Judgments of risk frequencies: tests of possible cognitive mechanisms

How do people judge which of 2 risks claims more lives per year? The authors specified 4 candidate mechanisms and tested them against people's judgments in 3 risk environments. Two mechanisms, availability by recall and regressed frequency, conformed best to people's choices. The same mechanisms also accounted well for the mapping accuracy of estimates of absolute risk frequencies. Their nearly indistinguishable level of performance is remarkable given their different assumptions about the underlying cognitive processes and the fact that they give rise to different expectations regarding the accuracy of people's inferences. The authors discuss this seeming paradox, the lack of impact of financial incentives on judgmental accuracy, and the dominant interpretation of inaccurate inferences in terms of biased information processing.     

The children in the community study of developmental course of personality disorder

The Children in the Community (CIC) Study is an ongoing investigation of the course of psychiatric disorders including personality disorders (PDs) in an epidemiological sample of about 800 youths. In addition to tracking developmental trajectories over 20 years from adolescence into adulthood, the CIC Study has used prospective data to investigate early risks for Axis II disorders and symptoms (including both environmental factors and early characteristics), implications of comorbidity with Axis I disorders, and associated negative prognostic risk of adolescent PDs into adulthood. The substantial independent impact of PD on subsequent Axis I disorders, suicide attempts, violent and criminal behavior, interpersonal conflict, and other problematic adult outcomes confirms the importance of attention to these problems when they manifest in early adolescence. The implications of study findings for potential changes in the DSM are discussed.     

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.