Effortful versus automatic emotional processing in schizophrenia: Insights from a face-vignette task

Adaptive emotional responding relies on dual automatic and effortful processing streams. Dual-stream models of schizophrenia (SCZ) posit a selective deficit in neural circuits that govern goal-directed, effortful processes versus reactive, automatic processes. This imbalance suggests that when patients are confronted with competing automatic and effortful emotional response cues, they will exhibit diminished effortful responding and intact, possibly elevated, automatic responding compared to controls. This prediction was evaluated using a modified version of the face-vignette task (FVT). Participants viewed emotional faces (automatic response cue) paired with vignettes (effortful response cue) that signalled a different emotion category and were instructed to discriminate the manifest emotion. Patients made less vignette and more face responses than controls. However, the relationship between group and FVT responding was moderated by IQ and reading comprehension ability. These results replicate and extend previous research and provide tentative support for abnormal conflict resolution between automatic and effortful emotional processing predicted by dual-stream models of SCZ.     

Psychological Resources,Constructive Conflict Management Behaviors,and Depressive Symptoms: A Dyadic Analysis

This study investigated the longitudinal associations between mastery, conflict management behaviors, and depressive symptoms using an actor–partner interdependence model with 371 middle-aged couples over a span of 24 years. Results indicated that for both husbands and wives, individuals who possessed higher levels of mastery generally displayed more constructive conflict management behaviors during marital conflicts in middle years. In turn, individuals with more constructive behaviors averaged fewer depressive symptoms in their later adulthood. A partner effect was also noted, as individuals’ constructive behaviors were linked to their spouse's depressive symptoms. This finding emphasizes the importance of utilizing a dyadic context to understand intra-individual and inter-individual (or crossover) influences between husbands and wives in enduring marriages. A better understanding of how couples affect each other's mental health can inform the development and implementation of health promotion interventions and prevention efforts targeting middle-aged couples.     

Need Satisfaction as a Mediator of Associations between Interparental Relationship Dimensions and Autonomy Supportive Parenting: A Weekly Diary Study

Guided by the self-determination theory, this weekly diary study tested a process model in which week-to-week mother-reported interparental conflict and perceived partner responsiveness were associated with maternal autonomy support by means of maternal psychological need satisfaction. During six consecutive weeks, 258 mothers (M_age = 41.71 years) and their 157 adolescents (51.4% females, M_age = 14.92 years) from Turkey provided weekly reports of the study variables via an online survey. Multilevel analyses showed that maternal need satisfaction was predicted by lower levels of interparental conflict and greater levels of perceived partner responsiveness. Maternal need satisfaction, in turn, was positively associated with maternal and adolescent reports of maternal autonomy support. Further, these week-to-week associations were partly moderated by maternal perfectionism. The results underscore the dynamic nature of the intra-family relationships, the important role of particular conditions in which mothers may become more autonomy supportive, and the necessity to consider mother’s personal characteristics while examining these dynamics.     

Rural Chinese youth during the transition into adulthood: Family dynamics and psychological adjustment

Rural youth in China experience numerous challenges during their transition into adulthood. Yet, research on this transition and its relevant influential factors is rare. Through the lens of family systems theory, this study examined the impacts of family dynamics (i.e., interparental and parent–adolescent interactions) in adolescence on the psychological adjustment of youth as they transition into adulthood. Participants were 1330 youth and their mothers in rural Gansu. In 2004, mothers completed questionnaires of interparental and parent–adolescent interactions when youth were adolescents (M_age = 15.03, SD = 1.15). In 2009, youth completed questionnaires of depression and self-esteem when they were emerging adults (M_age = 20.03, SD = 1.15). Results of structural equation modelling suggested that while interparental interactions in adolescence were not associated with the psychological adjustment of youth in emerging adulthood, positive parent–adolescent interactions in adolescence predicted better psychological adjustment of youth in emerging adulthood. Furthermore, mediation analysis showed that although interparental interactions did not directly affect the psychological adjustment of youth, they were positively associated with parent–adolescent interactions, which in turn contributed to the psychological adjustment of youth. The results reveal an enduring influence of family dynamics on psychological adjustment among rural Chinese youth during the transition into adulthood.     

Bidirectional Spillover in the Family across the Transition to Parenthood

Although family systems theory posits reciprocal causality between subsystems of the family, such as intimate partner violence exacerbating harsh parenting and vice versa, longitudinal studies with cross‐lagged models have been used infrequently to test these principles. As guided by the spillover model, this study examined bidirectional associations between couple dysfunction, parent–child aggression risk, and child functioning across the transition to parenthood to determine whether and how disruptions in one subsystem relate to problems in other family subsystems. Participants were 201 first‐time mothers and 151 fathers from a diverse community sample, evaluated during pregnancy, and reassessed two more times through their child's first 18 months of life. Individual and dyadic path model results indicate bidirectional spillover effects between parent–child aggression risk and child functioning for both mothers and fathers, and spillover from parent–child aggression risk to couple dysfunction for mothers but not fathers. However, limited spillover effects were identified between couple functioning and child adjustment, in contrast to previous work. Findings suggest that spillover can happen reciprocally and early in the family, supporting transactional models of behavior and highlighting the need for early family level intervention.     

Parent–Child Conflict Profiles in Chinese American Immigrant Families: Links to Sociocultural Factors and School‐Age Children's Psychological Adjustment

Research suggests that parent–child conflict is a salient family process in Asian immigrant families and often a stressful experience for Asian American youth due to value discrepancies between Asian and Western cultures. The present study examined ratings of parent–child conflict across conflict topics from parents' and children's perspectives in a sample of Chinese American immigrant families with school‐age children (N = 239; age = 7.5–11 years). Latent profile analyses identified three parent‐rated conflict profiles and four child‐rated conflict profiles. Parent and child conflict profiles were unrelated to each other and differentially related to family sociocultural factors and children's psychological adjustment. Parents' moderate conflict profile scored highest on parent‐rated child behavior problems and had the highest household density and lower parent Chinese orientation. Children's moderate‐specific and high conflict profiles scored higher on child‐reported behavior problems than the low conflict profile. These results highlight the need to assess family conflict from both parents' and children's perspectives and target parent–child conflict communication as a pathway to prevent or reduce behavioral problems in Chinese American children of immigrant families.     

Cardiovascular Reactivity During Marital Conflict in Laboratory and Naturalistic Settings: Differential Associations with Relationship and Individual Functioning Across Contexts

Cardiovascular reactivity during spousal conflict is considered to be one of the main pathways for relationship distress to impact physical, mental, and relationship health. However, the magnitude of association between cardiovascular reactivity during laboratory marital conflict and relationship functioning is small and inconsistent given the scope of its importance in theoretical models of intimate relationships. This study tests the possibility that cardiovascular data collected in laboratory settings downwardly bias the magnitude of these associations when compared to measures obtained in naturalistic settings. Ambulatory cardiovascular reactivity data were collected from 20 couples during two relationship conflicts in a research laboratory, two planned relationship conflicts at couples’ homes, and two spontaneous relationship conflicts during couples’ daily lives. Associations between self‐report measures of relationship functioning, individual functioning, and cardiovascular reactivity across settings are tested using multilevel models. Cardiovascular reactivity was significantly larger during planned and spontaneous relationship conflicts in naturalistic settings than during planned relationship conflicts in the laboratory. Similarly, associations with relationship and individual functioning variables were statistically significantly larger for cardiovascular data collected in naturalistic settings than the same data collected in the laboratory. Our findings suggest that cardiovascular reactivity during spousal conflict in naturalistic settings is statistically significantly different from that elicited in laboratory settings both in magnitude and in the pattern of associations with a wide range of inter‐ and intrapersonal variables. These differences in findings across laboratory and naturalistic physiological responses highlight the value of testing physiological phenomena across interaction contexts in romantic relationships.     

Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel and psychosexuality - a reminder

Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel, who would have turned 90 this year, had a passion for truth that placed her work at the very heart of psychoanalysis. Never leaving the field of Freudian analysis she explored the inevitable difficulties, due to our premature birth, to become moral subjects. Psychoanalysis was to her, as it was to Freud, a psychology of conflict. She was suspicious of seemingly optimistic views which saw conflict as created between the potentially free subject and one repressive external system or another. Freedom is always limited in psychoanalysis. In an attempt to follow the line of thought in her vast production the article touches upon her critique of Freud’s so called phallic monism, the significance of both parents’place in the psyche, the question of “Falsehood”, perversion as a dimension of the human psyche, and her concerned view on the situation of Western thought today. The author suggests that we might benefit from her radical Freudian stance in a time when the view on truth is undergoing many unfathomable transformations. Perhaps Chasseguet-Smirgels thought can also be an important reminder about the foundations of our work; not just sexuality, not just mental acts but their specific relationship to each other     

Concurrent relations between inhibitory control,vocabulary and internal state language in 18- and 24-month-old Italian-speaking infants

The aim of this study was to investigate the concurrent relations between 18- and 24-month-olds' performance on tasks measuring inhibitory control, word production, and internal state vocabulary. Two tasks were used to measure inhibitory control, the Reverse Categorization task (a conflict task), and the Gift task (a delay task). Expressive vocabulary was assessed with the Italian version of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory (Words and Sentences), and internal state vocabulary was assessed with a checklist of 78 mental state terms adapted from the English Internal State Language Questionnaire. Expressive vocabulary was associated to Internal State Language and to the Reverse Categorization task, but not to the Delay task. Our findings document internal state language abilities in a sample of 61 Italian-speaking children, and show that internal state vocabulary is significantly and specifically related only to performance on the conflict measure of inhibitory control, even when vocabulary size is controlled for. Results of our study extend to an Italian sample of children previous findings on an early association between self-control and theory of mind and suggest that a link between inhibitory control processes and internal state language may be present at a very young age.     

Adolescent triangulation into interparental conflict: Role of cognitive appraisals and birth-order

ABSTRACT

Triangulation of adolescents into interparental conflict has since long been recognized as a risk factor for adolescents’ psychological adjustment. However, there is a scarcity in research focusing on exploring the variables that make adolescents more vulnerable to get triangulated. This study used a cross-section research design to examine the relationship between interparental conflict and adolescent triangulation into that conflict in an under-researched population of Pakistani school going adolescents (N = 521), with an age range of 13-19 years (M = 15.25; SD = 1.46); while exploring the role of adolescent’s cognitive appraisals (threat and self-blame) and birth-order. The results indicated that interparental conflict, appraisal of threat and appraisal of self-blame are significant predictors of adolescent triangulation. Moreover, this study also revealed the moderating role of adolescent birth order in the relationship between interparental conflict and triangulation, as well as between appraisal of self-blame and triangulation; indicating that the ‘only’ child in the family was at the highest risk of being triangulated into their parents’ arguments, while the youngest child was least likely to get involved.