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Children of immigrants represent one in four children in the United States and will represent one in three children by 2050. Children of Asian and Latino immigrants together represent the majority of children of immigrants in the United States. Children of immigrants may be immigrants themselves, or they may have been born in the United States to foreign-born parents; their status may be legal or undocumented. We review transcultural and culture-specific factors that influence the various ways in which stressors are experienced; we also discuss the ways in which parental socialization and developmental processes function as risk factors or protective factors in their influence on the mental health of children of immigrants. Children of immigrants with elevated risk for mental health problems are more likely to be undocumented immigrants, refugees, or unaccompanied minors. We describe interventions and policies that show promise for reducing mental health problems among children of immigrants in the United States.
Starting from the notion that work is an important part of who we are, we extend existing theory making on the interplay of work and identity by applying them to (so called) atypical work situations. Without the contextual stability of a permanent organizational position, the question “who one is” will be more difficult to answer. At the same time, a stable occupational identity might provide an even more important orientation to one’s career attitudes and goals in atypical employment situations. So, although atypical employment might pose different challenges on identity, identity can still be a valid concept to assist the understanding of behaviour, attitudes, and well-being in these situations. Our analysis does not attempt to “reinvent” the concept of identity, but will elaborate how existing conceptualizations of identity as being a multiple (albeit perceived as singular), fluid (albeit perceived as stable), and actively forged (as well as passively influenced) construct that can be adapted to understand the effects of atypical employment contexts. Furthermore, we suggest three specific ways to understand the longitudinal dynamics of the interplay between atypical employment and identity over time: passive incremental, active incremental, and transformative change. We conclude with key learning points and outline a few practical recommendations for more research into identity as an explanatory mechanism for the effects of atypical employment situations.
Rechtschreibung von Konsonantenclustern und morphologische Bewusstheit bei Grundschüler_innen
(2018)
Die vorliegenden Studien untersuchen die Entwicklung der Rechtschreibfähigkeit für finale Konsonantencluster im Deutschen und die ihr zugrundeliegenden Strategien bei Erst- bis Drittklässler_innen (N = 209). Dazu wurde der Einfluss der morphologischen Komplexität (poly- vs. monomorphematische Cluster) auf die Rechtschreibung qualitativ und quantitativ analysiert, sowie mit einer Messung zur morphologischen Bewusstheit korreliert. Von der ersten Klasse an zeigt sich eine hohe Korrektheit in der Schreibung und somit eine sprachspezifisch schnelle Entwicklung der alphabetischen Rechtschreibstrategie für finale Konsonantencluster. Der Einfluss morphologischer Verarbeitungsprozesse wurde allerdings erst für die Drittklässler_innen gefunden. Obwohl bereits die Erstklässler_innen gut entwickelte morphologische Bewusstheit zeigten, scheinen sie noch nicht in der Lage zu sein, diese bei der Rechtschreibung anzuwenden. Die Ergebnisse werden im Kontrast zu den umfangreicher vorliegenden Befunden für die englische Sprache diskutiert.
The relation between executive functions and reading comprehension in primary-school students
(2018)
Higher-order cognitive skills are necessary prerequisites for reading and understanding words, sentences and texts. In particular, research on executive functions in the cognitive domain has shown that good executive functioning in children is positively related to reading comprehension skills and that deficits in executive functioning are related to difficulties with reading comprehension. However, developmental research on literacy and self-regulation in the early school years suggests that the relation between higher-order cognitive skills and reading might not be unidirectional, but mutually interdependent in nature. Therefore, the present longitudinal study explored the bidirectional relations between executive functions and reading comprehension during primary school across a 1-year period. At two time points (T1, T2), we assessed reading comprehension at the word, sentence, and text levels as well as three components of executive functioning, that is, updating, inhibition, and attention shifting. The sample consisted of three sequential cohorts of German primary school students (N = 1657) starting in first, second, and third grade respectively (aged 6-11 years at T1). Using a latent cross-lagged-panel design, we found bidirectional longitudinal relations between executive functions and reading comprehension for second and third graders. However, for first graders, only the path from executive functioning at T1 to reading comprehension at T2 attained significance. Succeeding analyses revealed updating as the crucial component of the effect from executive functioning on later reading comprehension, whereas text reading comprehension was most predictive of later executive functioning. The potential processes underlying the observed bidirectional relations are discussed with respect to developmental changes in reading comprehension across the primary years.
We compare the robustness of humans and current convolutional deep neural networks (DNNs) on object recognition under twelve different types of image degradations. First, using three well known DNNs (ResNet-152, VGG-19, GoogLeNet) we find the human visual system to be more robust to nearly all of the tested image manipulations, and we observe progressively diverging classification error-patterns between humans and DNNs when the signal gets weaker. Secondly, we show that DNNs trained directly on distorted images consistently surpass human performance on the exact distortion types they were trained on, yet they display extremely poor generalisation abilities when tested on other distortion types. For example, training on salt-and-pepper noise does not imply robustness on uniform white noise and vice versa. Thus, changes in the noise distribution between training and testing constitutes a crucial challenge to deep learning vision systems that can be systematically addressed in a lifelong machine learning approach. Our new dataset consisting of 83K carefully measured human psychophysical trials provide a useful reference for lifelong robustness against image degradations set by the human visual system.
Background:
Mother-infant interaction provides important training for the infant’s ability to cope with stress and the development of resilience. Prenatal stress (PS) and its impact on the offspring’s development have long been a focus of stress research, with studies highlighting both harmful and beneficial effects. The aim of the current study was to examine the possible influence of both psychological stress and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity during pregnancy with mother-child dyadic behavior following stress exposure.
Methods:
The behavior of 164 mother-infant dyads during the still-face situation was filmed at six months postpartum and coded into three dyadic patterns: 1) both positive, 2) infant protesting-mother positive, and 3) infant protesting-mother negative. PS exposure was assessed prenatally according to psychological measures (i.e., psychopathological, perceived and psychosocial PS; n = 164) and HPA axis activity measures (maternal salivary cortisol, i.e., cortisol decline and area under the curve with respect to ground (AUCg); n = 134).
Results:
Mother-infant dyads in both the high- and low-stress groups showed decreasing positive and increasing negative dyadic behavior in the reunion episode, which is associated with the well-known “still-face” and “carry-over” effect. Furthermore, mother-infant dyads with higher psychosocial PS exhibited significantly more positive dyadic behavior than the low psychosocial PS group in the first play episode, but not in the reunion episode. Similarly, mother-infant dyads with high HPA axis activity (i.e. high AUCg) but steeper diurnal cortisol decline (i.e. cortisol decline) displayed significantly less negative behavior in the reunion episode than dyads with low HPA axis activity. No significant results were found for psychopathological stress and perceived stress.
Conclusions:
The results suggest a beneficial effect of higher psychosocial PS and higher prenatal maternal HPA axis activity in late gestation, which is in line with “stress inoculation” theories.
Narcissism scores are higher in individualistic cultures compared with more collectivistic cultures. However, the impact of sociocultural factors on narcissism and self-esteem has not been well described. Germany was formerly divided into two different social systems, each with distinct economic, political and national cultures, and was reunified in 1989/90. Between 1949 and 1989/90, West Germany had an individualistic culture, whereas East Germany had a more collectivistic culture. The German reunification provides an exceptional opportunity to investigate the impact of sociocultural and generational differences on narcissism and self-esteem. In this study, we used an anonymous online survey to assess grandiose narcissism with the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) and the Pathological Narcissism Inventory (PNI) to assess grandiose and vulnerable aspects of narcissism, and self-esteem with the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSE) in 1,025 German individuals. Data were analyzed according to age and place of birth. Our results showed that grandiose narcissism was higher and self-esteem was lower in individuals who grew up in former West Germany compared with former East Germany. Further analyses indicated no significant differences in grandiose narcissism, vulnerable narcissism or self-esteem in individuals that entered school after the German reunification (≤ 5 years of age in 1989). In the middle age cohort (6–18 years of age in 1989), significant differences in vulnerable narcissism, grandiose narcissism and self-esteem were observed. In the oldest age cohort (> 19 years of age in 1989), significant differences were only found in one of the two scales assessing grandiose narcissism (NPI). Our data provides empirical evidence that sociocultural factors are associated with differences in narcissism and self-esteem.
Predictors of sexual aggression victimization and perpetration among Polish University Students
(2018)
This two-wave study investigated predictors of sexual aggression victimization and perpetration in a convenience sample of 318 Polish university students (214 women), considering males and females from the perspective of both victims and perpetrators. At T1, we assessed participants’ risky sexual scripts (defined as cognitive representations of consensual sexual interactions containing elements related to sexual aggression), risky sexual behavior, pornography use, religiosity, sexual self-esteem, and attitudes toward sexual coercion. These variables were used to predict sexual aggression perpetration and victimization reports obtained 12 months later (T2) for two time windows: (a) since the age of 15 until a year ago and (b) in the past year. As expected, risky sexual scripts were linked to risky sexual behavior and indirectly increased the likelihood of victimization in both time windows. Lower sexual self-esteem predicted sexual victimization since age 15, but not in the past 12 months. Pornography use and religiosity indirectly predicted victimization via risky scripts and behavior. Attitudes toward sexual coercion were a prospective predictor of sexual aggression perpetration. The results extend the international literature on sexual aggression and have implications for sexual education and sexual aggression prevention programs.
Visual search paradigms have provided evidence for the enhanced capture of attention by threatening faces. Especially in social anxiety, hypervigilance for threatening faces has been found repeatedly across behavioral paradigms, whose reliability however have been questioned recently. In this EEG study, we sought to determine whether the detection of threat (angry faces) is specifically enhanced in individuals with high (HSA) compared to low social anxiety (LSA). In a visual search paradigm, the N2pc component of the event-related brain potential was measured as an electrophysiological indicator of attentional selection. Twenty-one HSA and twenty-one LSA participants were investigated while searching for threatening or friendly targets within an array of neutral faces, or neutral targets within threatening or friendly distractors. Whereas no differences were found in reaction times, HSA showed significant higher detection rates for angry faces, whereas LSA showed a clear ‘happiness bias’. HSA also showed enhanced N2pc amplitudes in response to emotional facial expressions (angry and happy), indicating a general attentional bias for emotional faces. Overall, the results show that social anxiety may be characterized not only by a spatial attentional bias for threatening faces, but for emotional faces in general. In addition, the results further demonstrate the utility of the N2pc component in capturing subtle attentional biases.
Mimicking non-verbal emotional expressions and empathy development in simulated consultations
(2018)
Objective: To explore the feasibility of applying an experimental design to study the relationship between non-verbal emotions and empathy development in simulated consultations.
Method: In video-recorded simulated consultations, twenty clinicians were randomly allocated to either an experimental group (instructed to mimic non-verbal emotions of a simulated patient, SP) or a control group (no such instruction). Baseline empathy scores were obtained before consultation, relational empathy was rated by SP after consultation. Multilevel logistic regression modelled the probability of mimicry occurrence, controlling for baseline empathy and clinical experience. ANCOVA compared group differences on relational empathy and consultation smoothness.
Results: Instructed mimicry lasted longer than spontaneous mimicry. Mimicry was marginally related to improved relational empathy. SP felt being treated more like a whole person during consultations with spontaneous mimicry. Clinicians who displayed spontaneous mimicry felt consultations went more smoothly.
Conclusion: The experimental approach improved our understanding of how non-verbal emotional mimicry contributed to relational empathy development during consultations. Further work should ascertain the potential of instructed mimicry to enhance empathy development.
Practice implications: Understanding how non-verbal emotional mimicry impacts on patients’ perceived clinician empathy during consultations may inform training and intervention programme development.
Even before formal schooling, children map numbers onto space in a directional manner. The origin of this preliterate spatial–numerical association is still debated. We investigated the role of enculturation for shaping the directionality of the association between numbers and space, focusing on counting behavior in 3- to 5-year-old preliterate children. Two studies provide evidence that, after observing reading from storybooks (left-to-right or right-to-left reading) children change their counting direction in line with the direction of observed reading. Just observing visuospatial directional movements had no such effect on counting direction. Complementarily, we document that book illustrations, prevalent in children’s cultures, exhibit directionality that conforms to the direction of a culture’s written language. We propose that shared book reading activates spatiotemporal representations of order in young children, which in turn affect their spatial representation of numbers.
To cope with the already large, and ever increasing, amount of information stored in organizational memory, "forgetting," as an important human memory process, might be transferred to the organizational context. Especially in intentionally planned change processes (e.g., change management), forgetting is an important precondition to impede the recall of obsolete routines and adapt to new strategic objectives accompanied by new organizational routines. We first comprehensively review the literature on the need for organizational forgetting and particularly on accidental vs. intentional forgetting. We discuss the current state of the art of theory and empirical evidence on forgetting from cognitive psychology in order to infer mechanisms applicable to the organizational context. In this respect, we emphasize retrieval theories and the relevance of retrieval cues important for forgetting. Subsequently, we transfer the empirical evidence that the elimination of retrieval cues leads to faster forgetting to the forgetting of organizational routines, as routines are part of organizational memory. We then propose a classification of cues (context, sensory, business process-related cues) that are relevant in the forgetting of routines, and discuss a meta-cue called the "situational strength" cue, which is relevant if cues of an old and a new routine are present simultaneously. Based on the classification as business process-related cues (information, team, task, object cues), we propose mechanisms to accelerate forgetting by eliminating specific cues based on the empirical and theoretical state of the art. We conclude that in intentional organizational change processes, the elimination of cues to accelerate forgetting should be used in change management practices.
Experimental studies on polysemy have come to contradictory conclusions on whether words with multiple senses are stored as separate or shared mental representations. The present study examined the semantic relatedness and semantic similarity of literal and non-literal (metonymic and metaphorical) senses of three word classes: nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Two methods were used: a psycholinguistic experiment and a distributional analysis of corpus data. In the experiment, participants were presented with 6-12 short phrases containing a polysemous word in literal, metonymic, or metaphorical senses and were asked to classify them so that phrases with the same perceived sense were grouped together. To investigate the impact of professional background on their decisions, participants were controlled for linguistic vs. non-linguistic education. For nouns and verbs, all participants preferred to group together phrases with literal and metonymic senses, but not any other pairs of senses. For adjectives, two pairs of senses were often grouped together: literal with metonymic, and metonymic with metaphorical. Participants with a linguistic background were more accurate than participants with non-linguistic backgrounds, although both groups shared principal patterns of sense classification. For the distributional analysis of corpus data, we used a semantic vector approach to quantify the similarity of phrases with literal, metonymic, and metaphorical senses in the corpora. We found that phrases with literal and metonymic senses had the highest degree of similarity for the three word classes, and that metonymic and metaphorical senses of adjectives had the highest degree of similarity among all word classes. These findings are in line with the experimental results. Overall, the results suggest that the mental representation of a polysemous word depends on its word class. In nouns and verbs, literal and metonymic senses are stored together, while metaphorical senses are stored separately; in adjectives, metonymic senses significantly overlap with both literal and metaphorical senses.
Background: Pavlovian processes are thought to play an important role in the development, maintenance and relapse of alcohol dependence, possibly by influencing and usurping on- going thought and behavior. The influence of Pavlovian stimuli on on-going behavior is paradigmatically measured by Pavlovian-to-instrumental-transfer (PIT) tasks. These involve multiple stages and are complex. Whether increased PIT is involved in human alcohol
dependence is uncertain. We therefore aimed to establish and validate a modified PIT paradigm that would be robust, consistent, and tolerated by healthy controls as well as by patients suffering from alcohol dependence, and to explore whether alcohol dependence is associated with enhanced Pavlovian-Instrumental transfer.
Methods: 32 recently detoxified alcohol-dependent patients and 32 age and gender matched healthy controls performed a PIT task with instrumental go/no-go approach behaviours. The task involved both Pavlovian stimuli associated with monetary rewards and losses, and images of drinks.
Results: Both patients and healthy controls showed a robust and temporally stable PIT effect. Strengths of PIT effects to drug-related and monetary conditioned stimuli were highly correlated. Patients more frequently showed a PIT effect and the effect was stronger in response to aversively conditioned CSs (conditioned suppression), but there was no group difference in response to appetitive CSs.
Conclusion: The implementation of PIT has favorably robust properties in chronic alcohol- dependent patients and in healthy controls. It shows internal consistency between monetary and drug-related cues. The findings support an association of alcohol dependence with an increased propensity towards PIT.
Studies of Asian American parenting have primarily focused on first-generation immigrant parents. Few studies have examined the experiences of second-generation Asian American adults who now have children of their own. The purpose of this qualitative study, then, is to better understand the values, practices, and concerns of second-generation Asian American parents regarding ethnic and racial socialization. The sample included 34 Asian American parents from seven different cities across the United States. Using interviews and a focus group, the results show that (a) place, specific contexts, and transitions were important to second-generation parents’ motivation behind ethnic and racial socialization, (b) parents are reactive and proactive, especially with regard to promoting an awareness of discrimination, in the racial socialization of their children, (c) parents engage in predominantly proactive ethnic socialization when passing on heritage culture, which they believe is important, but also difficult to do, (d) in contrast to ethnic socialization, passing on American culture and passing on important values (that they did not see as solely “American” or “Asian”) came easily, and (e) parents consider the intersection of race and culture with religion and disability when socializing their children. Our findings highlight unique aspects of how second-generation Asian American parents engage in ethnic and racial socialization in an increasingly socially diverse world.
Most psychological models are intended to describe processes that operate within each individual. In many research areas, however, models are tested by looking at results averaged across many individuals, despite the fact that such averaged results may give a misleading picture of what is true for each one. We consider this conundrum with respect to the interpretation of on-average null effects. Specifically, even though an experimental manipulation might have no effect on average across individuals, it might still have demonstrable effects-albeit in opposite directions-for many or all of the individuals tested. We discuss several examples of research questions for which it would be theoretically crucial to determine whether manipulations really have no effect at the individual level, and we present a method of testing for individual-level effects.
Navigating between cultures in addition to developmental changes and challenges in early adolescence can be difficult. We investigated school, family, and ethnic group as conditions for acculturation and school adjustment among early-adolescent boys and girls. Analyses were based on 860 mostly second- and third-generation immigrant students from 71 countries (50% male; M-age = 11.59 years), attending German secondary schools. Perceived support for inclusion and integration in school and family were associated with a stronger orientation toward both cultures (integration) and better adjustment (e.g., higher school marks, more well-being). Perceived cultural distance and ethnic discrimination were associated with a stronger ethnic and weaker mainstream orientation (separation), and lower adjustment. Boys perceived contextual conditions more negatively, had a weaker mainstream orientation, and showed more behavioral problems but did not differ from girls in the associations between contextual conditions and acculturation and adjustment. Implications for research, policy, and practice are discussed.
During social interactions, individuals rapidly and automatically judge others’ trustworthiness on the basis of subtle facial cues. To investigate the behavioral and neural correlates of these judgments, we conducted 2 studies: 1 study for the construction and evaluation of a set of natural faces differing in trustworthiness (Study 1: n = 30) and another study for the investigation of event-related potentials (ERPs) in response to this set of natural faces (Study 2: n = 30). Participants of both studies provided highly reliable and nearly identical trustworthiness ratings for the selected faces, supporting the notion that the discrimination of trustworthy and untrustworthy faces depends on distinct facial cues. These cues appear to be processed in an automatic and bottom-up-driven fashion because the free viewing of these faces was sufficient to elicit trustworthiness-related differences in late positive potentials (LPPs) as indicated by larger amplitudes to untrustworthy as compared with trustworthy faces. Taken together, these findings suggest that natural faces contain distinct cues that are automatically and rapidly processed to facilitate the discrimination of untrustworthy and trustworthy faces across various contexts, presumably by enhancing the elaborative processing of untrustworthy as compared with trustworthy faces. (
The demands of a career in competitive sports can lead to chronic stress perception among athletes if there is a non-conformity of requirements and available coping resources. The Trier Inventory for Chronic Stress (TICS) (Schulz et al., 2004) is said to be thoroughly validated. Nevertheless, it has not yet been subjected to a confirmatory factor analysis. The present study aims (1) to evaluate the factorial validity of the TICS within the context of competitive sports and (2) to adapt a short version (TICS-36). The total sample consisted of 564 athletes (age in years: M = 19.1, SD = 3.70). The factor structure of the original TICS did not adequately fit the present data, whereas the short version presented a satisfactory fit. The results indicate that the TICS-36 is an economical instrument for gathering interpretable information about chronic stress. For assessment in competitive sports with TICS-36, we generated overall and gender-specific norm values.
Background: Cigarette smoking has severe adverse health consequences in adults and in the offspring of mothers who smoke during pregnancy. One of the most widely reported effects of smoking during pregnancy is reduced birth weight which is in turn associated with chronic disease in adulthood. Epigenome-wide association studies have revealed that smokers show a characteristic "smoking methylation pattern", and recent authors have proposed that DNA methylation mediates the impact of maternal smoking on birth weight. The aims of the present study were to replicate previous reports that methylation mediates the effect of maternal smoking on birth weight, and for the first time to investigate whether the observed mediation effects are sex-specific in order to account for known sex-specific differences in methylation levels. Methods: Methylation levels in the cord blood of 313 newborns were determined using the Illumina HumanMethylation450K Beadchip. A total of 5,527 CpG sites selected on the basis of evidence from the literature were tested. To determine whether the observed association between maternal smoking and birth weight was attributable to methylation, mediation analyses were performed for significant CpG sites. Separate analyses were then performed in males and females. Results: Following quality control, 282 newborns eventually remained in the analysis. A total of 25 mothers had smoked consistently throughout the pregnancy. The birthweigt of newborns whose mothers had smoked throughout pregnancy was reduced by >200g. After correction for multiple testing, 30 CpGs showed differential methylation in the maternal smoking subgroup including top "smoking methylation pattern" genes AHRR, MYO1G, GFI1, CYP1A1, and CNTNAP2. The effect of maternal smoking on birth weight was partly mediated by the methylation of cg25325512 (PIM1); cg25949550 (CNTNAP2); and cg08699196 (ITGB7). Sex-specific analyses revealed a mediating effect for cg25949550 (CNTNAP2) in male newborns. Conclusion: The present data replicate previous findings that methylation can mediate the effect of maternal smoking on birth weight. The analysis of sex-dependent mediation effects suggests that the sex of the newborn may have an influence. Larger studies are warranted to investigate the role of both the identified differentially methylated loci and the sex of the newborn in mediating the association between maternal smoking during pregnancy and birth weight.
The acquisition of basic arithmetic concepts of children at pre-school and primary-school age (about 4 to 8 years of age) can be described by a cognitive developmental model with 6 levels: (1) count number, (2) mental number line, (3) cardinality and decomposability, (4) class inclusion and embeddedness, (5) relationality, and (6) units in numbers (bundling and unbundling). In this paper, 3 studies for longitudinally testing the model are presented. In Studies 1 (N = 26; heterogeneous age) and 2 (N = 62; homogeneous age) it shows that the individual development of arithmetic concepts across 18 months (Study 1:4 points of measurement) respectively 17 months (Study 2:3 points of measurement before, at, and after entering primary school) follows the levels of the model. In Study 3 (N = 243) it shows that the acquisition of curricular mathematical competencies at the end of Grade 2 is better predicted by conceptual arithmetic understanding at the end of Grade 1 than by intelligence. The results substantiate the validity of the model und confirm the relevance of basic arithmetic concepts for mathematical learning at school with respective consequences for the remedial training of children with math learning difficulties and dyscalculia.
The present study aimed at identifying latent profiles of body image concerns in adolescents and young adults. Subsequently, associations between these profiles and potentially harmful behaviors are examined. Self-report data of 758 male and female adolescents, aged 14 to 22 years, were analyzed. Participants provided demographic and anthropometric data and completed surveys on weight/shape and muscularity concern as well as on disturbed eating behaviors and dysfunctional exercise. Latent profile analyses of weight/shape concern and muscularity concern were performed separately for each gender. The analyses indicated three-class solutions in men and women. In both genders, the inconspicuous class, characterized by small amounts of weight/shape and muscularity concerns, was the largest one (86% in men, 68% in women). Whereas 10% of the men and 23% of the women were assigned to the borderline class, 4% of the men and 8% of the women formed the conspicuous class (marked weight/shape and muscularity concerns). Between genders, the degrees of muscularity concern differed in the borderline and inconspicuous classes, while the degrees of weight/shape concern differed in the inconspicuous class only. The comparable degrees of weight/shape and muscularity concerns in men and women in the affected classes underline the relevance of both aspects in both genders. Classes could be distinguished by harmful behaviors, like restrained eating or emotional exercise, proving the clinical significance of body image concerns.
ObjectiveThis secondary analysis of a randomized controlled trial investigated whether bug-in-the-eye (BITE) supervision (live computer-based supervision during a psychotherapy session) affects the manner in which patients and therapists experience general change mechanisms (GCMs) during cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). MethodA total of 23 therapists were randomized either to the BITE condition or the control condition (delayed video-based [DVB] supervision). After each session, both patients (BITE: n=19; DVB: n=23) and therapists (BITE: n=11; DVB: n=12) completed the Helping Alliance Questionnaire (HAQ) and the Bernese Post Session Report (BPSR). The HAQ total score and the 3 secondary factors of the BPSR (interpersonal experiences, intrapersonal experiences, problem actuation) functioned as GCMs. Multilevel models were performed. ResultsFor patients, GCMs did not develop differently between BITE and DVB during CBT. Therapists rated the alliance as well as interpersonal and intrapersonal experiences not significantly different between BITE and DVB during CBT, but they perceived problem actuation to increase significantly more in BITE than in DVB (p<.05). ConclusionBITE supervision might be helpful in encouraging CBT therapists to apply interventions, which focus on the activation of relevant problems and related emotions.
In the present study, we investigated the beneficial effects of trait self-compassion (SC) on perceived stress, shame, and the use of coping strategies in reaction to a socio-evaluative stressor while controlling for the effects of neuroticism (N) and conscientiousness (C). Participants (N = 105) performed a mental-arithmetic task with immediate in-person feedback. SC predicted less perceived stress and shame immediately after the stressor. Additionally, SC predicted less shame after a short recovery phase. This effect was fully mediated by less use of denial. Furthermore, SC buffered the effect of N on the use of denial, and C on shame after recovery. SC also predicted more use of positive reframing. Thus, SC may make a socio-evaluative stressor less threatening and may thwart a shame-inducing conception of the stressor by promoting clearer processing. Furthermore, SC may be especially beneficial for those vulnerable to dysfunctional coping and negative self-conscious emotions. This study contributes to the understanding of how trait self-compassion beneficially influences the processing of stressful situations.
Many children show negative emotions related to mathematics and some even develop mathematics anxiety. The present study focused on the relation between negative emotions and arithmetical performance in children with and without developmental dyscalculia (DD) using an affective priming task. Previous findings suggested that arithmetic performance is influenced if an affective prime precedes the presentation of an arithmetic problem. In children with DD specifically, responses to arithmetic operations are supposed to be facilitated by both negative and mathematics-related primes (= negative math priming effect). We investigated mathematical performance, math anxiety, and the domain-general abilities of 172 primary school children (76 with DD and 96 controls). All participants also underwent an affective priming task which consisted of the decision whether a simple arithmetic operation (addition or subtraction) that was preceded by a prime (positive/negative/neutral or mathematics-related) was true or false. Our findings did not reveal a negative math priming effect in children with DD. Furthermore, when considering accuracy levels, gender, or math anxiety, the negative math priming effect could not be replicated. However, children with DD showed more math anxiety when explicitly assessed by a specific math anxiety interview and showed lower mathematical performance compared to controls. Moreover, math anxiety was equally present in boys and girls, even in the earliest stages of schooling, and interfered negatively with performance. In conclusion, mathematics is often associated with negative emotions that can be manifested in specific math anxiety, particularly in children with DD. Importantly, present findings suggest that in the assessed age group, it is more reliable to judge math anxiety and investigate its effects on mathematical performance explicitly by adequate questionnaires than by an affective math priming task.
Do properties of individual languages shape the mechanisms by which they are processed? By virtue of their non-concatenative morphological structure, the recognition of complex words in Semitic languages has been argued to rely strongly on morphological information and on decomposition into root and pattern constituents. Here, we report results from a masked priming experiment in Hebrew in which we contrasted verb forms belonging to two morphological classes, Paal and Piel, which display similar properties, but crucially differ on whether they are extended to novel verbs. Verbs from the open-class Piel elicited familiar root priming effects, but verbs from the closed-class Paal did not. Our findings indicate that, similarly to other (e.g., Indo-European) languages, down-to-the-root decomposition in Hebrew does not apply to stems of non-productive verbal classes. We conclude that the Semitic word processor is less unique than previously thought: Although it operates on morphological units that are combined in a non-linear way, it engages the same universal mechanisms of storage and computation as those seen in other languages.
Semantic transparency has been in the focus of psycholinguistic research for decades, with the controversy about the time course of the application of morpho-semantic information during the processing of morphologically complex words not yet resolved. This study reports two masked priming studies with English -ness and Russian -ost’ nominalisations, investigating how semantic transparency modulates native speakers’ morphological priming effects at short and long stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs). In both languages, we found increased morphological priming for nominalisations at the transparent end of the scale (e.g. paleness – pale) in comparison to items at the opaque end of the scale (e.g. business – busy) but only at longer prime durations. The present findings are in line with models that posit an initial phase of morpho-orthographic (semantically blind) decomposition.
Explicit attitudes towards inclusion are increasingly investigated in (preservice) teachers. However, few studies examine implicit attitudes towards inclusion, despite the advantage of being less sensitive to social desirability. Since inclusion is a sensitive topic, we aimed to investigate implicit and explicit attitudes towards inclusion as well as interactions between these attitudes. Using the Single-Target Implicit Association Test, early semester preservice teachers exhibited ambivalent implicit attitudes and positive explicit attitudes. Implicit attitudes were negatively correlated with explicit attitudes. Methodological and contentual explanations for these findings are discussed and theory-based implications for university education are suggested.
Up to now pathological health anxiety has been classified primarily as a somatoform disorder or a somatic symptom disorder in ICD and DSM. Theoretical and empirical evidence, however, suggest that pathological health anxiety basically represents an anxiety disorder. In this paper, it is argued that deficits in the treatment and perception of patients with pathological health anxiety as "difficult patients" are partly attributable to a lack of clarity in terms of nosology and with respect to central mechanisms of etiology and pathogenesis. Based on novel theoretical approaches for the explanation of pathological health anxiety, suggestions for an improved therapeutic practice are outlined. This approach focuses on a more intensive use of exposure-based treatment elements that are oriented to the inhibitory learning approach, which has already proven its effectiveness for other anxiety disorders.
Infants use others' emotional signals to regulate their own object-directed behavior and action reproduction, and they typically produce more actions after having observed positive as compared to negative emotional cues. This study explored infants' understanding of the referential specificity of others' emotional cues when being confronted with two actions that are accompanied by different emotional displays. Selective action reproduction was measured after 18-month-olds (N = 42) had observed two actions directed at the same object, one of which was modeled with a positive emotional expression and the other with a negative emotional expression. Across four trials with different objects, infants' first actions matched the positively-emoted actions more often than the negatively-emoted actions. In comparison with baseline-level, infants' initial performance changed only for the positively-emoted actions, in that it increased during test. Latencies to first object-touch during test did not differ when infants reproduced the positively- or negatively-emoted actions, respectively, indicating that infants related the cues to the respective actions rather than to the object. During demonstration, infants looked relatively longer at the object than at the model's face, with no difference in positive or negative displays. Infants during their second year of life thus capture the action-related referential specificity of others' emotional cues and seem to follow positive signals more readily when actively selecting which of two actions to reproduce preferentially.
Correlations between the grandiose narcissism and vulnerable narcissism with two self-report personality measures (i.e., BIS-11 and I-7) and two behavioral tasks (i.e., Stop-Signal Task and Delay-Discounting task) of impulsivity in 338 students were examined. As one of the first studies to apply a two-dimensional approach to narcissism (i.e. grandiose narcissism and vulnerable narcissism) in different self-report and behavioral impulsivity measures, the present results have reported that both grandiose and vulnerable narcissism showed a significant positive correlations with the self-reported impulsivity. Moreover, the grandiose narcissism has shown significant associations with both behavioral tasks of impulsivity. Contrary, vulnerable narcissism was negatively related to the stop reaction time people high in vulnerable narcissism scored shorter stop reaction time values and, consequently, presented less impulsive responding.
Anti-fat bias is widespread and is linked to the internalization of weight bias and psychosocial problems. The purpose of this study was to examine the internalization of weight bias among children across weight categories and to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Weight Bias Internalization Scale for Children (WBIS-C). Data were collected from 1484 primary school children and their parents. WBIS-C demonstrated good internal consistency (alpha = .86) after exclusion of Item 1. The unitary factor structure was supported using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (factorial validity). Girls and overweight children reported higher WBIS-C scores in comparison to boys and non-overweight peers (known-groups validity). Convergent validity was shown by significant correlations with psychosocial problems. Internalization of weight bias explained additional variance in different indicators of psychosocial well-being. The results suggest that the WBIS-C is a psychometrically sound and informative tool to assess weight bias internalization among children.
Agentic to the core?
(2018)
Researchers are still divided over whether narcissists possess positive or negative implicit self-views. Seemingly resolving this issue, Campbell et al. (2007) have demonstrated that narcissism is in fact related to higher implicit self-esteem as long as the implicit measure reflects agency. The present study used a large (N = 730) sample, carefully controlled stimuli, improved statistical analyses, and examined narcissism at the facet-level, but results did not replicate those of Campbell et al. In fact, the latent correlation between narcissism and implicit agency was close to zero, whereas the positive correlation between narcissism and explicit agency was replicated. We conclude that narcissists’ implicit self-views may be more neutral than positive or may depend on other contextual factors.
Novel concepts employing autologous, ex vivo expanded natural regulatory T cells (nTreg) for adoptive transfer has potential to prevent organ rejection after kidney transplantation. However, the impact of dialysis and maintenance immunosuppression on the nTreg phenotype and peripheral survival is not well understood, but essential when assessing patient eligibility. The current study investigates regulatory T-cells in dialysis and kidney transplanted patients and the feasibility of generating a clinically useful nTreg product from these patients. Heparinized blood from 200 individuals including healthy controls, dialysis patients with end stage renal disease and patients 1, 5, 10, 15, 20 years after kidney transplantation were analyzed. Differentiation and maturation of nTregs were studied by flow cytometry in order to compare dialysis patients and kidney transplanted patients under maintenance immunosuppression to healthy controls. CD127 expressing CD4(+)CD25(high)FoxP3(+) nTregs were detectable at increased frequencies in dialysis patients with no negative impact on the nTreg end product quality and therapeutic usefulness of the ex vivo expanded nTregs. Further, despite that immunosuppression mildly altered nTreg maturation, neither dialysis nor pharmacological immunosuppression or previous acute rejection episodes impeded nTreg survival in vivo. Accordingly, the generation of autologous, highly pure nTreg products is feasible and qualifies patients awaiting or having received allogenic kidney transplantation for adoptive nTreg therapy. Thus, our novel treatment approach may enable us to reduce the incidence of organ rejection and reduce the need of long-term immunosuppression.
Disordered eating is highly prevalent during adolescence and has a detrimental effect on further development. Effective prevention programs are needed to prevent unhealthy developmental trajectories. This study evaluated the efficacy of the POPS-program (POtsdam Prevention at Schools), a universal school-based eating disorder prevention program for adolescents. In a cluster-randomized design, we compared the intervention group receiving the prevention program to a waiting control group. Outcomes included indicators of disordered eating and relevant risk factors for eating disorders (body dissatisfaction, internalization of the thin ideal, perceived media pressure, perfectionism, emotional element of exercise, social comparison, and perceived teasing). Questionnaires were administered at the start of the intervention, 3 and 12 months post intervention. At baseline, 1112 adolescents aged 10 to 16 years participated (49% girls; 51% intervention group). Intention-to-treat analyses with the complete data set and per-protocol analyses as a completer analysis were performed. The intervention group showed a more favorable course compared to the control group regarding all observed risk factors for eating disorders except for perceived teasing. Effect sizes were small but comparable to other primary prevention programs. At 1-year follow-up, a small but significant effect on disordered eating was observed. Results of the per-protocol analyses were mostly confirmed by the intention-to-treat analyses. Results were promising for both genders although girls benefited more regarding disordered eating and internalization of the thin ideal. Further studies are warranted examining successful program elements and whether gender-specific programs are needed.
Spatial-numerical associations (SNAs) have been studied extensively in the past two decades, always requiring either explicit magnitude processing or explicit spatial-directional processing. This means that the typical finding of an association of small numbers with left or bottom space and of larger numbers with right or top space could be due to these requirements and not the conceptual representation of numbers. The present study compares explicit and implicit magnitude processing in an implicit spatial-directional task and identifies SNAs as artefacts of either explicit magnitude processing or explicit spatial-directional processing; they do not reveal spatial conceptual links. This finding requires revision of current accounts of the relationship between numbers and space.
Previous research found that memory is not only better for emotional information but also for neutral information that has been encoded in the context of an emotional event. In the present ERP study, we investigated two factors that may influence memory for neutral and emotional items: temporal proximity between emotional and neutral items during encoding, and retention interval (immediate vs. delayed). Forty-nine female participants incidentally encoded 36 unpleasant and 108 neutral pictures (36 neutral pictures preceded an unpleasant picture, 36 followed an unpleasant picture, and 36 neutral pictures were preceded and followed by neutral pictures) and participated in a recognition memory task either immediately (N=24) or 1 week (N=25) after encoding. Results showed better memory for emotional pictures relative to neutral pictures. In accordance, enhanced centroparietal old/new differences (500-900 ms) during recognition were observed for unpleasant compared to neutral pictures, most pronounced for the 1-week interval. Picture position effects, however, were only subtle. During encoding, late positive potentials for neutral pictures were slightly lower for neutral pictures following unpleasant ones, but only at trend level. To summarize, we could replicate and extend previous ERP findings showing that emotionally arousing events are better recollected than neutral events, particularly when memory is tested after longer retention intervals. Picture position during encoding, however, had only small effects on elaborative processing and no effects on memory retrieval.
Psychiatrische Stationen sind ein wichtiges Element in der psychiatrischen Versorgung von Menschen mit akuter Eigen- oder Fremdgefährdung. Leider kommt es in diesem Rahmen immer wieder auch zu Aggression, Gewalt (Konflikten) sowie zur Anwendung von Zwang (Eindämmung). Als entscheidender Faktor für den sachgemäßen Umgang mit diesen Situationen wird sowohl die Quantität als auch die Qualität der Mitarbeitenden angesehen. Vor diesem Hintergrund beschäftigt sich die vorliegende Untersuchung mit der Versorgungssituation auf akutpsychiatrischen Stationen. Die Hypothese lautet, dass sowohl die Größe der akutpsychiatrischen Station als auch die Anzahl der Pflegenden einen Einfluss auf das Vorkommen konflikthafter Situationen haben. Hierfür sind Daten in 6 Kliniken auf insgesamt 12 psychiatrischen Stationen erfasst worden. Als Erfassungsinstrument diente die Patient Staff Conflict Checklist – Shift Report (PCC-SR). Insgesamt konnten 2026 Schichten (Früh‑, Spät- und Nachtschicht) erfasst und ausgewertet werden. Die personelle Besetzung der Stationen mit Pflegepersonal variierte erheblich. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass sowohl die Stationsgröße als auch die Anzahl der Pflegepersonen auf akutpsychiatrischen Stationen einen signifikanten Einfluss auf das Vorkommen von Konflikten haben. In den Ergebnissen zeigt sich weiterhin, dass sich die Inzidenz des konflikthaften Verhaltens von Patienten sowohl im Hinblick auf die untersuchten Stationen der beteiligten Krankenhäuser als auch im Hinblick auf die betrachteten Dienstzeittypen unterscheiden. Darüber hinaus zeigt sich, dass das Ausmaß der Schließung einer Akutstation und die Größe einer Station einen negativen Einfluss auf die Inzidenz von Konflikten im stationär akutpsychiatrischen Kontext haben. Das Auftreten konflikthaften Verhaltens kann zur Fremd- oder Selbstgefährdung und zu einer Vielzahl deeskalierender und eindämmender Maßnahmen führen. Hierfür sind entsprechende personelle Ressourcen erforderlich.
During sentence reading, low spatial frequency information afforded by spaces between words is the primary factor for eye guidance in spaced writing systems, whereas saccade generation for unspaced writing systems is less clear and under debate. In the present study, we investigated whether word-boundary information, provided by alternating colors (consistent or inconsistent with word-boundary information) influences saccade-target selection in Chinese. In Experiment 1, as compared to a baseline (i.e., uniform color) condition, word segmentation with alternating color shifted fixation location towards the center of words. In contrast, incorrect word segmentation shifted fixation location towards the beginning of words. In Experiment 2, we used a gaze-contingent paradigm to restrict the color manipulation only to the upcoming parafoveal words and replicated the results, including fixation location effects, as observed in Experiment 1. These results indicate that Chinese readers are capable of making use of parafoveal word-boundary knowledge for saccade generation, even if such information is unfamiliar to them. The present study provides novel support for the hypothesis that word segmentation is involved in the decision about where to fixate next during Chinese reading.
We uniquely introduce convex production costs into a cartel model involving spatial price discrimination. We demonstrate that greater convexity improves cartel stability and that for sufficient convexity first best locations will be adopted. We show that allowing locations to vary over the game reduces cartel stability but that greater convexity continues to improve that stability. Moreover, when the degree of convexity does not support the first best collusive locations, other collusive locations exist that require less stability and these may either increase or decrease social welfare relative to competition. Critically, these locations that require less stability are more dispersed in sharp contrast to the known result assuming linear production costs.
A notable uptick of interest in the stability of self-esteem has been observed over the past few years. Most researchers, however, have focused on unidimensional rather than multidimensional conceptualizations of self-esteem. The paucity of empirical research is surprising given conflicting theoretical perspectives on the stability of self-esteem. The goal of the present study was to thoroughly disentangle different conceptualizations of self-esteem and test opposing classical theories on (i) the stability and (ii) the direction of mutual influence of these different forms of self-esteem. We analysed two-year longitudinal data from participants (N=644 at T1, N=241 at T2) with an average age of 47.0years (SD=12.4). Analyses using a latent variable approach revealed that the domains of self-esteem were relatively stable in terms of rank order and mean levels. In fact, the size of the stability coefficients was comparable to that of other trait measures that have been reported in the literature and paralleled the stability observed for global self-esteem. Results did not provide support for either top-down or bottom-up effects between domain-specific and global self-esteem. These findings have important theoretical and practical implications regarding the stability and development of self-esteem in adulthood and advance the understanding of self-esteem in personality theory. (c) 2018 European Association of Personality Psychology
Two studies analyzed the influence of victim behavior, drink type, and observer rape myth acceptance (RMA) on attributions of blame to victims of sexual assault. In Study 1, people higher in RMA blamed the victim more when she accepted rather than rejected the aggressor’s invitation to buy her a drink. In Study 2, we analyzed if the effects depended on who offered the invitation for a drink (a friend or aggressor). RMA was more closely related to victim blame when she accepted (vs. rejected) the offer of a drink from the aggressor. In both studies, drink type (alcoholic vs. nonalcoholic) did not interact with the other variables.
The social context plays a decisive role in the formation of the academic self-concept (ASC) and has been widely studied as the big-fish-little-pond-effect (BFLPE). This effect describes that comparable talented students in high-achieving school settings have a lower ASC compared to equally talented students attending low-achieving settings. Past research has focused on students’ domain-specific ASC, while little is known about the relation of achievement-related classroom compositions and the various facets of ASC. Additionally, BFLPE-research has been critiqued to build its theoretical frame on social comparison theory, without providing sufficient empirical support. To address this gap, we analyzed how the single student’s social, criterial, absolute, and individual ASC relate to class-level achievement of 8th graders. Applying Multilevel Structural Equation Modeling (MLSEM) we found that all facets of ASC were significantly related to average-class achievement, while student’s social ASC revealed the strongest associated. The results reveal explicitly that average-class achievement is strongly related to social comparison processes.
Background: Prenatal maternal stress might be a risk for the developing fetus and may have long-lasting effects on child and adult vulnerability to somatic and psychiatric disease. Over-exposure of the unborn to excess glucocorticoids and subsequent alteration of fetal development is hypothesized to be one of the key mechanisms linking prenatal stress with negative child outcome. Methods: In this prospective longitudinal study, mothers-to-be (n = 405) in late pregnancy (36.8 +/- 1.9 weeks of gestational age) and their singleton neonates were studied. We investigated the impact of different prenatal stress indices derived from six stress variables (perceived stress, specific prenatal worries, negative life events, symptoms of depression, trait anxiety, neuroticism) and diurnal maternal saliva cortisol secretion on gestational age and anthropometric measures at birth.