Parental bonding and alexithymia: A meta-analysis

Aim

The primary purpose of this meta-analysis was to explore, clarify and report the strength of the relationship between alexithymia, as measured by the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), and parenting style as measured by the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI).

Methods

Web of Science, PsycInfo, PubMed and ProQuest: Dissertations and Theses searches were undertaken, yielding nine samples with sufficient data to be included in the meta-analysis.

Results

Evidence indicated moderate to strong relationships between maternal care and alexithymia, and between maternal care and two of the three TAS-20 alexithymia facets (Difficulties Describing Feelings and Difficulties Identifying Feelings, but not Externally Oriented Thinking). Moderate relationships were observed for both maternal- and paternal-overprotection and alexithymia respectively, and for overprotection (both maternal and paternal) and Difficulties Describing Feelings.

Conclusion

This study is the first meta-analysis of the relationship between parenting styles and alexithymia, and findings confirm an especially strong association between maternal care and key elements of alexithymia. This review highlights the issues that still remain to be addressed in exploring the link between parenting style and alexithymia.     

The Early Development of Joint Attention in Infants with Autistic Disorder Using Home Video Observations and Parental Interview

The aim in the current study was to investigate the early development of joint attention, eye contact and affect during the first 2 years of life, by using retrospective parental interviews and analyses of home videos of infants who were later diagnosed with Autistic Disorder (AD). The 36 children with AD and the 27 matched control children were all aged between 3 and 5 years at recruitment. Reported anomalies in gaze and affect emerged in the children with AD as early as the first 6 months of life, generally becoming more severe just prior to the second birthday. Video data confirmed these anomalies from as early as the first year. Joint attention impairments were found throughout the second year of life. The results suggest that early dyadic behaviours—eye contact and affect—may play a role in the joint attention impairment in AD.

The temporal dynamics of ambivalence: changes in positive and negative affect in relation to consumption of an "emotionally charged" food

Ambivalence is thought to impact consumption of food, alcohol and drugs, possibly via influences on craving, with cravers often being simultaneously drawn toward and repelled from ingestion. So far, little is known about the temporal dynamics of ambivalence, especially as it varies in relationship to consumption. Participants (n = 482, 56.8% female) completed the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule prior to, immediately and 30 min after the opportunity to eat a bar of chocolate. Affective ambivalence was calculated based on the relative strengths of and discrepancy between ratings of positive and negative affect. Ambivalence peaked prior to a decision about consumption and subsequently decreased, whether or not the decision was in favor of or against consuming. Decreasing ambivalence was driven by a drop in positive affect over time; positivity decreased more rapidly in those who consumed chocolate. Findings represent a first step in characterizing the dynamics of ambivalence in interactions with a target stimulus.     

The positive and negative affect schedule: psychometric properties of the korean version

Objective

The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) was developed as a measure of positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA). The aim here is to examine the factor structure and concurrent validity of the Korean version of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (K-PANAS) in a clinical sample in Korea.

Methods

K-PANAS was administered to a clinical sample in Korea. Internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were undertaken to examine the factorial structure and reliability of the K-PANAS.

Results

The reliability of K-PANAS is satisfactory. CFA showed that several of the models commonly used in Western populations provided an insufficient fit. The modified model provided a more adequate fit to the data.

Conclusion

The authors demonstrate that the K-PANAS has adequate psychometric properties, and that findings obtained in the West using PANAS were partially replicated.     

Structural differentiation of self-reported depression and anxiety in late life

Research has shown impressive support for tripartite models of anxiety and depression that include a common factor of negative affect, and the unique factors positive affect and arousal. It is not clear whether this structure extends into later life. The current study used confirmatory factor analysis to model the structural relationship of anxiety and depression in two samples of older adults: a large probability sample (N = 1429) and a smaller convenience sample (N = 210). Across all analyses, a correlated, two-factor, psychometric model was most parsimonious. The tripartite model could be fit to the data, but added no explanatory power; in some cases a one-factor model also fit. The results suggest that there is a unitary factor of "distress" that incorporates anxiety and depression, but that the structure is not consistent with factor structures found in younger samples. Instead, the broad constructs may be represented in a more complex manner among older adults, and are less easily differentiated.     

Perception of emotions from faces and voices following unilateral brain damage

The importance of the right hemisphere in emotion perception in general has been well documented but its precise role is disputed. We compared the performance of 30 right hemisphere damaged (RHD) patients, 30 left hemisphere damaged (LHD) patients, and 50 healthy controls on both facial and vocal affect perception tasks of specific emotions. Brain damaged subjects had a single episode cerebrovascular accident localised to one hemisphere. The results showed that right hemisphere patients were markedly impaired relative to left hemisphere and healthy controls on test performance: labelling and recognition of facial expressions and recognition of emotions conveyed by prosody. This pertained at the level of individual basic emotions, positive versus negative, and emotional expressions in general. The impairment remained highly significant despite covarying for the group's poorer accuracy on a neutral facial perception test and identification of neutral vocal expressions. The LHD group were only impaired relative to controls on facial emotion tasks when their performance was summed over all the emotion categories and before age and other cognitive factors were taken into account. However, on the prosody test the LHD patients showed significant impairment, performing mid-way between the right hemisphere patients and healthy comparison group. Recognition of positive emotional expressions was better than negative in all subjects, and was not relatively poorer in the LHD patients. Recognition of individual emotions in one modality correlated weakly with recognition in another, in all three groups. These data confirm the primacy of the right hemisphere in processing all emotional expressions across modalities--both positive and negative--but suggest that left hemisphere emotion processing is modality specific. It is possible that the left hemisphere has a particular role in the perception of emotion conveyed through meaningful speech.     

畸变产物耳声发射用于新生儿听力筛查的影响因素分析

目的 探讨畸变产物耳声发射(DPOAE)用于新生儿听力筛查的影响因素。方法 采用GSI-70全自动便携式耳声发射仪进行新生儿听力筛查，在筛查同时，自制问卷表，对新生儿的出生史，母亲妊娠史，家族史，父母社会阶层等35个因素进行调查，调查结果运用SPSS统计软件进行统计分析。结果 住院期间82．8％的(3242／3944)新生儿通过筛查，通过率右耳高于左耳，女婴高于男婴，单胎高于多胎，足月儿高于早产儿，正常及高出生体重儿高于低出生体重儿，阴道助产高于自然产、剖宫产，P值均小于0．05。多因素logistic回归分析，出生体重、性别、胎数与初筛结果相关。42天复筛，96．4％(3167／3284)通过筛查，影响初筛结果的因素对复筛无影响。结论 新生儿的性别、分娩方式、胎数、孕周、出生体重对应用DPOAE进行的新生儿听力筛查的初筛结果有显著影响。     

The effects of prior combat experience on the expression of somatic and affective symptoms in deploying soldiers

OBJECTIVE: Deployment to a combat zone is undoubtedly an extremely stressful experience. It was hypothesized that, when faced with an impending wartime deployment, soldiers with prior combat experience would report minimal emotional problems accompanied by high rates of somatic complaints compared with combat-naive soldiers. METHODS: Self-reports of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and affective and somatic complaints were collected from 2068 U.S. soldiers just prior to combat deployment during Operation Iraqi Freedom. RESULTS: Although the percentage of soldiers scoring positive for PTSD was nearly identical for the experienced and inexperienced groups, scores on the Affective and Somatic scales differed as a function of prior combat history. Previous combat experience was associated with lower affective and greater somatic complaints relative to combat-naive soldiers. CONCLUSIONS: Consistent with theories of stress reaction, repression, and somatic amplification, combat-experienced soldiers reported limited affective complaints but greater somatic complaints relative to soldiers without combat experience.     

A Biosocial-Affect Model of Adolescent Sensation Seeking: The Role of Affect Evaluation and Peer-Group Influence in Adolescent Drug Use

Adolescence is a period of heightened experimentation with risky behavior. Models of brain development suggest that this phenomenon is partly the result of increased adolescent sensation seeking unaccompanied by maturation in ability to evaluate risks. We test an alternative biosocial-affect model in which favorable affect attached to behavior leads to discounting of risks. Although the model applies to both adolescents and adults, it predicts that the surge in sensation seeking during adolescence increases affective attraction to risky behavior, reduces perceived risk of the behavior, and results in peer-group reinforcement of these effects. We estimated models that included these influences for three drugs (tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana) in a national sample of youth ages 14 to 22. Consistent with brain maturation models, sensation seeking rose during the age period under study with girls peaking earlier than boys. Nevertheless, independent of age or gender, the biosocial-affect model explained the relation between sensation seeking and drug use. The findings indicate that although adolescents recognize the risks of drug use, they are subject to both biological and social influences that encourage risk taking. Implications for the prevention of risky adolescent behavior are discussed.