Current Directions in Psychological ScienceThis is an RSS file. You can use it to subscribe to this data in your favourite RSS reader, such as GoogleReader, or to display this data on your own website or blog. Subscribe to this data using MyMedWorm.Subscribe to this data using GoogleReader.Subscribe to this data using Bloglines.Subscribe to this data using MyYahoo.

This page shows you the latest items in this publication.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6

285 records returned

Alternatives to Randomized ExperimentsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]Randomized experiments are preferred for making inferences about causality when they can be implemented and their assumptions are met. Yet assumptions can fail (e.g., attrition, treatment noncompliance) or randomization may be unethical or infeasible. I describe alternative design and statistical approaches that permit testing causal hypotheses and present current empirical evidence related to alternative designs. Alternative designs permit a wider range of research questions to be answered and permit more direct generalization of causal effects; however, when using such designs, estimates of the magnitude o...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - November 2, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Stephen G. West Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

The Pursuit of Status in Social GroupsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]Status differences are ubiquitous and highly consequential. Yet with regard to human social groups, basic questions persist about how status differences develop. In particular, little is known about the processes by which individuals pursue status in social groups. That is, how do individuals compete and jockey for status with their peers? The current paper reviews recent research that helps fill this gap in our knowledge. Specifically, studies of a variety of face-to-face groups show that individuals pursue status by enhancing the apparent value they provide to their group. Individuals compete for status no...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - November 2, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Cameron Anderson, Gavin J. Kilduff Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

From Fragments to Geometric Shape: Changes in Visual Object Recognition Between 18 and 24 MonthsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]Visual object recognition is foundational to processes of categorization, tool use, and real-world problem solving. Despite considerable effort across many disciplines and many specific advances, there is no comprehensive or well-accepted account of this ability. Moreover, none of the extant approaches consider how human object recognition develops. New evidence indicates a period of rapid change in toddlers' visual object recognition between 18 and 24 months that is related to the learning of object names and to goal-directed action. Children appear to shift from recognition based on piecemeal fragments to ...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - November 2, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Linda B. Smith Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

The Role of Parental Control in Children's Development in Western and East Asian CountriesEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]Decades of research in Western countries such as the United States have supported the idea that parental control undermines children's psychological development. In recent years, investigators have asked whether this is also true in East Asian countries such as China, given that several aspects of East Asian culture have the potential to make children more accepting of parental control. We review research indicating that the effects of parental control on children's psychological functioning are similarly negative in the United States and China, the two countries where most research on this subject has been ...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - November 2, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Eva M. Pomerantz, Qian Wang Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Social Emotions and Intertemporal Choice: "Hot" Mechanisms for Building Social and Economic CapitalEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]Individuals regularly confront situations in which acceptance of short-term costs may lead to long-term gains. Given that individuals frequently discount the utility of future benefits with respect to more immediate ones, successfully solving such intertemporal choice dilemmas has been theorized to involve self-regulation aimed at controlling emotional responses that are sensitive to immediate rewards. In this article, I argue for a more multifaceted view of the role played by emotions in intertemporal choice. In support of this view, I review emerging evidence demonstrating the ability of specific, socially...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - November 2, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: David DeSteno Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

The Importance of Sound for Cognitive Sequencing Abilities: The Auditory Scaffolding HypothesisEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]Sound is inherently a temporal and sequential signal. Experience with sound therefore may help bootstrap[mdash]that is, provide a kind of "scaffolding" for[mdash]the development of general cognitive abilities related to representing temporal or sequential patterns. Accordingly, the absence of sound early in development may result in disturbances to these sequencing skills. In support of this hypothesis, we present two types of findings. First, normal-hearing adults do best on sequencing tasks when the sense of hearing, rather than sight, can be used. Second, recent findings suggest that deaf children have di...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - November 2, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Christopher M. Conway, David B. Pisoni, William G. Kronenberger Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Socioeconomic Status and Health: What Is the Role of Reserve Capacity?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]A robust, linear association between socioeconomic status (SES) and health has been identified across many populations and health outcomes. This relationship is typically monotonic, so that each step down the SES hierarchy brings increased vulnerability to disease and premature mortality. Despite growing attention to health disparities, scientists and policymakers have made little progress toward confronting their causes and implementing effective solutions. Using the reserve capacity model (Gallo & Matthews, 2003) as an organizing framework, the current article examines the contribution of resilient psychos...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - November 2, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Linda C. Gallo, Karla Espinosa de los Monteros, Smriti Shivpuri Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Compensatory Control: Achieving Order Through the Mind, Our Institutions, and the HeavensEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]We propose that people protect the belief in a controlled, nonrandom world by imbuing their social, physical, and metaphysical environments with order and structure when their sense of personal control is threatened. We demonstrate that when personal control is threatened, people can preserve a sense of order by (a) perceiving patterns in noise or adhering to superstitions and conspiracies, (b) defending the legitimacy of the sociopolitical institutions that offer control, or (c) believing in an interventionist God. We also present evidence that these processes of compensatory control help people cope with t...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - November 2, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Aaron C. Kay, Jennifer A. Whitson, Danielle Gaucher, Adam D. Galinsky Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Cognition Without Control: When a Little Frontal Lobe Goes a Long WayEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]The prefrontal cortex is crucial for the ability to regulate thought and control behavior. The development of the human cerebral cortex is characterized by an extended period of maturation during which young children exhibit marked deficits in cognitive control. We contend that prolonged prefrontal immaturity is, on balance, advantageous and that the positive consequences of this developmental trajectory outweigh the negative. Particularly, we argue that cognitive control impedes convention learning and that delayed prefrontal maturation is a necessary adaptation for human learning of social and linguistic c...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - November 2, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Sharon L. Thompson-Schill, Michael Ramscar, Evangelia G. Chrysikou Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Aging and Information Technology Use: Potential and BarriersEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]Why are older adults reluctant to adopt new technology, such as the Internet, given its potential to improve the quality of their lives? We review evidence indicating that attitudes and abilities are among the most powerful predictors of technology use. We conclude that normative age-related changes in ability must be taken into account when designing products and training programs for aging adults, and we discuss new tools to support designers. The most promising emerging technologies likely lie in training cognitive abilities and augmenting or substituting for impaired abilities. We discuss reasons to expe...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - October 1, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Neil Charness, Walter R. Boot Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Self-Control: A Function of Knowing When and How to Exercise RestraintEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]To successfully pursue a goal in the face of temptation, an individual must first identify that she faces a self-control conflict. Only then will the individual exercise self-control to promote goal pursuit over indulging in temptation. We propose a new model that distinguishes between the problems of conflict identification and those of conflict resolution. We then review research on the factors that influence conflict identification and those that determine conflict resolution. (Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science)
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - September 1, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Kristian Ove R. Myrseth, Ayelet Fishbach Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

The Experience of Agency: Feelings, Judgments, and ResponsibilityEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]The experience of agency refers to the experience of being in control both of one's own actions and, through them, of events in the external world. Recent experimental studies have investigated how people recognise a particular event as being caused by their own action or by that of another person. These studies suggest that people match sensory inputs to a prediction based on the action they are performing. Other studies have contrasted voluntary actions to physically similar but passive body movements. These studies suggest that voluntary action triggers wide-ranging changes in the spatial and temporal exp...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - September 1, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Patrick Haggard, Manos Tsakiris Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

The Neurobiological Underpinnings of Coping With PainEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]The biopsychosocial model treats pain as resulting from a complex interaction of biological, psychological, and social factors. Individual differences in approaches to coping with pain-related symptoms are important determinants of pain-related outcomes, and are often classified under the "psychological" category within the biopsychosocial model. However, engagement in various cognitive, affective, and behavioral pain-coping strategies appears to exert biological effects, which we review here. Pain-coping activities such as catastrophizing, distracting oneself from pain sensations, or reappraisal of pain may...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - September 1, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Robert R. Edwards, Claudia Campbell, Robert N. Jamison, Katja Wiech Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

The Path of Least Resistance: Using Easy-to-Access InformationEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Abstract[mdash]Recent work on judgment and decision making has focused on how people preferentially use cues, or pieces of relevant information, that are easy to access when making decisions. In this article, we discuss a framework for understanding the ways that cues become accessible. We begin by identifying two components of cues and show how these components can become accessible during different parts a decision process. We highlight evidence for the use of accessible information and discuss implications for future research on heuristics. (Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science)
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - September 1, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Anuj K. Shah, Daniel M. Oppenheimer Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Separation, Sickness, and Depression: A New Perspective on an Old Animal ModelEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]Studies of prolonged separation from the attachment figure that were conducted with infant monkeys during the middle of the 20th century identified a passive behavioral response, termed "despair," that appeared to model human depressive illness. Studies in guinea pigs, which exhibit filial attachment that resembles attachment in monkeys, have described a similar passive response to briefer periods of maternal separation. Recent evidence indicates that elements of the immune system mediate the passive behavioral response of guinea pigs. These findings accord well with current ideas that immune responses contr...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - September 1, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Michael B. Hennessy, Patricia A. Schiml-Webb, Terrence Deak Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Endocrine Mediators of Masculinization in Female MammalsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]Most mammal species show traditional patterns of sexual dimorphism (e.g., greater male size and aggression), the proximal mechanism of which involves the male's greater pre- and postnatal exposure to circulating androgens. But in several species, females diverge from the traditional pattern, converging on the male form or even reversing sexual dimorphisms. Such "masculinized" females might show elongation of the clitoris, enhanced body size, and aggressively mediated social dominance over males, and they are interesting case studies for examining the role of androgens in females. This review addresses our un...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - September 1, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Christine M. Drea Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Beyond Heritability: Twin Studies in Behavioral ResearchEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]The heritability of human behavioral traits is now well established, due in large measure to classical twin studies. We see little need for further studies of the heritability of individual traits in behavioral science, but the twin study is far from having outlived its usefulness. The existence of pervasive familial influences on behavior means that selection bias is always a concern in any study of the causal effects of environmental circumstances. Twin samples continue to provide new opportunities to identify causal effects with appropriate genetic and shared environmental controls. We discuss environment...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - September 1, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Wendy Johnson, Eric Turkheimer, Irving I. Gottesman, Thomas J. Bouchard Jr. Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

The Aha! Moment: The Cognitive Neuroscience of InsightEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]A sudden comprehension that solves a problem, reinterprets a situation, explains a joke, or resolves an ambiguous percept is called an insight (i.e., the "Aha! moment"). Psychologists have studied insight using behavioral methods for nearly a century. Recently, the tools of cognitive neuroscience have been applied to this phenomenon. A series of studies have used electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study the neural correlates of the "Aha! moment" and its antecedents. Although the experience of insight is sudden and can seem disconnected from the immediately preced...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - September 1, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: John Kounios, Mark Beeman Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Stress Processes in Pregnancy and Preterm BirthEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This article summarizes research on stress as a risk factor for PTB. As is evident in considering the complex mechanisms, psychological science has much to contribute to addressing this important health issue. (Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science)
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - September 1, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Christine Dunkel Schetter Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Adolescent Depression: Stressful Interpersonal Contexts and Risk for RecurrenceEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]High rates of diagnosable depression in adolescence, especially among young women, present challenging clinical and research issues. Depression not only portends current maladjustment but may also signal risk for recurrent or chronic depression and its associated impairment. Because depression is most often a response to stressful events and circumstances, it is important to understand the stress context itself. Individuals with depression histories are known to contribute to the occurrence of interpersonal and other stressors at a high rate, and for young women particularly, the occurrence of interpersonal ...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - September 1, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Constance Hammen Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Two-Mode Models of Self-Regulation as a Tool for Conceptualizing Effects of the Serotonin System in Normal Behavior and Diverse DisordersEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]The serotonin system is a collection of neural pathways whose overall level of functioning (from low to high) relates to diverse kinds of psychological and behavioral variability. Individual differences in serotonergic function are important both in personality and in vulnerability to psychological disorders. These disorders range widely[mdash]from impulsive aggression to depression. One way to understand such diverse reflections of differences in serotonergic function is by viewing serotonergic function through the lens of two-mode (or dual-process) models of self-regulation. Such theories posit a lower-ord...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - September 1, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Charles S. Carver, Sheri L. Johnson, Jutta Joormann Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Suppressing Unwanted MemoriesEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]When reminded of something we would prefer not to think about, we often try to exclude the unwanted memory from awareness. Recent research indicates that people control unwanted memories by stopping memory retrieval, using mechanisms similar to those used to stop reflexive motor responses. Controlling unwanted memories is implemented by the lateral prefrontal cortex, which acts to reduce activity in the hippocampus, thereby impairing retention of those memories. Individual differences in the efficacy of these systems may underlie variation in how well people control intrusive memories and adapt in the afterm...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - July 31, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Michael C. Anderson, Benjamin J. Levy Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

How Emotions Regulate Social Life: The Emotions as Social Information (EASI) ModelEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]The idea that emotions regulate social interaction is increasingly popular. But exactly how do emotions do this? To address this question, I draw on research on the interpersonal effects of emotions on behavior in personal relationships, parent[ndash]child interactions, conflict, negotiation, and leadership, and propose a new framework that can account for existing findings and guide future research: the emotions as social information (EASI) model. I demonstrate that emotional expressions affect observers' behavior by triggering inferential processes and/or affective reactions in them. The predictive strengt...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - June 21, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Gerben A. Van Kleef Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Temperament and Psychopathy: A Dual-Pathway ModelEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]The concept of psychopathy refers to a pattern of chronic antisocial behavior and personality features, such as emotional detachment, lovelessness, and guiltlessness, attributable in part to a temperament deficit. Historically, that deficit has been seen as a low reactivity to fear, but recent research has documented a second temperament deficit in adults that involves poor emotional and behavioral control. Both pathways are found in the child psychopathology literature, pointing to multifactorial developmental pathways from childhood to adult psychopathy. (Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science)
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - June 21, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Don C. Fowles, Lilian Dindo Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

When Eyewitnesses TalkEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
We describe the implications of this research for eyewitness testimony. (Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science)
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - June 21, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Daniel B. Wright, Amina Memon, Elin M. Skagerberg, Fiona Gabbert Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Averting the Tragedy of the Commons: Using Social Psychological Science to Protect the EnvironmentEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]Many local and global environmental challenges are tragedies-of-the-commons dilemmas in which private and collective interests are frequently at odds. Recent developments in social psychological theory and research suggest that in such commons dilemmas people are not just motivated by narrow (economic) self-interest but that they also consider the broader implications of their decisions for others and for the natural environment. Based on a core-motives analysis, I identify four necessary components for designing interventions to protect the environment: (a) information, (b) identity, (c) institutions, and (...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - June 21, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Mark Van Vugt Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

What Can Experiments Reveal About the Origins of Music?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]The origins of music have intrigued scholars for thousands of years. In this article I discuss the role of experiments in discussions of these issues. I argue that potentially useful kinds of evidence are those that address the innateness and the specificity of different components of musical behavior. At present there is some evidence for innate influences on music, but little evidence for capacities that are clearly specific to music. Although future experiments could potentially alter this picture, there is currently little unambiguous support for the notion that music is an adaptation. (Source: Current D...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - June 21, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Josh H. McDermott Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Metacognitive Judgments and Control of StudyEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]Recent evidence indicates that people's judgments of their own learning are causally related to their study behavior and not epiphenomenal. I argue here that people use these metacognitions in an effort to selectively study material in their own region of proximal learning. First they attempt to eliminate materials that are already well learned. Then they progress successively from studying easier to more difficult materials. Successful implementation of this metacognitively guided strategy enhances learning. The necessary components are, first, that the metacognitions be accurate, and second, that the appro...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - June 21, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Janet Metcalfe Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Cognitive Plasticity and Cortical ModulesEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]Some organisms learn to calculate, accumulate knowledge, and communicate in ways that others do not. What factors determine which intellectual abilities a particular species or individual can easily acquire? I propose that cognitive-skill learning capacity reflects (a) the availability of specialized cortical circuits, (b) the flexibility with which cortical activity is coordinated, and (c) the customizability of cortical networks. This framework can potentially account for differences in learning capacity across species, individuals, and developmental stages. Understanding the mechanisms that constrain cogn...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - June 21, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Eduardo Mercado III Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Emotional Attention: Uncovering the Mechanisms of Affective Biases in PerceptionEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]The emotional significance of sensory events may influence attention in a reflexive manner, but these effects vary across paradigms and participants. Recent research indicates that specific circuits in the brain may serve to amplify neural responses to emotional stimuli, a modulation similar to attentional effects usually driven by endogenous goals. However, this modulation involves distinct sources in emotional systems such as the amygdala, and may thus operate partly independent of top-down control by attentional systems in frontoparietal cortices. It remains to be clarified to what degree these emotional ...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - June 21, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Patrik Vuilleumier, Yang-Ming Huang Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Thinking About Me: How Social Awareness EvolvedEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]Humans seem unique in their consideration of others' goals, motivations, intentions, and needs. But the human form of social awareness did not spring from nowhere; certain mechanisms shared across primates formed the foundation from which these processes derived. A review of recent nonhuman primate research points to particular ancestral mechanisms, including an interest in images moving in synchrony with self, a mirror neuron system that responds in the same way to actions made by the self and by others, and inherited social tolerance that provided the bases for social thinking. Still there is a gap in trac...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - June 21, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Julie J. Neiworth Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Measured Gene–Environment Interactions and Mechanisms Promoting Resilient DevelopmentEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]Childhood maltreatment elevates risk for antisocial behavior, depression, and other problems over the life span, but a subset of maltreated individuals avoids maladaptive development and shows resilience. Resilience reflects a dynamic confluence of factors that promotes positive adaptation despite exposure to adverse experiences. Recent replicated findings of gene[ndash]environment interactions (abbreviated G × E) involving maltreatment have identified two genes, monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) and serotonin transporter (5-HTT), that moderate the association between childhood maltreatment and psychopathology. Ac...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - June 21, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Julia Kim-Cohen, Andrea L. Gold Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Social Regulation of Human Gene ExpressionEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]The relationship between genes and social behavior has historically been construed as a one-way street, with genes in control. Recent analyses have challenged this view, by discovering broad alterations in the expression of human genes as a function of differing socio-environmental conditions. The emerging field of social genomics has begun to identity the types of genes subject to social regulation, the biological signaling pathways mediating those effects, and the genetic polymorphisms that moderate socioenvironmental influences on human gene expression. (Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science)
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - June 21, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Steve W. Cole Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Genes in Context: Gene–Environment Interplay and the Origins of Individual Differences in BehaviorEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]Interactions between genes and the environment are a critical feature of development. Insights into the dynamic interplay between these factors have come from laboratory studies exploring experience-dependent changes in gene function, which illustrate the importance of environmental factors in determining activity of the genome. These studies have implications for our understanding of the origins of individual differences in behavior and may provide new ways of thinking about the transmission of traits across generations. Here we will highlight how these new findings illustrate the importance of putting gene...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - May 31, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Frances A. Champagne, Rahia Mashoodh Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Adult Attachment: Toward a Rapprochement of Methodological CulturesEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Discussion focuses on how recent insights[mdash]in combination with needed experimental and longitudinal data[mdash]can help reconcile the developmental- and social-psychological literatures on adult attachment. (Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science)
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - April 15, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Glenn I. Roisman Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Effects of Prenatal Social Stress on Offspring Development: Pathology or Adaptation?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]In nonhuman mammals, the social environment in which pregnant females live is critical for their offsprings' brain development, endocrine state, and social and sexual behavior later in life. Social instability during pregnancy generally brings about a behavioral and neuroendocrine masculinization in daughters and a less pronounced expression of male-typical traits in sons. We favor the hypothesis that such behavioral effects of prenatal social stress are not necessarily "pathological" (nonadaptive) consequences of adverse social conditions. Rather, pregnant mothers could be adjusting their offspring to their...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - April 15, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Sylvia Kaiser, Norbert Sachser Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

The New Person-Specific Paradigm in PsychologyEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]Most research methodology in the behavioral sciences employs interindividual analyses, which provide information about the state of affairs of the population. However, as shown by classical mathematical-statistical theorems (the ergodic theorems), such analyses do not provide information for, and cannot be applied at, the level of the individual, except on rare occasions when the processes of interest meet certain stringent conditions. When psychological processes violate these conditions, the interindividual analyses that are now standardly applied have to be replaced by analysis of intraindividual variatio...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - April 15, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Peter C.M. Molenaar, Cynthia G. Campbell Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Bringing It All Back Home: How Outside Stressors Shape Families' Everyday LivesEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]Families are dynamic systems that are permeable to influences from the outside world, such as daily stressors at work and at school. Our research uses naturalistic methods to investigate how family interactions change in response to such experiences and how other family members contribute to that process. We argue that the short-term effects of daily stressors on family dynamics can have cumulative, long-term implications for family health and functioning. Naturalistic studies that incorporate daily diary, observational, and physiological measures can offer new insights into families' everyday stress respond...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - April 15, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Rena Repetti, Shu-wen Wang, Darby Saxbe Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

What Do People Want to Feel and Why?: Pleasure and Utility in Emotion RegulationEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]It is typically assumed that people always want to feel good. Recent evidence, however, demonstrates that people want to feel unpleasant emotions, such as anger or fear, when these emotions promote the attainment of their long-term goals. If emotions are regulated for instrumental reasons, people should want to feel pleasant emotions when immediate benefits outweigh future benefits, but when future benefits outweigh immediate benefits, people may prefer to feel useful emotions, even if they are unpleasant. In this article, I describe an instrumental account of emotion regulation, review empirical evidence re...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - April 15, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Maya Tamir Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Prediction Errors and Attention in the Presence and Absence of FeedbackEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]Contemporary theories of learning typically assume that learning is driven by prediction errors[mdash]in other words, that we learn more when our predictions turn out to be incorrect than we do when our predictions are correct. Results from the recording of electrical brain activity suggest one mechanism by which this might happen; we seem to direct visual attention toward the likely causes of previous prediction errors. This can happen very rapidly[mdash]within less than 200 milliseconds of the error-causing object being presented. It is tempting to infer that if learning is driven by prediction errors, the...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - April 15, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Andy J. Wills Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Executive Function: The Search for an Integrated AccountEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This article provides a brief introduction to the concept of executive function and discusses how it is assessed and the conditions under which it is compromised. A short overview of the diverse theoretical viewpoints regarding its psychological and biological underpinnings is also provided. The article concludes with a consideration of how a multilevel approach may provide a more integrated account of executive function than has been previously available. (Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science)
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - April 15, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Marie T. Banich Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Nightmares, Bad Dreams, and Emotion Dysregulation: A Review and New Neurocognitive Model of DreamingEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]Nightmares[mdash]vivid, emotionally dysphoric dreams[mdash]are quite common and are associated with a broad range of psychiatric conditions. However, the origin of such dreams remains largely unexplained, and there have been no attempts to reconcile repetitive traumatic nightmares with nontraumatic nightmares, dysphoric dreams that do not awaken the dreamer, or with more normative dreams. Based on recent research in cognitive neuroscience, sleep physiology, fear conditioning, and emotional-memory regulation, we propose a multilevel neurocognitive model that unites waking and sleeping as a conceptual framewor...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - April 15, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Ross Levin, Tore Nielsen Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Why Do People Hurt Themselves?: New Insights Into the Nature and Functions of Self-InjuryEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This article presents a theoretical model of the development and maintenance of NSSI. Rather than a symptom of mental disorder, NSSI is conceptualized as a harmful behavior that can serve several intrapersonal (e.g., affect regulation) and interpersonal (e.g., help-seeking) functions. Risk of NSSI is increased by general factors that contribute to problems with affect regulation or interpersonal communication (e.g., childhood abuse) and by specific factors that influence the decision to use NSSI rather than some other behavior to serve these functions (e.g., social modeling). This model synthesizes research from several di...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - April 15, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Matthew K. Nock Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Multiple Systems in Decision Making: A Neurocomputational PerspectiveEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]Various psychological models posit the existence of two systems that contribute to decision making. The first system is bottom-up, automatic, intuitive, emotional, and implicit, while the second system is top-down, controlled, deliberative, and explicit. It has become increasingly evident that this dichotomy is both too simplistic and too vague. Here we consider insights gained from a different approach, one that considers the multiple computational demands of the decision-making system in the context of neural mechanisms specialized to accomplish some of that system's more basic functions. The use of explic...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - April 15, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Michael J. Frank, Michael X. Cohen, Alan G. Sanfey Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Life Stress and Major DepressionEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]People have long believed that adversity and stress contribute to emotional problems in general and to depression in particular. A considerable body of research has supported this intuition, documenting a consistent association between major stressful life events and the onset of clinical depression. However, most individuals under stress do not become depressed, sometimes depression develops without prior stress, and distinguishing psychological distress from major depression can be diagnostically challenging. In varying forms and degrees, life stress may play multiple roles in relation to major depression....
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - April 15, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Scott M. Monroe, Mark W. Reid Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Does Watching Smoking in Movies Promote Teenage Smoking?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]Compared to adolescents with low exposure to smoking in movies, those with high exposure are about three times as likely to try smoking or become smokers. We have observed this effect in nationally representative samples using cross-sectional and longitudinal designs. This effect remains statistically significant after controlling for numerous other traditional risk factors, such as personality, parenting style, and sociodemographics. Indeed, the movie-smoking exposure effect on adolescent smoking initiation is greatest among those traditionally considered at lower risk for smoking, such as those low in sens...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - April 1, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Todd F. Heatherton, James D. Sargent Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Core Self-Evaluations and Work SuccessEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]Core self-evaluations (CSE) is a broad, integrative trait indicated by self-esteem, locus of control, generalized self-efficacy, and (low) neuroticism (high emotional stability). While only a decade old, research on CSE suggests that it explains much of the overlap among these trait measures, while also predicting many work and other applied outcomes better than the individual traits. Individuals with high levels of CSE perform better on their jobs, are more successful in their careers, are more satisfied with their jobs and lives, report lower levels of stress and conflict, cope more effectively with setbac...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - February 23, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Timothy A. Judge Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Infants' Grasp of Others' IntentionsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]The perception of others as intentional agents is fundamental to human experience and foundational to development. Recent research reveals that this cornerstone of social perception has its roots early in infancy, and that it is influenced by the universal, early-emerging human experience of engaging in goal-directed action. Infants' own action capabilities correlate with their emerging tendency to view others' actions as organized by goals. Moreover, interventions that facilitate new goal-directed actions alter infants' perception of those same actions in others. These effects seem to depend on the first-pe...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - February 23, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Amanda L. Woodward Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

Phenylketonuria in Children and Mothers: Genes, Environments, BehaviorEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]Phenylketonuria (PKU) is an inborn metabolic error in which metabolism of phenylalanine into tyrosine is disrupted. If the diet of an infant with PKU is not restricted, blood phenylalanine levels are elevated, leading to irremediable brain damage and severe mental retardation. Children with PKU who are placed early and continuously on a low-phenylalanine diet develop normal levels of intelligence, and brain damage is largely prevented. However, if the diet of a mother with PKU is unrestricted during her pregnancy, high phenylalanine levels in her blood can cross the placental barrier and damage the developin...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - February 23, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Keith F. Widaman Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals

When Walking Makes Perception BetterEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ABSTRACT[mdash]When we move, the visual world moves toward us. That is, self-motion normally produces visual signals (flow) that tell us about our own motion. But these signals are distorted by our motion: Visual flow actually appears slower while we are moving than it does when we are stationary and our surroundings move past us. Although for many years these kinds of distortions have been interpreted as a suppression of flow to promote the perception of a stable world, current research has shown that these shifts in perceived visual speed may have an important function in measuring our own self-motion. Specifically, by s...
Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science - February 23, 2009 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Frank H. Durgin Tags: Original Articles Source Type: journals