Attachment--and loss.

Erik Eriksen is a remarkable individual. He has no college degrees yet is Professor of Human Development at Harvard University. He came to psychology via art, which explains why the reader will find him painting contexts and backgrounds rather than stating dull facts and concepts. He has been a training psychoanalyst for many years as well as a perceptive observer of cultural and social settings and their effect on growing up. This is not just a book on childhood. It is a panorama of our society. Anxiety in young children, apathy in American Indians, confusion in veterans of war, and arrogance in young Nazis are scrutinized under the psychoanalytic magnifying glass. The material is well written and devoid of technical jargon. The theme of the volume is that it is human to have a long childhood which will leave a lifelong residue of emotional immaturity in man. Primitive groups and

Childhood and Society.

Principles and Practice of Structural Equation Modeling (2nd ed.)

The self-medication hypothesis of addictive disorders derives primarily from clinical observations of patients with substance use disorders. Individuals discover that the specific actions or effects of each class of drugs relieve or change a range of painful affect states. Self-medication factors occur in a context of self-regulation vulnerabilities--primarily difficulties in regulating affects, self-esteem, relationships, and self-care. Persons with substance use disorders suffer in the extreme with their feelings, either being overwhelmed with painful affects or seeming not to feel their emotions at all. Substances of abuse help such individuals to relieve painful affects or to experience or control emotions when they are absent or confusing. Diagnostic studies provide evidence that variously supports and fails to support a self-medication hypothesis of addictive disorders. The cause-consequence controversy involving psychopathology and substance use/abuse is reviewed and critiqued. In contrast, clinical observations and empirical studies that focus on painful affects and subjective states of distress more consistently suggest that such states of suffering are important psychological determinants in using, becoming dependent upon, and relapsing to addictive substances. Subjective states of distress and suffering involved in motives to self-medicate with substances of abuse are considered with respect to nicotine dependence and to schizophrenia and posttraumatic stress disorder comorbid with a substance use disorder.

The Self-medication Hypothesis of Substance Use Disorders: A Reconsideration and Recent Applications

Personality has consequences. Measures of personality have contemporaneous and predictive relations to a variety of important outcomes. Using the Big Five factors as heuristics for organizing the research literature, numerous consequential relations are identified. Personality dispositions are associated with happiness, physical and psychological health, spirituality, and identity at an individual level; associated with the quality of relationships with peers, family, and romantic others at an interpersonal level; and associated with occupational choice, satisfaction, and performance, as well as community involvement, criminal activity, and political ideology at a social institutional level.

Personality and the Prediction of Consequential Outcomes

De psychometrische eigenschappen van de Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (scared) zijn onderzocht binnen een grote steekproef uit de algemene adolescentenpopulatie. In 2001 hebben 1.340 adolescenten van twaalf verschillende middelbare scholen in de provincie Utrecht de scared ingevuld. De scared is een zelfbeoordelingsvragenlijst waarmee beoogd wordt vijf symptoomdimensies van angst bij adolescenten te meten. Confirmatieve factoranalyses (voor de factorstructuur) en variantieanalyses (voor de scoreverschillen) werden uitgevoerd voor zowel de gehele steekproef als voor jongens en meisjes, jongere adolescenten (10-13 jr.) en oudere adolescenten (14-18 jr.) en autochtone adolescenten en Nederlandse adolescenten van allochtone afkomst. Uit de analyses bleek dat de vijffactorstructuur van de scared niet alleen van toepassing is voor de algemene adolescentenpopulatie maar ook van toepassing is voor verschillende leeftijds-, geslachts- en etnische groepen. Tevens werd gevonden dat de symptoomdimensiescores van de scared voor diverse adolescentengroepen onderling verschillen. De onderzoeksresultaten ondersteunen de bewering dat de scared een vijffactorstructuur bezit en bevestigen de bruikbaarheid van de scared voor het meten van angstsymptomen bij adolescenten.

Psychometrische eigenschappen van de Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders ( scared ) in een Nederlandse adolescentenpopulatie

This study was aimed at unraveling associations between Big Five personality traits and anxiety symptoms of panic, generalized anxiety disorder, school phobia, separation anxiety, and social phobia in male and female adolescents and emerging adults from the general population. Participants were 3,758 (54.6% females) adolescents and emerging adults aged between 11 and 26 years. They completed the shortened Big Five questionnaire and the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders. Results indicated that the associations between Big Five and anxiety symptoms were consistent across gender and age groups. Most of the associations were statistically significant with the strongest links found between extraversion and symptoms of social phobia; conscientiousness and symptoms of school anxiety; and emotional stability and symptoms of panic, separation, generalized, and school anxiety. All these associations were negative, suggesting that higher levels of these personality traits were related to lower levels of anxiety symptoms.

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Personality and Anxiety Associations in Adolescents and Emerging Adults

Identification with Goth youth culture has been related to elevated levels of depression, self-harm and suicide ideation. However, this identification may be difficult to assess as Goth is stigmatized and adolescents may hesitate to self-identify. Conversely, adolescents readily respond to questions on their music preferences. This study addresses the potential link between liking Goth music and depressive symptoms in a four-year study among 10 to 15-year-olds (N = 940, M age = 12.4 at T1, 49% female). In this study, it was found that Goth music is only liked by a small minority of adolescents (4 to 11%). Both girls and boys who liked Goth music reported increased levels of depressive symptoms as they grew older. The findings of this study suggest that a preference for Goth music emerges as an early, sensitive marker of dormant or developing depressive symptoms in adolescents. The mechanisms through which music preferences can translate into or sustain depressive symptoms are discussed.

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Goth Music and Depressive Symptoms among Adolescents: A Longitudinal Study

Although previous studies have demonstrated that rejection is strongly associated with adolescent depression and aggression, most of the attention has focused only on peer rejection; parental rejection has received much less attention in adolescent depression - aggression studies. In this study 1,329 adolescents participated. All filled in questionnaires on depression, aggression and parental rejection. It was demonstrated that parental rejection, when mediated through adolescent depression, helped to explain adolescent aggression. Additional analyses demonstrated that this was partially dependent on the adolescent's age and gender.

Een onderzoek naar het verband tussen ouderlijke afwijzing, depressie en agressie in de adolescentie

In deze studie is gekeken naar verschillen tussen adolescenten van Marokkaanse en Nederlandse afkomst in (1) kwaliteit van de broer/zusrelatie en probleemgedrag en in (2) verbanden tussen kwaliteit van de broer/zusrelatie en externaliserend en internaliserend probleemgedrag. Tijdens vijf jaarlijkse meetrondes zijn vragenlijsten afgenomen bij 159 Marokkaanse (M
 leeftijd = 13,3 jaar) en 159 Nederlandse adolescenten (M
 leeftijd = 13,0 jaar) over kwaliteit van de broer/zusrelatie en probleemgedrag. Onze resultaten toonden aan dat Marokkaanse jongeren een significant hogere kwaliteit van de broer/zusrelatie en minder agressie, delinquentie en depressie (maar niet angst) rapporteerden dan Nederlandse jongeren. De verbanden tussen de kwaliteit van de broer/zusrelatie en probleemgedrag waren vergelijkbaar voor de Marokkaanse en Nederlandse adolescenten. Meer conflict (maar niet steun) in de broer/zusrelatie hing samen met een hoger basisniveau en een snellere afname van probleemgedrag. De conclusie is dat steun en conflict in de broer/zusrelatie bij Marokkaanse en Nederlandse jongeren op een vergelijkbare manier samenhangen met probleemgedrag. Implicaties voor onderzoek en interventies worden besproken in de discussie.

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William W. Hale

Papers

Psychometrische eigenschappen van de Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders ( scared ) in een Nederlandse adolescentenpopulatie

Personality and Anxiety Associations in Adolescents and Emerging Adults

Goth Music and Depressive Symptoms among Adolescents: A Longitudinal Study

Een onderzoek naar het verband tussen ouderlijke afwijzing, depressie en agressie in de adolescentie

Longitudinale effecten van kwaliteit van de broer/zusrelatie op probleemgedrag van adolescenten: een cross-etnische vergelijking