1,720,961 research outputs found
Assessing Risk Factors for Depression in Adolescents: Necessary or Sufficient Conditions?
No full textIntroduction: Depression is a prevalent mental disorder that significantly challenges global health, largely due to its association with a high risk of suicide. Recent findings have shown a rise in both subclinical symptoms and fully developed depression during adolescence, emphasizing the critical need for early preventive interventions. Understanding the relationship between various cognitive risk factors and depression in adolescence is therefore crucial. These cognitive risk factors, derived from prominent theories of depression such as Beck’s cognitive theory, the hopelessness theory, and the response styles theory, are hypothesized to be both necessary and sufficient conditions for the development of a full-blown depressive disorder in adulthood. Therefore, it is crucial to investigate the role of these factors in the onset of depression among adolescents. Method: This study utilized a longitudinal dataset over one year, with four waves of data collection on depressive symptoms and cognitive risk factors among adolescents (N = 519; mean age = 15.33 years; 63% female). A relative importance analysis determined the extent to which each cognitive vulnerability mechanism—cognitive errors, automatic thoughts, the negative cognitive triad, brooding, and stressful events—contributed to explaining the variance in subclinical depressive symptoms across the study period. Results: The analysis showed that automatic thoughts, the cognitive triad, and brooding were the most significant contributors to the variance in depressive symptoms throughout the four waves. Specifically, focusing on the fourth wave only, automatic thoughts accounted for 12.10%, the cognitive triad for 14.33%, and brooding for 7.75% of the variance in depressive symptoms. The robustness of these findings was affirmed through cross-validation analysis, suggesting that the model is probably reproducible in similar adolescent populations. Discussion: The findings suggested that automatic thoughts, the cognitive triad, and brooding are critical risk factors in the onset and vulnerability to depression and should be prioritized in preventive interventions
Age-dependent changes in the anger superiority effect: Evidence from a visual search task
Full text linkThe perception of threatening facial expressions is a critical skill necessary for detecting the emotional states of others and responding appropriately. The anger superiority effect hypothesis suggests that individuals are better at processing and identifying angry faces compared with other nonthreatening facial expressions. In adults, the anger superiority effect is present even after controlling for the bottom-up visual saliency, and when ecologically valid stimuli are used. However, it is as yet unclear whether this effect is present in children. To fill this gap, we tested the anger superiority effect in children ages 6–14 years in a visual search task by using emotional dynamic stimuli and equating the visual salience of target and distractors. The results suggest that in childhood, the angry superiority effect consists of improved accuracy in detecting angry faces, while in adolescence, the ability to discriminate angry faces undergoes further development, enabling faster and more accurate threat detection
Obsessive-compulsive symptoms and dimensional models of psychopathology: The contribution of “not just right experiences”
Full text linkDimensional models provide a framework for characterizing psychopathology and personality disorders based on lower-order maladaptive traits, typically organized into five overarching domains: Negative Affect or Internalizing, Detachment, Antagonism, Disinhibition, and Psychoticism or Thought Disorder. Within the context of these dimensional models, the classification of Obsessive-Compulsive (OC) symptoms has raised questions, as they are often placed within the Negative Affect/Internalizing or Psychoticism/Thought Disorder domains. The discrepancy in their categorization may be attributed to the diversity in how these symptoms manifest. An alternative perspective involves the adoption of a measure associated with a vulnerability factor for OCD, which may transcend the specific symptoms of the disorder. In this study, our objective was to explore the association between 'Not Just Right Experiences' (NJREs) and the dimensions specified in the DSM-5 Alternative Model of Personality Disorders (AMPD). We utilized two distinct samples, one consisting of 978 participants and the other comprising 1004, all of whom were non-clinical individuals. Through a series of exploratory factor analyses conducted on the initial sample, we uncovered a hierarchical structure of general psychopathology. Within this structure, NJREs were situated within the AMPD's Psychoticism domain. Furthermore, the Psychoticism domain exhibited a strong and unique association with all OC symptoms, surpassing the influence of other AMPD components. A structural equation model applied to the second sample validated these findings, indicating that both the Psychoticism and Negative Affect played significant roles in explaining a substantial portion of the variance observed in NJRE measures. These outcomes have pertinent clinical implications, particularly in the context of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for individuals with OCD
T-PEC: a novel test for the elicited production of clitic pronouns in Italian. Preliminary data
No full textThe study presented in this article aims at investigating the clinical usefulness of a novel test, called T-PEC, for the diagnosis of Developmental Language Disorder in Italian preschool children. The instrument exploits the production of clitic pronouns, in particular third person direct object clitics (3PDO-CL), as a clinical marker for the disorder. Psychometric properties and normative data were computed on a sample of 70 children ranging in age from 4.6 to 5.8 years: 22 children diagnosed as language-impaired by expert clinicians according to international guidelines, and 48 typically developing peers. The statistical analysis of the collected data revealed good internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = 0.86) and confirmed the effectiveness of the T-PEC test in distinguishing typically developing and DLD children, especially when the latter showed morphosyntactic deficits (AUC = 79.9%). Its high accuracy, combined with the rapidity and easiness of its administration, makes the T-PEC test suitable for use in clinical settings
Triarchic Model of Psychopathy and Intimate Partner Violence: An Empirical Study on the Italian Community
No full textIntimate partner violence (IPV) is a serious and recurrent phenomenon in many societies with severe physical and psychological consequences. In the present study, we aimed to explore the role of triarchic dimensions of psychopathy (disinhibition, boldness, and meanness) across gender in this occurrence. A questionnaire on inflicted (self) and experienced (partner) IPV and the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure were administered to a sample of 1,149 individuals from the Italian community. In general, self and partner IPV were moderately correlated. Bayesian regression analysis showed that disinhibition was positively correlated to both self and partner IPV (psychological and physical). In addition, boldness was negatively associated with perpetrated psychological IPV. Interactions by gender showed that meanness was positively related to perpetrated IPV in women (psychological and physical), whereas men with disinhibition features inflicted more physical violence than women. A high externalizing tendency (i.e., disinhibition) is therefore an important correlate of both perpetrated and reported IPV; moreover, boldness was associated with less psychological violence in general, whereas the effect of meanness depended on the gender of the individuals involved. Interestingly, the association between IPV and self-reported delinquent activities was low in magnitude (Spearman’s Rho around.20) suggesting limited overlap between these two constructs
COMPARING THE DSM-5 DIMENSIONAL TRAIT AND TRIARCHIC MODEL CONCEPTIONS OF PSYCHOPATHY: AN EXTERNAL VALIDITY ANALYSIS
No full textAdvancing Understanding of the Relation Between Criterion A of the Alternative Model for Personality Disorders and Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology: Insights From an External Validity Analysis
No full textIncreasing interest surrounds the relation between Level of Personality Functioning (LPF), as defined by Criterion A of the Alternative Model for Personality Disorders, and the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) model. However, the integration of LPF within HiTOP remains unclear. Using bivariate correlation and linear regression analyses, this study assessed the associations between LPF and HiTOP spectra (externalizing antisocial, externalizing drug use, internalizing, antagonism, detachment, and psychoticism). A sample of 1,183 participants (46.2% female, M-age = 31.3 +/- 14.8 years) from the Italian community completed various self-report measures to capture impairments in personality functioning, and several psychopathology symptoms. Bivariate correlations and regression analyses showed that the LPF facets were consistently associated with all HiTOP domains, even though the LPF measures used in this study appeared more reflective of internalizing symptoms than externalizing ones. The identity facet of LPF was uniquely associated with all outcome criteria, whereas no unique associations were evident for self-direction. Empathy facet had the highest association with antagonism while intimacy presented the highest relation with detachment. Overall, the evidence presented in this study partially supports the construct validity of Criterion A, highlighting its relevance across a wide range of psychopathological symptoms and its potential utility in clinical assessment beyond formal personality disorder diagnoses. Thus, this study may contribute to the understanding of LPF's role in the dimensional model of psychopathology and underscores the importance of considering personality functioning in the assessment and treatment of mental disorders
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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