Irrational Beliefs and Emotionality in Adolescents with and without Bronchial Asthma

Asthmatic adolescents (N = 129) between the ages of 12 and 18 were assembled into three groups on the basis of severity of illness and were compared with each other and with a fourth group of 74 healthy, nonasthmatic adolescents. Differences in selective cognitive (irrational beliefs) and emotional (anxiety, depression, and hostility) characteristics were examined. Multivariate analysis indicated that irrational beliefs in the importance of approval and the lack of control of emotions, along with self-reported anxiety, depression, or hostility, were strongly associated with disease severity. Whereas adolescents with mild asthma closely resembled the physically healthy comparison group, adolescents with moderate and severe asthma exhibited a cognitive-emotional complex that can be described as maladaptive or dysfunctional. Implications of these results for the treatment of asthma are discussed.     

Science as (Historical) Narrative

The traditional mode of explanation in physics via deduction from partial differential equations is contrasted here with explanation via simulations. I argue that the different technologies employed constitute different languages, which support different sorts of narratives. The narratives that accompany simulations and articulate their meaning are typically historical or natural historical in kind. They explain complex phenomena by growing them rather than by referring them to general laws. Examples of such growth simulations and growth narratives come from the evolution of wave functions in quantum chaos, snowflake formation, and Etruscan genetics. The examples suggest a few concluding remarks on historical explanation.     

Emotional responses during social information seeking on Facebook

Based on existing research on social networking and information seeking, it was proposed that Facebook.com use could be conceptualized as serving two primary goals: passive social browsing (i.e., newsfeeds) and extractive social searching (i.e., friends' profiles). This study explored whether these categories adequately reflect Facebook use and whether they moderate physiological indicators of emotion. Thirty-six participants navigated Facebook.com while their on-screen activity and physiological responses associated with motivation and emotion were recorded. Results showed that the majority of screens encountered during Facebook use could be categorized as devoted to social browsing or social searching. Participants spent more time on social browsing than they spent on social searching. Skin-conductance data indicated that sympathetic activation diminished during the course of both social browsing and social searching. Facial EMG data indicated that participants experienced more pleasantness during the course of social searching than they experienced during social browsing. These results are discussed in terms of existing social-networking research and an evaluative space model of emotion.     

Parent-reported executive functioning in young children treated for cancer

It is well known that children treated for cancer are at risk for cognitive and functional impairments. Such research is largely based on studies of late effects in school-aged or older children. However, far less is known about executive function weaknesses in preschool-aged children treated for cancer. Thus, the aim of this study was to examine executive functioning in a clinically referred sample of young oncology patients, and its association with broader domains of functioning. Data from 61 young children with cancer, who were referred for clinical cognitive evaluations, were abstracted and included in this study. Patients were 5.00 years of age (SD = 0.72) at assessment, 54.1% male, and two-thirds (63.9%) had been treated for brain tumors. Most executive functions were significantly discrepant from the mean, with 47.5% of preschoolers having parent-reported working memory concerns within the clinically significant range. There were no differences in executive functioning based on diagnosis or treatment status. Parent-reported executive functioning was strongly correlated with global intelligence and adaptive functioning, with some indices also associated with nonverbal problem solving and pre-academic skills. Ultimately, results indicate the presence of emerging weaknesses in executive functioning in young children with cancer, and add to a growing body of literature highlighting the potential cognitive and behavioral risks associated with a cancer diagnosis in early childhood.