Contents of Volume 7

Volume Contents

Contents of Volume 7     

Cultural Competence in Interdisciplinary Collaborations: A Method for Respecting Diversity in Research Partnerships

There is growing recognition of the need by funding agencies, universities, and research units for interdisciplinary research to tackle complex societal problems that cannot be adequately addressed by single disciplines alone. Interdisciplinary collaboration capitalizes on a diversity of perspectives and practices that each discipline offers in hopes of providing innovative solutions to multifaceted problems. However, for interdisciplinary work to be effective, members of the collaboration must recognize that cultural differences exist between and within disciplines. This paper conceptualizes disciplines as cultural groups and advocates for culturally competent practices to facilitate interdisciplinary research and practice. Specifically, each participant in interdisciplinary collaborations must value diversity, develop the capacity for self-assessment, work towards understanding one's own disciplinary culture, and be sensitive to the dynamics inherent when cultures interact. Additionally, members of any interdisciplinary endeavor must be cognizant of power dynamics at play and avoid such things as tokenism, informal hierarchies, and disciplinary policing. Through awareness of one's own disciplinary culture and sensitivity to others, interdisciplinary research and practice may provide creative solutions to important problems.     

Comprehending narratives containing flashbacks: evidence for temporally organized representations

This study investigated the representations that readers construct for narratives describing a sequence of events. Participants read narratives describing 4 successive events in chronological order (Event 1, Event 2, Event 3, Event 4 [E1, E2, E3, E4] Experiment 1) or in nonchronological order with E1 being mentioned in a flashback (E2, E3, E1, E4; Experiments 2-4). The information about the duration of E2 was manipulated, and the mental accessibility of E1 was tested at the end of a passage. All 4 experiments showed that E1 was less accessible if the text implied that it occurred a relatively long time ago in the described world compared with when it occurred a shorter time ago. This result suggests that readers construct a temporally organized representation even if the text structure does not suggest such an organization.     

Self-reported attachment, interpersonal aggression, and personality disorder in a prospective community sample of adolescents and adults

Anxious and avoidant attachment were assessed in the Children in the Community (CIC) Study during adolescence and adulthood using self-report scales developed for this prospective study. The convergent and discriminant validity of the new CIC attachment scales were evaluated and their stability was assessed across a 17-year interval. Attachment scales predicted DSM-IV personality disorders in theoretically coherent and clinically meaningful ways, especially when supplemented with a separate measure of interpersonal aggression. Cluster B and C personality disorder symptoms were associated with elevated anxious attachment. Avoidant attachment was positively associated with Cluster A symptoms and inversely associated with Cluster B and C symptoms. Interpersonal aggression was higher in Cluster B symptoms and lower in Cluster C symptoms, thus differentiating between these symptom clusters.     

The role of neuropeptide Y in the amygdala on corticotropin-releasing factor receptor-mediated behavioral stress responses in the rat

Neuropeptide Y (NPY) is one of the most abundant peptides in the brain and has been shown to be a critical regulator of emotionality, most notably for its effect in decreasing anxiety-like behaviors. The stress response in both humans and animals has been shown to involve a cascade of biological events initiated by corticotropin releasing factor (CRF), another centrally acting peptide. Interestingly, NPY and CRF are present in similar brain regions mediating stress responses and may act in an opposing fashion. The basolateral nucleus of the amygdala (BLA) is a distinct division of the amygdala and contains CRF receptors and the highest concentration of NPY neurons. The current study investigates the behavioral effects in rodents when NPY is injected directly into the BLA prior to the pharmacological stressor, urocortin I (Ucn; a CRF receptor agonist) or the emotional stressor, restraint. The animals that underwent restraint were evaluated in the social interaction (SI) test, while those injected with Ucn into the BLA were assessed in the two floor choice test, a modified version of the conditioned-place avoidance paradigm. The results showed that injections of NPY into the BLA prior to Ucn significantly blocked the development of the avoidance behavior in the two floor choice test and the decrease in SI time that is usually seen following restraint stress. These results provide further support that an interaction between NPY and CRF within the BLA may be critical for maintaining a normal homeostatic emotional state.     

An event-based account of coordination stability

Constraints underlying bimanual coordination have traditionally been explained by dynamic interactions between the effectors. However, the present experiments demonstrate that a fundamental constraint on bimanual performance is the manner in which task goals are represented. In Experiment 1, participants vocalized during in-phase and anti-phase bimanual movements. As expected, most participants spontaneously exhibited temporal coupling between the manual and vocal responses. However, the form of coupling differed for the in-phase and anti-phase conditions. For anti-phase movements, there was a strong bias to produce two vocalizations per cycle; for in-phase movements, participants were equally likely to produce one or two vocalizations per cycle. We hypothesized that the spontaneous vocalizations probed the cognitive representation of the task, and the results indicated that anti-phase movements did entail a more complex event structure than in-phase movements did. In Experiment 2, we manipulated the event structure by having participants vocalize either once or twice per hand cycle. As predicted, coordination stability was reduced when the event structure was more complex.     

Relation of emotion-related regulation to children's social competence: a longitudinal study

The differential relations of children's emotion-related regulation (i.e., effortful control and impulsivity) to their personality resiliency, adult-rated popularity, and social competence were examined in children who were 4.5-7.9 years old and who were remeasured 2 years later. Parents and teachers reported on all constructs, and children's attentional persistence was observed. Structural equation modeling was used to test the mediating role of resiliency on the relations between regulation/control and popularity using two-wave longitudinal data. The results provide some evidence of the mediating role of resiliency in the relations between effortful control and popularity, provide some evidence of bidirectional effects, and also buttress the view that emotional regulation should be differentiated into effortful and reactive forms of control.     

The regulation of explicit and implicit race bias: the role of motivations to respond without prejudice

Three studies examined the moderating role of motivations to respond without prejudice (e.g., internal and external) in expressions of explicit and implicit race bias. In all studies, participants reported their explicit attitudes toward Blacks. Implicit measures consisted of a sequential priming task (Study 1) and the Implicit Association Test (Studies 2 and 3). Study 3 used a cognitive busyness manipulation to preclude effects of controlled processing on implicit responses. In each study, explicit race bias was moderated by internal motivation to respond without prejudice, whereas implicit race bias was moderated by the interaction of internal and external motivation to respond without prejudice. Specifically, high internal, low external participants exhibited lower levels of implicit race bias than did all other participants. Implications for the development of effective self-regulation of race bias are discussed.