Externalizing behaviours of Turkish-Dutch and Moroccan-Dutch youth: The role of parental cultural socialization

The present study examines whether perceived parental cultural socialization (e.g., encouraging cultural practices, traditions, language and cultural pride) is negatively associated with externalizing problem behaviours (e.g., fighting, expression of anger, lying and stealing) among Turkish-Dutch (n = 143) and Moroccan-Dutch (n = 164) youth (age 14–18), with ethnic in-group connectedness as a mediator. The results show that Turkish-Dutch youth, who report more cultural socialization efforts by their parents, are less likely to exhibit externalizing behaviours, because of their increased connectedness to the ethnic in-group. For Moroccan-Dutch youth, however, in-group connectedness is lower and we find no indirect effect of perceived parental cultural socialization on externalizing behaviours. We conclude that Turkish-Dutch youth seem to reap mental health benefits from what they perceive as their parents’ cultural socialization efforts. Thus, it is important to study ethnic differences in parental cultural socialization to enhance youth development across diverse youth populations in Europe.     

Universal parental support for parents of adolescents: Who wants municipality‐based parental support and in what form?

Parenting a child through adolescence can be a challenge for many parents; adolescents go through notable developmental, physical, and psychological changes that affect the relationships around them. Most parents find parental support during these years important. These young people's relationships with their parents are important to their mental health, but although parental support is universally available to parents of younger children, it is still scarce for parents of adolescents. The aim of this study was to explore what factors are associated with interest in universal parental support through telephone interviews and questionnaires with 223 parents of 13‐ to 17‐year‐olds. Parents’ interest in parental support was linked to their own anxious mood, their lower perceived parental capacity, their perception of the child as having psychiatric problems, the parents’ perception of their adolescents’ openness about things and their perception of the adolescent's overall difficulties in daily life due to psychiatric symptoms. The results show that lighter forms of support such as lectures or seminars were more appealing to parents with higher social status. Offering community‐based individual counseling and leader‐led parent training groups therefore has the potential to reach parents with difficulties more equally, while offering support only through lectures and seminars could increase the inequality between parents in different social situations.     

Vicarious Improvement Among Parents Participating in Child-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Anxiety

Parental variables likely have important and bidirectional influences on the etiology of child anxiety. Although some child-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy (CCBT) anxiety trials have found vicarious improvements among parents who participated in their children’s treatment, this is an understudied area. We hypothesized that parental variables (psychopathology, stress, and burden) will significantly decrease from pre- to post-CCBT and will be associated with child treatment response. We explored whether intervention delivery method—in-person CCBT versus parent-mediated bibliotherapy—influenced vicarious parental improvements. Parental variables decreased from pre- to post-CCBT and were associated with child treatment response. Effects did not interact with delivery method. Parent participation in anxiety CCBT may result in vicarious improvements for parents.     

A longitudinal model of executive function development from birth through adolescence in children born very or extremely preterm

Executive function deficits are often reported as a specific weakness in preterm children. Yet, executive function development is still not fully understood. In a prospective longitudinal study, 115 preterm born children, ≤31 weeks of gestation, were recruited at birth and subject to neuropsychological assessments at ages 5.5 and 18 years. By applying Miyake and colleagues’ integrative framework of executive function to our data, two core components of executive function, working memory and cognitive flexibility, were identified through confirmatory factor analysis. Developmental stability was investigated in a serial multiple mediator structural equation model. Biological, medical, and social factors as well as mental development at 10 months were entered as predictors. Both components of executive function were highly stable from 5.5 to 18 years. Gestational age, intrauterine growth, lack of perinatal medical complications, and female sex were positively related to mental development at 10 months, which together with parental education influenced both core executive functions at 5.5 years. Working memory at 5.5 years mediated outcome in working memory at 18 years. In addition to the mediation of cognitive flexibility at 5.5 years, perinatal medical complications and restricted intrauterine growth had a continued direct negative impact on cognitive flexibility at 18 years. The application of a theoretical framework added to our understanding of executive function development in preterm born children. The study supports early identification of executive deficits among children born preterm, as deficits are unlikely to diminish with maturation.     

Anxiety sensitivity, conscious awareness and selective attentional biases in children

The current study investigated whether physical anxiety sensitivity (AS) is associated with selective attentional biases to affective stimuli in children. The dot-probe paradigm was used to examine the deployment of attention towards words pertaining to anxiety symptomatology, socially threatening words, and positive words, in samples of 8-10-year-old children. Word pairs were presented under both masked and unmasked conditions. Irrespective of masking, children high in physical AS displayed an attentional vigilance for emotional words relative to neutral words, whereas those low in physical AS displayed a relative avoidance of such material. The results of this study are interesting as they not only suggest the presence of automatic AS-related biases in childhood, but that this is a general emotionality bias rather than one related to specific anxiety-related stimuli.     

A test of the interactive effects of anxiety sensitivity and mindfulness in the prediction of anxious arousal, agoraphobic cognitions, and body vigilance

The present investigation sought to examine the interactive effects of anxiety sensitivity [AS; Reiss, S., & McNally, R. J. (1985). Expectancy model of fear. In S. Reiss, & R. R. Bootzin (Eds.), Theoretical issues in behavior therapy (pp. 107-121). San Diego: Academic Press] and mindfulness [Brown, K. W., & Ryan, R. M. (2003). The benefit of being present: Mindfulness and its role in psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 822-848] in predicting panic-relevant processes. A community sample of 248 individuals participated in the study by completing a battery of self-report instruments. Consistent with prediction, the interaction between AS and mindfulness significantly predicted anxious arousal symptoms and agoraphobic cognitions, above and beyond the individual main effects, and did not significantly predict anhedonic depression symptoms. Contrary to prediction, the AS by mindfulness interaction did not significantly predict body vigilance. Theoretical implications are discussed and future directions are delineated.     

Does anxiety sensitivity predict symptoms of panic, depression, and social anxiety?

This study examined whether the lower-order factors of the Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI) exhibited specificity in predicting symptoms of panic, depression, and social anxiety prospectively. This question was addressed using a sample of undergraduates stratified to represent low, medium, and high levels of anxiety sensitivity (AS). It was hypothesized that the physical concerns, mental concerns, and social concerns subscales of the ASI would predict increases in panic, depression, and social anxiety symptoms, respectively, one year later. Results found that the physical concerns subscale predicted increases in both panic and depressive symptoms. Neither the mental concerns nor the social concerns subscales predicted significant variance in any of the Time 2 symptoms. Theoretical implications of these data for AS are discussed.     

Harm and Uncertainty In Newborn Intensive Care

There is a broadly held view that neonatologists are ethically obligated to act to override parental nontreatment decisions for imperiled premature newborns when there is a reasonable chance of a good outcome. It is argued here that three types of uncertainty undercut any such general obligation: (1) the vagueness of the boundary at which an infant’s deficits become so intolerable that death could be reasonably preferred; (2) the uncertainty about whether aggressive treatment will result in the survival of a reasonably healthy child or, alternatively, the survival of a child with intolerable deficits; and (3) the inability to determine an acceptable ratio between the likelihoods of those two outcomes. It is argued that the broadly held view accords insufficient weight to the fact that newborn intensive care increases the likelihood of harm to the child by effecting survival with intolerable deficits. Though treatment may offer a reasonable chance of a good outcome, it is argued that there are situations in which neonatologists should nonetheless defer to parental nontreatment decisions.     

Parental and school influences upon the career development of poor youth of color

Critical career development tasks for adolescents include developing vocational expectations and a connection to the world of work. Given the sociopolitical barriers to the career development of poor Youth of Color, it is vital to identify contextual resources facilitative of their career development. The present study examines the impact of relational and instrumental parental support and instrumental school support upon vocational expectations and work salience among poor Youth of Color. Participants from the National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS) were examined longitudinally from 12th grade to two years after they had finished high school. The obtained structural models suggested that relational and instrumental parental support had a direct effect upon work salience and instrumental parental support a significant indirect effect two years later. Instrumental school support and relational parental support had direct effects upon vocational expectations and nonsignificant indirect effects two years later. These findings illuminate contextual factors facilitative of vocational expectations and work salience, provide support for school-based career development programs, and suggest that incorporating relational and instrumental parental support could augment intervention programs for poor Youth of Color.