Developmental considerations in the study of childhood depression

Although a great deal of research has been conducted examining biological and psychological factors related to adult depression, relatively little attention has been given to the study of depression in children. The purpose of the present article is to illustrate the importance of considering normal developmental processes in the study of childhood depression. Epidemiological data, diagnostic issues, and methods of assessment in childhood depression are discussed from a developmental perspective, and the role of developmental issues in both the manifestation of depression and its assessment is outlined. Four major theories of depression—biological, psychoanalytic, behavioral, and cognitive—are presented, and developmental issues are discussed in relation to each theory's formulation of the etiology, maintenance, and treatment of depression. Finally, alternative methodologies for the study of childhood depression are considered, and directions for future research, particularly for investigations examining the relationship between childhood and adult depression, are advanced.     

Feature-processing deficits following brain injury. I. Overselectivity in recognition memory for compound stimuli

A previous experiment (S. Wayland & J.E. Taplin, 1982, Brain and Language, 16, 87-108) demonstrated that aphasic subjects had particular difficulty performing a categorization task, which for normals involves abstraction of a prototype from a set of patterns and sorting of other patterns with reference to this prototype. This study extended the investigation to a recognition memory task similarly organized in categorical structure. The aim was to replicate the previous findings and to delineate the precise nature of aphasics' difficulties with such tasks. Aphasics were again found to be aberrant in performing this task in comparison with normal subjects, nonaphasic brain-injured control subjects also demonstrating a departure from normality. The results suggest that the problem for brain-injured subjects is one of overselectivity in terms of the features of the stimuli to which they respond rather than a difficulty with prototype abstraction itself.     

Empirical evidence for narrative structure

Three experimental tasks—spontaneous telling of a story, reading, and parsing the story—were used to determine whether empirical data reflect the narrative structure of stories and can be predicted by a plot unit analysis of the stories (Lehnert, 1981). It was found that spontaneous pause durations at sentence breaks were highly correlated with the importance of these breaks as predicted theoretically. Only low correlations were obtained, however, when reading pause durations were correlated with the model. As for parsing values, the value of the correlation coefficients depended on whether stories had sufficient superficial linguistic cues to help the subjects in parsing. It was concluded that spontaneous pausing not only reflects the narrative structure of stories, but can be used as a guide to constructing theories of narrative structure as well as for deciding between competing theories.     

高中生价值观对学校投入的影响:未来目标和动机内化程度的中介作用

为了考察价值观是否可以通过未来目标和动机内化程度影响高中生的学校投入，对六个城市七所学校的1022名高一学生的价值观、未来目标、学习动机内化程度及学校投入进行了调查。结果表明：（1）自我超越型价值观和自我完善型价值观能够使青少年发展出内在未来目标以及较为内化的学习动机，进而更加努力学习，而物质主义价值观则会使青少年形成外在未来目标以及较为外化的学习动机，进而更少投入学习；（2）当考虑价值观对未来目标的作用时，内外在未来目标不影响青少年的学习动机，但影响学校投入；（3）当不考虑价值观对未来目标的作用时，内在未来目标能够促进青少年学习动机的内化，进而更多地投入到学习中，而外在未来目标则会阻碍青少年学习动机的内化，进而更少投入学习。研究结果表明青少年的价值观比未来目标对学习有更重要的影响，说明学生发展指导工作中更应该注重价值观教育。     

On the formation of personal space and self-boundary structures in early human development: The case of infant stranger reactivity

Personal space and self-boundary are, respectively, sociological and intra-psychological concepts that refer to a complex of behavioral and subjective events between and within individuals. While there are large bodies of literature concerned with each of these concepts, literature that cuts across many disciplines of study, there has never been an integration of these concepts around specific human developmental issues. The present article focuses upon human infancy as a period in which both personal space and self-boundary phenomena can be observed. Developmental links between personal space and self-boundary phenomena in infancy and adulthood are outlined and discussed.     

中西部农村中小学生所受抚养方式与心理健康水平的分析

通过对中西部地区农村中小学心理健康状况的调查,从中随机选取1600份问卷进行抽样分析,分析结果为接受不同抚养方式的中小学生,在孤独倾向、身体症状、冲动倾向及总体心理健康水平方面上具有显著差异。