African American Children’s Racial Discrimination Experiences and Mental Health

Journal of Child and Family Studies - The current study examined how African American children’s experiences of perceived personal racial discrimination and perceived vicarious racial...     

Primary and Secondary Caregiver Reports of Quality of Life in Pediatric Asthma: Are they Comparable?

This study aimed to compare primary and secondary caregiver QOL within families of children with asthma and determine the potential importance of including secondary caregiver QOL in clinical and research settings. Participants included 118 families of children with asthma that had primary and secondary caregivers. Families completed measures in a single research session. Caregivers reported on QOL, psychological functioning, and family burden; children completed a measure of QOL. Child lung function was determined from objective spirometry. Adherence to prescribed controller medication was measured for 6 weeks following the research visit. Primary caregiver QOL was significantly lower than secondary caregiver QOL (Mean overall QOL of 5.85 versus 6.17, p < .05). Better medication adherence was associated with higher primary caregiver QOL (ρ = .22, p = .02); secondary caregiver QOL, not primary caregiver QOL, was positively associated with child QOL (ρ = .20, p = .03). Families with discrepant QOL scores between caregivers (difference in scores of at least .50) were characterized by more family burden and primary caregiver psychological symptoms. Differences in QOL scores between caregivers may be a reflection of primary caregivers’ greater investment in daily asthma management. In families reporting low burden and few psychological difficulties in the primary caregiver, QOL assessments from either caregiver may may be informative and representative of how parents are adapting to child asthma. In families experiencing high levels of burden or more primary caregiver psychological difficulties, QOL reports from secondary caregivers may not be as clinically meaningful.     

Healthy high-hostiles evidence low-alpha power (7.5-9.5Hz) changes during negative affective learning

The present experiment was designed to better understand the impact of positive and negative emotional processing among low- and high-hostile individuals. Based on previous research which found increased sympathovagal balance among low-hostiles to the negative version of the Affective Auditory Verbal Learning Test (AAVL), it was hypothesized that low-hostiles would experience increased cortical arousal to this stimulus whereas their high-hostile counterparts would not. As expected, low-hostiles experienced significantly reduced low-alpha power (7.5-9.5Hz) relative to high-hostiles during the presentation of the negative AAVL. In a replication of prior research, significant primacy and recency effects were noted for the negative and positive word lists, respectively. Results are discussed in terms of cerebral activation theory and the potential impact of emotional processing among high-hostile individuals and their likelihood to develop coronary heart disease.     

Risk dishabituation: in repeated gambling, risk is reduced following low-probability "surprising" events (wins or losses)

In path-dependent risk taking, like playing a slot machine, the wager on one trial may be affected by the outcome of the preceding trial. Previous studies have shown that a person's risk-taking preferences may change as a result of the preceding trial (win or loss). For example, the "house money effect" suggests that risk taking may increase after a win, whereas the "break even effect" posits that risk taking increases after a loss. Independent of those findings, a person's emotional state has been found to influence risk taking. For example, the "mood maintenance hypothesis" supports the notion that positive affect decreases risk taking, and related research finds that increased negative affect increases risk taking. Because winning and losing may influence one's emotional state, we sought to investigate how both previous outcomes, as well as a person's emotional responses to those outcomes, independently influence subsequent risk taking. To do this, data were collected using three simplified slot machines where the chance of winning each trial was set to 13%, 50%, and 87%, respectively. Evidence for the break even and house money effects were found on the 13% and 87% games, respectively. Likewise, emotional valence was found to predict risk taking on these two tasks, with emotional valence fully explaining the break even effect observed on the 13% game. In addition to these results, the present research revealed that risk taking is reduced following low-probability ("surprising") events (i.e., a win in the 13% condition or loss in the 87% condition). Dubbed "risk dishabituation," this phenomenon is discussed, along with its likely corresponding emotional experience--surprise.     

Behavioural,affective, and physiological effects of negative and positive emotional exaggeration

Emotion regulation is essential for the production of socially appropriate affect and successful interpersonal functioning. The relative inability to modulate affect, known as "emotional dysregulation", is associated with many common mood disorders (such as major depressive disorder or bipolar spectrum disorders). Thus, understanding the physiological processes underlying emotional regulation is extremely important. This experiment was designed to explore the affective, behavioural, and physiological responses associated with a rarely studied emotion regulation technique--exaggeration. A total of 52 undergraduate participants watched a 2 minute video designed to elicit either feelings of amusement (positive affect) or disgust (negative affect). Physiological recordings--including skin conductance, interbeat interval (IBI), high frequency (HF) power spectrum of heart rate variability (HRV), and sympathovagal balance (LF/HF)--were recorded for the 2 minutes prior to, during, and after mood induction. As expected, persons asked to exaggerate their responses were rated as behaviourally showing increased arousal relative to individuals in the natural-watch condition. With regard to IBI, those in the exaggerate condition experienced significantly greater IBI reductions (increased heart rate) during reactivity and IBI increases during recovery relative to those in the natural-watch condition (who showed the opposite pattern of response). Moreover, persons in the exaggerate condition evidenced increased sympathovagal balance in response to the emotional videos relative to those in the natural-watch condition. Results generally support and extend previous research findings designed to assess the impact of response-focused affect modulation strategies. Suggestions for future research are presented.     

Linguistic flexibility in signed and written language productions of deaf children

Linguistic flexibility of deaf and hearing children was compared by examining the relative frequencies of their nonliteral constructions in stories written and signed (by the deaf) or written and spoken (by the hearing). Seven types of nonliteral constructions were considered: novel figurative language, frozen figurative language, gestures, pantomime, linguistic modifications, linguistic inventions, and lexical substitutions. Among the hearing 8- to 15-year-olds, oral and written stories contained comparable numbers of nonliteral constructions. Among their age-matched deaf peers, however, nonliteral constructions were significantly stories contained comparable numbers of nonliteral constructions. Among their age-matched deaf peers, however, nonliteral constructions were significantly more common in signed than written stories. Overall, hearing students used more nonliteral constructions in their written stories than did their deaf peers (who used very few), whereas deaf students used more nonliteral constructions in their signed stories than their hearing peers did in their spoken stories. The results suggest that deaf children are linguistically and cognitively more competent than is generally assumed on the basis of evaluations in English. Although inferior to hearing age-mates in written expression, they are comparable to, and in some ways better than those peers when evaluated using their primary mode of communication.     

Maternal depression and expressive communication in one-year-old infants

To separate effects of maternal depression on infant cognitive versus language development, 1-year-olds were assessed using the revised Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development (BSID-III). Percentile scores on the Bayley Expressive Communication (EC) subscale were significantly negatively correlated with maternal self-report scores on the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II). However, mothers’ BDI-II scores did not correlate with infant percentile scores on the general cognitive (COG) or receptive communication (RC) subscales. Boys had significantly lower percentile scores than girls on the RC and EC scales, but did not differ on the Cog scale. Gender and maternal depression did not significantly interact on any of the scales. These findings suggest problems with expressive communication precede, and may at least partially account for, apparent deficits in general cognitive development.     

Resting RSA is associated with natural and self-regulated responses to negative emotional stimuli

Resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) was assessed among 111 adult participants. These individuals were then asked to watch a positive or negative affective film in either a natural manner or while exaggerating their facial response. Facial reactions to the film were video-recorded and subsequently rated in terms of facial affect. Participants also self-reported the valence of their emotional experience. Results from regression analyses revealed that persons with low resting RSA behaviorally evidenced a more negative facial response to the negative film under natural-watch conditions. Low RSA individuals were also less able to modulate (i.e., amplify) their facial response to the negative film. In terms of self-report measures, persons in the exaggerate condition reported more positive affect to the positive film than did those in the natural-watch condition. Results suggest that cardiac vagal control is inversely associated with negative facial expression but positively associated with facial regulation ability to negative stimuli.