Sexually abused children suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder: assessment and treatment strategies

Child sexual abuse is a highly prevalent problem that frequently occasions the onset of post-traumatic stress disorder in the victimized youngster. This selective review addresses recent advances in the assessment and treatment of sexually abused children with post-traumatic stress disorder. Firstly, we outline the diagnostic criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder and significant moderating variables in the development of post-traumatic stress disorder. Secondly, we address the clinical assessment of post-traumatic stress disorder in sexually abused children, recommending a developmentally sensitive, multi-informant approach. Thirdly, we consider a family-wide cognitive-behavioural treatment framework for sexually abused children with post-traumatic stress disorder that involves both child and non-offending caregivers. Fourthly, we examine the results of recent evaluation studies supportive of cognitive-behavioural therapy in the treatment of sexually abused children. Lastly, we consider conclusions for clinical practice and directions for future research.     

The Interplay Among Risk Factors for Suicidal Ideation and Suicide: The Role of Depression, Poor Health, and Loved Ones' Messages of Support and Criticism

When individuals who receive social support are in poor physical or mental health and are criticized or made to feel unwanted, they may perceive themselves as a burden. Poor physical health and depression were hypothesized to exacerbate the harmful effects on suicidal ideation of receiving critical negative messages and of receiving social support. These hypotheses were tested using secondary analyses of data from a sample of 533 unemployed married individuals who were assessed shortly after job loss, and 6 months later. The results of our analyses supported the hypotheses and demonstrated that for participants with poor health or high level of depressive symptoms an increase in critical messages and social support (from Time 1 to Time 2) predicted increased suicidal ideation. This relationship was not observed for non- depressed participants in good health. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for suicide prevention.     

An on-line look at automatic contrast and correction of behavior categorizations and dispositional inferences

The current study examined on-line behavior recategorization as a mechanism underlying corrections for contextual influences in dispositional inferences. After watching an initial comparison video that portrayed either a successful or unsuccessful performance on a spatial ability task, cognitive load and no load participants watched and made real-time ratings of a target performance. The comparison video was expected to exert a contrastive influence on participants' automatic impressions of the performance (behavior categorizations) and the child's intelligence (dispositional inferences). Load participants' on-line and post-video performance and ability ratings showed this expected effect, as did no load participants' initial on-line performance ratings. However, no load participants' later on-line and post-video ratings did not. These findings support the notion that corrections for contextual influence can occur at the level of behavior identification as perceivers encode behavioral cues.     

Selective attention to facial emotion in physically abused children

The ability to allocate attention to emotional cues in the environment is an important feature of adaptive self-regulation. Existing data suggest that physically abused children overattend to angry expressions, but the attentional mechanisms underlying such behavior are unknown. The authors tested 8-11-year-old physically abused children to determine whether they displayed specific information-processing problems in a selective attention paradigm using emotional faces as cues. Physically abused children demonstrated delayed disengagement when angry faces served as invalid cues. Abused children also demonstrated increased attentional benefits on valid angry trials. Results are discussed in terms of the influence of early adverse experience on children's selective attention to threat-related signals as a mechanism in the development of psychopathology.     

The self-fulfilling influence of mother expectations on children's underage drinking

This research examined whether mothers' expectations about their children's drinking behavior influenced their children's future alcohol use through self-fulfilling prophecies. It also investigated whether children's self-esteem, family social class, or the valence of mother expectations moderated this process. Analyses of longitudinal data from 505 mother-child dyads yielded results consistent with a self-fulfilling prophecy. The inaccurate portion of mother expectations predicted children's future alcohol use after accounting for relevant control variables. Moderation analyses indicated that this effect was stronger among higher self-esteem children and when mother expectations were positively valenced (i.e., when mothers underestimated their children's future alcohol use). The findings are discussed in terms of parent-child relationship quality, peer influences, self theories, and out-group stereotypes.     

Applying a bifactor model to the functions of relational aggression: Associations with hostile attribution biases and difficulties with emotion regulation

Previous research suggests that reactive and proactive aggression likely have distinct underlying mechanisms that uniquely contribute to the perpetration of each as a result of faulty cognitive and emotional processes. Still, very little work has examined the association of the functions of relational aggression with emotion dysregulation and hostile attribution biases. In addition, it is important to examine relational aggression in its pure and co-occurring functions given that past work finds reactive and proactive aggression to occur both jointly and distinctly. Thus, the current study employed a bifactor model to distinguish between pure reactive, pure proactive, and co-occurring relational aggression in emerging adulthood (N = 647, M_age = 19.92, SD = 2.83), a developmental time period for which relational aggression is particularly prominent. To further address gaps in the relational aggression literature, indirect pathway models revealed that relational hostile attribution biases emerged as a concurrent indirect path in the relationship between emotion dysregulation and pure reactive relational aggression. Furthermore, emotion dysregulation was directly positively associated with both pure functions as well as co-occurring relational aggression, and hostile attribution biases for relational provocations were directly associated with both pure functions of relational aggression, though the association was negative for pure proactive and positive for pure reactive relational aggression. Findings highlight the potential influence of emotion dysregulation and attributing hostile intent to social situations on engaging in the different functions of relational aggression.     

Openness to Experience and Development of Adult Identity

ABSTRACT The formation of ego identity through exploration of alternatives and formation of commitments is a central issue in the transition from adolescence to adulthood (Erikson, 1959, Waterman, 1982) In 59 adults ranging in age from 18 to 30, independent identity scales were found to be positively correlated with age The construct of openness to experience was hypothesized to account for individual differences in identity development As predicted, openness to experience was positively correlated with ratings of current and past identity exploration, and negatively related to intensity of identity commitment A comparison of two methods of measuring ego identity showed that identity rating scales provide a more differentiated assessment of psychosocial development than does the identity status scoring method     

Parental separation/divorce and adolescents: An examination of factors mediating adaptation

This study examined the relationship between differences in current adjustment as they related to a number of demographic, personal, and situational factors for 65 late adolescents/young adults who had experienced this life transition. Utilizing multiple regression analyses, several factors emerged as particularly salient mediators of the adolescents' postdivorce adjustment, including distance from home, coping style, family cohesion, conflict and organization, and the use of family members for support. The importance of clarifying the role of psychological and situational mediating factors in order to understand the consequences of parental divorce and to organize preventive and ameliorative efforts for this population is discussed.