27,053 research outputs found

    The typical developmental trajectory of social and executive functions in late adolescence and early adulthood.

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    Executive functions and social cognition develop through childhood into adolescence/early adulthood and are important for adaptive goal-oriented behaviour (Apperly, Samson & Humphreys, 2009; Blakemore & Choudhury, 2006). These functions are attributed to frontal networks known to undergo protracted maturation into early adulthood (Barker, Andrade, Morton, Romanowski & Bowles, 2010; Lebel, Walker, Leemans, Phillips & Beaulieu, 2008) although social cognition functions are also associated with widely distributed networks. Previously, non-linear development has been reported around puberty on an emotion match to sample task (McGivern, Andersen, Byrd, Mutter & Reilly, 2002) and for IQ in mid adolescence (Ramsden et al., 2011). However, there are currently little data on the typical development of social and executive functions in late adolescence and early adulthood. In a cross sectional design, 98 participants completed tests of social cognition and executive function, Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (Wechsler, 1999), Positive and Negative Affect Scale (Watson, Clark & Tellegan, 1988), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (Zigmond & Snaith, 1983) and measures of pubertal development and demographics at age 17, 18 and 19. Non-linear age differences for letter fluency and concept formation executive functions were found, with a trough in functional ability in 18 year olds compared to other groups. There were no age group differences on social cognition measures. Gender accounted for differences on one scale of concept formation, one dynamic social interaction scale and two empathy scales. The clinical, developmental and educational implications of these findings are discussed

    Unique and interactive effects of moral emotions and moral disengagement on bullying and defending among school children

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    The first aim of the present study was to examine in a single model how moral disengagement and moral emotions were related to bullying and defending behavior among schoolchildren. The second aim was to test whether the two moral dimensions interacted with each other to explain behavior in bullying situations. Data were collected from 561 Swedish students. Moral disengagement was positively associated with bullying and negatively associated with defending, whereas moral emotions score was negatively associated with bullying and positively associated with defending. Moreover, students who scored high in moral emotions did not tend to bully other students, irrespective of their levels of moral disengagement, whereas when the moral emotions score was low bullying behavior increased with increasing levels of moral disengagement. In contrast, moral disengagement was negatively related to defending behavior at low levels of moral emotions, but not when moral emotions were high

    Implicit attitude toward caregiving: The moderating role of adult attachment styles

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    Attachment and caregiving are separate motivational systems that share the common evolutionary purpose of favoring child security. In the goal of studying the processes underlying the transmission of attachment styles, this study focused on the role of adult attachment styles in shaping preferences toward particular styles of caregiving. We hypothesized a correspondence between attachment and caregiving styles: we expect an individual to show a preference for a caregiving behavior coherent with his/her own attachment style, in order to increase the chance of passing it on to offspring. We activated different representations of specific caregiving modalities in females, by using three videos in which mothers with different Adult Attachment states of mind played with their infants. Participants' facial expressions while watching were recorded and analyzed with FaceReader software. After each video, participants' attitudes toward the category "mother" were measured, both explicitly (semantic differential) and implicitly (single target-implicit association task, ST-IAT). Participants' adult attachment styles (experiences in close relationships revised) predicted attitudes scores, but only when measured implicitly. Participants scored higher on the ST-IAT after watching a video coherent with their attachment style. No effect was found on the facial expressions of disgust. These findings suggest a role of adult attachment styles in shaping implicit attitudes related to the caregiving system

    The Structure of Temperament and Personality Traits: A Developmental Perspective

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    In this chapter, we articulate a developmental perspective on personality traits from early childhood through adulthood. In the first section, we address two topics that are fundamental in defining the most important traits at each point in the life span: the relationship between temperament and personality and the methods used to ascertain the structure of traits in the temperament and personality research traditions. We argue in this section that temperament and personality are different ways of describing the same basic traits, with temperament research primarily focused on early-emerging individual differences and personality research focused on individual differences that appear later in childhood and continue into adulthood. In the second section, we describe the current status of the most prominent models of temperament, as well as the most widely-accepted personality trait model, the Big Five. In the third section, we articulate a structural model that integrates contemporary findings on temperament and personality traits from early childhood through adulthood. We use the Big Five trait structure, along with the trait of activity level, to organize this taxonomy. In the fourth section, we discuss the current research on the psychological and biological processes that underlie individual differences in the Big Five traits in childhood and adulthood. In the final sections, we offer concluding thoughts on the nature of personality trait development and suggestions for future research. This is an exciting time in the study of personality in part because of the marked progress in uncovering the basic structure of traits across the lifespan.

    Trait urgency and gambling problems in young people by age: The mediating role of decision-making processes

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    Although the personality trait of urgency has been linked to problem gambling, less is known about psychological mechanisms that mediate the relationship between urgency and problem gambling. One individual variable of potential relevance to impulsivity and addictive disorders is age. The aims of this study were to examine: (i) a theoretical model associating urgency and gambling problems, (ii) the mediating effects of decision-making processes (operationalized as preference for small/immediate rewards and lower levels of deliberative decision-making); and (iii) age differences in these relationships. Participants comprised 986 students (64% male; mean age=19.51 years; SD=2.30) divided into three groups: 16-17 years, 18-21 years, and 22-25 years. All participants completed measures of urgency, problem gambling, and a delay-discounting questionnaire involving choices between a smaller amount of money received immediately and a larger amount of money received later. Participants were also asked to reflect on their decision-making process. Compared to those aged 16-17 years and 22-25 years, participants aged 18-21 years had a higher level of gambling problems and decreased scores on lower levels of deliberative decision-making. Higher levels of urgency were associated with higher levels of gambling problems. The association was mediated by a lower level of deliberative decision-making and preference for an immediate/small reward. A distinct pathway was observed for lower levels of deliberative decision-making. Young people who tend to act rashly in response to extreme moods, had lower levels of deliberative decision-making, that in turn were positively related to gambling problems. This study highlights unique decision-making pathways through which urgency trait may operate, suggesting that those developing prevention and/or treatment strategies may want to consider the model’s variables, including urgency, delay discounting, and deliberative decision-making

    Socioemotional functioning in youth with borderline personality disorder

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    This thesis makes an original contribution to our understanding of socioemotional functioning in borderline personality disorder (BPD) by critically examining social cognition and emotion regulation BPD research from a developmental perspective. It also extends on previous research, making a novel and important contribution to our understanding of sociocognitive functioning and emotion regulation ability in youth with first presentation BPD. This was achieved via two critical narrative reviews of the existing literature and two empirical studies, which examined aspects of social cognition and emotion regulation considered key to interpersonal functioning in BPD. The empirical studies assessed, 1) unconscious simulation processes, a key aspect of affective empathy, and 2) the application of two emotion regulation strategies, expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal, in the regulation of negative and positive affect, in a standard laboratory context, as well as in the context of social rejection. The reviews demonstrated that despite their shared diagnosis, important differences between young people and adults with BPD, in terms of their sociocognitive functioning and emotion regulation abilities, are evident. Future research and reviews should avoid conflating developmental age and stage of disorder. Instead, these processes, which are central to interpersonal functioning, need to be better understood over the course of BPD, especially early in its course. The empirical studies demonstrated that socioemotional functioning in youth with first presentation BPD is not uniformly affected. Specifically, rapid facial mimicry was unimpaired, contradicting predictions that heightened unconscious motor mimicry leads to heightened emotional contagion, and associated emotion regulation difficulties. Future research is needed to determine whether this finding also holds true for adults and young people later in the course of the disorder. Future research should also explore other factors that might lead to heightened emotional contagion and associated emotion regulation difficulties in BPD. Emotion regulation ability was largely preserved in youth with first presentation BPD, and functioning was mostly similar to that of typically developing young people. Specifically, for the most part, they could apply expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal, to regulate both positive and negative affect (felt subjectively and expressed behaviourally), in a standard laboratory context and in the context of social rejection, with similar effectiveness to that of healthy youth. However, youth with first presentation BPD were not only unable to apply cognitive reappraisal to regulate the behavioural expression of negative emotions in the context of social rejection, but its application in this context intensified their facial expression of negative affect. They also demonstrated a pattern of pervasively blunted positive affect, relative to healthy youth, across indices and contexts. Further research is needed to better understand whether the effectiveness of cognitive reappraisal can be improved in this context, or whether it is contraindicated. Given that social rejection is commonly experienced by this group, and given the common application of cognitive strategies in therapy, future research is clearly needed to better understand the effectiveness and consequences of this, and alternative strategies, for use in the context of social rejection by youth with first presentation BPD. Finally, while positive affect has often been neglected in BPD research, the evident pervasive blunting clearly needs greater research and clinical attention in this group

    Adolescent brain development and the development of mentalizing

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    This chapter focuses on the balance and consider adolescence as a pivotal stage in development in explaining both risk and resilience. It discusses neuroimaging evidence suggesting that adolescence is associated with the functional and structural reorganisation of three distinct, although highly related, biobehavioural systems, i.e. the stress-regulation, attachment/reward and mentalizing systems, as well as other related neural systems such as systems for cognitive control. The implications of the reorganisations in these three biobehavioural systems in adolescence, and their role in explaining both vulnerability and resilience, are vast and deserve our attention. The human biobehavioural stress system is a complex system of neural structures that are involved in detecting, integrating, and responding to threat. Two areas of reward are central in adolescence: relationships, with a developmental shift towards growing importance of peer and romantic relationships, and agency/achievement

    The role of attachment anxiety in parent’s attentional processing of their child’s face : an eye tracking study

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    Although mother's attention to offspring is deemed important to support their offspring's secure attachment development, little research tested this association. The current study aimed to test the hypothesis that how mothers orient their attention to their offspring is linked to differences in offspring's attachment style. Additionally, we tested whether this association depended on which emotions children express. 29 mothers participated with their offspring (48.3% girls; ages 9 to 15 years, M = 10.93, SD = 1.67). Across two experimental blocks, eye movements were recorded as mothers viewed photographs of offspring and unfamiliar children showing neutral (block 1) and facial expressions of fearful, happy and sad (block 2). Offspring's self-reported attachment anxiety was related to increased maintained attention of the mother on the offspring's neutral face, while more attachment security was related to reduced maintained attention. With regard to emotional faces, mothers of more anxiously attached children showed more maintained attention on all emotional expressions of their offspring, including sadness. Furthermore, we found a positive attentional bias of mothers with more securely attached children; increased attention on the offspring's happy face was found. No attentional processes were found for attachment avoidance. Different attachment-related parenting behaviors, leading to a specific attachment style of the offspring, could be explained by these attentional allocations. </jats:p

    Repetitive thinking about the mother during distress moderates the link between children's attentional breadth around the mother and depressive symptoms in middle childhood

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    It has been suggested that an increased attentional focus on the mother should be maladaptive in middle childhood. However, the effect of a more narrow attentional field around the mother may depend on the mother-child relationship. The current study tested whether a more narrow attentional field around the mother is mainly maladaptive for children who tend to think repetitively about their mother (RTm) during distress. More specifically, it investigates whether RTm during distress provides the context in which an increased attentional focus on the mother is linked to depressive symptoms in middle childhood. RTm was measured using a self-report questionnaire. The breadth of children's attentional field around the mother was measured with the Attentional Breadth Task. This computer task assesses the extent to which children have a more narrow attentional field around the mother compared to unfamiliar women.. Results of the current study (N = 157) support the hypothesis that 9-12 year old children who have a more narrow attentional field around the mother and who at the same time report more RTm during distress, have more depressive symptoms. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
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