Psychiatry and Psychology Commons^™

The Traumatic Stress Response In Child Maltreatment And Resultant Neuropsychological Effects, Kathryn R. Wilson, David J. Hansen, Ming Li

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Child maltreatment is a pervasive problem in our society that has long-term detrimental consequences to the development of the affected child such as future brain growth and functioning. In this paper, we surveyed empirical evidence on the neuropsychological effects of child maltreatment, with a special emphasis on emotional, behavioral, and cognitive process–response difficulties experienced by maltreated children. The alteration of the biochemical stress response system in the brain that changes an individual’s ability to respond efficiently and efficaciously to future stressors is conceptualized as the traumatic stress response. Vulnerable brain regions include the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis, the amygdala, the hippocampus, and …

Olanzapine And Risperidone Disrupt Conditioned Avoidance Responding By Selectively Weakening Motivational Salience Of Conditioned Stimulus: Further Evidence, Chen Zhang, Yiru Fang, Ming Li

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Suppression of conditioned avoidance response is a preclinical behavioral index of antipsychotic activity. Previous work shows that olanzapine and risperidone disrupt avoidance response elicited by a less salient conditioned stimulus (CS2) to a greater extent than avoidance elicited by a more salient stimulus (CS1), suggesting that antipsychotic drugs may have a weakening action on motivational salience of stimuli. In the present study, we further examined this mechanism of antipsychotic action, focusing on the possible impact of baseline difference of CS1 and CS2 response rates on the avoidance-disruptive effect of olanzapine and risperidone. Rats were first trained to acquire avoidance responding …

The Internship Application Process: Advice You Might Not Have Heard (Student Forum), David K. Dilillo, Thad R. Leffingwell

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Offers advice about the mastering the application process for a psychology clinical training internship, including: making your dissertation sound interesting, interviewing effectively, and tips for writing engaging essays.

Treatment Effects For Common Outcomes Of Child Sexual Abuse: A Current Meta-Analysis, Emily V. Trask, Kate Walsh, David Dilillo

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

The present meta-analysis examined the effects of psychosocial treatments at reducing deleterious outcomes of sexual abuse. The meta-analysis included a total of 35 published and unpublished studies written in English, focusing on youth under the age of 18, and evaluating the effectiveness of treatments for the most common negative outcomes of sexual abuse: PTSD symptoms, externalizing problems, and internalizing problems. Results revealed medium effect sizes for PTSD symptoms, externalizing problems, and internalizing problems following treatment for sexual abuse. This study also examined the potential moderating effects of treatment (e.g., modality, duration, and inclusion of caregiver) and participant (e.g., age, gender, …

Heterogeneity Of Individuals With A History Of Child Sexual Abuse: An Examination Of Children Presenting To Treatment, C. Thresa Yancey, David J. Hansen, Karen Z. Naufel

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

The current study examined children and families who presented for treatment through Project SAFE (Sexual Abuse Family Education) following childhood sexual abuse. Pretreatment assessment data were used to develop clusters of participants with significantly differing presentation of symptom outcome following abuse. Four clusters were discovered: (a) a Highly Distressed group, whose members had clinically elevated scores on all self- and parent-report measures; (b) a Problem Behaviors group, whose members had scores within the normal range for self-report measures and elevated scores on all parent-report measures; (c) a Subclinical group, whose participants had scores below the mean and below cutoff scores …

Waiting For Grapes: Expectancy And Delayed Gratification In Bonobos, Jeffrey R. Stevens, Alexandra G. Rosati, Sarah R. Heilbronner, Nelly Mühlhoff

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Responses to delayed rewards vary widely across individuals and have important implications for personality and temperament. Animals may avoid delayed rewards because the future is uncertain. Therefore, expectations about receiving a future reward should influence the response to delayed payoffs. Here, we offered bonobos (Pan paniscus) a delayed gratification task in which food accumulated over time. Once subjects chose to consume the reward, food stopped accumulating. We tested their willingness to wait with a reliable and an unreliable experimenter to vary the subjects’ expectations that they would receive the food. Subjects waited less often with the unreliable experimenter …

Forgetting Constrains The Emergence Of Cooperative Decision Strategies, Jeffrey R. Stevens, Jenny Volstorf, Lael J. Schooler, Jörg Rieskamp

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Theoretical studies of cooperative behavior have focused on decision strategies that depend on a partner’s last choices. The findings from this work assume that players accurately remember past actions. The kind of memory that these strategies employ, however, does not reflect what we know about memory. Here, we show that human memory may not meet the requirements needed to use these strategies. When asked to recall the previous behavior of simulated partners in a cooperative memory task, participants performed poorly, making errors in 10–24% of the trials. Participants made more errors when required to track more partners. We conducted agent-based …

To Google Or Not To Google: Graduate Students’ Use Of The Internet To Access Personal Information About Clients, David K. Dilillo, Emily B. Gale

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

The emergence of Internet search and social media sites now permits therapists to obtain a plethora of personal information about their clients online. These behaviors raise a number of ethical issues related to client privacy, self-determination, and informed consent. The purpose of this study is to examine student therapists’ opinions and behaviors in regard to the use these websites to search for information about their clients. A national sample of 854 psychology doctoral students was surveyed in regard to their online activities, attitudes, and frequency of searching for client information online. Results showed that Internet usage is pervasive in this …

Multiple “Hits” During Postnatal And Early Adulthood Periods Disrupt The Normal Development Of Sensorimotor Gating Ability In Rats, Jing Chen, Zucheng Wang, Ming Li

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

In the present study, we evaluated a multiple-hit animal model of schizophrenia in an attempt to capture the complex interactions among various adverse developmental factors in schizophrenia. Sprague–Dawley rats were assigned to receive either repeated daily 3-h maternal separation for eight days (first “hit”) on postnatal days (PND) 3 to 10, and/or avoidance conditioning for six days (second “hit”) on PND 49–56, and/or repeated phencyclidine treatment (third “hit”, 3.0 mg/kg, sc) immediately after each daily avoidance conditioning. Prepulse inhibition (PPI) of acoustic startle reflex was assessed at late adolescence (PND 41–43) and early adulthood (PND 62–63). The change in %PPI …

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy For Immigrants Presenting With Social Anxiety Disorder: Two Case Studies, Brandon J. Weiss, J. Suzanne Singh, Debra Anne Hope

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for the treatment of social anxiety disorder (SAD) has demonstrated efficacy in numerous randomized trials. However, few studies specifically examine the applicability of such treatment for ethnic minority clients. Thus, the purpose of this article is to present two case studies examining the utility of individualized CBT for SAD with two clients who immigrated to the United States, one from Central America and one from China, for whom English was not the primary language. Both clients demonstrated improvement on a semistructured interview and self-report measures. Necessary adaptations were modest, suggesting that therapy could be conducted in a …

Treatment Effects For Common Outcomes Of Child Sexual Abuse: A Current Meta-Analysis, Emily Trask, Kate Walsh, David K. Dilillo

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

The present meta-analysis examined the effects of psychosocial treatments at reducing deleterious outcomes of sexual abuse. The meta-analysis included a total of 35 published and unpublished studies written in English, focusing on youth under the age of 18, and evaluating the effectiveness of treatments for the most common negative outcomes of sexual abuse: PTSD symptoms, externalizing problems, and internalizing problems. Results revealed medium effect sizes for PTSD symptoms, externalizing problems, and internalizing problems following treatment for sexual abuse. This study also examined the potential moderating effects of treatment (e.g., modality, duration, and inclusion of caregiver) and participant (e.g., age, gender, …

Exploring Separable Components Of Institutional Confidence, Joseph A. Hamm, Lisa M. Pytlik Zillig, Alan Tomkins, Mitchel Herian, Brian H. Bornstein, Elizabeth Neeley

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Despite its contemporary and theoretical importance in numerous social scientific disciplines, institutional confidence research is limited by a lack of consensus regarding the distinctions and relationships among related constructs (e.g., trust, confidence, legitimacy, distrust, etc.). This study examined four confidence-related constructs that have been used in studies of trust/confidence in the courts: dispositional trust, trust in institutions, obligation to obey the law, and cynicism. First, the separability of the four constructs was examined by exploratory factor analyses. Relationships among the constructs were also assessed. Next, multiple regression analyses were used to explore each construct’s independent contribution to confidence in the …

The Challenges Of Understanding Animal Minds, Jeffrey R. Stevens

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Comparative psychology is by nature an interdisciplinary science that lies at the crossroads of psychology and biology but also draws from other fields in the natural, social, and cognitive sciences. The study of the psychology of animals has been labeled animal cognition, comparative cognition, animal learning, animal psychology, and animal intelligence. Here, comparative psychology is used interchangeably with these terms, encompassing all fields that explore the psychological mechanisms underlying animal behavior, including human behavior.

The primary goal of comparative psychology is to understand the cognitive, emotional, and motivational processes of the animal mind. How do other animals perceive, learn about, …

Relationship Of Personal, Familial, And Abuse-Specific Factors With Outcome Following Childhood Sexual Abuse, C. Thresa Yancey, David J. Hansen

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

An examination of the literature on factors related to outcome following child sexual abuse (CSA) revealed many factors that may contribute to symptoms displayed by victims. Factors are divided into three categories: Personal Factors, Familial Factors, and Abuse- Specific Factors. Personal factors are those inherent to the victim, including age, gender, developmental disability, attributions regarding the abuse, and treatment following abuse. Familial factors are defined as those factors associated with other family members. These include parental history of abuse, parental reaction to the disclosure, parental support of the victim, parental mental health, family stress, and treatment following abuse for the …

Sonification Report: Status Of The Field And Research Agenda, Gregory Kramer, Bruce Walker, Terri Bonebright, Perry Cook, John H. Flowers, Nadine Miner, John Neuhoff

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Sonification is the use of nonspeech audio to convey information. The goal of this report is to provide the reader with (1) an understanding of the field of sonification, (2) an appreciation for the potential of sonification to answer a variety of scientific questions, (3) a grasp of the potential for sonification applications to facilitate communication and interpretation of data, and (4) specific ideas for productive support of sonification research.

The field is composed of the following three components: (1) psychological research in perception and cognition, (2) development of sonification tools for research and application, and (3) sonification design and …

An Evaluation Of The Applicability Of The Tripartite Constructs To Social Anxiety In Adolescents, Emily R. Anderson, Glen J. Veed, Heidi M. Inderbitzen-Nolan, David J. Hansen

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

The current study examined the tripartite model of anxiety and depression in relation to social phobia in a nonclinical sample of adolescents (ages 13-17). Adolescent/parent dyads participated in a semistructured interview and completed self-report measures of the tripartite constructs and social anxiety. Adolescents gave an impromptu speech, and heart rate was monitored. Low positive affect, high negative affect, and high physiological hyperarousal were characteristic of adolescents diagnosed with social phobia; adolescents with elevated social anxiety symptoms who did not meet criteria for social phobia did not evidence low positive affect. Heart rate reactivity during the speech was not significantly correlated …

Grammatical Tense Deficits In Children With Sli And Nonspecific Language Impairment: Relationships With Nonverbal Iq Over Time, Mabel L. Rice

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

The relationship between children’s language acquisition and their nonverbal intelligence has a long tradition of scientific inquiry. Current attention focuses on the use of nonverbal IQ level as an exclusionary criterion in the definition of specific language impairment (SLI). Grammatical tense deficits are known as a clinical marker of SLI, but the relationship with nonverbal intelligence below the normal range has not previously been systematically studied. This study documents the levels of grammatical tense acquisition (for third-person singular -s, regular and irregular past tense morphology) in a large, epidemiologically ascertained sample of kindergarten children that comprises 4 groups: …

Stereotype Boost And Stereotype Threat Effects: The Moderating Role Of Ethnic Identification, Brian E. Armenta

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Belonging to a stereotyped social group can affect performance in stereotype-relevant situations, often shifting performance in the direction of the stereotype. This effect occurs similarly for members of positively and negatively stereotyped groups (i.e., stereotype boost and stereotype threat, respectively). This study examined ethnic group identification as a moderator of these effects in the math performance of Asian Americans and Latinos, who are positively and negatively stereotyped in this domain, respectively. Results showed that high ethnically identified Asian Americans performed better and high ethnically identified Latinos performed worse when an ethnicity– ethnic stereotype cue was present. The performance of low …

The Whitings’ Concepts Of Culture And How They Have Fared In Contemporary Psychology And Anthropology, Carolyn P. Edwards, Marianne Bloch

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

This article presents a brief intellectual biography of John and Beatrice Whiting, followed by an examination of five key ideas that they put forward to the fields of psychology and anthropology through their theoretical and empirical writings. These key ideas are (a) the assumption of the psychic unity of humankind, (b) the cultural learning environment, (c) the psychocultural model, (d) the synergistic relationship of the disciplines of psychology and anthropology, and (e) the role of mothers as agents of social change through child-rearing roles as well as through various other ways they guide change in the communities and learning environments …

Adolescents’ Occupational And Educational Aspirations And Expectations: Links To High School Activities And Adult Educational Attainment, Sarah J. Beal, Lisa J. Crockett

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

This longitudinal study explored adolescents’ future-oriented cognitions, current activities, and later educational attainment using data from 317 adolescents (55% female; mean age = 14.98 years, SD = 0.85) followed into early adulthood. Aspirations and expectations regarding work and education showed modest stability from year to year. Exploration of the reciprocal relations between these cognitions and adolescents’ activities supported both unidirectional and bidirectional effects, with different patterns emerging for aspirations and expectations. In multiple regression analyses, future-oriented cognitions predicted adult educational attainment; follow- up analyses indicated that the effect of adolescents’ expectations was partially mediated by participation in extracurricular activities. These …

Description And Validation Of A Dynamical Systems Model Of Presynaptic Serotonin Function: Genetic Variation, Brain Activation And Impulsivity, Scott F. Stoltenberg, Parthasarathi Nag

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Despite more than a decade of empirical work on the role of genetic polymorphisms in the serotonin system on behavior, the details across levels of analysis are not well understood. We describe a mathematical model of the genetic control of presynaptic serotonergic function that is based on control theory, implemented using systems of differential equations, and focused on better characterizing pathways from genes to behavior. We present the results of model validation tests that include the comparison of simulation outcomes with empirical data on genetic effects on brain response to affective stimuli and on impulsivity. Patterns of simulated neural firing …

Anxiolytic-Like Property Of Risperidone And Olanzapine As Examined In Multiple Measures Of Fear In Rats, Tao Sun, Wei He, Gang Hu, Ming Li

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Atypical antipsychotics are also used in the treatment of anxiety-related disorders. Clinical and preclinical evidence regarding their intrinsic anxiolytic efficacy has been mixed. In this study, we examined the potential anxiolytic-like effects of risperidone and olanzapine, and compared them with haloperidol, chlordiazepoxide (a prototype of sedative–anxiolytic drug) or citalopram (a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor). We used a composite of two-way avoidance conditioning and acoustic startle reflex model and examined the effects of drug treatments during the acquisition phase (Experiment 1) or extinction phase (Experiments 2 and 3) on multiple measures of conditioned and unconditioned fear/anxiety-like responses. In Experiment 4, we …

Adult Coping With Childhood Sexual Abuse: A Theoretical And Empirical Review, Kate Walsh, Michelle A. Fortier, David Dilillo

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Coping has been suggested as an important element in understanding the long-term functioning of individuals with a history of child sexual abuse (CSA). The present review synthesizes the literature on coping with CSA, first by examining theories of coping with trauma, and, second by examining how these theories have been applied to studies of coping in samples of CSA victims. Thirty-nine studies were reviewed, including eleven descriptive studies of the coping strategies employed by individuals with a history of CSA, eighteen correlational studies of the relationship between coping strategies and long-term functioning of CSA victims, and ten investigations in which …

C-Fos Identification Of Neuroanatomical Sites Associated With Haloperidol And Clozapine Disruption Of Maternal Behavior In The Rat, Changjiu Zhao, Ming Li

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Rat maternal behavior is a complex social behavior. Most antipsychotic drugs disrupt active maternal responses (e.g., pup retrieval, pup licking and nest building). Our previous work shows that typical antipsychotic haloperidol disrupts maternal behavior by blocking dopamine D₂ receptors, whereas atypical clozapine works by blocking 5-HT_2A/2C receptors. The present study used c-Fos immunohistochemistry technique, together with pharmacological tools and behavioral observations, and delineated the neuroanatomical bases of the disruptive effects of haloperidol and clozapine. Postpartum female rats were treated with haloperidol (0.2 mg/kg sc) or clozapine (10.0 mg/kg sc), with or without pretreatment of quinpirole (a selective dopamine …

The Relationship Between The Perception Of Axes Of Symmetry And Spatial Memory During Early Childhood, Margaret R. Ortmann, Anne R. Schutte

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Early in development, there is a transition in spatial working memory (SWM). When remembering a location in a homogeneous space (e.g., in a sandbox), young children are biased toward the midline symmetry axis of the space. Over development, a transition occurs that leads to older children being biased away from midline. The dynamic field theory (DFT) explains this transition in biases as being caused by a change in the precision of neural interaction in SWM and improvements in the perception of midline. According to the DFT, young children perceive midline, but there is a quantitative improvement in the perception of …

Prenatal Tobacco Exposure: Developmental Outcomes In The Neonatal Period, Kimberly Andrews Espy, Hua Fang, Craig Johnson, Christian Stopp, Sandra A. Wiebe, Jennifer Respass

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Smoking during pregnancy is a persistent public health problem that has been linked to later adverse outcomes. The neonatal period— the first month of life—carries substantial developmental change in regulatory skills and is the period when tobacco metabolites are cleared physiologically. Studies to date mostly have used cross-sectional designs that limit characterizing potential impacts of prenatal tobacco exposure on the development of key self-regulatory processes and cannot disentangle short-term withdrawal effects from residual exposure-related impacts. In this study, pregnant participants (N = 304) were recruited prospectively during pregnancy, and smoking was measured at multiple time points, with both self-report and …

Punished, Dead Or Alive: Empirical Perspectives On Awarding Punitive Damages Against Deceased Defendants, Timothy R. Robicheaux, Brian H. Bornstein

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Punitive damages are a tool for punishing defendants who engage in reckless and wanton behaviors that cause injury to others. As with criminal punishment, goals of punitive damages include retribution, specific deterrence, and general deterrence. Unlike criminal punishment, however, some courts allow punitive damages to follow the death of defendants. To explore this issue, we first conducted a legal analysis of appellate court decisions concerning punitive damages against deceased defendants. While the majority of courts suggest that punitive damages against deceased individuals are not appropriate, some argue that favorable policy implications of allowing punitive damages to follow the defendant’s death …

Donor Payoffs And Other-Regarding Preferences In Cotton-Top Tamarins (Saguinus Oedipus), Jeffrey R. Stevens

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Helping others at no cost to oneself is a simple way to demonstrate other-regarding preferences. Yet, primates exhibit mixed results for other-regarding preferences: chimpanzees and tamarins do not show these effects, whereas capuchin monkeys and marmosets preferentially give food to others. One factor of relevance to this no-cost food donation is the payoff to the donor. Though donors always receive the same payoffs regardless of their choice, previous work varies in whether they receive either a food reward or no food reward. Here, I tested cotton-top tamarins in a preferential giving task. Subjects could choose from two tools, one of …

The Adaptive Nature Of Impulsivity, Jeffrey R. Stevens, David W. Stephens

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

An old joke circulates among animal behavior instructors. One can, the joke goes, divide the topics of animal behavior into four Fs: fighting, fleeing, feeding, and reproduction. This somewhat tired joke carries considerable truth. Animals behaving in nature surely must make decisions about conflicts, predator avoidance, feeding, and mating. Male crickets, for example, are notoriously combative. Studies have shown, however, that they escalate fights in some situations and retreat to fight another day in others (Beaugrand, 1997; Parker, 1974; Parker & Rubenstein, 1981). Squirrels, like many small animals, respond to the presence or absence of protective cover; for example, they …

Intertemporal Choice, Jeffrey R. Stevens

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

A Clark’s nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana) flies to the top of a pine tree and selects one of the many cones. She twists and pecks at the stem until the cone breaks free from the branch and, with one foot, holds the cone in the crotch of a branch. She then repeatedly hammers her long bill in between the scales of the cone. After forcing out one of the seeds, she tips her head back a bit, clicks the seed in her bill a few times, and closes her bill. A few minutes later, the shredded cone drops to …