Assessing the dominance behavioral system in early childhood using observational methods.

BACKGROUND: The dominance behavioral system (DBS) is a biologically based system that underpins individual differences in motivation for dominance and power. However, little is known about the DBS in childhood. In order to make strong claims about the DBS's trait-like properties and predictive validity, a clearer understanding of its early development is required. PARTICIPANTS AND PROCEDURE: In a pilot study aimed at developing a behavioral coding system for dominance, a key facet of the DBS, we collected and coded observational data from 58 children, assessed at ages 3 and 5-6. These data were examined in conjunction with measures of child temperament via observational measures, and symptoms of psychopathology. RESULTS: Dominance was moderately stable in early childhood to a degree comparable to other early child temperament traits. Consistent with the study hypotheses, boys were more dominant than girls, and dominance was negatively associated with children's behavioral inhibition, effortful control, and internalizing symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: These results provide initial support for the validity and developmental sensitivity of an objective coding system for assessing facets of the DBS in early childhood. Ultimately, the use of this coding system will facilitate future studies of how early DBS predicts psychological adjustment later in life.

Supporting Individuals with Mental Health and/or Addictions Issues Through Patient Navigation: A Scoping Review.

Pathways through the mental health care system can be complex and laden with barriers that prevent individuals from finding the most appropriate care. Navigation has been proposed as a solution for improving access to and transition through complex health care systems. While several MHA navigation programs have emerged in the past decade, no study has explored the core themes of MHA navigation, which was the goal of the current review. A scoping review was conducted; the search yielded 11,525 unique results, of which 26 were entered into extraction and subsequent descriptive and thematic analysis. Barrier reduction, client-centered support, and integrated care emerged as the distinct themes underlying MHA services, and overall, navigation significantly improved outcomes for individuals experiencing MHA issues. These findings may support evidence-based implementation of navigation services and point to a need for increased exploration and reporting of MHA navigation outcomes in the literature.

Right frontal brain activity at rest in the early 20s predicts threat-related bias ten years later among extremely low birth weight survivors.

Exposure to early adversity is known to shape brain-behavior relations, which in turn can lead to hypersensitivity to threat and an increased risk of developing a range of psychopathologies. To date, much of the work in this area has considered exposure to negative post-natal events (e.g., maltreatment) in shaping these relations in humans. Here we examined the influence of prenatal adversity in the form of a suboptimal intra-uterine environment (i.e., being born at extremely low birth weight; [ELBW i.e., < 1000 g]). ELBW babies are the tiniest and most at-risk infants and are known to be at risk for internalizing problems (e.g., depression and anxiety) from childhood through early adulthood. However, we know relatively little about the mechanism(s) underlying this risk. Using the oldest known prospectively followed cohort of ELBW survivors, we examined associations among birth weight status, individual differences in frontal brain electrical activity (EEG) at rest (a marker of affective style) at age 22-26 years, and threat-related biases to angry faces (using the dot probe task) at 30-35 years of age. We found that among ELBW adults, those displaying greater relative right frontal EEG activity at rest exhibited greater vigilance to angry faces than those exhibiting greater relative left frontal EEG activity (n = 34, r = -0.40, p = .02). This pattern was not observed among normal birth weight (NBW) control participants (n = 47, r = .08, p > .05). As well, the relation between frontal EEG asymmetry and vigilance to angry faces was stronger for the ELBW group versus the NBW group (z = -2.21, p =  .03). These findings suggest that exposure to significant prenatal adversity may have long-term programming effects on biological and cognitive systems associated with emotion regulatory processes in the fourth decade of life. We speculate that these vulnerabilities may contribute to making some ELBW survivors susceptible to psychopathology.

Personality and opponent processes: Shyness, sociability, and visual afterimages to emotion.

The opponent process theory of emotion posits that emotional states evoke opposite emotion states as they wane, resulting in sequential approach and withdrawal motivations. However, whether opponent processes are associated with individual differences in personality remains an empirical question. Using visual afterimage responses to emotional faces as an index of opponent processes, we found that young adults (N = 101; Mage = 19.41 years, SD = 2.06 years) characterized by relatively high shyness and high sociability (i.e., conflicted shyness) were more likely to perceive a negative face emotion afterimage after adapting to happy faces and a positive face emotion afterimage after adapting to angry faces, compared with young adults classified by other combinations of high and low shyness and sociability. We speculate that conflicted shyness may result from strong opponent processes to both positive and negative emotions to real or anticipated social situations in some individuals, resulting in conflicting social motivations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).