Family Belongingness,Gang Friendships,and Psychological Distress in Adolescent Achievement

The authors investigated connections among social, psychological, and academic functioning of ethnically diverse urban youth. Participants included 310 seventh graders (mean age = 12.10 years) from an ethnically diverse middle school in which no ethnic group was a majority. Social engagements with family and gang members were predictive of academic achievement in the expected directions, with psychological distress mediating the effects of these social engagements on academic achievement. Implications for counselors’ work with ethnically diverse urban youth are discussed.     

Rearing practices and impulsivity/hyperactivity symptoms in relation to inflated responsibility and obsessive‐compulsive symptoms

Smári, J., Rúrik Martinsson, D., & Einarsson, H. (2010). Rearing practices and impulsivity/hyperactivity symptoms in relation to inflated responsibility and obsessive‐compulsive symptoms. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 51, 392–397. The aim of the study was to investigate potential precursors of inflated responsibility (responsibility attitudes) and obsessive‐compulsive (OCD) symptoms. It was argued that both parental overprotection and impulsivity, separately and in interaction with each other, contribute to inflated responsibility and OCD symptoms. In a large sample of young adults (N = 570), self‐report measures of OCD symptoms (OCI‐R), responsibility attitudes (RAS), anxiety/depression (HADS), rearing practices (EMBU), present and past impulsivity/hyperactivity symptoms (IMP/HY) were administered. Overprotection as well as IMP/HY were found to predict OCD symptoms as well as inflated responsibility. Finally, a significant interaction was found between IMP/HY and overprotection with regard to both OCD symptoms and inflated responsibility. This effect reflected that IMP/HY was more strongly related to OCD symptoms and responsibility in people who had not been overprotected than in people who had been. Conversely overprotection was related to OCD symptoms and responsibility in people low but not in people high in IMP/HY. The results seem to indicate that the inadequacy between offer and need for parental control may play a role in the development of OCD symptoms.     

Perceptual visual skills in young highly skilled basketball players

A simple method was designed to evaluate visual abilities such as disance visual acuity, binocular horizontal visual field, simple and choice visual reaction times, and stereoscopic vision in skilled 11- to 13-yr.-old basketball players participating in a 15-day summer training camp. On a test battery, visual abilities were monitored in 473 players of the Spanish Basketball Federation over a 5-yr. period. The players showed outstanding scores on distance visual acuity and stereoscopic vision, and good visual reaction times and horizontal visual fields. When scores were compared by sex and age, significant differences on certain visual measures were observed. Many layers showed crossed eye-hand dominance. Visual screening programs may help promote visual health among junior basketball players and could be used for performance training.     

Probabilistic Opinion Pooling with Imprecise Probabilities

The question of how the probabilistic opinions of different individuals should be aggregated to form a group opinion is controversial. But one assumption seems to be pretty much common ground: for a group of Bayesians, the representation of group opinion should itself be a unique probability distribution (Madansky [44]; Lehrer and Wagner [34]; McConway Journal of the American Statistical Association, 76(374), 410–414, [45]; Bordley Management Science, 28(10), 1137–1148, [5]; Genest et al. The Annals of Statistics, 487–501, [21]; Genest and Zidek Statistical Science, 114–135, [23]; Mongin Journal of Economic Theory, 66(2), 313–351, [46]; Clemen and Winkler Risk Analysis, 19(2), 187–203, [7]; Dietrich and List [14]; Herzberg Theory and Decision, 1–19, [28]). We argue that this assumption is not always in order. We show how to extend the canonical mathematical framework for pooling to cover pooling with imprecise probabilities (IP) by employing set-valued pooling functions and generalizing common pooling axioms accordingly. As a proof of concept, we then show that one IP construction satisfies a number of central pooling axioms that are not jointly satisfied by any of the standard pooling recipes on pain of triviality. Following Levi (Synthese, 62(1), 3–11, [39]), we also argue that IP models admit of a much better philosophical motivation as a model of rational consensus.     

Culturally adapted psychotherapy and the legitimacy of myth: a direct-comparison meta-analysis

Psychotherapy is a culturally encapsulated healing practice that is created from and dedicated to specific cultural contexts (Frank & Frank, 1993; Wampold, 2007; Wrenn, 1962). Consequently, conventional psychotherapy is a practice most suitable for dominant cultural groups within North America and Western Europe but may be culturally incongruent with the values and worldviews of ethnic and racial minority groups (e.g., D. W. Sue, Arredondo, & McDavis, 1992). Culturally adapted psychotherapy has been reported in a previous meta-analysis as more effective for ethnic and racial minorities than a set of heterogeneous control conditions (Griner & Smith, 2006), but the relative efficacy of culturally adapted psychotherapy versus unadapted, bona fide psychotherapy remains unestablished. Furthermore, one particular form of adaptation involving the explanation of illness-known in an anthropological context as the illness myth of universal healing practices (Frank & Frank, 1993)-may be responsible for the differences in outcomes between adapted and unadapted treatments for ethnic and racial minority clients. The present multilevel-model, direct-comparison meta-analysis of published and unpublished studies confirms that culturally adapted psychotherapy is more effective than unadapted, bona fide psychotherapy by d = 0.32 for primary measures of psychological functioning. Adaptation of the illness myth was the sole moderator of superior outcomes via culturally adapted psychotherapy (d = 0.21). Implications of myth adaptation in culturally adapted psychotherapy for future research, training, and practice are discussed.     

Historiography of psychology in Spain: the last decade

History of psychology has been an extremely active field for many years in Spain. Both the great expansion of psychological studies and the inclusion of history as a compulsory subject in the psychology curriculum are crucial factors helping to understand the current state of affairs. The aim of this paper is to provide a survey of the work done in this area over the last decade, covering research, teaching, and institutional developments. The study includes consideration of aspects such as main research lines, major theoretical and methodological trends, teaching materials, relevant archives and exhibits, and significant websites.     

Can Cognitive‐Behavioral Therapy Be Optimized With Parent Psychoeducation? A Randomized Effectiveness Trial of Adolescents With Major Depression in Puerto Rico

This is a longitudinal randomized control trial on the impact of adding a parent psychoeducation intervention (TEPSI) as part of cognitive‐behavioral therapy (CBT) for adolescents with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) in a Puerto Rican sample. We tested the efficacy of adding 8 group sessions of TEPSI to 12 sessions of individual CBT on reducing depressive symptoms, MDD diagnosis, and improving family functioning. Participants (n = 121) were randomized to individual CBT with or without TEPSI. No main group effects were found for most patient domains including depression symptoms, as well as presence of adolescent's MDD diagnosis at posttreatment. Results did show a main effect of CBT over time for depression symptoms, suicide ideation, family criticism, and the presence of MDD diagnosis decreasing from pre‐ to postintervention. A year post treatment, almost 70% of adolescents in both conditions (CBT and CBT + TEPSI) remained in remission. A main effect was obtained for treatment in the adolescent's perception of familism and family emotional involvement. The primary hypothesis that family psychoeducation would optimize CBT for depression in adolescents was not supported. Both conditions yielded similar clinical end points. The culturally adapted CBT was found effective with Latino/a adolescents showing clinically significant improvements from pretreatment to posttreatment and remained stable at a 1‐year follow‐up. Regarding family outcomes, adolescents in CBT + TEPSI remained stable from pretreatment to posttreatment on family emotional involvement, while adolescents in CBT‐alone showed an increase. The implication of these findings is discussed.     

Cross-cultural evaluation of ethnic perspective-taking ability: an exploratory investigation with U.S. Latino and Guatemalan Ladino children

Children's development of ethnic perspective-taking ability (EPTA) was evaluated across 2 samples. It was hypothesized that the EPTA construct would be related to ethnic cognitions (e.g., ethnic knowledge, ethnic self-identification) and nonethnic cognition (i.e., social cognition) and that there would be variance in the EPTA construct distinct from a closely related form of social perspective-taking ability (SPTA). In Sample 1, 2nd- and 6th-grade Latino children (i.e., children of Mexican descent in the United States) were administered interview measures of EPTA and SPTA and a questionnaire assessment of ethnic knowledge. The participants in Sample 2 were Guatemalan Ladinos, who are Spanish-speaking children generally of European descent and who represent a numerical minority (10%) in the region (Quiché) of Guatemala sampled but whose culture tends to be dominant politically, economically, and linguistically. Ladinos from Grades 2-6 were administered EPTA and SPTA interviews as well as prejudice and ethnic self-identification measures. Collectively, results from these 2 samples provide support for the potential usefulness of this construct: EPTA was significantly associated with SPTA across both samples, even after variance associated with developmental level was controlled, and EPTA uniquely predicted ethnic knowledge and ethnic self-identification scores in the U.S. and Guatemalan samples, respectively.