Social perspective-taking skills in maltreated children and adolescents

The primary goal of this study was to assess the ability of maltreated school-age children and adolescents to understand the thoughts, feelings, and points of view of others. Level of egocentrism and social perspective-taking coordination were assessed in a group of 49 maltreated and 49 demographically matched nonmaltreated children. Twenty-six elementary and 23 high school students in each group were individually interviewed and their responses to hypothetical interpersonal situations coded for egocentricity and level of perspective-taking ability. The findings revealed that maltreated children and adolescents were more egocentric and delayed in their social perspective-taking development than their nonmaltreated peers and that they reported lower levels of global self-worth. However, differences within the group of maltreated children and adolescents emerged with regard to negotiating novel relationships, as those with fewer internalizing or externalizing symptoms exhibited better skills in this area than their peers who displayed more symptoms.     

Possible selves and academic outcomes: How and when possible selves impel action

Puzzled by the gap between academic attainment and academic possible selves (APSs) among low-income and minority teens, the authors hypothesized that APSs alone are not enough unless linked with plausible strategies, made to feel like "true" selves and connected with social identity. A brief intervention to link APSs with strategies, create a context in which social and personal identities felt congruent, and change the meaning associated with difficulty in pursuing APSs (n = 141 experimental, n = 123 control low-income 8th graders) increased success in moving toward APS goals: academic initiative, standardized test scores, and grades improved; and depression, absences, and in-school misbehavior declined. Effects were sustained over a 2-year follow-up and were mediated by change in possible selves.     

A novel view of between-categories contrast and within-category assimilation

This research manipulated the portion of a category distribution that is misclassified by the optimal classifier and investigated the impact on assessments of category attributes. Three separate studies manipulated the direction of overlap, the extent of overlap, and the relative base rate of the comparison category. All 3 studies produced large between-categories contrast and within-category assimilation. As expected, these effects were enhanced in conditions in which the optimal classifier misclassified a larger portion of the target category. Study 4 demonstrated that intercategory overlap in the absence of overt classification does not produce contrast and assimilation. Ironically, optimizing categorization accuracy can produce highly inaccurate beliefs about category attributes.     

The role of hyperarousal in the manifestation of posttraumatic psychological distress following injury

The authors examined the temporal relation among posttraumatic stress disorder symptom clusters, using data derived from a longitudinal study of survivors of orofacial injury (N = 264). They conducted cross-lagged panel analyses, with self-reported symptom data collected at 1, 6, and 12 months postinjury. Results demonstrate that hyperarousal was a potent predictor of subsequent symptoms of reexperiencing and avoidance as well as hyperarousal. By contrast, neither reexperiencing nor avoidance was significantly related to other symptom clusters other than themselves over time. These findings underscore the distinctive nature of hyperarousal in the manifestation of posttraumatic psychological distress over time. Implications for theory, clinical intervention, and future research are discussed.     

Life before and after quitting smoking: an electronic diary study

This article describes a multidimensional, multivariate, and multilevel approach to the assessment of nicotine withdrawal. In this prospective study, 70 adult smokers assigned to an active or placebo nicotine patch condition completed multiple daily assessments using an electronic diary. Average and individual growth curves were estimated for affective and nonaffective withdrawal symptoms. All symptoms but hunger increased significantly on the quit day and remained elevated for three weeks. Variability in symptom experiences across individuals increased from pre- to post-quit. Relations between symptom reports (e.g., negative affect or craving) and episodic events (e.g., stressful events or seeing someone smoke) changed from pre-quit to post-quit. Pre-quit increases in negative affect and quit-day increases in craving were inversely related to abstinence three months after the quit day, suggesting that anticipatory and immediate reactions to quitting influence success.     

Psychiatric hospitalization after deliberate self-poisoning

The decision for psychiatric hospitalization after deliberate self-poisoning (DSP) is not well understood. This study, a longitudinal cohort study of 3,148 consecutive DSP patients found 920 (29.2%) subjects were referred for psychiatric hospitalization, 576 (18.3%) on involuntary basis. A logistic regression analysis showed increased risk for: age 25 or older, homelessness, unemployment, previous self-harm, psychiatric inpatient treatment within 12 months, earlier psychiatric inpatient treatment, suicidal ideation or plan, mood or psychotic disorders, and lower clinician experience; and lower risk for being married/defacto, and after hours presentation. Recommendation for psychiatric hospitalization was based on complex decision making. These findings have implications for clinical practice guidelines, service costs, and service organization.     

An examination of learning processes during critical incident training: implications for the development of adaptable trainees

Three experiments are reported that examined the process by which trainees learn decision-making skills during a critical incident training program. Formal theories of category learning were used to identify two processes that may be responsible for the acquisition of decision-making skills: rule learning and exemplar learning. Experiments 1 and 2 used the process dissociation procedure (L. L. Jacoby, 1998) to evaluate the contribution of these processes to performance. The results suggest that trainees used a mixture of rule and exemplar learning. Furthermore, these learning processes were influenced by different aspects of training structure and design. The goal of Experiment 3 was to develop training techniques that enable trainees to use a rule adaptively. Trainees were tested on cases that represented exceptions to the rule. Unexpectedly, the results suggest that providing general instruction regarding the kinds of conditions in which a decision rule does not apply caused them to fixate on the specific conditions mentioned and impaired their ability to identify other conditions in which the rule might not apply. The theoretical, methodological, and practical implications of the results are discussed.     

Reinforcement value and substitutability of sucrose and wheel running: implications for activity anorexia

Choice between sucrose and wheel-running reinforcement was assessed in two experiments. In the first experiment, ten male Wistar rats were exposed to concurrent VI 30 s VI 30 s schedules of wheel-running and sucrose reinforcement. Sucrose concentration varied across concentrations of 2.5, 7.5, and 12.5%. As concentration increased, more behavior was allocated to sucrose and more reinforcements were obtained from that alternative. Allocation of behavior to wheel running decreased, but obtained wheel-running reinforcement did not change. Overall, the results suggested that food-deprived rats were sensitive to qualitative changes in food supply (sucrose concentration) while continuing to defend a level of physical activity (wheel running). In the second study, 15 female Long Evans rats were exposed to concurrent variable ratio schedules of sucrose and wheel-running, wheel-running and wheel-running, and sucrose and sucrose reinforcement. For each pair of reinforcers, substitutability was assessed by the effect of income-compensated price changes on consumption of the two reinforcers. Results showed that, as expected, sucrose substituted for sucrose and wheel running substituted for wheel running. Wheel running, however, did not substitute for sucrose; but sucrose partially substituted for wheel running. We address the implications of the interrelationships of sucrose and wheel running for an understanding of activity anorexia.