Responses to cognitive and perceptual ambiguity in chronic and acute schizophrenics.

Responses of 25 acute and 34 chronic schizophrenics to perceptual and cognitive ambiguity were compared with those of 36 normal control Ss by means of: several "decision location" series consisting of blurred photographs presented in the order of increasing clarity; a series of pictures which could be matched, at Ss' discretion, with a number of statements allegedly made by the persons pictured; a series of pictures to be similarly matched with nationality names. The chronic Ss compared to normals offered earlier recognition responses on the perceptual task and matched more items on the cognitive measures. The scores of the acute group, however, yielded uniformly negative results and were found to be intermediate in relation to those of the chronic and normal Ss. (31 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reported family dynamics and psychopathology: I. The reactions of schizophrenics and normals to parental dialogues.

The reactions of schizophrenics and normals were compared after direct exposure to ostensibly disturbed parents discussing various types of punitive actions to employ with a disobedient son. The measures obtained were accuracy of recall of the content of the parental dialogues and the opinions Ss had about the parents. Results were consistent with the widely prevailing clinical theory which differentiates between schizophrenics and normals on the basis of amount of exposure to family pathology. There was, however, no support for a more specific theory of schizophrenia which relates differential sensitivity for maternal and paternal cues to levels of premorbid adjustment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Cognitive vulnerability to depression.

Reviews the book, Cognitive vulnerability to depression by Rick E. Ingram, Jeanne Miranda, and Zindel V. Segal (see record 1998-07219-000). This book addresses conceptual issues related to the idea that the way in which individuals think makes them vulnerable to either the onset or maintenance of depression. Methodological considerations for testing cognitive models of depression are also extensively discussed. According to the reviewer, this book achieves its goals well. The literature is meaningfully reviewed, with clear ideas about what may be areas for fruitful future work, and areas that are likely not to be as productive. The reviewer does point out several flaws in the text, including some unevenness due to multiple authors. Despite these flaws, the book is highly recommended to students and researchers working in the area as required reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The developmental origins of cognitive vulnerability to depression: Temperament, parenting, and negative life events in childhood as contributors to negative cognitive style.

Cognitive models of depression have been well supported with adults, but the developmental origins of cognitive vulnerability are not well understood. The authors hypothesized that temperament, parenting, and negative life events in childhood would contribute to the development of cognitive style, with withdrawal negativity and negative parental feedback moderating the effects of negative life events to predict more depressogenic cognitive styles. These constructs were assessed in 289 children and their parents followed longitudinally from infancy to 5th grade; a subsample (n = 120) also participated in a behavioral task in which maternal feedback to child failure was observed. Results indicated that greater withdrawal negativity in interaction with negative life events was associated with more negative cognitive styles. Self-reported maternal anger expression and observed negative maternal feedback to child's failure significantly interacted with child's negative events to predict greater cognitive vulnerability. There was little evidence of paternal parenting predicting child negative cognitive style. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Failure and the subsequent performance of schizophrenics.

"The present study investigated the questions of whether deficit would obtain for schizophrenics on a timed task of nonsocial content and, if so, whether the deficit would increase or decrease over trials under a condition of nonreinforcement and, finally, differentially affect the subsequent performance of schizophrenics and normals… . The results indicated that both schizophrenics and normals responded with enhanced performance to the negative conditions, but that only the schizophrenics demonstrated enhanced performance under the positive condition." 15 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Negative cognitive styles, dysfunctional attitudes, and the remitted depression paradigm: A search for the elusive cognitive vulnerability to depression factor among remitted depressives.

Results from studies using a behavioral high-risk design and approximations to it generally have corroborated the cognitive vulnerability hypothesis of depression, whereas results from remitted depression studies typically have not. Suspecting that design features of previously conducted remitted designs likely precluded them from detecting maladaptive cognitive patterns, the authors conducted a study featuring the remitted design that has been successful in studies of a biological vulnerability for depression. Participants' current depressive symptoms, negative cognitive styles (hopelessness theory), dysfunctional attitudes (Beck's theory), and lifetime prevalence of clinically significant depression were assessed. Participants who had remitted from an episode of clinically significant depression had more negative cognitive styles, but not greater levels of dysfunctional attitudes, than did never depressed individuals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Toward bridging the science and practice of depression prevention: What can we learn from cognitive vulnerability?

Depression is a widespread disorder with devastating individual and societal consequences. Although a great deal of research and theory has focused on treatment of acute episodes, progress needs to be made in preventing the emergence of first episodes of the disorder. There has been considerable advancement in understanding psychological vulnerability factors associated with this mood disorder, especially on the basis of cognitive behavioural models and research findings based on this theoretical model. In this paper we review the concept of cognitive vulnerability, with a particular focus on what this body of research work suggests clinically for the prevention of depression. We outline, based on this science, what the effective ingredients of a prevention program could be. We also discuss some of the pragmatic aspects of developing an effective prevention program for depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Youth depression and early childrearing: Stress generation and intergenerational transmission of depression.

Objective: Broadening the concept of stress generation beyond acute life events, the current study explores predictors of the creation of stressful environments—specifically, selection into early childrearing by age 20. It was predicted that youth with early onset depressive disorders would be at higher risk for early childrearing accompanied by greater depression and parenting maladjustment. Additional analyses tested hypotheses about the roles of interpersonal vulnerability and intergenerational transmission of depression and examined gender differences. Method: A community sample of 706 adolescents and their mothers were studied at ages 15 and 20. The sample was originally selected to oversample families with depressed mothers. Results: Results confirmed the hypotheses for women but not men: Young women with depression by age 15 were at greater risk for interpersonal difficulties at age 15 and early childrearing, accompanied by further depression and parenting dysfunction at age 20. The effects of (grand)maternal depression were evident in predicting youth early onset depression and interpersonal difficulties, as well as higher rates of depression among their daughters who had children by age 20. Conclusions: The study expands the definition of stress generation to include the role of past depression and other risk factors as predictors of selection into a stressful childrearing environment. The findings also describe aspects of the intergenerational transmission of depression. The results highlight potentially important targets for interventions in young women to prevent recurrence of major depression and parenting dysfunction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive and serotonergic vulnerability to depression: Convergent findings.

Cognitive reactivity (CR) is a psychological vulnerability marker of depression, whereas response to acute tryptophan depletion (ATD; a serotonergic challenge procedure) is a biological vulnerability marker. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between these markers. Thirty-nine remitted depressed patients participated in 2 ATD sessions in a double-blind crossover design. CR, assessed prior to the ATD sessions, predicted depressive response to high-dose ATD. CR also diminished the effects of 2 known predictors of ATD response: gender and residual symptoms. Neuroticism and behavioral inhibition were unrelated to ATD response. CR is associated with an increased sensitivity to reductions of serotonin concentrations. These findings present a small step toward unifying cognitive and neurobiological theories of depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rumination and interpersonal dependency: Explaining women's vulnerability to depression.

Women are twice as likely as men to suffer from a major depressive episode. Reasons for this gender difference in propensity for depression are not completely understood, although a number of explanations have been articulated. In this article we focus on two constructs that have been linked to gender differences in depression--ruminative cognitive style and interpersonal dependency. Ruminative cognitive style refers to the tendency to respond to depressed or dysphoric mood with repetitive thoughts and behaviours that focus attention on the meaning and consequences of the depressed mood (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991). Interpersonal dependency reflects an investment in relationships and communion. We propose a theory of how these constructs interact to increase women's propensity to develop depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Child rearing attitudes of mothers and fathers as reported by schizophrenic and normal patients.

To determine the significant aspects of family background as perceived by schizophrenics, Ss were asked to think back to the time when they were 13 or 14 and answer a questionnaire on child rearing practices as they were conceived to be reflected in the attitudes of their parents at that time. The responses of schizophrenics with good and poor premorbid backgrounds were compared with each other and to GMS patients. The results indicate that there was a significant and direct relationship between level of adjustment and degree of deviance in postulated parental attitudes. Parents, in general, are perceived to be dominating rather than overprotective or rejecting. Normals and schizophrenics differ significantly in describing familial attitudes, although all seem to perceive father as dominant, mother as over-protective. From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4JQ76G. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Anxiety and avoidance behavior in schizophrenics in response to parental figures.

"Thematic productions in groups of Good and Poor premorbid schizophrenics were analyzed in terms of the relative amounts of anxiety and avoidance related to cards representing parent-child relationships. Three hypotheses were specific… . Poor premorbid patients were expected to produce more anxiety related imagery in response to the mother than the father figure, while Goods were expected to show the reverse effect; Poors were expected to be more avoidant in response to both parental figures; and the pattern of avoidance behavior between groups was expected to differ. The first two hypotheses were supported." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relation of early socialization experiences to aggression in middle childhood.

A follow-up study (7 years after) on the Ss in the original investigation on patterns of child rearing (Sears et al., 1957). Parental attitude towards child rearing and attitudes towards aggression when S was 5 were related to patterns of aggressive behavior and attitudes toward agression expressed by Ss at age 12. The manner of expressing aggression was seen to be a function of sex of the child and specific familial attitudes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stress-related cognitive interference predicts cognitive function in old age.

Both subjective distress and cognitive interference have been proposed as mechanisms underlying the negative effects of stress on cognition. Studies of aging have shown that distress is associated with lower cognitive performance, but none have examined the effects of cognitive interference. One hundred eleven older adults (Mage=80) completed measures of working memory, processing speed, and episodic memory as well as self-report measures of subjective distress and cognitive interference. Cognitive interference was strongly associated with poorer performance on all 3 cognitive constructs, whereas distress was only modestly associated with lower working memory. The results suggest that cognitive process related to stress is an important predictor of cognitive function in advanced age. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Childhood maltreatment, parental alcohol/drug-related problems, and global parental dysfunction.

How do different types of child maltreatment relate to parental drug/alcohol problems? A series of confirmatory factor models were tested with cross-sectional data from a community sample (N = 477). Findings suggest that childhood maltreatment and parental drug problems are two distinct conditions that co-occur about 30% of the time; they are not completely independent, nor are they always related to each other. When they co-occur, greater problems characterized by global parental dysfunction are suggested. Furthermore, several reported experiences differed by gender: Family abuse and parent drug problems were more strongly related for men. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stability of cognitive vulnerabilities to depression: A short-term prospective multiwave study.

The stability of 3 cognitive vulnerabilities--a negative cognitive style, dysfunctional attitudes, and rumination--as well as depressive symptoms as a benchmark were examined to investigate whether cognitive vulnerabilities are stable, enduring risks for depression. A sample of adolescents (6th-10th graders) completed measures of these 3 cognitive vulnerabilities and depressive symptoms every 5 weeks for 4 waves of data across 5 months. Mean-level and differential stability were examined for the sample overall and by age subgroups. A negative cognitive style exhibited mean-level stability, whereas rumination and dysfunctional attitudes showed some mean-level change. Absolute magnitudes of test-retest reliabilities were strong for depressive symptoms (mean r = .70), moderately high for a negative cognitive style (mean r = .52), and more modest for rumination (mean r = .28) and dysfunctional attitudes (mean r = .26). Structural equation modeling showed that primarily enduring processes, but not contextual forces, contributed to the patterning of these test-retest reliabilities over time for a negative cognitive style and dysfunctional attitudes, whereas both enduring and contextual dynamics appeared to underlie the stability for rumination. Theoretical and clinical implications of these findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Performance of good and poor premorbid male schizophrenics as a function of paternal vs. maternal censure.

The hypothesis that interference in schizophrenic performance depends on an interaction between level of premorbid adjustment, paternal vs. maternal source of stimulation, and censuring vs. approval content was tested. 4 tape recordings were played for 80 good and 80 poor premorbid adjustment schizophrenics—father-son censure, father-son approval, mother-son censure, and mother-son approval. Performance was measured by a change from a pre- to post-Digit-Symbol test. The hypothesis was confirmed—good premorbids show interference with paternal censure and poor premorbids with maternal censure. A comparison group of 80 normals did not show this kind of interaction. (18 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Group performance in a cognitive task.

On a cross-word puzzle task performed by 60 pairs of male Ss, correlations between group performance and performance of the individuals (independently determined) were calculated. 82% of the true group performance variance on the task could be predicted from the individual performance scores. "It is suggested that the nature of the task is important in studies of group performance, and that the existence of 'group' phenomena should be empirically demonstrated rather than assumed." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive vulnerability and frontal brain asymmetry: Common predictors of first prospective depressive episode.

The hopelessness theory of depression proposes that individuals with a depressogenic cognitive style are more likely to become hopeless and experience depression following negative life events. Although the neurophysiological underpinnings of cognitive style remain speculative, research indicates that decreased relative left frontal brain electrical activity holds promise as a traitlike marker of depression. This begs the question: Do measures of depressogenic cognitive style and resting frontal brain asymmetry index a common vulnerability? The present study provides preliminary support for this hypothesis. At baseline assessment, increased cognitive vulnerability to depression was associated with decreased relative left frontal brain activity at rest in individuals with no prior history of, or current, depression. Following baseline assessment, participants were followed prospectively an average of 3 years with structured diagnostic interviews at 4-month intervals. Both cognitive vulnerability and asymmetric frontal cortical activity prospectively predicted onset of first depressive episode in separate univariate analyses. Furthermore, multivariate analyses indicated that cognitive vulnerability and frontal asymmetry represented shared, rather than independent, predictors of first depression onset. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Possessiveness as a characteristic of mothers of schizophrenics.

Possessiveness in mothers of schizophrenics was compared with wives and other female relatives of schizophrenics, and mothers and wives of patients with nonorganic disorders. The results indicated that there was no difference in the quality of possessiveness between the groups studied, rejecting the notion that this is a significant factor in the psychogenesis of schizophrenics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)