Observational assessment systems use for basic and applied research

Three observational assessment systems, the Time-Sample Behavioral Checklist, the Staff-Resident Interaction Chronograph, and the Clinical Frequencies Recording System, are shown to have remarkable utility for a wide range of basic and applied research questions. The assessment systems have already been employed to measure independent and dependent variables in a number of treatment outcome and staff training studies and as measures in more basic studies of environmental history effects for chronic mental patients. Current and planned investigations employing the observational measures are outlined. These include psychometric studies of the instruments themselves, investigations of various parameters of ongoing treatment programs, and empirical validations of proposed nosological diagnostic schemas. Finally, several metamethodological issues germaine to observational assessment, in general, are noted, including the observation vs. interpretation debate and the role of precise observational measurement in applied research contexts.The research reported in this article was supported, in part, by Public Health Service Grants MH-15553 and MH-25464 from the National Institute of Mental Health, and by grants from The Joyce Foundation, Illinois Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities, and the Purdue Research Foundation.Based on a paper presented at the 87th Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association, New York City, September 1979, as part of a symposium New Assessment systems for residential treatment, management, research, and evaluation.     

Children and Violence: The Role of Children’s Regulation in the Marital Aggression–Child Adjustment Link

Exposure to marital psychological and physical abuse has been established as a risk factor for children’s socio-emotional, behavioral, and cognitive problems. Understanding the processes by which children develop symptoms of psychopathology and deficits in cognitive functioning in the context of marital aggression is imperative for developing efficient and effective treatment programs for children and families, and has far-reaching mental health implications. The present paper outlines our research program, Child Regulation and Exposure to Marital Aggression, which focuses on children’s emotional and physiological reactivity and regulation as pathways in the marital aggression–child development link. Findings from our research program, which highlight the importance of children’s regulatory processes for understanding children’s adjustment in contexts of intimate partner violence, are presented, and future directions in this line of inquiry are outlined.     

The relationship between mental toughness and affect intensity

Mentally tough athletes are conceptualized as being able to function effectively in stressful situations and recent research has found small to moderate correlations between mental toughness and coping. Despite this no research has thus far examined the possibility that mentally tough athletes experience less intense emotions. This paper tested the relationship between mental toughness and affect intensity to determine whether mentally tough athletes generally experienced more or less intense emotions. A sample of 112 sport performers (55 men and 57 women) aged between 18 and 51 years (M = 29.3, s = 10.3) acted as participants, and ranged from recreational to national level in a variety of sports. Mental toughness and affect intensity were found to be unrelated. This is an important finding because it suggests participants with high or low levels of mental toughness do not characteristically experience more or less intense emotions. Thus there is no evidence to suggest the ability of mentally tough athletes to remain relatively unaffected by pressure or adversity is due to lower levels of affect intensity. More research is required to understand how mentally tough athletes (in comparison to less tough athletes) maintain control and high levels of performance in stressful circumstances.     

Emotional reactivity and blood pressure elevations: anxiety as a mediator

There is a strong link between emotional reactivity and hypertension, yet little research to date has examined mediators of this relationship. Ourstudy investigated the mediating roleof anxiety on the relationship between emotional reactivity and blood pressure elevations. Participants were226 hypertensive patients (93 men and 133 women, Mean age = 53.09, SD = 13.88 years), purposivelydrawn from the General Outpatient Department in University of Calabar Teaching Hospital, Calabar, , Nigeria. . Measures for data collection were Emotional Reactivity Scale, State Trait Anxiety Inventory, and the Mercury Sphygmomanometer. Hayes PROCESS macro for SPSS which uses a regression-based, path-analytical framework, was employed in analysing the data. Results showed that emotional reactivity was positively associated with blood pressure elevations. Anxiety was positively associated with blood pressure elevations. Anxiety also fully mediated the relationship between emotional reactivity and blood pressure elevations, even after adjusting for the control variables (e.g., age, family history of hypertension, and educational status). The finding suggests that being less emotionally reactive is associated with a decrease in disabling influences of anxiety, thereby contributing to lower levels of mean arterial blood pressure. The findings may be helpful in improving prevention, control and management of hypertension in healthcare.     

Infant's psychophysiological profile and temperament at 3 and 12 months

This study is intended to analyze (1) differences in infant temperament at 3 and 12 months according to infants’ psychophysiological profiles: “withdrawn” “extroverted”, and “underaroused” and (2) changes in infant temperament from 3 to 12 months, namely according to the infant psychophysiological profile and the quality of mother-infant interaction. Ninety-four 8-week-old infants were assessed using the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS, Brazelton & Nugent, 1995) and the Alarm Distress Baby Scale (ADBB, Guedeney & Fermanian, 2001). Saliva samples were collected at 8-12 weeks old, both before and after a routine inoculation for cortisol reactivity measurement. Mother-infant interaction was evaluated at 12-16 weeks, using the Global Rating Scales (GRS, Murray, Fiori-Cowley, Hooper, & Cooper, 1996). Mothers’ reports on infant temperament at 3 and 12 months were collected using the Infant Behavior Questionnaire (IBQ, Rothbart, 1981). Significant differences in mothers’ perception of infant temperament were found at both 3 and 12 months in infants with distinct psychophysiological profiles. Stability was observed in most of the temperament's dimensions from 3 to 12 months old; still, there were changes in mothers’ perception of infant temperament in terms of level of distress, cuddliness, sadness and approach. Infant psychophysiological profile and mother-infant interaction both influence with the pattern of those changes. The results corroborate that infant's characteristics early in life as well as contextual factors influence with mothers’ perception of infant temperament and with changes across the 1st year of life.     

Effects of analytical and experiential self-focus on stress-induced cognitive reactivity in eating disorder psychopathology

Previous research suggests distinct modes of self-focus, each with distinct functional properties: Analytical self-focus appears maladaptive, with experiential self-focus having more adaptive effects on indices of cognitive-affective functioning (e.g., Watkins, Moberly, & Moulds, 2008). The authors applied this framework to eating disorder (ED) psychopathology and manipulated the mode of self-focus prior to exposure to a stressor (imagining eating a large meal; Shafran, Teachman, Kerry, & Rachman, 1999). Study 1 showed that students high in ED psychopathology reported lower post-stressor feelings of weight or shape change and less subsequent attempts to neutralise (e.g., imagining exercising) after experiential relative to analytical self-focus. Study 2 found that partially weight restored patients with anorexia nervosa had lower post-stressor estimates of their own weight and reported lower urge to cancel stressor effects following experiential compared to analytical self-focus. Experiential self-focus was also followed by less neutralisation than analytical self-focus. Results suggest that the mode of self-focus affects cognitive reactivity following a stressor in individuals with ED psychopathology. Examining the mode within which individuals with ED psychopathology focus on self and body may raise important implications for understanding of psychopathology and open new possibilities for augmenting current treatments.     

Cognitive control in cued task switching with transition cues: Cue processing,task processing,and cue–task transition congruency

We investigated the processes underlying performance during cued task switching with transition cues. To this end, transition cueing and explicit cueing were compared in a design controlling for sequential effects in the two preceding trials in order to further examine the contribution of cue processes, task processes, and cue–task transition congruency during transition cueing. The study confirmed that the task-switch cost in transition cueing is larger than the task-switch cost in explicit cueing and showed that this larger switch cost is mainly due to cue processing. We also successfully decomposed performance in transition cueing into cue processing, task processing, and cue–task transition congruency on both a theoretical (Experiment 1) and an empirical basis (Experiments 2–3). Our empirical dissociation also demonstrates that cue–task transition congruency affects performance during both cue processing and task processing. We discuss the importance of our findings in relation to the different theories on task switching.     

Cue competition effects in human causal learning

Five experiments involving human causal learning were conducted to compare the cue competition effects known as blocking and unovershadowing, in proactive and retroactive instantiations. Experiment 1 demonstrated reliable proactive blocking and unovershadowing but only retroactive unovershadowing. Experiment 2 replicated the same pattern and showed that the retroactive unovershadowing that was observed was interfered with by a secondary memory task that had no demonstrable effect on either proactive unovershadowing or blocking. Experiments 3a, 3b, and 3c demonstrated that retroactive unovershadowing was accompanied by an inflated memory effect not accompanying proactive unovershadowing. The differential pattern of proactive versus retroactive cue competition effects is discussed in relationship to amenable associative and inferential processing possibilities.     

Does the burden of the experience sampling method undermine data quality in state body image research?

Despite growing popularity of experience sampling methodology (ESM) for evaluations of state-based components of body image, there have been concerns that the frequent repeated measurement might encourage problematic responding resulting in low data quantity and/or quality. Using a sample of 105 women (mean age = 24.84), this study used multilevel modelling to investigate whether (a) there were changes in compliance or response variability across a 7-day period, and (b) whether such changes are explained by participant characteristics. Present findings suggest that demands of ESM protocol undermine quantity more so than quality of obtained data. Decline in procedural compliance across the testing period correlated with BMI and body shame, whereas reduced variability in state-based assessments did not adversely impact the strength of association between state body satisfaction ratings and other variables in the dataset. The authors make several recommendations for ensuring the quality of ESM-based data in future studies.