Modifying Children's Gender-Typed Musical Instrument Preferences: The Effects of Gender and Age

Previous research has indicated that children display gender-typed musical instrument preferences. Two studies were conducted to determine (a) whether these preferences can be modified by presenting counter-examples (i.e., instruments played by gender-inappropriate musicians) and (b) whether child gender or age (kindergarten vs. 4th grade) influences the efficacy of such interventions. A videotape presentation format was employed in Study 1 and drawings in Study 2. Children exposed to counter-examples were less stereotyped than those who saw the instruments without musicians (Study 1) or with gender-appropriate musicians (Studies 1 & 2). Age did not influence children's responsiveness to the counter-examples, but boys were more resistant to the intervention than girls. There was some evidence that the counter-examples were effective not simply because children were attracted to same-sex musicians. Instead, children's instrument choices also appeared to be motivated by a desire to avoid behaving like musicians of the other-sex. Potential strategies for increasing children's responsiveness to instrument counter-examples (e.g., multiple exemplars; portrayal of positive consequences) were also discussed.     

Qualitative Study of Suicidality and Help-Seeking Behaviors in African American Adolescents

This qualitative study explores adolescents’ perceptions of help-seeking behaviors in the context of a hypothetical suicide crisis. Cauce and colleague’s (2002, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 70, 44–55) model was used to examine help-seeking behaviors in 3 domains: problem recognition, decision to seek help, and selection of helpers. Forty-two church-going African American adolescents participated in 1 of 6 focus groups that discussed ways to help a hypothetically suicidal student in a vignette. Findings suggest that although the majority of youth had been exposed to a suicidal peer (76%), they were unsure of the seriousness of suicide as a problem in the African American community. The findings suggest that youth were less comfortable with formal interventions in school, religious institutions or traditional mental health settings. However, youth were open to community-based programs that could be located in school, church or community settings if helpers were: young adults, empathic listeners, non-judgmental, maintained confidentiality, and viewed as “natural helpers”. Implications for developing church-based suicide interventions are discussed. This study was supported by a K-01 Career Development Award from NIMH     

Child and parent predictors of perceptions of parent--child relationship quality

OBJECTIVE/METHOD: Predictors of perceptions of parent-child relationship quality were examined for 175 children with ADHD, 119 comparison children, and parents of these children, drawn from the follow-up phase of the Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with ADHD. RESULTS/CONCLUSION: Children with ADHD perceived their mothers and fathers as more power assertive than comparison children. Children higher on depressive symptomatology also perceived their mothers and fathers as less warm and more power assertive. Mothers perceived themselves as more power assertive and fathers perceived themselves as less warm if they were higher on depressive symptomatology themselves or had children with ADHD or higher levels of depressive symptomatology. Several interactions indicated that the association between child factors and parental perceptions of warmth and power assertion often depended on parental depressive symptomatology. The findings resolve a previous contradiction in the literature regarding the relationship between child depressive symptoms and parental perceptions of parent-child relationship quality.     

Fear and anxiety as separable emotions: an investigation of the revised reinforcement sensitivity theory of personality

The Gray and McNaughton (2000) theory draws on a wide range of animal data to hypothesize that the emotions of fear and anxiety are separable. The authors tested their hypothesis in two studies. The first study examined associations between scores on questionnaire measures of fear, anxiety, and neuroticism; correlational analysis revealed that fear and anxiety are not interchangeable constructs. The second study examined associations between scores on questionnaire measures of fear/anxiety and performance in a military training setting; regression analysis revealed that fear captured significant variance in performance that was not shared with anxiety. These results imply that hypotheses derived from nonhuman animal data may hold important implications for understanding human emotion and motivation, especially in relation to fear and anxiety.     

Jumping to conclusions and the continuum of delusional beliefs

The present study examined the jumping to conclusions reasoning bias across the continuum of delusional ideation by investigating individuals with active delusions, delusion prone individuals, and non-delusion prone individuals. Neutral and highly self-referent probabilistic reasoning tasks were employed. Results indicated that individuals with delusions gathered significantly less information than delusion prone and non-delusion prone participants on both the neutral and self-referent tasks, (p<.001). Individuals with delusions made less accurate decisions than the delusion prone and non-delusion prone participants on both tasks (p<.001), yet were more confident about their decisions than were delusion prone and non-delusion prone participants on the self-referent task (p=.002). Those with delusions and those who were delusion prone reported higher confidence in their performance on the self-referent task than they did the neutral task (p=.02), indicating that high self-reference impacted information processing for individuals in both of these groups. The results are discussed in relation to previous research in the area of probabilistic reasoning and delusions.     

Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Factors Influencing Adolescents' Decisions About Having Sex: A Test of Sufficiency of the Theory of Planned Behavior1

This study tested the theory of planned behavior's (TPB) expectation that attitudes, social norms, and self‐efficacy would mediate other variables' effects on intention for having sex and probability of having sex. Longitudinal data were collected from 790 high‐school‐aged adolescents. In an intrapersonal variable model, sensation seeking, alcohol use, hard work, smoking, and moral beliefs had mediated effects, but the last 2 also had direct effects (on intention and behavior, respectively). In an interpersonal model, school attachment had mediated effects, pressure to have sex had a direct effect on behavior, and parent communication and number of sexually active friends had both. Intrapersonal variable effects were better described by the TPB than those of interpersonal variables. Targeting distal psychosocial factors may enhance intervention efficacy.     

Metacognitive therapy in recurrent depression: A case replication series in Denmark

Metacognitive therapy (MCT) for depression is derived from the Wells and Matthews (1994) self‐regulatory model, in which a Cognitive‐Attentional Syndrome (CAS) is the cause of psychological disorders. MCT for depression focuses on identifying patients' CAS and helps them to stop it. The CAS consists of worry, rumination and dysfunctional coping strategies. The focus in MCT is on removing the CAS by challenging positive and negative metacognitive beliefs and eliminating dysfunctional behaviors. In this case series, MCT was delivered to four depressed Danes and treatment was evaluated in 5–11 sessions of up to one hour each. An A‐B design with follow‐up at 3 and 6 months was conducted and the primary outcome was Beck's Depression Inventory II (BDI‐II). We measured CAS processes with the Major depressive Disorder Scale (MDD‐S). The results of the case series showed clinically significant improvements in depressive symptoms, rumination and metacognitive beliefs and the effects were still present at follow‐up for all patients. The small number of patients and decreasing baselines observed in some cases limits the conclusions. However, the results suggest that this treatment is feasible and was associated with large improvements in symptoms when delivered away from its point of origin and in a Danish help‐seeking sample.     

Stand Tall to Protect Students: School Counselors Strengthening School Connectedness

In an urban sample of 5,595 students in Grades 7–12, the authors found that (a) personalized counseling services that were responsive to student needs enhanced school connectedness, (b) risk factors (e.g., poverty, mobility rates, limited English proficiency) were associated with lower school connectedness scores, and (c) responsive counseling services acted as a protective factor that reduced some of the negative effects of risk factors on school connectedness, and consequently, student success in academic and nonacademic areas.     

Identifying Children at Risk of Problematic Development: Latent Clusters Among Childhood Arrestees

The presence of clusters characterized by distinct profiles of individual, family and peer characteristics among childhood arrestees was investigated and cluster membership stability after 2 years was determined. Identification of such clusters in this heterogeneous at-risk group can extend insight into the presence and severity of children’s co-occurring problems and guide intervention and prevention efforts. Latent class analysis (LCA) was used to detect clusters among 308 childhood arrestees (mean age 10.7 years), based on dichotomous dynamic correlates of offending present at the time of first arrest. Correlates in the individual, peer and family domains were assessed at baseline and 2-year follow-up, using standardized instruments. This resulted in identification of a low problem group characterized by few problems across all domains (40.2 %), an externalizing intermediate problem group characterized by mainly externalizing problems on the individual and peer domains (39.4 %), and a pervasive high problem group characterized by numerous problems across all domains (20.4 %). Cluster membership was most stable for the low problem group (71.4 %), followed by the externalizing intermediate problem group (49.5 %). Transition was highest in the pervasive high problem group (63.0 %), with the majority of children progressing to the externalizing intermediate problem group. The identification of such distinct clusters among childhood arrestees, differing in the presence of co-occurring problems, stresses the importance of a first police arrest as an opportunity for early recognition of children in need of care. As problems present at the time of first arrest do not persist in every child, careful periodic monitoring is needed.