Those who act more dominantly are perceived as more competent, even if their actual skills don't measure up. The guy (or gal) in charge isn't really competent for the job. How can this be?
Researchers at the University of California explored this phenomenon in their study titled, "Why Do Dominant Personalities Attain Influence in Face-to-Face Groups? The Competence-Signaling Effects of Trait Dominance." In the study, the most dominant personalities were rated the highest for such qualities as general intelligence, dependability, and self-discipline. At the same time, subjects perceived less outspoken workers as having less desirable traits, giving them high scores for being conventional and uncreative.
Managers may want to look a little closer when judging their employees' true productivity and value. The study's results may also help individuals achieve improvement in their own reputations - just by speaking up.
From the article: Anybody in the workplace, and perhaps politics, has probably experienced this perplexing phenomenon. The guy (or gal) in charge isn't really competent for the job. How can this be? According to a study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley's Haas School of Business, those who act more dominantly are perceived as more competent, even if their actual skills don't measure up.
Organizational behavior and industrial relations Associate Professor Cameron Anderson and doctoral candidate Gavin Kilduff documented their findings in a recently published paper, "Why Do Dominant Personalities Attain Influence in Face-to-Face Groups? The Competence-Signaling Effects of Trait Dominance." To test this "great pretender" theory amongst perceived leaders, Anderson and Kilduff recruited 68 unacquainted students and divided them into 17 same-gender teams of four people each. The participants' average age: 21 years. The researchers gave each team 45 minutes to design a mock non-profit environmental organization or a for-profit Web site. The winning team would receive a $400 prize. More importantly, the experiment required each participant to rate his or her colleagues' level of influence on the group, and each participant's level of competence. The sessions were videotaped so the researchers and an independent group of observers could also rate the students' work. The independent observers were selected to reflect the subjects' peer group.
The results revealed that team members with the most dominant personalities were rated the highest for such qualities as general intelligence, dependability, and self-discipline. At the same time, subjects perceived less outspoken workers as having less desirable traits, giving them high scores for being conventional and uncreative.
To be fair, Anderson and Kilduff wanted to give the alpha standouts of the group the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps these newly anointed leaders were indeed, more competent. A second experiment left no debate.
In round two, researchers asked the teams of students to solve computational problems taken from old versions of the Graduate Management Aptitude Test (GMAT). Participants reported their previous Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) math scores to researchers prior to trying to solve the GMAT problems. When it was time to reveal the answers out loud, the people who spoke up more were, again, the ones their teammates deemed as the leaders of the group. In addition, it didn't matter if the chosen leaders offered the correct answers, only that they offered more responses. What's more, the leaders didn't even have to provide the final solution to the problem to be exalted to the top of the heap.
Anderson and Kilduff's work redefines what it means to be dominant in the context of influence. Past studies have aligned dominant behavior with aggressive, heavy handed tactics. This study found dominant people attain influence by displaying competence, "These findings suggest that dominant individuals may ascent group hierarchies by appearing helpful to the group's overall success as opposed to aggressively grabbing power."
While the findings may be troubling to some, they may be helpful to managers who may want to look a little closer when judging their employees' true productivity and value. The study's results may also help individuals achieve improvement in their own reputations - just by speaking up.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Most Popular: Incompetent Bosses Get Promoted by Acting Dominant
Monday, April 6, 2009
Most Popular: Task Force Recommends Screening Adolescents for Clinical Depression
Adolescents should be screened for clinical depression, but only when appropriate systems are in place to ensure accurate diagnosis, treatment and follow-up care. Clinical depression is an important cause of poor health and lower quality of life among children and adolescents. Depression can cause difficulties in school and disruptions of family and social relationships
"Depression in adolescents has a significant impact on both mental and physical health, and adolescents with depression have more hospitalizations for psychiatric and medical issues than adolescents who are not depressed," said Task Force Chair Ned Calonge, M.D., who is also chief medical officer for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
Depressed children and adolescents are at an increased risk of suicide, which is the third-leading cause of death among people age 15 to 24 and the sixth-leading cause of death among those age 5 to 14. Adolescents suffering from clinical depression are also more likely to suffer from depression in early adulthood.
From the article:
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force now recommends screening adolescents for clinical depression only when appropriate systems are in place to ensure accurate diagnosis, treatment and follow-up care. This applies to all adolescents 12 to 18 years of age. In a separate recommendation, the Task Force found insufficient evidence to assess the balance of benefits and harms of screening children 7 to 11 years of age for clinical depression. The recommendations and the accompanying summary of evidence appear in the April issue of Pediatrics.
The Task Force reviewed new evidence on the benefits and harms of screening children and adolescents for clinical depression, the accuracy of screening tests administered in the primary care setting and the benefits and risks of treating clinical depression using psychotherapy and/or medications in patients 7 to 18 years of age. Clinical depression is an important cause of poor health and lower quality of life among children and adolescents. Depression can cause difficulties in school and disruptions of family and social relationships as well as diminished quality of life.
"Depression in adolescents has a significant impact on both mental and physical health, and adolescents with depression have more hospitalizations for psychiatric and medical issues than adolescents who are not depressed," said Task Force Chair Ned Calonge, M.D., who is also chief medical officer for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. "It is important that adolescents are diagnosed and treated for clinical depression in order to improve their health and quality of life, especially if they have a family history of depression."
There is adequate evidence that treating adolescents with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), psychotherapy or combined therapy (SSRIs and psychotherapy) result in decreased clinical depression symptoms. Treating clinically depressed youths with SSRIs is associated with an increased risk of suicidality (suicidal thoughts, preparation and attempts of suicide) and, therefore, should only be considered if careful clinical supervision is possible.
Depressed children and adolescents are at an increased risk of suicide, which is the third-leading cause of death among people age 15 to 24 and the sixth-leading cause of death among those age 5 to 14. Adolescents suffering from clinical depression are also more likely to suffer from depression in early adulthood. Nearly 6 percent of adolescents 13 to 18 years of age are clinically depressed, and it is more common among girls than boys.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Most Popular: Octo-Moms at Risk for Postpartum Depression
The tabloid media has kept a close eye on the slow-motion train wreck of Octo-Mom Nadia Sulaiman, a California woman who recently gave birth to octuplets, bringing her grand total of children to 14. TV interviews, absurd calls to 911, and scuffles with paparazzi have shown that this woman may not be entirely stable. New research reveals that one more complication for the Octo-Mom could be a severe case of postpartum depression.
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health recently examined the relationship between multiple births and maternal depressive symptoms. They found that multiple births increased the odds of maternal depression. Mothers ofmultiples had a 43 percent increased risk of moderate to severe depression compared to mothers of single-born children.
Complicating the issue further is evidence that few mothers with depressive symptoms, regardless of the multiple births status, reported talking to a mental health specialist or a general medical provider.
"The low numbers of women receiving mental health counseling despite symptoms reinforces the need for facilitating better referral of patients with depressive symptoms," said Cynthia Minkovitz, MD, MPP, senior author of the study
From the article:Mothers of multiples have 43 percent increased odds of having moderate to severe depressive symptoms nine months after giving birth compared to mothers of single-born children, according to researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Researchers examined the relationship between multiple births and maternal depressive symptoms and found that multiple births increased the odds of maternal depression, and that few mothers with depressive symptoms, regardless of the multiple births status, reported talking to a mental health specialist or a general medical provider. The results are published in the April 1, 2009, issue of Pediatrics.
"Our findings suggest that 19 percent of mothers of multiples had moderate to severe depressive symptoms nine months after delivery, compared to 16 percent among mothers of singletons," said Yoonjoung Choi, DrPH, lead author of the study and a research associate with the Bloomberg School's Department of International Health. "Mothers with a history of hospitalization due to mental health problems or a history of alcohol or drug abuse also had significantly increased odds. Non-Hispanic black mothers had higher odds compared to non-Hispanic white mothers. Mothers who were currently married, Hispanic, or with a high household socioeconomic status were less likely to have depressive symptoms." Choi, along with colleagues, used data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study--Birth Cohort, a nationally representative sample of children born in 2001. They measured depressive symptoms in mothers using an abbreviated version of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) scale. Researchers examined the association between multiple births and maternal mental health, given the rapidly increasing multiple births rate in the U.S. over the last two decades. They also found that, among the mothers of both singleton and multiples, only 27 percent reported talking to a mental health specialist or a general medical provider when experiencing depressive symptoms. Researchers believe greater attention is needed in pediatric settings to address maternal depression in families with multiple births.
"The low numbers of women receiving mental health counseling despite symptoms reinforces the need for facilitating better referral of patients with depressive symptoms," said Cynthia Minkovitz, MD, MPP, senior author of the study and an associate professor with the Bloomberg School's Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health. "Pediatric practices should make an additional effort to educate new and expecting parents of multiples regarding their increased risk for maternal postpartum depression. Furthermore, well-child visits are potentially valuable opportunities to provide education, screening and referrals for postpartum depression among mothers of multiples; such efforts require linkages between pediatric and adult systems of care and adequate community mental health resources."
"Multiple Births Are a Risk Factor for Postpartum Maternal Depressive Symptoms" was written by Yoonjoung Choi, David Bishai and Cynthia Minkovitz.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Most Shared: Effective Treatments Available for Anxiety Disorder
When your worries seem unbearable and overwhelming, it's important to know that there is hope for getting relief from generalized anxiety disorder (GAD).
But how can you tell if you have generalized anxiety? When the worries are out of proportion to the concern, interfere with day-to-day activities, and you cannot recall the last time you felt at ease, it may be time to see a doctor. Signs and symptoms appear gradually, often beginning between childhood and middle age.
Anxiety can also be a symptom of several health conditions, such as heart or lung disease. Treating the underlying condition can help reduce or manage the anxiety, but when anxiety is the primary concern, psychotherapy and medications can help worries become manageable.
From the article:When worries pile up, seem inescapable and interfere with day-to-day activities, it's time to see a doctor. Overwhelming worry is a symptom of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). The March issue of Mayo Clinic Health Letter covers the symptoms of GAD and treatment options.
With generalized anxiety disorder, shedding worries is difficult, even when the worry is seemingly out of proportion to the concern. ("I can't face my book club tonight." "I wish I didn't have to leave the house and deal with anyone." "I hope I don't feel sick again today. What if I am?") Other symptoms include startling easily, trouble falling or staying asleep, difficulty concentrating, fatigue, muscle tension, restlessness, feeling out of breath, nausea, diarrhea, headaches and excessive irritability.
Signs and symptoms appear gradually over time. Some who have GAD cannot recall the last time they felt at ease. Often the disorder begins between childhood and middle age, but it can occur anytime.
GAD is one of several types of anxiety disorders. Others include phobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and social anxiety disorder. Anxiety disorders can occur on their own, independent of other health concerns. Or anxiety can be a symptom of several health conditions, such as heart or lung disease, thyroid problems -- even dietary problems. Treating the underlying condition can help reduce or manage the anxiety.
When anxiety is the primary concern, psychotherapy and medications can help worries become manageable.
Psychotherapy involves working with a therapist to identify unhealthy, negative beliefs and behaviors that contribute to anxiety and, then, learning how to replace them with healthy, positive beliefs.
Medications, both antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs, also can help.
Among antidepressants, the first choice often is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI). This category includes fluoxetine (Prozac), paroxetine (Paxil), sertraline (Zoloft) and citalopram (Celexa). Other antidepressants that may be considered include duloxetine (Cymbalta) and venlafaxine (Effexor). These drugs can be highly effective, but may take several weeks to months before the full effects are evident. And, treatment may require trying more than one drug to determine what works best for an individual.
For acute anxiety and short-term help, your physician may recommend a benzodiazepine, which generally eases anxiety within 30 to 90 minutes. Drugs in this category include alprazolam (Xanax), chlordiazepoxide (Librium), clonazepam (Klonopin), diazepam (Valium) and lorazepam (Ativan). Long-term use of these medications is a concern because they can be habit-forming and cause unsteadiness or balance problems, drowsiness and reduce muscle coordination. Buspirone (BuSpar) is another medication prescribed for anxiety. It doesn't pose a risk of dependence but takes several weeks of regular doses to be effective.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Expectant Brains Help Predict Anxiety Treatment Success
A network of emotion-regulating brain regions implicated in the pathological worry that can grip patients with anxiety disorders may also be useful for predicting the benefits of treatment.
A new study appearing online Jan. 2 reports that high levels of brain activity in an emotional center called the amygdala reflect patients' hypersensitivity to anticipation of adverse events. At the same time, high activity in a regulatory region known as the anterior cingulate cortex is associated with a positive clinical response to a common antidepressant medication. The study will appear in an upcoming issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry.
For individuals with anxiety disorders, the anticipation of a bad outcome can be worse than the outcome itself, says Jack Nitschke, assistant professor and clinical psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health and lead author of the new study. Some individuals spend so much time worrying about getting into a negative situation or having a panic attack, he says, that the condition becomes debilitating. "In an extreme situation, they might not even leave their home," he says.
To study how the brain responds to anticipation, researchers at the UW-Madison Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine patients with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) as they viewed a set of negative and neutral images. Patients were shown pre-image cues several seconds before each picture so they would know what to expect: a circle before a neutral image and a minus sign before an aversive image.
While GAD patients showed no difference compared to healthy subjects in brain activation in response to the aversive or neutral pictures themselves, they displayed unusually high levels of amygdala activity in response to both anticipatory cues. According to Nitschke, the response suggests that the patients are hypersensitive to the anticipation of any stimuli, even those they are told will not be negative.
"In response to both of those anticipatory signals, the GAD subjects - the anxious folks - are showing huge amounts of amygdala activation that is much more than what healthy control subjects showed," he says.
The researchers believe the high levels of amygdala activity seen in GAD patients reflects an indiscriminate and disproportionately large response to the idea that something negative might happen in the future, even in a lab setting where they know nothing bad will actually occur, he says.
"It suggests that there are differences in anticipatory brain processing in these individuals," he says, adding that the result has important implications for other related disorders as well. "That's the crux of what's debilitating in people with anxiety disorders, whether it's panic disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder or post-traumatic stress disorder."
The patterns of brain activity also appear to hold predictive power for how patients will respond to treatment for their anxiety. After their brain scans, the GAD patients in the study received an eight-week course of treatment with venlafaxine (Effexor), a common antidepressant. Clinical improvement on the medication was associated with higher levels of pre-treatment brain activity in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) in anticipation of both aversive and neutral stimuli.
The ACC is a regulatory brain region important for modulating emotional responses. Activity in the same area has been shown to predict clinical outcome in patients with depression.
"When you look within the GAD patient population, that area is what predicts whether they respond to this treatment," says Nitschke. "What it suggests is that people who still have some residual functioning of that area are the people who are more likely to get better" with this drug.
Choosing the most appropriate treatment approach for an individual patient is an important and difficult issue, he says, because anxiety disorders encompass a range of conditions with diverse symptoms and causes. Anxiety disorders are also frequently associated with depression, and Nitschke and his collaborators next plan to examine GAD patients with and without major depressive disorder.
"This is a critical new direction that the field is already moving in - using fMRI to predict treatment response," he says. "Hopefully we'll be able to use that eventually to determine what kind of treatment to provide to people."
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Risk Takers, Drug Abusers Driven by Decreased Ability to Process Dopamine
Newswise — For risk-takers and impulsive people, New Year's resolutions often include being more careful, spending more frugally and cutting back on dangerous behavior, such as drug use. But new research finds that novelty-seekers face an uphill battle in keeping their New Year's resolutions due to the way their brains process dopamine. Novelty-seekers have less of a particular type of dopamine receptor, which may lead them to seek out novel and exciting experiences such as spending lavishly, taking risks and partying like there's no tomorrow.
The research was published Dec. 31, 2008, in the Journal of Neuroscience.The neurotransmitter dopamine is produced by a select group of cells in the brain. These dopamine-producing cells have receptors called autoreceptors that help limit dopamine release when these cells are stimulated.
"We've found that the density of these dopamine autoreceptors is inversely related to an individual's interest in and desire for novel experiences," David Zald, associate professor of psychology and lead author of the study, said. "The fewer available dopamine autoreceptors an individual has, the less they are able to regulate how much dopamine is released when these cells are engaged. Because of this, novelty and other potentially rewarding experiences that normally induce dopamine release will produce greater dopamine release in these individuals."
Dopamine has long been known to play an important role in how we experience rewards from a variety of natural sources, including food and sex, as well as from drugs such as cocaine and amphetamine. Previous research has shown that individuals differ in both their number of dopamine receptors and the amount of dopamine they produce, and that these differences may play a critical role in addiction. Zald and his colleagues set out to explore the connection between dopamine receptors and the novelty-seeking personality trait.
"Novelty-seeking personality traits are a major risk factor for the development of drug abuse and other unsafe behaviors," Zald and his colleagues wrote.
"Our research suggests that in high novelty-seeking individuals, the brain is less able to regulate dopamine, and this may lead these individuals to be particularly responsive to novel and rewarding situations that normally induce dopamine release," Zald said.
Previous research in rodents showed that some respond differently to novel environments. Those who explore novel environments more are also more likely to self-administer cocaine when given the chance. Dopamine neurons fire at a higher rate in these novelty-responsive rodents, and the animals also have weak autoreceptor control of their dopamine neurons. Zald and colleagues speculated that the same relationships would be seen in humans.
The researchers used positron emission topography to view the levels of dopamine receptors in 34 healthy humans who had taken a questionnaire that measured the novelty-seeking personality trait. The questionnaire measured things such as an individual's preference for and response to novelty, decision-making speed, a person's readiness to freely spend money, and the extent to which a person is spontaneous and unconstrained by rules and regulations. The higher the score, the more likely the person was to be a novelty seeker.
The researchers found that those that scored higher on the novelty-seeking scale had decreased dopamine autoreceptor availability compared to the subjects that scored lower.
The National Institute of Drug Abuse funded the research. Zald is a Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development investigator and is a member of the Vanderbilt Center for Integrative and Cognitive Neuroscience. His Vanderbilt co-authors were Ronald Cowan, Ronald Baldwin, M. Sib Ansari, Rui Li, Evan Shelby, Clarence Smith, Maureen McHugo and Robert Kessler from the departments of Psychology, Psychiatry and Radiological Sciences. Patrizia Riccardi, Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, New York, was also a co-author of the paper.
read the full article...
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Depression Can Hamper Glucose Control in People With Diabetes
“Our study shows that depression is a major and important comorbidity in people with type 2 diabetes,” said study co-author Leonard Egede, M.D., from the Center for Health Disparities Research at the Medical University of South Carolina.
Through a combination of diet, exercise and medication, people with type 2 diabetes work to keep their blood glucose levels within a certain range. Past research has shown that those who are also depressed have a tougher time doing so. About 30 percent of adults with diabetes have depression and the combination is linked to poor glucose control, higher complication rates, decreased quality of life and increased risk of death.
The current study appears in the November/December issue of the journal General Hospital Psychiatry.
Egede and his colleagues analyzed data from 11,525 veterans (98 percent men) with type 2 diabetes who received medical care at a Veterans Administration facility in the Southeast. The participants’ average age was 66 years and 48 percent were white, 27 percent were African-American and 25 percent were of other races.
Researchers evaluated each participant at three-month intervals from 1997 to 2006, with 36 intervals. At each 3-month interval, clinicians checked their HbA1c level, a blood test that measures long-term glucose control. Experts recommend a target level of less than 7 percent.
Six percent of the participants had depression, researchers determined.
They found that over the four-year period, the HbA1c values in the veterans who were depressed averaged 0.13 percent higher than the veterans who were not depressed. Egede said the difference is quite significant — enough to raise people with diabetes above the desirable range for glucose control, putting them at higher risk.
“The fact that the difference persisted over time and that the depressed group had higher mean HbA1c at all 36 time points was surprising,” Egede said.
The researchers also found that the change in HbA1c among the depressed participants did not differ based on race or age.
Evette Joy Ludman, Ph.D., senior research associate at the Group Health Center for Health Studies in Seattle, said that although the link between depression and diabetes complications might seem daunting, it is possible for adults to follow treatment orders for their depression while also managing their diabetes.
“I think it is a reasonable expectation that health care teams can help patients who have both depression and diabetes manage both conditions,” she said. “I don’t think patients see themselves as a collection of different illnesses and if we take a more proactive, integrated approach to caring for them, it is likely they can benefit. Research currently in the field is addressing that exact question.”
General Hospital Psychiatry is a peer-reviewed research journal published bimonthly by Elsevier Science. For information about the journal, contact Wayne Katon, M.D., at (206) 543-7177.
Richardson LK, et al. Longitudinal effects of depression on glycemic control in veterans with type 2 diabetes. General Hosp Psychiatry, 30(6), 2008.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Whites Avoid Discussing Race
Newswise — White people including children as young as 10 -- may avoid talking about race so as not to appear prejudiced, according to new research. But that approach often backfires as blacks tend to view this 'colorblind' approach as evidence of prejudice, especially when race is clearly relevant.
101 white undergraduate students were paired with either a white or black female partner in the study led by researchers from Tufts University and Harvard Business School. The pairs were presented with 30 photographs of faces that varied in race, gender and background color. The objective was to guess which of the photographs the partner was holding by asking as few yes-or-no questions as possible.
Even though asking about the race of the person in the photograph was a sound strategy for completing the task, white participants were far less likely to do so with a black versus a white partner. Moreover, when the black partner was the first one to have a turn asking questions, whether she mentioned race had a dramatic effect. White participants whose black partner asked about race mentioned race on their own turn 95 percent of the time. When the black partner never asked about race, white participants only did so 10 percent of the time.
These results are from two separate sets of experiments led by researchers from Tufts University and Harvard Business School. Their findings are reported in the October issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and the September issue of Developmental Psychology. Both journals are published by the American Psychological Association.
³Efforts to talk about race are fraught with the potential for misunderstandings,² said the studies¹ lead author, Evan Apfelbaum, a PhD candidate at Tufts University. ³One way that whites try to appear unbiased is to avoid talking about race altogether, a tendency we refer to as strategic colorblindness.²
In one study, 101 white undergraduate students were paired with either a white or black female partner who pretended to be another participant. The pairs were presented with 30 photographs of faces that varied in race, gender and background color. Each white participant¹s objective was to guess which of the photographs the partner was holding by asking as few yes-or-no questions as possible.
Even though asking about the race of the person in the photograph was a sound strategy for completing the task, white participants were far less likely to do so with a black versus a white partner. Moreover, when the black partner was the first one to have a turn asking questions, whether she mentioned race had a dramatic effect. White participants whose black partner asked about race mentioned race on their own turn 95 percent of the time. When the black partner never asked about race, white participants only did so 10 percent of the time.
³There was clear evidence the white participants¹ behavior was influenced by the precedent set by their partner, but especially when that partner was black,² said Samuel Sommers, assistant professor at Tufts and co-author of both papers. ³Whites are strategically avoiding the topic of race because they¹re worried that they¹ll look bad if they admit they notice it in other people.²
The researchers also wanted to see how outsiders interpreted such interactions. In another experiment, 74 black and white college students evaluated videos of whites engaging in the photo task. The results showed that whites¹ effort to appear colorblind backfired. Black observers rated whites¹ avoidance of asking about race as being evidence of prejudice. What¹s more, when the researchers showed silent video clips of whites from the study to another group of individuals, those whites who avoided asking about race were judged as less friendly, just on the basis of their nonverbal behavior.
³The findings suggest that when race is clearly relevant, whites who think that it is a wise social strategy to avoid talking about race should think again,² said Apfelbaum.
Even children appear to adopt this strategically colorblind approach. In another set of experiments, 101 white children between the ages of 8 and 11 were asked to perform a similar photo task. The children were told that asking as few yes-or-no questions as possible would mean they would get a higher score on the task.
The results showed that the older children, ages 10 and 11, avoided asking about race more than the younger children, even though this led them to perform less efficiently than their younger counterparts on the task. In a control version where all the faces in the photos were white, the older children outperformed the younger children, as expected. ³This result is fascinating because it shows that children as young as 10 feel the need to try to avoid appearing prejudiced, even if doing so leads them to perform poorly on a basic cognitive test,² said Kristin Pauker, a PhD candidate at Tufts and co-author of this study.
The authors associated with both studies said their findings offer several important implications. ³Our findings don¹t suggest that individuals who avoid talking about race are racists,² Apfelbaum explained. ³On the contrary, most are well-intentioned people who earnestly believe that colorblindness is the culturally sensitive way to interact. But, as we¹ve shown, bending over backward to avoid even mentioning race sometimes creates more interpersonal problems than it solves.²
Article: "Seeing Race and Seeming Racist? Evaluating Strategic Colorblindness in Social Interaction," Evan P. Apfelbaum, PhD candidate, and Samuel R. Sommers, PhD, Tufts University; Michael Norton, PhD, Harvard Business School; Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 95, No. 4. (Full text of this article is available from the APA Public Affairs Office and at http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/psp954918.pdf)
Article: ³Learning (Not) to Talk About Race: When Older Children Underperform in Social Categorization,² Evan P. Apfelbaum, PhD candidate, Kristin Pauker, PhD candidate, Nalini Ambady, PhD, and Samuel R. Sommers, PhD, Tufts University; Michael I. Norton, PhD, Harvard Business School; Developmental Psychology, Vol. 44, No. 5. (Full text of this article is available from the APA Public Affairs Office and at http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/dev4451513.pdf)
The American Psychological Association (APA), in Washington, DC, is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States and is the world's largest association of psychologists. APA's membership includes more than 148,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance psychology as a science, as a profession and as a means of promoting human welfare.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Children of Older Fathers More Likely to Have Bipolar Disorder
Newswise — Older age among fathers may be associated with an increased risk for bipolar disorder in their offspring, according to a report in the September issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Bipolar disorder is a common, severe mood disorder involving episodes of mania and depression, according to background information in the article. Other than a family history of psychotic disorders, few risk factors for the condition have been identified. Older paternal age has previously been associated with a higher risk of complex neurodevelopmental disorders, including schizophrenia and autism.
Emma M. Frans, M.Med.Sc., of the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden, and colleagues identified 13,428 patients in Swedish registers with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. For each one, they randomly selected from the registers five controls who were the same sex and born the same year but did not have bipolar disorder.
When comparing the two groups, the older an individual’s father, the more likely he or she was to have bipolar disorder. After adjusting for the age of the mother, participants with fathers older than 29 years had an increased risk. “After controlling for parity [number of children], maternal age, socioeconomic status and family history of psychotic disorders, the offspring of men 55 years and older were 1.37 times more likely to be diagnosed as having bipolar disorder than the offspring of men aged 20 to 24 years,” the authors write.
The offspring of older mothers also had an increased risk, but it was less pronounced than the paternal effect, the authors note. For early-onset bipolar disorder (diagnosed before age 20), the effect of the father’s age was much stronger and there was no association with the mother’s age.
“Personality of older fathers has been suggested to explain the association between mental disorders and advancing paternal age,” the authors write. “However, the mental disorders associated with increasing paternal age are under considerable genetic influence.” Therefore, there may be a genetic link between advancing age of the father and bipolar and other disorders in offspring.
“As men age, successive germ cell replications occur, and de novo [new, not passed from parent to offspring] mutations accumulate monotonously as a result of DNA copy errors,” the authors continue. “Women are born with their full supply of eggs that have gone through only 23 replications, a number that does not change as they age. Therefore, DNA copy errors should not increase in number with maternal age. Consistent with this notion, we found smaller effects of increased maternal age on the risk of bipolar disorder in the offspring.”
(Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2008;65[9]:1034-1040. Available pre-embargo to the media at http://www.jamamedia.org.)
Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.
PET Scans Help Identify Mechanism Underlying Seasonal Mood Changes
Newswise — Brain scans taken at different times of year suggest that the actions of the serotonin transporter—involved in regulating the mood-altering neurotransmitter serotonin—vary by season, according to a report in the September issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. These fluctuations may potentially explain seasonal affective disorder and related mood changes.
“It is a common experience in temperate zones that individuals feel happier and more energetic on bright and sunny days and many experience a decline in mood and energy during the dark winter season,” the authors write as background information in the article. This is thought to be related to variations in brain levels of serotonin, which is involved in the regulation of functions such as mating, feeding, energy balance and sleep. The serotonin transporter, a protein that binds to serotonin and clears it from the spaces between brain cells, “is a key element in regulating intensity and spread of the serotonin signal.”
Nicole Praschak-Rieder, M.D., and Matthaeus Willeit, M.D., of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and colleagues studied 88 healthy individuals (average age 33) between 1999 and 2003. Participants underwent one positron emission tomography (PET) scan to assess serotonin transporter binding potential value, an index of serotonin transporter density. The higher the binding potential value, the less serotonin circulates in the brain. For the analysis, individual scans were grouped according to the season of the scan—fall and winter or spring and summer.
“Serotonin transporter binding potential values were significantly higher in all investigated brain regions in individuals investigated in the fall and winter compared with those investigated in the spring and summer,” the authors write. When they matched binding potential values to meteorological data, the researchers found that higher values occurred during times when there were fewer hours of sunlight per day.
“An implication of greater serotonin transporter binding in winter is that this may facilitate extracellular serotonin loss during winter, leading to lower mood,” the authors write. “Higher regional serotonin transporter binding potential values in fall and winter may explain hyposerotonergic [related to low serotonin levels] symptoms, such as lack of energy, fatigue, overeating and increased duration of sleep during the dark season.”
“These findings have important implications for understanding seasonal mood change in healthy individuals, vulnerability to seasonal affective disorder and the relationship of light exposure to mood,” they conclude. “This offers a possible explanation for the regular reoccurrence of depressive episodes in fall and winter in some vulnerable individuals.”
(Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2008;65[9]:1072-1078. Available pre-embargo to the media at http://www.jamamedia.org.)
Editor’s Note: This study was supported by grants from the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression, the Austrian Science Foundation, the Canadian Institute for Health Research, the Ontario Mental Health Foundation, the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Ontario Innovation Trust. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.
Study Examines Relationship Between Low Birth Weight and Psychiatric Problems in Children
Newswise — Low-birth-weight children appear to be at higher risk for psychiatric disturbances from childhood through high school than normal-birth-weight children, according to a report in the September issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. In addition, low-birth-weight children from urban communities may be more likely to have attention problems than suburban low-birth-weight children.
“Advances in neonatal medicine have raised the survivorship of low-birth-weight infants (2,500 grams [about 5.5 pounds] or less), especially very low-birth-weight infants (1,500 grams [about 3.3 pounds] or less) and extremely low-birth-weight infants (1,000 grams [2.2 pounds] or less),” according to background information in the article. Previous studies have reported that low-birth-weight children appear to have an increased risk of internalizing, externalizing and attention problems.
Kipling M. Bohnert, B.A., and Naomi Breslau, Ph.D., of Michigan State University, East Lansing, examined the long-term association between low-birth-weight and psychiatric problems among 413 children from a socially disadvantaged community in Detroit and 410 children from a middle-class Detroit suburb. Children’s psychiatric disturbances were rated by mothers and teachers at ages 6, 11 and 17. Psychiatric disturbances were separated into three categories: externalizing, including delinquent and aggressive behavior; internalizing, including withdrawn behavior and anxiety/depression; and attention, including characteristic symptoms of ADHD such as not being able to pay attention for long or difficulty following directions.
Low-birth-weight children were more likely to exhibit externalizing and internalizing problems than normal-birth-weight children in their community. “An increased risk of attention problems was associated with low birth weight only in the urban community and was greater among very low-birth-weight children (weighing 1,500 grams or less) than heavier low-birth-weight children (weighing 1,501 grams to 2,500 grams),” the authors write. “In the suburban community, there was no increased risk for attention problems associated with low birth weight. Psychiatric outcomes of low birth weight did not vary across ages of assessments.”
“Attention problems at the start of schooling predict lower academic achievement later, controlling for key factors that contribute to academic test scores, which in turn predicts termination of schooling and curtailed educational attainment,” the authors conclude. “Attention problems influence academic performance by reducing the time that students devote to class learning and homework assignments and hinder organization and work habits.
“Early interventions to improve attention skills in urban low-birth-weight children might yield better outcomes later.”
(Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2008;65[9]:1080-1086. Available pre-embargo to the media at http://www.jamamedia.org.)
Editor’s Note: This work was supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health and from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.
Family Therapy Helps Relieve Depression Symptoms in Bipolar Teens
Newswise — Family-focused therapy, when combined with medication, appears effective in stabilizing symptoms of depression among teens with bipolar disorder, according to a report in the September issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Between one-half and two-thirds of patients with bipolar disorder develop the condition before age 18, according to background information in the article. “Early onset of illness is associated with an unremitting course of illness, frequent switches of polarity, mixed episodes, psychosis, a high risk of suicide and poor functioning or quality of life,” the authors write. “The past decade has witnessed a remarkable increase in diagnoses of bipolar disorder in children and adolescents and, correspondingly, drug trials for patients with early-onset disorder. There has been comparatively little controlled examination of psychotherapy for pediatric patients.”
David J. Miklowitz, Ph.D., of the University of Colorado, Boulder, and colleagues conducted an outpatient randomized controlled trial among 58 adolescents (average age 14.5) with bipolar disorder who had experienced a mood episode in the prior three months. Between 2002 and 2005, 30 teens were randomly assigned to receive pharmacotherapy plus family-focused treatment for adolescents. Over nine months, they participated in 21 50-minute sessions. Therapy included the patient, parents and siblings and consisted of education about their disease, communication training and problem-solving skills training.
The other 28 teens were assigned to pharmacotherapy plus enhanced care, which involved three 50-minute family sessions that focused on preventing relapse. Independent evaluators, who did not know patient group assignments, assessed the teens every three to six months for two years.
A total of 60 percent of the family-focused therapy group and 64.3 percent of the enhanced care group completed the two-year follow-up; of those, 53 (91.4 percent) experienced a full recovery from their original mood episode. There were no differences between the two groups in rates of recovery or in the amount of time that elapsed before a subsequent mood episode. However, patients in the family-focused therapy group recovered from depressive symptoms more quickly, spent fewer weeks in depressive episodes over the two-year period and had an overall more favorable trajectory of depressive symptoms than those in the enhanced care group.
“To enhance full symptomatic and functional recovery among adolescents, family-focused treatment for adolescents may need to be supplemented with collaborative care interventions found effective in mania stabilization,” the authors conclude. The program’s emphasis on “reducing conflict in family relationships, enhancing social supports and teaching interpersonal skills may underlie its stronger effects on bipolar depression.”
(Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2008;65[9]:1053-1061. Available pre-embargo to the media at http://www.jamamedia.org.)
Editor’s Note: This study was supported by National Institute of Mental Health grants, a Distinguished Investigator Award from the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression and a Faculty Fellowship from the University of Colorado Council on Research and Creative Work (Dr. Miklowitz). Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.
