Teaching phonics in the context of children's literature or spelling: Influences on first-grade reading, spelling, and writing and fifth-grade comprehension.

First-grade children's reading, writing, and spelling competencies in 2 different instructional contexts for teaching phonics were examined. Reading, writing, and spelling abilities were measured at the beginning, middle, and end of 1st grade. Children were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 treatments designed to teach grapheme-phoneme correspondences, blending, and segmenting. In 1 treatment, children generated spellings for words, and in the other treatment, phonics instruction was embedded in literature. The spelling treatment was significantly better for spelling phonetically regular real and pseudowords, reading phonetically regular pseudowords, and written story length. It was also more beneficial for low-ability children's reading of connected text. There were no treatment effects on reading uncontrolled words in text. At the end of 5th grade, spelling-context children had significantly higher comprehension than did literature-context children. Discussion focuses on phonological processing while spelling and the effects of the instructional press of context-embedded and context-reduced instructional approaches in 1st grade. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Deficits on the continuous performance test within the schizophrenia spectrum and the mediating effects of family history of schizophrenia.

Individuals with schizophrenia spectrum personality disorders (SSPD) and schizophrenia show similar cognitive impairments. The authors examined the contributions of SSPD symptoms and familial risk for schizophrenia to impairments on the Continuous Performance Test-Identical Pairs Version. Participants included 103 schizophrenia patients, 66 first-degree relatives (29 SSPD), and 103 community controls (26 SSPD) screened for family history of psychosis. Patients and SSPD relatives performed significantly worse than non-SSPD relatives and SSPD and non-SSPD community controls. No differences in performance were observed among non-SSPD relatives and SSPD and non-SSPD community controls. Results suggest a continuum in which risk for schizophrenia-related cognitive impairments is highest among patients and SSPD relatives, intermediate among non-SSPD relatives, and lowest among SSPD and non-SSPD community controls. Results suggest that SSPD in the absence of a family history of psychosis may be a phenocopy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Environmental contingency in life history strategies: The influence of mortality and socioeconomic status on reproductive timing.

Why do some people have children early, whereas others delay reproduction? By considering the trade-offs between using one's resources for reproduction versus other tasks, the evolutionary framework of life history theory predicts that reproductive timing should be influenced by mortality and resource scarcity. A series of experiments examined how mortality cues influenced the desire to have children sooner rather than later. The effects of mortality depended critically on whether people grew up in a relatively resource-scarce or resource-plentiful environment. For individuals growing up relatively poor, mortality cues produced a desire to reproduce sooner—to want children now, even at the cost of furthering one's education or career. Conversely, for individuals growing up relatively wealthy, mortality cues produced a desire to delay reproduction—to further one's education or career before starting a family. Overall, mortality cues appear to shift individuals into different life history strategies as a function of childhood socioeconomic status, suggesting important implications for how environmental factors can influence fertility and family size. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social and environmental factors influence the suppression of pup-directed aggression and development of paternal behavior in captive meadow voles (Microtus pennsylvanicus).

During summer, female meadow voles (Microtus pennsylvanicus) maintain territories and males do not engage in paternal care. As day length shortens, territories dissolve and males nest with females and young. Because paternal behavior has never been studied in free-living meadow voles during colder months or in the laboratory under short photoperiods, the authors examined whether males housed in short day (SD) lengths exhibited more frequent or better quality paternal behavior than males housed in long day (LD) lengths. Sexually and parentally inexperienced (naive) SD males exhibited proportionally more and qualitatively better paternal care than naive LD males. SD males were more responsive than LD males to classic social cues associated with preparturn aggression inhibition and paternal onset. SD sires also displayed qualitatively better paternal behavior than LD sires. These data suggest that meadow vole paternal state is regulated by specific social and environmental cues that may contain reliable information about ecological conditions that favor paternal care. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nanofluidic biosensing for beta-amyloid detection using surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy

Trace detection of the conformational transition of beta-amyloid peptide (Abeta) from a predominantly alpha-helical structure to beta-sheet could have a large impact in understanding and diagnosing Alzheimer's disease. We demonstrate how a novel nanofluidic biosensor using a controlled, reproducible surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy active site was developed to observe Abeta in different conformational states during the Abeta self-assembly process as well as to distinguish Abeta from confounder proteins commonly found in cerebral spinal fluid.     

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory normal K+ and other unelevated profiles.

Compared empirical correlates of normal K+ and non-K+ unelevated Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) profiles in a psychiatric inpatient setting. Case history (symptom ratings, demographic variables, and diagnoses) and psychometric data were obtained without knowledge of MMPI profile group membership from psychiatrists' discharge summaries on 84 male and female inpatients. Normal K+ and non- K+ unelevated profile groups were more similar to each other than either group was to a randomly selected inpatient control group of 50 Ss. Results generally support the contention of M. D. Gynther and P. J. Brilliant (see record 1969-00131-001) that applicability of empirical correlates of unelevated MMPI profiles should be determined in each clinical setting. (6 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When laws and values conflict: A dilemma for psychologists.

Results from a questionnaire completed by 60 senior psychologists show that a majority had intentionally broken a law or formal ethical principle in light of a client's welfare or other deeper value. Such instances include refusing to report child abuse, illegally divulging confidential information, engaging in sex with a client, and refusing to make legally mandated warnings regarding dangerous clients. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Factors influencing service utilization and mood symptom severity in children with mood disorders: Effects of multifamily psychoeducation groups (MFPGs).

This study investigated the impact of psychoeducation on service utilization and mood symptom severity in children with mood disorders. Parents’ knowledge of mood disorders, beliefs about treatment, and perceptions of children’s need for treatment were hypothesized to mediate the relationship between psychoeducation and service utilization and between psychoeducation and mood symptom severity. Linear mixed effects modeling and joint significance test for mediation were used in secondary data analyses of the multifamily psychoeducation group (MFPG) study, a randomized controlled trial of 165 children ages 8 to 12 years with mood disorders. A majority of those sampled were male (73%) and White, non-Hispanic (90%), and the median range of family income was $40,000–$59,000. Participation in MFPG significantly improved quality of services utilized, mediated by parents’ beliefs about treatment. Participation in MFPG also significantly improved severity of child’s mood symptoms, mediated by quality of services utilized. MFPG appears to be a psychoeducational intervention that helps parents to become better consumers of the mental health system who access higher quality services. Children’s symptom severity decreases as a result. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

It Takes Two to Tango: Personal and Organizational Resilience as Predictors of Strain and Cardiovascular Disease Risk in a Work Sample.

In a cross-sectional sample of 428 employees, the job demand-control-support and effort-reward imbalance job stress models were amalgamated and expanded to include modifiable risk factors and noncontrollable genetic factors related to cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. With structural equation modeling, the constructs of lack of job resilience, lack of personal resilience, and job demand were used to examine how employer and employee factors related to psychosomatic strain and risk indicators of CVD. Negative perception of job demand predicted perception of lack of job resilience but not lack of personal resilience. Lack of job and personal resilience predicted strain. Women reported greater strain than men. CVD risk was predicted by strain, age, sex, and family history. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Functional Projection: How Fundamental Social Motives Can Bias Interpersonal Perception.

Results from 2 experimental studies suggest that self-protection and mate-search goals lead to the perception of functionally relevant emotional expressions in goal-relevant social targets. Activating a self-protection goal led participants to perceive greater anger in Black male faces (Study 1) and Arab faces (Study 2), both out-groups heuristically associated with physical threat. In Study 2, participants' level of implicit Arab-threat associations moderated this bias. Activating a mate-search goal led male, but not female, participants to perceive more sexual arousal in attractive opposite-sex targets (Study 1). Activating these goals did not influence perceptions of goal-irrelevant targets. Additionally, participants with chronic self-protective and mate-search goals exhibited similar biases. Findings are consistent with a functionalist, motivation-based account of interpersonal perception. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)