Is age-related stability of subjective well-being a paradox? Cross-sectional and longitudinal evidence from the Berlin Aging Study

Subjective well-being is thought to remain relatively stable into old age despite health-related losses. Age and functional health constraints were examined as predictors of individual differences and intraindividual change in subjective well-being, as indicated by positive and negative affect, using cross-sectional (N = 516) and longitudinal (N = 203) samples from the Berlin Aging Study (age range 70-103 years). In cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses, age and functional health constraints were negatively related to positive affect but unrelated to negative affect. Cross-sectionally, controlling for functional health constraints reversed the direction of the relationship between age and positive affect and produced a negative association between age and negative affect. Findings suggest two qualifications to the average stability of overall subjective well-being: Only some dimensions of subjective well-being remain stable, while others decline; age per se is not a cause of decline in subjective well-being but health constraints are.     

Revenge of the mutant cockroach: culturally adapted storytelling in the treatment of a low-income African American boy

A clinical case is presented in which a culturally adapted storytelling technique was used in child therapy with a socioeconomically disadvantaged African American boy. In this intervention, the child and therapist co-created a story by taking turns adding to the story during therapy sessions. The child's contributions to the story were interpreted by taking into account his sociocultural context, and the therapist's responses were adapted to reflect relevant sociocultural factors. Advantages of storytelling techniques in child therapy are presented, and issues to consider when using these techniques with culturally diverse populations are discussed.     

The Efficacy, Safety, and Practicality of Treatments for Adolescents with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

Studies examining interventions for adolescents diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were reviewed to evaluate their efficacy. These efficacy findings were supplemented with a preliminary system for judging safety and practicality. Results suggest that the stimulant drug methylphenidate (MPH) is safe and well-established empirically, but has some problems with inconvenience and noncompliance. Preliminary research supports the efficacy, safety, and practicality of some psychotherapeutic interventions, including behavioral classroom interventions, note-taking training, and family therapy. Treatment with tricyclic antidepressants was judged to have minimal empirical support and debatable safety. Very little is known about long-term effectiveness of treatments, long-term compliance, or multimodal treatments for adolescents such as stimulants plus behavior therapy.     

Infant recall memory and communication predicts later cognitive development

This longitudinal study investigates the relation between recall memory and communication in infancy and later cognitive development. Twenty-six typically developing Swedish children were tested during infancy for deferred imitation (memory), joint attention (JA), and requesting (nonverbal communication); they also were tested during childhood for language and cognitive competence. Results showed that infants with low performance on both deferred imitation at 9 months and joint attention at 14 months obtained a significantly lower score on a test of cognitive abilities at 4 years of age. This long-term prediction from preverbal infancy to childhood cognition is of interest both to developmental theory and to practice.     

Pharmacotherapy of delusional disorders in the context of offending and the potential for compulsory treatment

Delusional disorder is an uncommon mental illness with an estimated prevalence of 0.03%. Its low prevalence has likely contributed to the paucity of research interest in this area, leading to substantial gaps in knowledge concerning its treatment and management. In the absence of a robust literature, most clinicians rely on their experience and guidelines for treating schizophrenia when treating patients with delusional disorder. This article reviews the available literature that is specific to the treatment of delusional disorder. In addition, it focuses on specific forensic and medicolegal aspects of managing patients with delusional disorder.     

Eye remember you two: gaze direction modulates face recognition in a developmental study

The effects of gaze direction on memory for faces were studied in children from three different age groups (6-7, 8-9, and 10-11 years old) using a computerized version of a task devised by Hood, Macrae, Cole-Davies and Dias (2003). Participants were presented with a sequence of faces in an encoding phase, and were then required to judge which faces they had previously encountered in a surprise two-alternative forced-choice recognition test. In one condition, stimulus eye gaze was either direct or deviated at the viewing phase, and eyes were closed at the test phase. In another condition, stimulus eyes were closed at the viewing phase, with either direct or deviated gaze at the test phase. Modulation of gaze direction affected hit rates, with participants demonstrating greater accuracy for direct gaze targets compared to deviated gaze targets in both conditions. Reaction times (RT) to correctly recognized stimuli were faster for direct gaze stimuli at the viewing phase, but not at the test phase. The age group of participants differentially affected these measures: there was a greater hit rate advantage for direct gaze stimuli in older children, although RTs were less affected by age. These findings suggest that while the facilitation of face recognition by gaze direction is robust across encoding and recognition stages, the efficiency of the process is affected by the stage at which gaze is modulated.     

Moderator effects of cognitive ability and social support on the relation between race-related stress and quality of life in a community sample of black Americans

The current study examined the combined moderating effects of cognitive ability and social support on the relation between race-related stress and quality of life in a sample of Black Americans. Participants (N = 323) were administered the Wonderlic Personnel Test (WPT; E. F. Wonderlic Associates, Inc., 1983), the Multidimensional Social Support Scale (MDSS; Winefield, Winefield, & Tiggemann, 1992), the Index of Race-Related Stress-Brief (Utsey, 1999), and the WHOQOL-BREF (The WHO Group, 1998). The findings indicated that cognitive ability and social support, conjointly, moderated the relation between individual and cultural race-related stress and quality of life for Black Americans in the current sample. The paper concludes by discussing the study's findings, limitations, and by offering recommendations for future research related to this area of inquiry.     

Intramuscular electrical stimulation of facial muscles in humans and chimpanzees: Duchenne revisited and extended

The pioneering work of Duchenne (1862/1990) was replicated in humans using intramuscular electrical stimulation and extended to another species (Pan troglodytes: chimpanzees) to facilitate comparative facial expression research. Intramuscular electrical stimulation, in contrast to the original surface stimulation, offers the opportunity to activate individual muscles as opposed to groups of muscles. In humans, stimulation resulted in appearance changes in line with Facial Action Coding System (FACS) action units (AUs), and chimpanzee facial musculature displayed functional similarity to human facial musculature. The present results provide objective identification of the muscle substrate of human and chimpanzee facial expressions- data that will be useful in providing a common language to compare the units of human and chimpanzee facial expression.     

Hostility, anger, aggressiveness, and coronary heart disease: an interpersonal perspective on personality, emotion, and health

The related traits of hostility, anger, and aggressiveness have long been suggested as risk factors for coronary heart disease (CHD). Our prior review of this literature (Smith, 1992) found both considerable evidence in support of this hypothesis and important limitations that precluded firm conclusions. In the present review, we discuss recent research on the assessment of these traits, their association with CHD and longevity, and mechanisms possibly underlying the association. In doing so, we illustrate the value of the interpersonal tradition in personality psychology (Sullivan, 1953; Leary, 1957; Carson, 1969; Kiesler, 1996) for not only research on the health consequences of hostility, anger, and aggressiveness, but also for the general study of the effects of emotion, personality and other psychosocial characteristics on physical health.