Objective: Youth who receive services in residential programs have high rates of traumatic exposure and associated symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Little information is available on specific social skills training that could be beneficial for youth in residential programs with PTSD. This study examined changes in behavioral…

Rumination, passively and repetitively dwelling on and questioning negative feelings in response to distress, is a risk factor for the development of psychopathology, especially depression. The ruminative process is difficult to stop once it has begun. The present studies focused on strategies that may help youth disengage from ruminative states.…

Lower levels of parent-child affective flexibility indicate risk for children's problem outcomes. This short-term longitudinal study examined whether maternal depressive symptoms were related to lower levels of dyadic affective flexibility and positive affective content in mother-child problem-solving interactions at age 3.5?years…

Background: Language has been shown to play a critical role in social cognitive reasoning in preschool and school-aged children, but little research has been conducted with adolescents. During adolescence, the ability to understand figurative language becomes increasingly important for social relationships and may affect social adjustment. This…

Skin conductance level reactivity (SCLR) was examined as a moderator of the association between harsh parenting at age 8 years and growth in child externalizing behavior from age 8 to age 10 (N = 251). Mothers and fathers provided reports of harsh parenting and their children's externalizing behavior; children also provided reports of harsh…

Neurocognitive impairment and negative symptoms contribute to functional disability in people with schizophrenia. Yet, a high level of unexplained variability remains after accounting for the role of these factors. This study examined the role of thought disorder, psychological complexity, and interpersonal representations, as measured by the…

The literature on the connection between psychopathology and creativity is vast and recent research has focused on the relationship between the schizophrenic spectrum and creativity. The schizophrenic spectrum includes genetically related disorders that share certain symptom features. It has been suggested that schizotypal personality disorder, a…

Researchers have recently argued that utilitarianism is the appropriate framework by which to evaluate moral judgment, and that individuals who endorse non-utilitarian solutions to moral dilemmas (involving active vs. passive harm) are committing an error. We report a study in which participants responded to a battery of personality assessments…

This study investigated gender differences in the moderating and mediating effects of responses to stress on the association between perceived peer stress and symptoms of psychopathology. A sample of 295 middle school students (63.7% female; M[subscript age] = 12.39 years, SD = 0.99) completed self-report surveys on stress, coping, and behavioral…

We examined associations between basal respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) in conjunction with RSA regulation with the hypothesis that their interaction would explain unique variability in children's prospective adjustment 2 years later. Participants were 176 children (98 girls; 78 boys) in middle childhood. RSA regulation was assessed through…

Over the past half century, in the United States and other developed nations, children's free play with other children has declined sharply. Over the same period, anxiety, depression, suicide, feelings of helplessness, and narcissism have increased sharply in children, adolescents, and young adults. This article documents these historical changes…

A review of the history and literature about the runaway child in America reveals that young people from poor families have always viewed running away as a reasonable way of leaving a poverty stricken home. For many adolescents, running away has been a response to an unhealthy family or work situation, and at times it has been a problem-solving…

Students (N=81) classified as effective or ineffective problem solvers after completing the Problem Solving Inventory, were then asked to complete a series of questionnaires. Results showed that self-appraised problem solvers reported less depression, less anxiety, more internal control and less frequent problems than self-perceived ineffective…

Objective: The Strategies to Enhance Positive Parenting (STEPP) program was developed to address putative factors related to poor engagement in and outcomes following traditional behavioral parent training (BPT) for single mothers of children diagnosed with ADHD. Method: Twelve single mothers of children with ADHD were enrolled in an initial…

An exploration of writing anxiety suggests that it is a normal form of behavior rather than a pathology, but that it varies in degrees of its dysfunctionality. Excerpts from the log books of college students in a writing anxiety workshop illustrate four broad categories of writing anxiety: procrastination, feeling emotionally distressed, thinking…