Career Decision‐Making Self‐Efficacy Change in Italian High School Students

The authors explored the effects of a structured‐group career intervention among 280 Italian high school students. Hierarchical linear models indicated the intervention's effectiveness in increasing career decision‐making self‐efficacy and, consequently, career exploration, but not in decreasing career choice anxiety. In addition, partial confirmation was found for the moderating effects of participants' expectations and motivation to change on the relationship between career decision‐making self‐efficacy and career choice anxiety. The findings support the development of a systematic vocational guidance program in Italian schools.     

The flip side of the other‐race coin: They all look different to me

Poorer recognition of other‐race faces than own‐races faces has been attributed to a problem of discrimination (i.e., telling faces apart). The conclusion that ‘they all look the same to me' is based on studies measuring the perception/memory of highly controlled stimuli, typically involving only one or two images of each identity. We hypothesized that such studies underestimate the challenge involved in recognizing other‐race faces because in the real world, an individual's appearance varies in a number of ways (e.g., lighting, expression, hairstyle), reducing the utility of relying on pictorial cues to identity. In two experiments, Caucasian and East Asian participants completed a perceptual sorting task in which they were asked to sort 40 photographs of two unfamiliar identities into piles such that each pile contained all photographs of a single identity. Participants perceived more identities when sorting other‐race faces than own‐race faces, both when sorting celebrity (Experiment 1) and non‐celebrity (Experiment 2) faces, suggesting that in the real world, ‘they all look different to me'. We discuss these results in the light of models in which each identity is represented as a region in a multidimensional face space; we argue that this region is smaller for other‐race than own‐race faces.     

The effects of co‐occurring ADHD symptoms on electrophysiological correlates of cognitive control in young people with Tourette syndrome

Efficient cognitive control is implicated in tic control in young people with Tourette syndrome (TS). Attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) frequently co‐occurs with TS and is associated with impaired cognitive control. Young people with TS and ADHD (TS+ADHD) show poorer cognitive control performance than those with TS, but how co‐occurring ADHD affects underlying neural activity is unknown. We investigated this issue by examining behavioural and event‐related potential (ERP) correlates of cognitive control in young people with these conditions. Participants aged 9–17 with TS (n = 17), TS+ADHD (n = 17), ADHD (n = 11), and unaffected controls (n = 20) performed a visual Go/Nogo task during electroencephalography (EEG) recording. Behavioural performance measures (D‐prime, RT, reaction time variability, post‐error slowing) and ERP measures (N2, P3, error‐related negativity (ERN), error positivity (Pe)) were analysed in a 2 (TS‐yes, TS‐no) × 2 (ADHD‐yes, ADHD‐no) factorial analysis to investigate the effects of TS, ADHD, and their interaction. The results of these analyses showed that ADHD was associated with poorer performance and reduced amplitude of all ERPs, reflecting widespread cognitive control impairments. Tourette syndrome was associated with slowed RTs, which might reflect a compensatory slowing of motor output to facilitate tic control. There was no interaction between the TS and ADHD factors for any behavioural or ERP measure, indicating the impairing effects of ADHD on behaviour and electrophysiological markers of cognitive control were present in TS+ADHD and that RT slowing associated with TS was unaffected by co‐occurring ADHD symptoms.     

SINGLE‐SAMPLE DISCRIMINATION OF DIFFERENT SCHEDULES' REINFORCED INTERRESPONSE TIMES

Food‐deprived rats in Experiment 1 responded to one of two tandem schedules that were, with equal probability, associated with a sample lever. The tandem schedules' initial links were different random‐interval schedules. Their values were adjusted to approximate equality in time to completing each tandem schedule's response requirements. The tandem schedules differed in their terminal links: One reinforced short interresponse times; the other reinforced long ones. Tandem‐schedule completion presented two comparison levers, one of which was associated with each tandem schedule. Pressing the lever associated with the sample‐lever tandem schedule produced a food pellet. Pressing the other produced a blackout. The difference between terminal‐link reinforced interresponse times varied across 10‐trial blocks within a session. Conditional‐discrimination accuracy increased with the size of the temporal difference between terminal‐link reinforced interresponse times. In Experiment 2, one tandem schedule was replaced by a random ratio, while the comparison schedule was either a tandem schedule that only reinforced long interresponse times or a random‐interval schedule. Again, conditional‐discrimination accuracy increased with the temporal difference between the two schedules' reinforced interresponse times. Most rats mastered the discrimination between random ratio and random interval, showing that the interresponse times reinforced by these schedules can serve to discriminate between these schedules.     

Counseling Considerations for the Twice‐Exceptional Client

Counselors can be pivotal in helping families to understand the identification of twice‐exceptionality and related implications, including developing successful interventions for the school years and beyond. There are many potential counseling concerns, including bullying and peer interactions, social and emotional development, career guidance, college transition planning, and functioning in adulthood. Learning how to work with twice‐exceptional clients regarding these concerns needs to begin during training and progress throughout one's career. Recommendations for best practice are provided.     

Bayley‐III: Cultural differences and language scale validity in a Danish sample

The purpose of this study was to investigate cultural differences between Danish and American children at 2 and 3 years as measured with the developmental test Bayley‐III, and to investigate the Bayley‐III Language Scale validity. The Danish children (N = 43) were tested with the Bayley‐III and their parents completed an additional language questionnaire (the MacArthur‐Bates CDI). Results showed that scores from the Danish children did not differ significantly from the American norms on the Cognitive or Motor Scale, but the Danish sample scored significantly higher on the Language Scale. A comparison of the Bayley‐III Language subtests with the CDI showed that the two measures correlated significantly, but the percentile score from the CDI was significantly higher than the percentile score from the Bayley‐III Language subtests. This could be because the two instruments measure slightly different areas of language development, or because the Bayley‐III overestimates language development in Danish children. However, due to the limitations of the current study, further research is needed to clarify this issue.     

Evaluation of a Combined Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Interpersonal Process Group in the Psychotherapy Training of Clinical Psychologists

It is now widely acknowledged that both content and process elements of psychotherapy play a part in client treatment outcomes. Despite this, there are pressures on Australian clinical psychology training programs to teach evidence‐based approaches in a relatively short time frame. Producing clinical psychology graduates who have an adequate level of competence in evidence‐based practice and meeting the demands of professional accreditation requirements can mean that less time is available to teach the process elements of psychotherapy. The aim of this study was to conduct a preliminary evaluation of a clinical psychology psychotherapy training program that combines an interpersonal process group with a cognitive behavioural therapy training model that incorporates self‐reflection and self‐practice. Eleven participants who participated in the training in 2008 completed the Counseling Self‐Estimate Inventory at pre‐ and post‐training. Significant improvements on the majority of the subscales of this inventory were found. A separate sample of nine trainees and clinical psychology registrars who also previously completed the program attended individual interviews in 2010 aimed at gaining their perspective regarding various aspects of the program. Self‐practice of cognitive behavioural therapy techniques was found to be important in the identification and management of trainees’ own core beliefs, and to their appreciation of how challenging this process may be for clients. The interpersonal process group was described by participants as enhancing their competency as psychotherapists. Common themes included the experience of anxiety and a high level of emotion, and understanding how this experience might be similar for clients; increased self‐awareness; and increased competence in process issues. Many participants believed the process and content components of training were equally important to their development as psychotherapists.     

Effects of facial expression on working memory

In long‐term memory (LTM) emotional content may both enhance and impair memory, however, disagreement remains whether emotional content exerts different effects on the ability to maintain and manipulate information over short intervals. Using a working‐memory (WM) recognition task requiring the monitoring of faces displaying facial expressions of emotion, participants judged each face as identical (target) or not (non‐target) to that presented 2 trials back (2‐back). Negative expression was better and faster recognised, illustrated by higher target discriminability and target detection. Positive and negative expressions also induced a more liberal detection bias compared with neutral. Taking the preceding item into account, additional accuracy impairment (negative preceding negative target) and enhancement effects (negative or positive preceding neutral target) appeared. This illustrates a differential modulation of WM based on the affective tone of the target (mirroring LTM enhancement‐ and recognition bias effects), and of the preceding item (enhanced and impaired target detection).     

Counter‐intuitive moral judgement following traumatic brain injury

Several neurological patient populations, including traumatic brain injury (TBI), appear to produce an abnormally ‘utilitarian’ pattern of judgements to moral dilemmas; they tend to make judgements that maximize the welfare of the majority, rather than deontological judgements based on the following of moral rules (e.g., do not harm others). However, this patient research has always used extreme dilemmas with highly valued moral rules (e.g., do not kill). Data from healthy participants, however, suggest that when a wider range of dilemmas are employed, involving less valued moral rules (e.g., do not lie), moral judgements demonstrate sensitivity to the psychological intuitiveness of the judgements, rather than their deontological or utilitarian content (Kahane et al., Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 7, 2011, 393). We sought the moral judgements of 30 TBI participants and 30 controls on moral dilemmas where content (utilitarian/deontological) and intuition (intuitive/counter‐intuitive) were measured concurrently. Overall TBI participants made utilitarian judgements in equal proportions to controls; disproportionately favouring utilitarian judgements only when they were counter‐intuitive, and deontological judgements only when they were counter‐intuitive. These results speak against the view that TBI causes a specific utilitarian bias, suggesting instead that moral intuition is broadly disrupted following TBI.     

Learning through observing: Effects of modeling truth‐ and lie‐telling on children’s honesty

The current study examined the influence of observing another's lie‐ or truth‐telling – and its consequences – on children's own honesty about a transgression. Children (N = 224, 5–8 years of age) observed an experimenter (E) tell the truth or lie about a minor transgression in one of five conditions: (a) Truth‐Positive Outcome – E told the truth with a positive outcome; (b) Truth‐Negative Outcome – E told the truth with a negative outcome; (c) Lie‐Positive Outcome – E lied with a positive outcome; (d) Lie‐Negative Outcome – E lied with a negative outcome; (e) Control – E did not tell a lie or tell the truth. Later, to examine children's truth‐ or lie‐telling behavior, children participated in a temptation resistance paradigm where they were told not to peek at a trivia question answer. They either peeked or not, and subsequently lied or told the truth about that behavior. Additionally, children were asked to give moral evaluations of different truth‐ and lie‐telling vignettes. Overall, 85% of children lied. Children were less likely to lie about their own transgression in the TRP when they had previously witnessed the experimenter tell the truth with a positive outcome or tell a lie with a negative outcome.