Cultural-Related, Contextual, and Asthma-Specific Risks Associated with Asthma Morbidity in Urban Children

The objective of this study was to examine associations between specific dimensions of the multi-dimensional cumulative risk index (CRI) and asthma morbidity in urban, school-aged children from African American, Latino and Non-Latino White backgrounds. An additional goal of the study was to identify the proportion of families that qualify for high-risk status on each dimension of the CRI by ethnic group. A total of 264 children with asthma, ages 7–15 (40% female; 76% ethnic minority) and their primary caregivers completed interview-based questionnaires assessing cultural, contextual, and asthma-specific risks that can impact asthma morbidity. Higher levels of asthma-related risks were associated with more functional morbidity for all groups of children, despite ethnic group background. Contextual and cultural risk dimensions contributed to more morbidity for African-American and Latino children. Analyses by Latino ethnic subgroup revealed that contextual and cultural risks are significantly related to more functional morbidity for Puerto Rican children compared to Dominican children. Findings suggest which type of risks may more meaningfully contribute to variations in asthma morbidity for children from specific ethnic groups. These results can inform culturally sensitive clinical interventions for urban children with asthma whose health outcomes lag far behind their non-Latino White counterparts.     

Correction to: Secret Agent Society: a Randomized Controlled Trial of a Transdiagnostic Youth Social Skills Group Treatment

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology -     

中澳两国儿童社会观点采择能力的跨文化对比研究

本研究以中国寓言图画故事为刺激材料,通过个别询问,探查了中澳4至7、8岁儿童的社会观点采择能力及对个性特征的认知发展。结果表明,尽管两国被试来自不同的文化和社会背景,但显示出大致相同的发展顺序和认知特点,在发展水平上,中国儿童高于澳大利亚儿童,这可能跟刺激材料的内容和性质有关。     

Development of sensitivity to spacing versus feature changes in pictures of houses: Evidence for slow development of a general spacing detection mechanism?

Adults are expert at recognizing faces, in part because of exquisite sensitivity to the spacing of facial features. Children are poorer than adults at recognizing facial identity and less sensitive to spacing differences. Here we examined the specificity of the immaturity by comparing the ability of 8-year-olds, 14-year-olds, and adults to discriminate houses differing in the spacing between features versus those differing in the shape of the features themselves. By 8 years of age, children were more accurate for discriminations involving the feature set compared with the spacing set, and the difference in accuracy compared with adults was greater for the spacing set than for the feature set. Importantly, when sets were matched in difficulty for adults, this greater immaturity on the spacing set than on the feature set remained. The results suggest that, at least by age 8, immaturities in sensitivity to the spacing of features may be related to immaturities in general perceptual mechanisms rather than face-specific mechanisms.     

Sparing of sensitivity to biological motion but not of global motion after early visual deprivation

Patients deprived of visual experience during infancy by dense bilateral congenital cataracts later show marked deficits in the perception of global motion (dorsal visual stream) and global form (ventral visual stream). We expected that they would also show marked deficits in sensitivity to biological motion, which is normally processed in the superior temporal sulcus via input from both the dorsal and ventral streams. When tested on the same day for sensitivity to biological motion and to global motion at two speeds (4 and 18° s(-1)), patients, as expected, displayed a large deficit in processing global motion at both speeds. Surprisingly, they performed normally in discriminating biological motion from scrambled displays, tolerating as much noise as their age-matched controls. Networks bypassing damaged portions of the dorsal and the ventral streams must mediate the spared sensitivity to biological motion after early visual deprivation.     

Effects of normal and abnormal visual experience on the development of opposing aftereffects for upright and inverted faces

We used opposing figural aftereffects to investigate whether there are at least partially separable representations of upright and inverted faces in patients who missed early visual experience because of bilateral congenital cataracts (mean age at test 19.5 years). Visually normal adults and 10-year-olds were tested for comparison. Adults showed the expected opposing aftereffects for upright and inverted faces. Ten-year-olds showed an adultlike aftereffect for upright faces but, unlike the adult group, no aftereffect for inverted faces. Patients failed to show an aftereffect for either upright or inverted faces. Overall, the results suggest that early visual input is necessary for the later development of (at least partially) separable representations of upright and inverted faces, a developmental process that takes many years to reach an adult-like refinement.     

Testing compensatory health beliefs in a UK population

Compensatory health beliefs, beliefs that healthy behaviours can compensate or neutralise unhealthy behaviours, have been proposed as one way of understanding why people engage in health-risk behaviours (Knäuper, B., Rabiau, M., Cohen, O., & Patriciu, N. (2004). Compensatory health beliefs scale development and psychometric properties. Psychology and Health, 19, 607–624). However, measuring compensatory health beliefs has proved a challenge, with several recent studies being unable to replicate the psychometric properties of Knäuper et al.'s (2004) scales. The aims of this study were to: (1) test the factor structure of the compensatory health beliefs scale in the UK, (2) examine the predictive validity of the scale by testing the relationships between compensatory health beliefs and health behaviours over a six-month time interval and (3) assess the 6-month test–retest reliability of the scale. A total of 393 participants completed measures of compensatory health beliefs and health behaviours at two time points separated by six months. The findings were potentially problematic for research into compensatory health beliefs: the factor structure was not confirmed, there was little evidence of predictive validity, and test–retest reliability was poor. Further research is required to understand the operation of compensatory health beliefs and to develop the measurement of compensatory health beliefs.     

Authentic leadership,psychological capital,job satisfaction and intention to leave in state-owned enterprises

This study investigated the relations among authentic leadership, psychological capital, job satisfaction and intention to leave within state-owned enterprises in Namibia. Participants were a convenience sample of 452 employees (females?=?49.6%, mean age?=?37.36, SD?=?8.57) state-owned enterprises in Namibia. They completed the Authentic Leadership Questionnaire, Psychological Capital Questionnaire, Job Satisfaction Questionnaire and Turnover Intention Scale. Structural equation modelling was utilised to investigate the relations among authentic leadership, psychological capital, job satisfaction and intention to leave. The findings indicated that authentic leadership was positively associated with psychological capital (i.e. experiences of hope, optimism, self-efficacy and resilience) and job satisfaction. Authentic leadership affected job satisfaction indirectly via psychological capital. Psychological capital had a medium to large indirect effect on employees' intentions to leave. The findings suggest that authentic leadership and psychological capital explain job satisfaction and retention of employees in state-owned enterprises.