Attachment insecurity as a moderator of cardiovascular arousal effects following dyadic support

We examine the cardiovascular arousal effects of emotional support receipt, and the moderation of these by the support recipient’s and provider’s attachment. Seventy couples engaged in a laboratory dyadic supportive interaction, while their ECG was monitored. With more emotional support, men with high attachment anxiety showed greater arousal reduction during the dyadic interaction, whereas men with low attachment anxiety showed less reduction; additionally, women coupled with partners with high attachment anxiety showed greater arousal reduction, whereas women coupled with partners with low attachment anxiety showed less reduction. Men and women with high attachment avoidance showed less arousal reduction, whereas those with low attachment avoidance showed greater reduction. These results highlight the differential ways in which support gets under the skin.     

Neuropsychological test norms controlled for physical health: Does it matter?

The objective of the present study was to investigate the effects of physical health on neuropsychological test norms. Medical and neuropsychological data from 118 healthy volunteer controls, aged 26–91 years, were collected during five recruitment occasions. The examinations included a clinical investigation, brain neuroimaging, and a comprehensive neuropsychological test battery. Test‐specific statistical regression‐weights for age, education and gender were calculated to establish preliminary test norms. Hierarchical regression analyses demonstrated that control in addition for physical health moved best performance from age 60 to 65 for abstraction; replaced a plateau above age 70 for verbal fluency, with a continued rise in performance; eliminated significant negative influences of age on auditory learning, spatial reasoning and complex copying; reduced them on wordlist recall, psychomotor speed, visual scanning and mental shifting; and slightly reduced negative influences of low education on most verbal tests, several memory tests, and psychomotor speed, indicating rises in normative scores of up to 0.8 SD at age 80 and 0.4 SD at age 60. No differences were found at age 40. Although the sample size is not adequate to be used for normative data, the findings indicate that norms uncontrolled for health overestimate the negative influence of advanced age and low education, implying a risk of drawing false diagnostic conclusions.     

The factors of female taxi drivers’ speeding offenses in Taiwan

Females choosing taxi driving as a career is rare, therefore, investigating such samples is often difficult. Speeding is one of the most common driving violations, however, there has been no research looking into female taxi drivers’ speeding issue. This study explores the factors of female taxi drivers’ speeding offenses in Taiwan. Data is based on a national survey and includes 235 professional female taxi drivers. The results indicate that female taxi drivers work approximately 27.37 days per month, at a mean of 9.76 h per day. Of the female taxi drivers represented in this study, 22.8% reported at least one speeding offense over a one-year period. The results of a logistic regression model reveal that the determinant factors associated with female taxi drivers’ speeding offenses are significantly related to age, educational level and mileage driven. However, job experience, business operating style, and vehicle engine size are not associated with committing speeding offenses. Practical implications for traffic safety of female taxi drivers are also discussed.     

父母亲职压力与儿童对立违抗行为的关系:一项交叉滞后分析

采用亲职压力量表和对立违抗行为表现评估表调查了来自北京、山东和云南三地14所小学有ODD(oppositional defiant disorder)行为表现的301名儿童及其父母。通过为期两年的追踪研究,采用交叉滞后分析探讨了父母亲职压力与儿童的ODD行为之间的关系。结果发现:(1)在第一年和第二年的数据中,父母亲职压力和儿童的ODD行为表现均存在显著正相关;(2)第一年和第二年的父母亲职压力得分显著正相关,同样,两年的儿童ODD行为表现得分也显著正相关;(3)交叉滞后分析发现,对于有ODD行为表现的男孩来说,其父母第一年的亲职压力能预测他们第二年的ODD行为表现,但对于有ODD行为表现的女孩来说,其父母第一年的亲职压力并不能预测她们第二年的ODD行为表现;而不管是男孩,还是女孩,第一年的ODD行为表现都不能预测第二年的父母亲职压力。研究结果揭示出男孩父母的亲职压力可预测男孩的ODD行为表现,而不论是男孩或女孩的ODD行为表现都不能预测其父母亲职压力,说明父母亲职压力可能是男孩ODD行为表现的影响因素。     

Counselor Education Doctoral Program Faculty Members’ Refereed Article Publications

This study investigated articles published in refereed journals by counselor educators (N = 378) employed by 55 doctoral programs accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs. The counselor educators published in 321 different journals, and the variables that predicted publications rates included (a) year earned doctoral degree, (b) academic rank, (c) Carnegie category classification of current university, and (d) gender. Implications for counselor education and scholarly productivity are discussed.     

On regression and supervision

The centrality of the supervisory relationship to the professional development of supervisees may encourage dependency needs and regressive wishes. This process may undermine the delicate balance in supervision between an optimal didactic tension and an atmosphere of calmness and security. The present paper advises supervisors to take into account the gap in power and interests between their supervisees and themselves, and the temptation that may arise within them to use their supervisees' regression in order to avoid resistance. Such awareness will help them make controlled and appropriate use of such analytic powers and maintain the balance between supervisees' “regressive selves” and “mature selves.” In addition, a perception of supervisory relations as a space of mutual alternating regressive states is offered as an important aspect of supervisor–supervisee communication.     

潜在剖面分析在区分抑郁情绪患者的应用

目的：使用情绪启动的研究范式,探讨情绪启动对抑郁情绪患者的分类效果.方法：抽取35名抑郁情绪患者和35名正常被试,分别完成6种条件的实验任务,采用潜在剖面分析和logistic回归分析,分析6种条件对两组被试的分类结果.结果：两组被试在6种条件下对人脸表情判断的正确数和反应时存在显著差异,抑郁患者的反应时间明显延长,识别的正确数比正常被试少,潜在剖面分析的结果与真实结果具有较高的一致性.结论：潜在剖面分析能较好地区分正常组与抑郁组患者,为鉴别正常人与抑郁情绪患者提供新的途径.     

Coping Strategies and Psychological Outcomes: The Moderating Effects of Personal Resiliency

Certain coping strategies alleviate stress and promote positive psychological outcomes, whereas others exacerbate stress and promote negative psychological outcomes. However, the efficacy of any given coping strategy may also depend on personal resiliency. This study examined whether personal resiliency moderated the effects of task-oriented, avoidance-oriented, and emotion-oriented coping strategies on measures of depression, anxiety, stress, positive affect, negative affect, and satisfaction with life. Results (N = 424 undergraduates) showed higher personal resiliency was associated with greater use of task-oriented coping strategies, which were in turn associated with more adaptive outcomes, and less reliance on nonconstructive emotion-oriented strategies, which in turn were associated with poorer psychological outcomes. In addition, individual differences in personal resiliency moderated the effects of task-oriented coping on negative affect and of emotion-oriented coping on negative affect and depression. Specifically, proactive task-oriented coping was associated with greater negative affect for people lower in personal resiliency. Moreover, high personal resiliency attenuated the negative effects of emotion-oriented coping on depression and negative affect. The effects of avoidance-oriented coping were mixed and were not associated with or dependent on levels of personal resiliency.     

Using Raw VAR Regression Coefficients to Build Networks can be Misleading

Many questions in the behavioral sciences focus on the causal interplay of a number of variables across time. To reveal the dynamic relations between the variables, their (auto- or cross-) regressive effects across time may be inspected by fitting a lag-one vector autoregressive, or VAR(1), model and visualizing the resulting regression coefficients as the edges of a weighted directed network. Usually, the raw VAR(1) regression coefficients are drawn, but we argue that this may yield misleading network figures and characteristics because of two problems. First, the raw regression coefficients are sensitive to scale and variance differences among the variables and therefore may lack comparability, which is needed if one wants to calculate, for example, centrality measures. Second, they only represent the unique direct effects of the variables, which may give a distorted picture when variables correlate strongly. To deal with these problems, we propose to use other VAR(1)-based measures as edges. Specifically, to solve the comparability issue, the standardized VAR(1) regression coefficients can be displayed. Furthermore, relative importance metrics can be computed to include direct as well as shared and indirect effects into the network.