The moderating role of empathy in the association between parental support and adolescent aggressive and delinquent behavior

The present two‐wave longitudinal study addressed the role of affective empathy and parental support in aggressive and delinquent behavior in a sample of 323 adolescents (158 boys, 165 girls). Self‐report questionnaires were used to assess affective empathy, perceived support from parents, delinquency, and aggression. Guided by theories on children's differential susceptibility to socialization, we expected adolescents with different levels of empathy to vary in their responsiveness to parental support. In agreement with our hypothesis, empathy moderated the relation of perceived parental support with aggressive and delinquent behavior. Controlling for the effect of gender and for the stability of aggression and delinquency, higher perceived parental support was predictive of lower levels of aggression at age 15, but only for adolescents high in empathy. Remarkably, adolescents low in empathy not only appeared to benefit less from parental support, but even showed more aggression and delinquency at age 15 when they perceived their parents to be more supportive at age 14. Aggr. Behav. 38:368‐377, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Performance on auditory and visual temporal information processing is related to psychometric intelligence

The present study investigated the relationship between psychometric intelligence and temporal resolution power (TRP) as simultaneously assessed by auditory and visual psychophysical timing tasks. In addition, three different theoretical models of the functional relationship between TRP and psychometric intelligence as assessed by means of the Adaptive Matrices Test (AMT) were developed. To test the validity of these models, structural equation modeling was applied. Empirical data supported a hierarchical model that assumed auditory and visual modality-specific temporal processing at a first level and amodal temporal processing at a second level. This second-order latent variable was substantially correlated with psychometric intelligence. Therefore, the relationship between psychometric intelligence and psychophysical timing performance can be explained best by a hierarchical model of temporal information processing.     

Family Functioning and the Course of Adolescent Bipolar Disorder

The symptoms of bipolar disorder affect and are affected by the functioning of family environments. Little is known, however, about the stability of family functioning among youth with bipolar disorder as they cycle in and out of mood episodes. This study examined family functioning and its relationship to symptoms of adolescent bipolar disorder, using longitudinal measures of family cohesion, adaptability, and conflict. Parent- and adolescent-reported symptom and family functioning data were collected from 58 families of adolescents with bipolar disorder (mean age = 14.48 ± 1.60; 33 female, 25 male) who participated in a 2-year randomized trial of family-focused treatment for adolescents (FFT-A). Cohesion and adaptability scores did not significantly change over the course of the study. Parent-reported conflict prior to psychosocial treatment moderated the treatment responses of families, such that high-conflict families participating in FFT-A demonstrated greater reductions in conflict over time than low-conflict families. Moreover, adolescent mania symptoms improved more rapidly in low-conflict than in high-conflict families. For all respondents, cohesion, adaptability, and conflict were longitudinally correlated with adolescents’ depression scores. Finally, decreases in parent-reported conflict also predicted decreases in adolescents’ manic symptoms over the 2-year study. Findings suggest that family cohesion, adaptability, and conflict may be useful predictors of the course of adolescent mood symptoms. Family conflict may be an important target for family intervention in early onset bipolar disorder.     

Understanding children's emotional processes and behavioral strategies in the context of marital conflict

Marital conflict is a distressing context in which children must regulate their emotion and behavior; however, the associations between the multidimensionality of conflict and children’s regulatory processes need to be examined. The current study examined differences in children’s (N = 207, mean age = 8.02 years) emotions (mad, sad, scared, and happy) and behavioral strategies to regulate conflict exposure during resolved, unresolved, escalating, and child-rearing marital conflict vignettes. Children’s cortisol levels were assessed in relation to child-rearing and resolved conflict vignettes. Anger and sadness were associated with escalating and child-rearing conflicts, fearfulness was related to escalating and unresolved conflicts, and happiness was associated with resolution. Anger was associated with children’s strategies to stop conflict, whereas sadness was associated with monitoring and avoidant strategies. Cortisol recovery moderated the link between fearfulness and behavioral regulation. These results highlight the importance of children’s emotions and regulatory processes in understanding the impact of marital conflict.     

Moral judgments of the powerless and powerful in violent intergroup conflicts

The present research examined observers' moral judgments of groups in conflict. Study 1 found support for the prediction that actions are interpreted as more moral in the context of low power. People judged the violent actions of a fictitious group as more moral and justifiable when done by a smaller, less powerful country compared to a larger one. However, a second study found that violence may undermine the moral advantage accorded underdog groups. People reading about Israeli construction of settlements in Palestinian territories judged the Israeli actions to be more moral when Palestinians resisted violently compared to when they used non-violent resistance tactics. Together, these studies demonstrate how moral judgments of the actions of groups in conflict are influenced by contextual factors independent of the actions themselves.     

How Sensation Seeking provides a common basis for functional and dysfunctional outcomes

This research determines if Mastery Goal Orientation mediates Sensation Seeking in the prediction of functional performance and if Sensation Seeking directly predicts dysfunctional behavior. Using two different measures of Sensation Seeking, a sample of fulltime Australian workers was used to test the proposed learning mechanism in the prediction of supervisor rated work outcomes, self-reported work outcomes, and self-reported dysfunctional behavior. As predicted, mediation and suppression analyses provided strong support for the proposed model but with just one of the measures of Sensation Seeking. It is concluded that this mechanism of learning has much to offer our understanding of functional and dysfunctional outcomes.     

On the Knowledge of Politics and the Politics of Knowledge: How a Social Representations Approach Helps Us Rethink the Subject of Political Psychology

Fifty years ago, Serge Moscovici first outlined a theory of social representations. In this article, we attempt to discuss and to contextualize research that has been inspired by this original impetus from the particular angle of its relevance to political psychology. We argue that four defining components of social representations need to be taken into account, and that these elements need to be articulated with insights from the social identity tradition about the centrality of self and group constructions in order to develop original insights into political psychological phenomena. First, social representations are shared knowledge, and the way interpretations of the world are collectively elaborated is critical to the way people are able to act within the world. Second, social representations are meta‐knowledge, which implies that what people assume relevant others know, think, or value is part of their own interpretative grid, and that collective behavior can often be influenced more powerfully at the level of meta‐representations than of intimate beliefs. Third, social representations are enacted communication, which means that social influence is exerted by the factors that constrain social practices as much as by the discourse that interprets these practices. Fourth, social representations are world‐making assumptions: collective understandings do not only reflect existing realities but often bring social reality into being. Put together, these four components provide a distinctive theoretical perspective on power, resistance and conflict. The added conceptual value of this perspective is illustrated by showing how it allows revisiting ethnic conflict in the former Yugoslavia. We conclude with implications for research practices and discuss how the proposed model of social representations invites us to define new priorities and challenges for the methods used to study political psychological phenomena.     

Sex differences of parental phubbing on online hostility among adolescents: A moderated mediation model

To explore the relationship between parental phubbing (PP) and adolescent online hostility and its' psychological mechanism, 689 Chinese adolescents were recruited to complete a paper-and-pencil questionnaire. We took cyber flaming (CF) as an overall category for hostile online communication to investigate the relationship between PP and CF and the mediating role of perspective-taking (PT) in this relationship and examined whether there is a sex difference in this process. After controlling the average daily online time, the results showed that PP predicted adolescent CF positively. The relationship between PP and CF was partially mediated by PT. The effect of PP on PT was moderated by sex, with the result being significant only for boys. Related findings and future directions were discussed.     

Age-related qualitative differences in post-error cognitive control adjustments

Detecting an error signals the need for increased cognitive control and behavioural adjustments. Considerable development in performance monitoring and cognitive control is evidenced by lower error rates and faster response times in multi-trial executive function tasks with age. Besides these quantitative changes, we were interested in whether qualitative changes in balancing accuracy and speed contribute to developmental progression during elementary school years. We conducted two studies investigating the temporal and developmental trajectories of post-error slowing in three prominent cognitive conflict tasks (Stroop, Simon, and flanker). We instructed children (8-, 10-, and 12-year-old) and adults to respond as fast and as accurately as possible and measured their response times on four trials after correct and incorrect responses to a cognitive conflict. Results revealed that all age groups had longer response times on post-error versus post-correct trials, reflecting post-error slowing. Critically, slowing on the first post-error trial declined with age, suggesting an age-related reduction in the orienting response towards errors. This age effect diminished on subsequent trials, suggesting more fine-tuned cognitive control adjustments with age. Overall, the consistent pattern across tasks suggests an age-related change from a relatively strong orienting response to more balanced cognitive control adaptations.     

父母心理控制对流动儿童道德推脱的影响:学校道德氛围感知的中介作用和性别的调节作用

以345名12～17岁初中阶段流动儿童为被试,采用问卷法考察学校道德氛围感知在流动儿童父母心理控制与道德推脱关系中的中介作用,以及性别的调节作用。结果表明:(1)父母心理控制正向预测流动儿童道德推脱;(2)学校道德氛围感知在父母心理控制和流动儿童道德推脱之间起到部分中介作用。(3)性别在父母心理控制与学校道德氛围感知间起调节作用,性别调节了中介模型的前半路径,具体而言,与男孩相较,女孩的学校道德氛围感知受到父母心理控制的影响作用更加显著。