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Biomedical subjects

L Steinberg

Publications and source records attributed to L Steinberg.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

The consequences of pairing questions: context effects in personality measurement.

The effect of context on responses to questions has been a prominent focus in social and political survey research. However, little investigation of context effects has been done for the measurement of psychological constructs. A measure of anger experience and expression in development uses vignettes describing interpersonal situations that provoke varying degrees of anger and require respondents to indicate their affective and/or expressive response to the situation. In this study, the consequences of pairing the two questions for each vignette are investigated. Pairing the anger-experience and likelihood-of-expression questions changes the item's context. Item response theory analysis similar to that used to detect differential item functioning was performed. For some of the items, responding to a single or paired question affected the extremity of responses. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for personality measurement.

Adult↗

Correspondence among informants on parenting: preschool children, mothers, and observers.

The authors examined the correspondence among preschool children's, mothers', and observers' descriptions of parenting in the mother-child relationship along 3 dimensions (structure, warmth-responsiveness, and hostility). Ninety-four children (mean age = 5 years, 3 months) and their mothers, who represent diverse ethnic and socioeconomic groups, participated in the project. Preschool children were interviewed about their mothers' parenting by means of a developmentally sensitive, age-appropriate research tool for assessing the subjective experience of preschool children. Mothers responded to a self-report measure on their own parenting, and observers rated mothers' parenting behavior during a series of interaction tasks designed to elicit the relevant dimensions of parenting. Results indicated significantly greater correspondence between observer and child report of parenting than that between mother and child and mother and observer reports. Explanations for the inconsistencies among informants and implications of this finding are discussed.

Adult↗

Adolescent development.

This chapter identifies the most robust conclusions and ideas about adolescent development and psychological functioning that have emerged since Petersen's 1988 review. We begin with a discussion of topics that have dominated recent research, including adolescent problem behavior, parent-adolescent relations, puberty, the development of the self, and peer relations. We then identify and examine what seem to us to be the most important new directions that have come to the fore in the last decade, including research on diverse populations, contextual influences on development, behavioral genetics, and siblings. We conclude with a series of recommendations for future research on adolescence.

Adolescent↗

Third Prader-Willi syndrome phenotype due to maternal uniparental disomy 15 with mosaic trisomy 15.

We report on a boy with mosaicism for trisomy 15 and Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) due to maternal isodisomy for chromosome 15. His phenotype is consistent with PWS and trisomy 15 mosaicism. Although our patient is unusual in having maternal isodisomy rather than the more common maternal heterodisomy, we think that his more severe PWS phenotype is due to his trisomy 15 mosaicism rather than to homozygosity for deleterious chromosome 15 genes. We propose that individuals with PWS have one of three similar but distinctive phenotypes depending on the cause of their condition. Patients with paternal deletions have the typical PWS phenotype, patients with maternal UPD have a slightly milder phenotype with better cognitive function, and those with maternal UPD and mosaic trisomy 15 have the most severe phenotype with a high incidence of congenital heart disease. These phenotype-genotype differences are useful to guide the work-up of patients with suspected PWS and to provide prognostic counseling for families.

Chromosome Aberrations↗

Calcineurin expression, activation, and function in cardiac pressure-overload hypertrophy.

BACKGROUND: Vascular hypertension resulting in increased cardiac load is associated with left ventricular hypertrophy and is a leading predicator for progressive heart disease. The molecular signaling pathways that respond to increases in cardiac load are poorly understood. One potential regulator of the hypertrophic response is the calcium-sensitive phosphatase calcineurin. METHODS AND RESULTS: We showed that calcineurin enzymatic activity is increased 3. 2-fold in the heart in response to pressure-overload hypertrophy induced by abdominal aortic banding in the rat. Western blot analysis further demonstrates that calcineurin A (catalytic subunit) protein content and association with calmodulin are increased in response to pressure-overload hypertrophy. This increase in calcineurin protein content was prevented by administration of the calcineurin inhibitor cyclosporine A (CsA). CsA administration attenuated load-induced cardiac hypertrophy in a dose-dependent manner over a 14-day treatment protocol. CsA administration also partially reversed pressure-overload hypertrophy in aortic-banded rats after 14 days. CsA also attenuated the histological and molecular indexes of pressure-overload hypertrophy. CONCLUSIONS: These data suggest that calcineurin is an important upstream regulator of load-induced hypertrophy.

Animals↗

(Im)maturity of judgment in adolescence: why adolescents may be less culpable than adults.

A crucial step in the establishment of effective policies and regulations concerning legal decisions involving juveniles is the development of a complete understanding of the many factors-psychosocial as well as cognitive-that affect the evolution of judgment over the course of adolescence and into adulthood. This study examines the influence of three psychosocial factors (responsibility, perspective, and temperance) on maturity of judgment in a sample of over 1,000 participants ranging in age from 12 to 48 years. Participants completed assessments of their psychosocial maturity in the aforementioned domains and responded to a series of hypothetical decision-making dilemmas about potentially antisocial or risky behavior. Socially responsible decision making is significantly more common among young adults than among adolescents, but does not increase appreciably after age 19. Individuals exhibiting higher levels of responsibility, perspective, and temperance displayed more mature decision-making than those with lower scores on these psychosocial factors, regardless of age. Adolescents, on average, scored significantly worse than adults, but individual differences in judgment within each adolescent age group were considerable. These findings call into question recent arguments, derived from studies of logical reasoning, that adolescents and adults are equally competent and that laws and social policies should treat them as such.

Adolescent↗

Effect of an essential oil-containing antiseptic mouthrinse on plaque and salivary Streptococcus mutans levels.

BACKGROUND: Clinical studies in which antimicrobial mouthrinses were shown to have significant antiplaque activity most frequently have used gingivitis as the clinically relevant endpoint. However, there is evidence to suggest that mouthrinses containing active agents effective against Streptococcus mutans, such as chlorhexidine, may also have a role in inhibiting dental caries. This clinical study was conducted to determine the effect of 2x-daily rinsing with an essential oil-containing antiseptic mouthrinse (Listerine Antiseptic) on levels of recoverable S. mutans and total streptococci in supragingival interproximal plaque and in saliva. Additionally, a follow-up in vitro study is reported which determined whether a differential susceptibility to the antiseptic mouthrinse exists among different strains of streptococci. METHOD: Following baseline saliva and plaque sampling for quantification of recoverable S. mutans and total streptococci, 29 qualifying subjects were randomly assigned either the essential oil mouthrinse or a sterile water control. They rinsed with 20 ml for 30s 2 x daily for 11 days and once on the 12th day, in addition to their usual oral hygiene procedures. On day 12, saliva and plaque samples were again collected and microbiological quantification performed. The procedures were repeated with the alternate rinse after a 1-week washout period. RESULTS: The essential oil mouthrinse produced respective reductions of 69.9% and 75.4% in total recoverable streptococci and in S. mutans in plaque, and corresponding reductions of 50.8% and 39.2% in saliva. The in vitro study revealed that streptococci from the mutans group were more susceptible to the bactericidal activity of the essential oil mouthrinse than streptococci from the mitis group. CONCLUSIONS: As antimicrobial mouthrinses are most frequently recommended to patients whose mechanical oral hygiene procedures are not adequate for the control of supragingival plaque and gingivitis, this study provides an additional rationale for the inclusion of the essential-oil mouthrinse as an adjunct to daily oral hygiene procedures.

Adult↗

Contemporary research on parenting. The case for nature and nurture.

Current findings on parental influences provide more sophisticated and less deterministic explanations than did earlier theory and research on parenting. Contemporary research approaches include (a) behavior-genetic designs, augmented with direct measures of potential environmental influences; (b) studies distinguishing among children with different genetically influenced predispositions in terms of their responses to different environmental conditions; (c) experimental and quasi-experimental studies of change in children's behavior as a result of their exposure to parents' behavior, after controlling for children's initial characteristics; and (d) research on interactions between parenting and nonfamilial environmental influences and contexts, illustrating contemporary concern with influences beyond the parent-child dyad. These approaches indicate that parental influences on child development are neither as unambiguous as earlier researchers suggested nor as insubstantial as current critics claim.

Animals↗

Social context in developmental psychopathology: recommendations for future research from the MacArthur Network on Psychopathology and Development. The MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Psychopathology and Development.

Accumulating evidence suggests that social contexts in early life have important and complex effects on childhood psychopathology. Spurred by the lack of an explicit operational definition that could guide the study of such effects, we define a social context operationally as "a set of interpersonal conditions, relevant to a particular behavior or disorder and external to, but shaped and interpreted by, the individual child." Building on this definition, we offer a series of recommendations for future research, based on five theoretically derived propositions: (a) Contexts are nested and multidimensional; (b) contexts broaden, differentiate, and deepen with age, becoming more specific in their effects; (c) contexts and children are mutually determining; (d) a context's meaning to the child determines its effects on the child and arises from the context's ability to provide for fundamental needs; and (e) contexts should be selected for assessment in light of specific questions or outcomes. As reflected in an increasingly rich legacy of literature on child development and psychopathology, social contexts appear to influence emerging mental disorders through dynamic, bidirectional interactions with individual children. Future research will benefit from examining not only statistical interactions between child- and context-specific factors, but also the actual transactions between children and contexts and the transduction of contextual influences into pathways of biological mediation. Because adverse contexts exert powerful effects on the mental health of children, it is important for the field to generate new, more theoretically grounded research addressing the contextual determinants of psychological well-being and disorder.

Child↗

Evolution and revolution in child psychiatry: ADHD as a disorder of adaptation.

Current knowledge about early plasticity and children's responsiveness to environmental modifications as well as the atheoretical nature of current nosological systems necessitate alternative models to explain the phenomena of childhood behavioral and emotional disturbances. Evolutionary biology provides one such framework. It organizes data from the behavioral and cognitive sciences and parallels similar efforts in other areas of medicine and biology. Through an evolutionary biological lens, some mental disorders are better viewed as an adaptive response to early pathogenic environments and/or reflect the optimization of brain function to some environments at the cost of poorer response to the demands of other environments. As an example, the authors examine attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in relation to evolutionary theories of psychology and biology and clarify the potentially adaptive nature of characteristics of inattention, impulsivity, and motoric hyperactivity, depending on the nature of child's environments. Reframing ADHD characteristics according to evolutionary theory has important treatment implications for clinicians and offers researchers opportunities for novel scientific discoveries.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

Parenting styles, adolescents' attributions, and educational outcomes in nine heterogeneous high schools.

This article examined the contemporaneous and predictive relations between parenting styles, adolescents' attributions, and 4 educational outcomes. Data were collected from adolescents attending 6 high schools in California and 3 high schools in Wisconsin during the 1987-1988 and 1988-1989 school years. The results of path analyses partially confirmed the central hypotheses. Adolescents who perceived their parents as being nonauthoritative were more likely than their peers to attribute achievement outcomes to external causes or to low ability. Furthermore, the higher the proportion of dysfunctional attributions made for academic successes and failures, the lower the levels of classroom engagement and homework 1 year later. Although adolescents' attributional style provided a bridge between parenting style and 2 educational outcomes, it did not fully explain the impact of parenting on those outcomes. Additional analyses within gender and ethnic subgroups reinforced the overall pattern of findings observed within the entire sample.

Achievement↗

A phase I trial of radiotherapy and simultaneous 24-hour paclitaxel in patients with locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

Preclinical studies have demonstrated that tumor cells exposed to paclitaxel (Taxol; Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Princeton, NJ) for protracted periods (ie, 24 hours) and then irradiated undergo enhanced radiation-induced cell kill. Importantly, paclitaxel-induced tumor cell mitotic arrest at the time of radiation was associated with the enhanced cell kill. At the Case Western Reserve Cancer Center, we have conducted a phase I trial in 24 patients with either locally advanced or recurrent/metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma to evaluate the clinical and pharmacologic effects of a 24-hour paclitaxel infusion combined with radiotherapy. The maximum tolerated dose was < or =75 mg/m2. Dose-limiting toxicity was febrile granulocytopenia. Mucositis was significant and necessitated the use of enteral feeding tubes in the majority of patients. All patients with locally advanced disease demonstrated either a complete response or major partial response. At a median follow-up of 13.4 months, disease has relapsed in only two of 22 patients with locally advanced disease. Pharmacokinetic studies revealed that a dose of > or =75 mg/m2 achieved near steady-state mean paclitaxel plasma concentrations greatly exceeding the threshold concentrations shown to alter microtubule function and induce tumor cell mitotic arrest in vitro. Pharmacodynamic studies performed at 21 to 26 hours after initiation of infusion demonstrated that a dose of > or =75 mg/m2 uniformly induced tumor cell mitotic arrest and oral epithelial mitotic arrest. The pharmacologic data and outcome results provide a strong rationale for the continued use of a 24-hour paclitaxel infusion and concurrent radiation for the treatment of newly diagnosed, locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma in an experimental setting.

Adult↗

Assessing the MMPI-based Cook-Medley Hostility Scale: the implications of dimensionality.

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory- (MMPI-) based Cook-Medley Hostility scale (Cook & Medley, 1954) historically has been used to investigate links between personality factors and health outcomes. We assessed the dimensionality of 27 Cook-Medley items previously found to predict mortality using full-information maximum likelihood factor analysis. The factor analyses revealed that these items serve as indicators for several constructs, with some factors apparently reflecting word usage rather than a meaningful psychological dimension. Our analyses indicate that the psychological meaning of these (sub)scales is ambiguous and differs according to the respondent's gender. The findings are discussed in the context of evidence to support the construct validity of the scale and the implications of dimensionality for making inferences concerning the link among scale scores, personality factors, and health outcomes.

Adult↗

The sexual desire inventory: development, factor structure, and evidence of reliability.

The purpose of this investigation was to develop a self-administered questionnaire to measure sexual desire. In the development phase, items were generated and pilot-tested with 24 subjects. Based on these data, items were deleted, added, or modified. Next, in Study One, the Sexual Desire Inventory (SDI) was administered to 197 females and 117 males. Factor analyses revealed that the SDI was multifactorial; however, none of the generated factor solutions up to five factors yielded a good fit. Interpretation of the factors led to revisions of the SDI. It was hypothesized that sexual desire might consist of two related dimensions; dyadic sexual desire and solitary sexual desire. Items on the SDI were modified to measure these two dimensions, and the revised SDI was administered to 249 females and 131 males. Factor analysis supported the presence of these two dimensions. Internal consistency estimates using Cronbach's alpha revealed coefficients of .86 for dyadic sexual desire and .96 for solitary sexual desire, providing preliminary evidence for the reliability of the SDI. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Adolescent↗

Over-time changes in adjustment and competence among adolescents from authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, and neglectful families.

In a previous report, we demonstrated that adolescents' adjustment varies as a function of their parents' style (e.g., authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, neglectful). This 1-year follow-up was conducted in order to examine whether the observed differences are maintained over time. In 1987, an ethnically and socioeconomically heterogeneous sample of approximately 2,300 14-18-year-olds provided information used to classify the adolescents' families into 1 of 4 parenting style groups. That year, and again 1 year later, the students completed a battery of standardized instruments tapping psychosocial development, school achievement, internalized distress, and behavior problems. Differences in adjustment associated with variations in parenting are either maintained or increase over time. However, whereas the benefits of authoritative parenting are largely in the maintenance of previous levels of high adjustment, the deleterious consequences of neglectful parenting continue to accumulate.

Achievement↗