptive behaviors. This study investigated the role of parental motivational beliefs (i.e., role construction and efficacy) as a potential mechanism by which parenting stress impacts family involvement for families of children with disruptive behaviors. Results indicated that parent role construction mediated the relation between parenting stress and all aspects of family involvement examined (i.e., home-based involvement, school-based involvement, and home-school communication). Parent efficacy mediated the relation between parenting stress and home-based involvement only. Parents of children with disruptive behaviors reporting stress may experience negative beliefs about their role and efficacy to support their child's education, which may thereby negatively influence their actual involvement. Therefore, parent motivational beliefs may serve as an important point for intervention to support involvement of families of children with disruptive behavior.     

Correction to: Neighborhood Physical Environments,Recreational Wellbeing,and Psychological Health

Applied Research in Quality of Life - The original version for this paper unfortunately contained errors in the Author group, affiliation, and in the abstract.     

Book Review: Cultural Psychotherapy: Working with Culture in the Clinical Encounter. By Karen M. Seeley. Northvale,NJ & London: Jason Aronson,Inc., 2000, 266 pp., ISBN 0-7657-0224-X

Pastoral Psychology -     

Membership in a Devalued Social Group and Emotional Well-Being: Developing a Model of Personal Self-Esteem,Collective Self-Esteem,and Group Socialization

We proposed and tested a theoretical model that links membership in a devalued social group to emotional health. People who identify with devalued social groups (e.g., ethnic minorities, gay men/lesbians, bisexuals, women) may be at increased risk for distress via 3 different pathways. First, some members of devalued groups may internalize negative stereotypes about their group, which negatively impact personal self-esteem. Second, being devalued simply on the basis of one's group membership could lead to emotional distress independent of one's own personal self-esteem. Third, some members of devalued groups may be socialized to develop attitudes and behaviors that increase their risk for emotional distress. Data were collected from a sample of White, middle-to-upper-class undergraduate women and men with respect to personal self-esteem, collective self-esteem on the basis of their gender group, attitudes and behaviors associated with female socialization, and emotional distress. Results supported the direct effect of each pathway in predicting concurrent depression and partially supported the prediction of concurrent anxiety. Each pathway fully accounted for women's greater levels of depression relative to men's. Implications for the study of devalued groups are discussed.     

Distributional analyses in auditory lexical decision: Neighborhood density and word-frequency effects

In the present article, the effects of phonological neighborhood density and word frequency in spoken word recognition were examined using distributional analyses of response latencies in auditory lexical decision. A density × frequency interaction was observed in mean latencies; frequency effects were larger for low-density words than for high-density words. Distributional analyses further revealed that for low-density words, frequency effects were reflected in both distributional shifting and skewing, whereas for high-density words, frequency effects were purely mediated by distributional skewing. The results suggest that word frequency plays a role in early auditory word recognition only when there is relatively little competition between similar-sounding words, and that frequency effects in high-density words reflect postlexical checking.     

Attributional Style and Psychodynamic Defense Mechanisms: Toward an Integrative Model of Depression

The present study examined the influences of cognitive style and psychodynamic defense mechanisms in accounting for levels of dysphoria. Measures of dysphoria, defense mechanisms, and attributional style were completed by 147 undergraduate students. Consistent with the hypothesis, both attributional style and principalization were independently associated with dysphoria. Moreover, principalization moderated the influence of attributional style on levels of dysphoria. In addition, attributional style and turning against self were independently associated with dysphoria. Turning against other, projection, and reversal were not associated with dysphoria. The results provide partial support for the notion that the applicability and validity of the hopelessness theory of depression are bolstered by a consideration of psychodynamic phenomena. Potential implications of this line of research for the movement toward psychotherapy integration are discussed.     

Attaching meaning to the number words: contributions of the object tracking and approximate number systems

Children's understanding of the quantities represented by number words (i.e., cardinality) is a surprisingly protracted but foundational step in their learning of formal mathematics. The development of cardinal knowledge is related to one or two core, inherent systems – the approximate number system (ANS) and the object tracking system (OTS) – but whether these systems act alone, in concert, or antagonistically is debated. Longitudinal assessments of 198 preschool children on OTS, ANS, and cardinality tasks enabled testing of two single‐mechanism (ANS‐only and OTS‐only) and two dual‐mechanism models, controlling for intelligence, executive functions, preliteracy skills, and demographic factors. Measures of both OTS and ANS predicted cardinal knowledge in concert early in the school year, inconsistent with single‐mechanism models. The ANS but not the OTS predicted cardinal knowledge later in the school year as well the acquisition of the cardinal principle, a critical shift in cardinal understanding. The results support a Merge model, whereby both systems initially contribute to children's early mapping of number words to cardinal value, but the role of the OTS diminishes over time while that of the ANS continues to support cardinal knowledge as children come to understand the counting principles.     

A comparison of autogenous/reactive obsessions and worry in a nonclinical population: a test of the continuum hypothesis

Employing the autogenous-reactive model of obsessions (Behaviour Research and Therapy 41 (2003) 11-29), this study sought to test a hypothesized continuum where reactive obsessions fall in between autogenous obsessions and worry with respect to several thought characteristics concerning content appraisal, perceived form, and thought triggers. Nonclinical undergraduate students (n=435) were administered an online packet of questionnaires designed to examine the three different types of thoughts. Main data analyses included only those displaying moderate levels of obsessions or worries (n=252). According to the most distressing thought, three different groups were formed and compared: autogenous obsession (n=34), reactive obsession (n=76), and worry (n=142). Results revealed that (a) relative to worry, autogenous obsessions were perceived as more bizarre, more unacceptable, more unrealistic, and less likely to occur; (b) autogenous obsessions were more likely to take the form of impulses, urges, or images, whereas worry was more likely to take the form of doubts, apprehensions, or thoughts; and (c) worry was more characterized by awareness and identifiability of thought triggers, with reactive obsessions through these comparisons falling in between. Moreover, reactive obsessions, relative to autogenous obsessions, were more strongly associated with both severity of worry and use of worrying as a thought control strategy. Our data suggest that the reactive subtype represents more worry-like obsessions compared to the autogenous subtype.