The influence of trauma on neuroendocrine functions and related problems with declarative memory (short term verbal memory) has been documented in several studies focused on adult survivors of trauma. However, the impact of trauma on neuroendocrine and cognitive development of children and adolescents has not yet been explored. Declarative memory functioning, cortisol reactivity and psychological symptoms were examined in nineteen adolescent female survivors (nine depressed and ten non-depressed) of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse and compared to eleven non-abused controls. Salivary cortisol measurements (initial baseline assessment, assessment after an emotionally challenging task, followed by second baseline one week later) were used to assess cortisol reactivity. The relationship between patterns of cortisol reactivity and declarative memory functioning was examined, as assessed by scores on selected subtests of the California Verbal Learning Tests. Similarly, the relationship between patterns of cortisol reactivity and psychological symptoms, as reported on the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children, was also assessed. Results indicated the presence of different patterns of cortisol reactivity during a challenging task for the girt survivors of chronic trauma (depressed and non-depressed) as compared to controls. The abused girls most frequently exhibited increased cortisol release from the initial baseline to the subsequent measurement times, whereas cortisol levels generally decreased in the control group. Furthermore, in girl survivors of chronic trauma, the larger increases in cortisol release were related to lower declarative memory scores and to more symptoms of dissociation, depression, posttraumatic stress, anger, and anxiety. Although the subject sample was small, the results supported the existence of a link between exposure to trauma, adrenocortical reactivity, and to a lesser extent, declarative memory functioning. Similar results have been widely documented in adults with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. These findings have implications in terms of understanding of neurobiological development of trauma survivors. Indeed, neurohormonal alterations (changes in cortisol reactivity) influence response to stress, emotional regulation, and behavioral adjustment. Therefore, understanding of the relationship of cortisol reactivity with cognitive and emotional symptoms in young trauma survivors will enhance the identification of at-risk individuals and will help in preventing the development of long lasting deficits in emotional and behavioral functioning.

Each year, corporate America spends millions of dollars on leadership training programs in an attempt to create more effective managers, but many specialists in this field have speculated that much of this effort is wasted. In the past ten years, a small group of researchers have been approaching this issue from a different perspective; they are looking at how leaders think and create meaning in their roles. The purpose of this study is to contribute to that growing body of research by: (a) exploring the connections between concepts of transformational and transactional leadership models as defined by James MacGregor Burns and Bernard Bass, double-loop learning, a managerial model, as defined by Chris Argyris, and social cognitive development as defined and measured by Robert Kegan and Lawrence Kohlberg; (b) investigating how workers experience a range of leadership models. Eight leaders in a mid-sized, natural food distribution company comprised the primary research sample; eighteen employees also participated in the study via informal interviews. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire was used to determine the range of transformational abilities and in addition, each leader was assessed using two social cognitive tools: Robert Kegan's subject-object interview and the Defining Issues Test created by James Rest to assess moral reasoning abilities. Workers were interviewed to see how they experienced their environment and themes were culled from their responses. The results of the study suggested a relationship between the cognitive developmental level of the leaders as measured by Robert Kegan's stages and their transformational leadership abilities. Four out of five leaders used transformational skills with a fairly high degree of frequency. Worker interviews seemed to reflect a substantial degree of satisfaction with the organization. Four themes were extrapolated from the employee interviews: company as community/family, lack of hierarchy, informal atmosphere, and freedom to voice opposition. The implication of the study suggests that the ability to practice transformational leadership is strongly connected to an individual's social cognitive complexity and when this kind of leadership is practiced, the employees reported positive effects.

Research suggests that during consultation several factors may influence the successful implementation of interventions. This study specifically addresses the problem of low treatment outcome expectancies and the possible mediation of this variable. The primary question is whether it is possible to achieve greater expectancy for successful outcomes using practical methods. In this study, data were collected in two stages. The first stage incorporated an analogue condition designed to exam the possible influence of numerous factors related to the consultation process. The second set of data were collected in an applied setting while providing case consultation for students identified by their teachers as having significant problems with academic functioning. In this condition, a single variable (priming) was manipulated and then followed by a written measure of outcome expectancies. A comparison of group means between treatment and nontreatment groups indicated a significance difference (t = 2.08, one-tailed test p = .025). Priming the consultee with documentation of intervention effectiveness significantly increased positive outcome expectancies with a large magnitude of effect (g = 1.90; t = 4.23, p < .01). Although an attempt was made to test the relationship between actual outcomes and high expectancy versus low expectancy conditions, follow-up data were too sparse for thorough analysis. Unfortunately, less than a third of the teachers, targeted for follow-up, implemented the intervention. Due to the large amount of research data already supporting the Pygmalion effect, this study was not designed to establish a causal relationship between teacher expectancies and student performance. Instead, this investigation provides empirical support for the use of priming as a mediator of expectancies within the context of the school consultation model for classroom interventions.

Infants begin to coordinate their actions into means-end sequences at eight to nine months of age, as indicated by their willingness to search for objects that are occluded, and by their ability to use supports to pull distant objects within reach. However, the occurrence of perseverative responses like the A-not-B error through the end of the first year suggests an inflexibility in means-end actions, in that infants fail to respond on the basis of context-specific information, but rather respond on the basis of previously rewarded action. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate two antithetical explanations of infant search errors--one that attributes errors solely to repeated motor experience, and one that invokes the notion of representational, or working memory to describe means-end search. Nine-, twelve-, and eighteen-month-old infants were tested on a violation of expectation search procedure. Infants were given repeated practice pulling down a screen to retrieve a toy. After several trials, a second identical screen was surreptitiously inserted behind the first, forcing infants to adapt their search behavior to the novel layout in order to successfully retrieve the toy. Infants at the three ages were tested on an 'opaque' condition, in which both of the screens were opaque and covered with an identical checkerboard pattern. Nine- and twelve-month-olds were also tested in two control conditions. In the 'transparent' control condition, the two screens were fitted with plexiglass windows, thus eliminating the need to represent the existence of the toy. In the 'no-toy' control condition, the screens were opaque, but no toys were hidden and subjects were simply given a series of trials with one screen and then tested with two screens. The results supported the working memory, representational account of infant search. In the opaque condition, most nine-month-olds searched for the toy behind the second cover. Twelve-month-olds, however, were less likely than the nine-month-olds to pull down both screens, and frequently persisted in their efforts to find the toy behind the first screen. Infants in the two control conditions did not have this difficulty extending their action to the second screen. Eighteen-month-olds quickly solved the double-cover problem, rapidly pulling down both screens. The poorer performance of the twelve-month-olds suggests that they accurately represented the location of the toy where they had seen it hidden (behind the first screen), and thus failed to consider the second screen as a possible hiding location for the toy.

Previous research has shown that 2-year-old children are not able to use information from television (the location of a toy in a room) to solve a problem (finding the toy). One explanation for this result is that 2-year-olds are sophisticated enough to understand that what they see on television does not affect their immediate surroundings (the reality hypothesis). Another explanation is that difficulties with symbolic media led to their failure (the symbolic hypothesis). A third explanation is that the visual perceptual quality of television is too weak for the children to use to update their representations of the location of the toy in the room (the perceptual hypothesis). The first purpose of this study was to replicate the finding that 2-year-olds are unable to find a toy in a room if they see the toy hidden on television, but are able to find it if they watch through a window as a toy is hidden. This finding was replicated, although the result was not significant. It was also found that 2-year-olds performed significantly above chance on the first trial when they watched the hiding event on television. The second purpose of this study was to determine whether the reality hypothesis was supported when visual symbolic and visual perceptual issues were accounted for. Two-year-old children listened to an experimenter, either live or on television, tell them where to find a toy in a room. This eliminated any potential visual symbolic or perceptual problems. Two-year-olds did significantly better when the live experimenter told them where to find the toy than they did when they heard the experimenter on television, supporting the reality hypothesis. However, first trial effects indicate that the reality hypothesis cannot completely account for children's failure to use televised information to find a toy in a room. A new explanation for these results is put forth that is based on the idea that 2-year-olds can and will use information presented on television to solve a problem as long as that information does not conflict with information that they received in “reality”.

Thesis (M. Soc. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1991.

Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1991. / Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- Syracuse University, 2006 / "Publication number AAT 3251806."

This study was designed to determine whether lasting attentional deficits result from repeated mild closed head injuries related to participation in youth boxing. Subjects consisted of 10 amateur boxers and 10 basketball players who were participating in tournaments at a youth club. Subjects were matched for age, grade point average, and socioeconomic status. Attentional disruptions were measured by four variables of the Test of Variable Attention (TOVA): Omission errors, a measure of attention; commission errors, a measure of response inhibition and impulsivity; response time, a measure of information processing and motor response speed; and variability of response time, a measure of consistency of attention. The boxers were tested 1 hour after the completion of the boxing tournament and again 8 weeks later. The basketball players were tested once while their tournament was in progress. The results of the study indicate that the cumulative effects of head blows sustained during the boxing season did not have a significant effect on TOVA measures of inattention, inhibition/impulsivity, or information processing and motor response speed. Variability was the only index for which the mean score of the boxers differed significantly from the norm. Consistency of attention was inconsistent and varied at the end of the boxing season and appears to be the only variable affected by the purported head blows. The hypothesis that there would be significant differences between boxers' mean TOVA scores obtained 1 hour after the last match of the tournament and those obtained 8 weeks later was partially supported. The mean scores of the boxers for commission errors and consistency of attention improved significantly between the two testing conditions although their reaction-time score decreased. The hypothesis that the mean TOVA scores of the boxers obtained 1 hour after the last match of their tournament would differ from those of basketball players was supported. The basketball players' reaction time was significantly faster than that of the boxers at the end of the season as well as 8 weeks later.