Punishment insensitivity and parenting: temperament and learning as interacting risks for antisocial behavior

We review ideas about individual differences in sensitivity or responsiveness to common disciplinary behaviors parents use to correct aggressive and antisocial behavior in children. At extremes, children may be seen as punishment-insensitive, an heuristic with some value relevant to models of the development of antisocial and aggressive behavior disorders. Literature from diverse fields, such as psychopathy, child temperament, socialization and the development of moral conscience, conditioning theory, and personality theory, have all utilized the idea that humans differ in their sensitivity to aversive stimuli and the cues that signal their occurrence, as well as their ability to inhibit reward-driven behavior, in the presence of punishment cues. Contemporary thinking places these dispositions squarely as basic biological aspects of temperament that moderate the effects of the environment (e.g., parenting) on outcomes (e.g., mental health). We review a largely forgotten literature that shows clearly that sensitivity to punishment is also reliably influenced by the environment itself. An attempt is then made to model the interactional processes by which parenting and punishment sensitivities in children magnify or diminish each other's progress toward healthy or antisocial development. Implications for parenting of children with low responsiveness to punishment strategies are discussed.     

What makes words sound similar?

Although similarity plays an important role in accounts of language processing, there are surprisingly few direct empirical studies of the phonological similarity between words, and it is therefore not clear whether similarity comparisons between words involve processes similar to those involved in other cognitive domains. In five experiments, participants chose which of two monosyllabic pseudo-words sounded more similar to a target pseudo-word. Our results are generally consistent with the structural alignment theory of comparisons between complex mental representations, suggesting that phonological word similarity parallels similarity involving other kinds of information including visual objects and scenes, events, and word meanings. We use our results to test new metrics of word similarity, and identify predictions for future similarity research both in the domain of word sounds and in other cognitive domains.     

The effects of safety-seeking behavior and guided threat reappraisal on fear reduction during exposure: an experimental investigation

We examined the effects of safety-seeking behavior and guided threat focus and reappraisal on fear reduction during exposure. Participants (N=46) displaying marked claustrophobic fear were randomized to one of three 30-min exposure conditions: (a) guided threat focus and reappraisal; (b) safety-behavior utilization; or (c) exposure only control. Tripartite outcome assessments during a behavioral approach test, along with measures of suffocation and restriction fears were obtained at pre- and post-treatment, and at a 2-week follow-up. Treatment process measures were collected throughout treatment and consisted of indices of fear activation; within and between-trial fear habituation; and suffocation and entrapment expectancies. Measures of safety behavior utilization and attentional focus were also collected to assess the integrity of the experimental manipulations. Consistent with prediction, those encouraged to utilize safety-behaviors during exposure showed significantly more fear at post-treatment and follow-up relative to those encouraged to focus and reevaluate their core threat(s) during exposure. Moreover, growth curve analyses of treatment process data analyses revealed that safety-behavior utilization exerted a detrimental effect on between-trial habituation; whereas guided threat reappraisal enhanced between-trial habituation.     

Relations among musical skills,phonological processing,and early reading ability in preschool children

We examined the relations among phonological awareness, music perception skills, and early reading skills in a population of 100 4- and 5-year-old children. Music skills were found to correlate significantly with both phonological awareness and reading development. Regression analyses indicated that music perception skills contributed unique variance in predicting reading ability, even when variance due to phonological awareness and other cognitive abilities (math, digit span, and vocabulary) had been accounted for. Thus, music perception appears to tap auditory mechanisms related to reading that only partially overlap with those related to phonological awareness, suggesting that both linguistic and nonlinguistic general auditory mechanisms are involved in reading.     

The recognition of affective states associated with players’ non-verbal behavior in volleyball

The visible non-verbal behavior of volleyball players after a point might indicate their affective state. The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether the point outcome (i.e., win vs. loss) and the importance of the situation (i.e., first vs. fifth set) influence how well the affective states (indexed through non-verbal behavior) can be recognized. For this purpose, 111 participants were presented 60 video excerpts showing the non-verbal behavior of volleyball teams immediately after a rally and asked whether the shown team had just won or lost a point. The results indicated that the recognition rate was significantly higher for won (80.09%) than for lost points (65.56%) as well as for points of the fifth set (77.84%) than for points of the first set (68.51%). Furthermore, an explorative analysis showed that the recognition rate was significantly higher for won points of the fifth set (89.19%) than for those of the first set (72.13%).     

Associations between power,stress, and dominance in romantic relationships during the COVID-19 pandemic: Examining curvilinear and within-person effects

Two key processes in romantic relationships—power and dominance—can contribute to relationship disruption, but the association between these variables is complex. Elucidating the association between power and dominance during the COVID-19 pandemic is particularly important given the economic, social, and health-related stressors that pose a risk to relationship health. We examined associations between power, stress, and dominance by recruiting 1813 participants to complete an initial online survey at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants were contacted 10 and 22 months later to complete follow-up surveys. Results revealed two main effects: individuals who had greater relationship power and experienced more COVID-19-related stressors than other people engaged in more dominance behaviors. A significant curvilinear effect revealed that at low levels of power, power was not associated with dominance behaviors. However, once power surpassed low levels, individuals with more power engaged in more dominance behaviors. Finally, people engaged in more dominance behaviors when they experienced more power and stress compared to their own average (i.e., within-person effects) during the pandemic. Implications for theories of power, dominance, and relationship disruption and distress are discussed.     

Exploring the peer status prototypes: A large-scale latent profile analysis on high-school students from four European countries

Peer status – the regard other group members have of an individual – is fundamental for youth development. Different research traditions developed independent theoretical frameworks conceiving the dimensions underlying social status, and this led to identifying a variety of peer status prototypes. In this work, we explored whether a classification based on the four dimensions of popularity, aggression, dislike, and victimization could integrate the scattered peer status profiles found in the different traditions. A latent profile analysis on 16,224 European students identified the peer status prototypes of popular, bullies, disliked, victims, and average students. Both the peer- and self-reported correlates supported that the five profiles accounted for the large variety of the students' profiles in the literature. These findings suggest that the adoption of a multidimensional approach supported by advanced statistical procedures could identify students' peer status profiles more effectively, replacing classifications based on cutoffs, and leading to a unified students' classification.