Physical and Relational Aggression in Early Adolescence: Associations with Narcissism,Temperament, and Social Goals

This study examined adolescent narcissism, temperament (frustration and affiliation), and social goals in association with peer‐reported physical and relational aggression (N = 384; 12–14 years). Narcissism was positively associated with dominance goals and negatively with closeness goals for peer interaction. Moreover, narcissism was positively associated with physical aggression via dominance goals for boys, and with relational aggression via dominance goals for both genders. Temperamental frustration and affiliation were both positively associated with relational aggression, but also interacted in their associations with this variable; affiliation was positively associated with relational aggression only at high levels of frustration. Supporting and extending existing research, the present findings suggest that adolescent personality and social goals are meaningfully associated with physical and relational aggression in the peer context.     

Psychotherapy groups and individual support to enhance mental health and early dyadic interaction among drug‐abusing mothers

The purpose of this controlled study was to examine the outcome of psychodynamic mother–infant group psychotherapy (PGT) outpatient intervention for drug‐abusing perinatal mother–infant dyads. PGT comprised 20 to 24 weekly 3‐hr sessions with 3 to 5 months of follow‐up. A comparison intervention group was formed of mothers participating in individually tailored psychosocial support (PSS) lasting, on average, 12 months and providing mother–infant support and practical counseling. We hypothesized that positive changes would occur in maternal drug abuse, mental health, and mother–infant interaction, especially in the PGT group due to its more intensive therapeutic focus. Participants were 26 drug‐abusing dyads in PGT, 25 in PSS, and 50 dyads in a non‐drug‐abusing comparison group. Assessments were pre‐intervention and at 4 and 12 months' follow‐up, including maternal depressive symptoms and mother–child interaction assessed by the Emotional Availability Scales (EA). As hypothesized, in dyadic interaction maternal hostility decreased significantly in the PGT group, and intrusiveness decreased in both intervention groups, but especially in the PTG group. However, both interventions showed a general improvement in the quality of mother–infant interaction. They also succeeded in sustaining high maternal abstinence, treatment retention, and alleviating depressive symptoms. The findings are discussed in relation to preventing negative transgenerational interaction patterns in the high‐risk dyads.     

Sustainable antibullying program implementation: School profiles and predictors

We examined the sustainability of the KiVa antibullying program in Finland from its nationwide roll-out in 2009 to 2016. Using latent class analyses, we identified four different patterns of implementation. The persistent schools (43%) maintained a high likelihood of participation throughout the study period. The awakened (14%) had a decreasing trend during the first years, but then increased the likelihood of program participation. The tail-offs (20%) decreased in the likelihood of participating after the third year, and the drop-offs (23%) already after the first year. The findings suggest that many schools need support during the initial years to launch and maintain the implementation of evidence-based programs; yet a large proportion of schools manage to sustain the program implementation for several years. The logistic regression analyses showed that large schools persisted more likely than small schools. Lower initial level of victimization was also related to the sustainability of the program. Finally, persistent program participation was predicted by several school-level actions during the initial years of implementing the program. These results imply that the sustainability of evidence-based programs could be enhanced by supporting and guiding schools when setting up the program during the initial implementation.     

Emotional activation in the first and second language

Late Finnish–English bilinguals were presented with neutral, positive, negative and taboo words in a modified Stroop paradigm in both Finnish and English. Significant interference from negative and taboo words compared to neutral words was found in both languages, whereas positive words were not found to differ significantly from neutral words. Furthermore, no differences in the size of the interference were present between languages. This suggests that, for late bilinguals with good knowledge of their second language, the first (L1) and second (L2) language are equally capable of activating the emotional response to word stimuli representing threat, and thus interfering with the cognitive processes involved in responding to colour. This effect was equivalent for negative and taboo words.