Perceived Responsibility and Blame for Economic Success and Failure: Social Class and Employment Status Comparisons

The present study tested the proposition that social class and employment status would differentially affect attributions of responsibility and blame concerning positive and negative economic outcomes. The hypothesis here is that subjects will not blame a person who fails to get a job after taking a retraining program. The hypothesis is based upon the assumption that individuals on the lower rung of the economic ladder are aware of the external circumstances operating against economic security. As predicted, the person experiencing failure was neither held responsible nor blamed for his outcome. Also social class and employment status affected perceptions of the reasons for the successful outcome.     

Child Maltreatment and Emergent Personality Organization: Perspectives from the Five-Factor Model

The Five-Factor Model was used to examine personality organization in 211 six-year-old children (135 maltreated and 76 nonmaltreated). Longitudinal assessments were conducted at ages 7, 8, and 9. Six-year-old maltreated children exhibited lower agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience and higher neuroticism than did nonmaltreated children. Maltreated children also were more frequently represented in less adaptive personality clusters than were their nonmaltreated counterparts. A particularly vulnerable profile occurred predominantly among maltreated children and was related to experiencing both abuse and neglect. Child maltreatment and personality clusters were related to individual differences perceived by peers. Longitudinal stability of the personality dimensions also was assessed. At age nine, evidence was found for maintenance of the organization of the personality clusters obtained at age six and for continuity of maltreated children's personality liabilities.     

The impact of child maltreatment on expressive syntax at 60 months

Although child maltreatment has often been described as leading to language deficits, the few well-controlled investigations of language acquisition in maltreated children have focused on language content rather than form, or have used qualitative rather than quantitative measures. This study examines syntactic complexity in 19 maltreated and 14 nonmaltreated preschool-aged children. Mother-child dyads participated in play sessions that were transcribed and scored for the presence of morphosyntactic forms in child speech and for specific sentence constructions in maternal speech. Findings indicated that child maltreatment was associated with language delay in both vocabulary and production of syntactic structures. There were also qualitative differences in characteristics of maternal utterances between maltreating and comparison groups. Because maltreatment initially occurred before age 2, this study highlights the long-lasting negative influence of maltreatment on language development and also provides the first demonstration of child language delays and differences in maternal speech within a single maltreatment sample.     

Differential susceptibility in spillover between interparental conflict and maternal parenting practices: evidence for OXTR and 5-HTT genes

Guided by the affective spillover hypothesis and the differential susceptibility to environmental influence frameworks, the present study examined how associations between interparental conflict and mothers' parenting practices were moderated by serotonin transporter (5-HTT) and oxytocin receptor (OXTR) genes. A sample of 201 mothers and their 2-year old child participated in a laboratory-based research assessment. Results supported differential susceptibility hypotheses within spillover frameworks. With respect to OXTR rs53576, mothers with the GG genotype showed greater differential maternal sensitivity across varying levels of interparental conflict. Mothers with one or two copies of the 5-HTTLPR S allele demonstrated differential susceptibility for both sensitive and harsh/punitive caregiving behaviors. Finally, analyses examined whether maternal depressive symptoms and emotional closeness to their child mediated the moderating effects. Findings suggest that maternal emotional closeness with their child indirectly linked OXTR with maternal sensitivity. The results highlight how molecular genetics may explain heterogeneity in spillover models with differential implications for specific parenting behaviors. Implications for clinicians and therapists working with maritally distressed parents are discussed.     

The Relations among Maternal Depressive Disorder, Maternal Expressed Emotion, and Toddler Behavior Problems and Attachment

Direct and indirect relations among maternal depression, maternal Expressed Emotion (EE: Self- and Child-Criticism), child internalizing and externalizing symptoms, and child attachment were examined. Participants were mothers with depression (n?=?130) and comparison mothers (n?=?68) and their toddlers (M age?=?20 mo.; 53% male). Assessments included the Diagnostic Interview Schedule (maternal depression); the Five Minute Speech Sample (EE); the Child Behavior Checklist (toddler behavior problems); the Strange Situation (child attachment). Direct relations were significant linking: 1) maternal depression with both EE and child functioning; 2) Child-Criticism with child internalizing and externalizing symptoms; 3) Self-Criticism with child attachment. Significant indirect relations were found linking maternal depression with: 1) child externalizing behaviors via Child-Criticism; 2) child internalizing behaviors via Self- and Child-Criticism; and 3) child attachment via Self-Criticism. Findings are consistent with a conceptual model in which maternal EE mediates relations between maternal depression and toddler socio-emotional functioning.     

Understanding children's emotional processes and behavioral strategies in the context of marital conflict

Marital conflict is a distressing context in which children must regulate their emotion and behavior; however, the associations between the multidimensionality of conflict and children’s regulatory processes need to be examined. The current study examined differences in children’s (N = 207, mean age = 8.02 years) emotions (mad, sad, scared, and happy) and behavioral strategies to regulate conflict exposure during resolved, unresolved, escalating, and child-rearing marital conflict vignettes. Children’s cortisol levels were assessed in relation to child-rearing and resolved conflict vignettes. Anger and sadness were associated with escalating and child-rearing conflicts, fearfulness was related to escalating and unresolved conflicts, and happiness was associated with resolution. Anger was associated with children’s strategies to stop conflict, whereas sadness was associated with monitoring and avoidant strategies. Cortisol recovery moderated the link between fearfulness and behavioral regulation. These results highlight the importance of children’s emotions and regulatory processes in understanding the impact of marital conflict.     

Sources of Cognitive Exploration: Genetic Variation in the Prefrontal Dopamine System Predicts Openness/Intellect

The personality trait Openness/Intellect reflects the tendency to be imaginative, curious, perceptive, artistic, and intellectual - all characteristics that involve cognitive exploration. Little is known about the biological basis of Openness/Intellect, but the trait has been linked to cognitive functions of prefrontal cortex, and the neurotransmitter dopamine plays a key role in motivation to explore. The hypothesis that dopamine is involved in Openness/Intellect was supported by examining its association with two genes that are central components of the prefrontal dopaminergic system. In two demographically different samples (children: N = 608; adults: N = 214), variation in the dopamine D4 receptor gene (DRD4) and the catechol-O-methyltransferase gene (COMT) predicted Openness/Intellect, as main effects in the child sample and as a gene-gene interaction in adults.     

Sleep Symptoms as a Partial Mediator Between Combat Stressors and Other Mental Health Symptoms in Iraq War Veterans

Sleep symptoms are a prominent feature of mental health disorders like PTSD and depression. However, it is unknown whether sleep symptoms mediate the relationship between combat stress and these disorders. We examined the mediating role of sleep symptoms on the relationship between combat stress and PTSD; and the relationship between combat stress and depression using data from 576 Army veterans of the Iraq War surveyed in 2004. Correlational analyses revealed that when insomnia was included in the model, the correlation between combat stressors and other depression symptoms decreased by 65%; and when nightmares were included in the model, the correlation between combat stressors and other PTSD symptoms decreased by 69%. We replicated these analyses using individual items assessing PTSD and depression and found that the insomnia and nightmare items had the largest and second largest mediation effect between combat stressors and PTSD and depression symptoms. Our result support the theory that sleep symptoms contribute to the development and/or maintenance of other mental health symptoms and that early treatment of sleep symptoms may mitigate the other mental health consequences of combat stress.     

Measurement tool for preoperative anxiety in young children: The yale preoperative anxiety scale

To develop a preoperative anxiety scale (YPAS) for children undergoing surgery, 21 specific behaviors indicating anxiety were defined within five domains (activity, emotional expressivity, state of arousal, vocalization, and use of adults). A reliability Kappa analysis revealed that inter-observer agreement ranged from .66 to .94, while intra-observer Kappa ranged from .66 to .91. Validity analysis between a Visual Analog Scale and the YPAS revealed an r of .59 for entering the operating room. Multiserial analysis comparing the YPAS to the Vernon Anxiety Scale ranged from .61 to .64. Showing good to excellent observer reliability and validity, the YPAS proves to be an appropriate tool for studying children's responses in preoperative settings. As such, the new assessment instrument should be of interest to clinical and research neuropsychologists who need to assess a child's anxiety level prior to the undertaking of a given surgical procedure.