Low-Income Parental Risk and Engagement in Early Childhood and Child Social-Emotional Functioning in Middle Childhood

Journal of Child and Family Studies - The present study examined the association between fathers’ and mothers’ additive risk during early childhood and children’s social-emotional...     

Memories of Parental Rejection in Childhood and Current Psychological Maladjustment Predict Substance Abuse in a Collectivist Religious Country

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Findings from data originating in individualist Western cultures, such as the US, generally confirm a significant relation between parental rejection and...     

Cognitive behavioural group therapy for social phobia: evidence of transportability to community clinics

Cognitive Behavioural Group Therapy (CBGT) for social phobia has been shown to be efficacious within research units and effective within a variety of real world clinical settings. However, most effectiveness studies of CBGT for social phobia have (a) used protocols without demonstrated efficacy, (b) not included direct comparison groups, and/or (c) contained features of efficacy trials. This study addressed these limitations by using a benchmarking strategy to compare outcomes from the same CBGT protocol used in both a research unit and a community clinic. Research (N = 71) and community (N = 94) patients completed the same 12-session protocol, which resulted in significant reductions in social anxiety and life interference at post-treatment. Compared to research unit patients, community patients had more severe symptoms and life interference at pre-treatment, and were more likely to be male, use medication, have comorbid disorders, and have lower educational attainment. Importantly, degree of improvement on social anxiety symptoms and life interference did not differ across the treatment settings for either completer or intention-to-treat analyses. There was some evidence that being younger, single, and having a depression diagnosis were associated with dropout. Pre-treatment symptoms and number of diagnoses predicted post-treatment symptoms. Consistent with previous uncontrolled trials, it is concluded that CBGT is effective within community mental health clinics.     

Coparenting and Children's School Readiness: A Mediational Model

We examined the long‐term direct and indirect links between coparenting (conflict, communication, and shared decision‐making) and preschoolers' school readiness (math, literacy, and social skills). The study sample consisted of 5,650 children and their biological mothers and fathers who participated in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study‐Birth Cohort. Using structural equation modeling and controlling for background characteristics, we found that our conceptual model of the pathways from coparenting to child outcomes is structurally the same for cohabiting and married families. Controlling for a host of background characteristics, we found that coparenting conflict and shared decision‐making were negatively and positively, respectively, linked to children's academic and social skills and co‐parental communication was indirectly linked to academic and social skills through maternal supportiveness. Coparenting conflict was also indirectly linked to children's social skills through maternal depressive symptoms. The overall findings suggest that for both cohabiting and married families, the context of conflicted coparenting may interfere with the development of children's social competencies and academic skills, whereas collaborative coparenting promotes children's school readiness because mothers are more responsive to their children's needs. These findings have implications for programs aimed at promoting positive family processes in cohabiting and married families.     

Hand position alters vision by biasing processing through different visual pathways

The present study investigated the mechanisms responsible for the difference between visual processing of stimuli near and far from the observer's hands. The idea that objects near the hands are immediate candidates for action led us to hypothesize that vision near the hands would be biased toward the action-oriented magnocellular visual pathway that supports processing with high temporal resolution but low spatial resolution. Conversely, objects away from the hands are not immediate candidates for action and, therefore, would benefit from a bias toward the perception-oriented parvocellular visual pathway that supports processing with high spatial resolution but low temporal resolution. We tested this hypothesis based on the psychophysical characteristics of the two pathways. Namely, we presented subjects with two tasks: a temporal-gap detection task which required the high temporal acuity of the magnocellular pathway and a spatial-gap detection task that required the spatial acuity of the parvocellular pathway. Consistent with our prediction, we found better performance on the temporal-gap detection task and worse performance on the spatial-gap detection task when stimuli were presented near the hands compared to when they were far from the hands. These findings suggest that altered visual processing near the hands may be due to changes in the contribution of the two visual pathways.     

Aligning Expatriate Managers’ Expectations with Complex Global Assignments

The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical, yet practical framework for managing unrealistic expectations of expatriate marketing managers relative to their role in complex global marketing assignments. The formation of these unrealistic expatriate marketing managers’ expectations is examined using relational contracting theory. We explore alternative HRM evaluation/support designs that can suppress the development of expatriate marketing managers’ entitlement process and thus enhance the reality of expatriate marketing managers’ expectations relative to the role in a subsidiary of the multinational enterprise.     

Materialism, status consumption, and consumer independence

Materialism influences many people. We focus on two aspects of this influence: reactions to prestige products and to the influence of others. A study of 187 U.S. student consumers shows that materialism is positively related to buying products that confer status. In contrast, materialism is negatively related to consumer independence, an enduring tendency to pay minimal attention to the prescribed norms of other consumers and to make product and brand decisions according to personal preferences. Consuming products for status is also negatively related to consumer independence. Moreover, the association between materialism and consumer independence is completely mediated by consuming for status. Materialism urges consumers to be status conscious so that they follow social norms in purchasing, but seeking status through goods is avoided by less materialistic, independent consumers. A second study (n = 258) also using student consumers confirmed these results.     

Disentangling the Associations Between Autistic-Like and Internalizing Traits: A Community Based Twin Study

Internalizing difficulties are prevalent in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), yet little is known about the underlying cause of this comorbidity. It is also unclear which types of autistic-like and internalizing difficulties are most strongly associated. The current study investigated the phenotypic and etiological associations between specific autistic-like traits and internalizing traits within a population-based sample. Parent-reported data were analyzed from 7,311 twin pairs at age 7 to 8?years. Structural equation modeling revealed distinguishable patterns of overlap between the three autistic-like traits (social difficulties, communication problems and repetitive/restricted behaviors) and four subtypes of internalizing traits (social anxiety, fears, generalized anxiety, negative affect). Although all phenotypic associations were modest (rph?=?0.00-0.36), autistic-like communication impairments and repetitive/restricted behaviors correlated most strongly with generalized anxiety and negative affect both phenotypically and genetically. Conversely, autistic-like social difficulties showed little overlap with internalizing behaviors. Disentangling these associations and their etiological underpinnings may help contribute to the conceptualization and diagnosis of 'comorbidity' within ASD and internalizing disorders.     

When does random responding distort self-report personality assessment? An example with the NEO PI-R

Recent meta-analyses suggest that, notwithstanding almost 100 years of study, concerns about the impact of response biases on the validity of self-report personality scales remain to be justified. This study addresses the topic by demonstrating that random responding is indeed an issue for self-report personality scales, and that limitations associated with base rates exist that affect the ability of moderated multiple regression to evaluate fully the effects of a response bias. Overall, it is suggested that dismissing response biases as a concern for self-report personality assessment is premature when based only on a lack of significant regression moderator effects.