Empathy and parenthood: The moderating role of maternal trait empathy on parental burnout

The ability to empathize with others enables us to effectively interact with each other and may have specifically evolved to support parental roles and caregiving. The relationship between parenting and trait empathy is little understood as previous research focused on empathy exclusively in the context of parenting, for example parental sensitivity. Here we aimed to understand how trait empathy may moderate the association between child's negative emotionality and parental burnout. Two cohorts were examined (1) parents of infants (10–18 months old; N = 203) and (2) parents of children (3–10 years old, N = 201). Parents filled out a battery of online questionnaires assessing maternal empathy, parental burnout and child temperament. We found that the relationship between higher levels of negative emotionality and parental burnout is moderated by specific aspects of maternal emotional empathy. Our findings suggest that maternal emotional empathy acts as a buffer against parental burnout when faced with a child's characteristics that incur higher parental demands.     

Assessment and treatment of adult acute responses to traumatic stress following mass traumatic events

Assessment and treatment of acute responses to traumatic stress has received much attention since September 11, 2001. This article elucidates principles of early intervention with adults in the immediate (within 48 hours) and early recovery phase (within the first week). The principles have been drawn from research on risk and recover factors, stress and traumatic stress theory, and expert consensus recommendations. The debriefing model is discussed, and principle interventions of psychological first aid, pharmacology, and mass trauma systems are described. This article concludes with brief guidelines for longer-term interventions and recommendations for future research.     

Contemporary longitudinal methods for the study of trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder

Traditional methods for analyzing trends in longitudinal data have typically emphasized average group change over time. In this article, we propose multilevel, regression-based methods for examining inter-individual differences in intra-individual change and apply these methods to research in trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The outcome or dependent variable of interest is reconceptualized as an index of dynamic change reflecting the trend or trajectory of an individual's PTSD symptom severity scores across time. A basic statistical model is presented, and analyses and findings are demonstrated with an existing database used in previously published studies. The methods offer promise for future study of the natural course of PTSD chronicity or recovery, risk and resilience factors that influence individual growth or decline, and critical timepoints for intervention.     

Genetics of posttraumatic stress disorder

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a prevalent anxiety disorder marked by behavioral, physiologic, and hormonal alterations. PTSD is disabling and commonly follows a chronic course. The etiology of PTSD is unknown, although exposure to a traumatic event constitutes a necessary, but not sufficient, factor. A twin study of Vietnam veterans has shown significant genetic contribution to PTSD. The fact that PTSD's underlying genotypic vulnerability is only expressed following trauma exposure limits the usefulness of family-based linkage approaches. In contrast to the other major psychiatric disorders, large studies for the search of underlying genes have not been described in PTSD to date. Complementary approaches for locating involved genes include association-based studies employing case-control or parental genotypes for transmission dysequilibrium analysis and quantitative trait loci studies in animal models. Identification of susceptibility genes will increase our understanding of traumatic stress disorders and help to elucidate their molecular basis. The current review provides an up-to-date outline of progress in the field of PTSD.     

The persistence of the fluency–confidence association in problem solving

Confidence in answers is known to be sensitive to the fluency with which answers come to mind. One aspect of fluency is response latency. Latency is often a valid cue for accuracy, showing an inverse relationship with both accuracy rates and confidence. The present study examined the independent latency–confidence association in problem-solving tasks. The tasks were ecologically valid situations in which latency showed no validity, moderate validity, and high validity as a predictor of accuracy. In Experiment 1, misleading problems, which often elicit initial wrong solutions, were answered in open-ended and multiple-choice test formats. Under the open-ended test format, latency was absolutely not valid in predicting accuracy: Quickly and slowly provided solutions had a similar chance of being correct. Under the multiple-choice test format, latency predicted accuracy better. In Experiment 2, nonmisleading problems were used; here, latency was highly valid in predicting accuracy. A breakdown into correct and incorrect solutions allowed examination of the independent latency–confidence relationship when latency necessarily had no validity in predicting accuracy. In all conditions, regardless of latency’s validity in predicting accuracy, confidence was persistently sensitive to latency: The participants were more confident in solutions provided quickly than in those that involved lengthy thinking. The study suggests that the reliability of the latency–confidence association in problem solving depends on the strength of the inverse relationship between latency and accuracy in the particular task.     

The substitutability of physical and social warmth in daily life

Classic and contemporary research on person perception has demonstrated the paramount importance of interpersonal warmth. Recent research on embodied cognition has shown that feelings of social warmth or coldness can be induced by experiences of physical warmth or coldness, and vice versa. Here we show that people tend to self-regulate their feelings of social warmth through applications of physical warmth, apparently without explicit awareness of doing so. In Study 1, higher scores on a measure of chronic loneliness (social coldness) were associated with an increased tendency to take warm baths or showers. In Study 2, a physical coldness manipulation significantly increased feelings of loneliness. In Study 3, needs for social affiliation and for emotion regulation, triggered by recall of a past rejection experience, were subsequently eliminated by an interpolated physical warmth experience. Study 4 provided evidence that people are not explicitly aware of the relationship between physical and social warmth (coldness), as they do not consider a target person who often bathes to be any lonelier than one who does not, with all else being equal. Together, these findings suggest that physical and social warmth are to some extent substitutable in daily life and that this substitution reflects an unconscious self-regulatory mechanism.     

Computerized Progressive Attentional Training (CPAT) Program: Effective Direct Intervention for Children with ADHD

We tested the efficacy of a pioneering intervention program grounded in a contemporary theoretical framework of attention and designed to directly improve the various attentional functions of children with ADHD. The computerized progressive attentional training (CPAT) program is composed of four sets of structured tasks that uniquely activate sustained attention, selective attention, orienting of attention, and executive attention. Performance was driven by tight schedules of feedback and participants automatically advanced in ordered levels of difficulty contingent upon performance. Twenty 6- to 13-year-old children with ADHD were assigned to the experimental group and received the CPAT sessions twice a week over an 8-week period. Sixteen age-matched control children with ADHD were assigned to the control group and participated in sessions of the same frequency, length, and format except that instead of performing the training tasks they played various computer games during the session. The experimental participants showed a significant improvement in nontrained measures of reading comprehension, and passage copying as well as a significant reduction of parents' reports of inattentiveness. No significant improvements were observed in the control group. We thus concluded that the above academic and attentional improvements were primarily due to the CPAT.     

Stroop and Garner effects in and out of Posner's beam: reconciling two conceptions of selective attention

Space- or object-based models, on the one hand, and structural-informational models, on the other hand, reflect conceptually distinct approaches to visual selective attention. In 3 studies, the authors contrasted these approaches by jointly applying prototypical routines prescribed in each approach. Following a space-based paradigm developed by M. I. Posner, participants were cued to attend to a certain spatial location, and performance at expected and unexpected locations was compared. Following a structural paradigm developed by W. R. Garner, the targets were color words printed in various colors, and the participants responded to either the color or the word component of the stimulus. Performance was poorer at unexpected than at expected locations. However, comparable amounts of Stroop and Garner interference affected performance at both expected and unexpected locations. It is suggested that the processes that govern (a) input selection from the visual field and (b) dimensional selection from the stimulus reflect fundamentally different systems of attention.