Psykisk ohälsa som en följd av stress påverkar kognitiva och emotionella funktioner, såsom minne, uppmärksamhet, koncentration och beslutsfattande. Alla dessa är nödvändiga egenskaper i arbetet som lokförare, där föraren ansvarar för sin egen och andras säkerhet, och behöver sin totala prestationsförmåga. Arton lokförare,40-57 år, de flesta med lång yrkeserfarenhet deltog i denna undersökning. Resultaten indikerar att det att ha varit inblandad i en tågolycka med dödlig utgång kan i mångafall ha långsiktiga, psykologiska följdverkningar för lokföraren. Förarens sociala nätverk framstår som en viktig komponent i den psykiska läkningsprocessen efter en påkörning. Det förefaller att för en bra och hållbar återhämtning krävs insatser som innefattar bl.a. professionell hjälp samt stöd från familj, kamrater och företagsledning.

This study aimed to examine differences in influence between online news (e.g., New York Times) and social networking sites (e.g., Facebook and Twitter) on attitudes in political campaigns. In a web-based experiment, campaign, polls and election between two fictitious candidates were simulated. Participants’ explicit and implicit attitudes as well as voting behavior were assessed using self-report items and the Implicit Association Test (IAT). The results reveal that information emanating from online news had a significant influence on explicit and implicit attitudes while that of social networking sites did not. Overall, negative items had a stronger impact than positive ones, more so in online news compared to social networking sites. Negative information from either type of media was more likely to change participants’ explicit attitudes in a negative direction and as a consequence also change their vote. Practical implications of the findings and limitations of the study are discussed.

The fundamental cause of weight-related problems, from obesity to anorexia, is an imbalance between calories consumed and calories expended. The "nutritional status" concept embraces more than food-intake. It elucidates the dynamics between supply, demand and factors that affect metabolism, energy balance and energy expenditure. In recent years, major changes in the spatial-temporal structures of everyday life that could be possible contributors to weight-related issues of adolescents have emerged. A modern life style of low activity, irregular meal times, late-night food intake, stress and sleep deprivation possibly leads to a disturbed regulation of food intake which further can generate physical and/or psychological illnesses. Traditional studies of eating behavior use food diaries focusing on the average intake of energy and nutrients (e.g. Bellisle et al., 2003). Such methods are demanding for the respondent and require details about consumed amounts. A "Meal Matrix" (Lennernas & Andersson, 1999) has been used in studies of several different Swedish cohorts (e.g. Wissing et al., 2000). The Meal Matrix consists of seven food categories and eight different meal "types". Categorization is based on visible properties (food types) but at the same time reflecting invisible properties (nutrients). In the present study the Meal Matrix was developed further to be used as part of a questionnaire in a study of eating behaviors in 1281 adolescents between 12 and 17 years old in a southern Swedish municipality. Meal patterns in adolescents were assessed in relation to time of day for intake, sleep and physical activity. The aim of the study was to 1) test a self-report concept for food based classification of eating behaviors in adolescents, 2) to evaluate the nutritional quality of food and meals among them and 3) to get information about the rhythm of eating and slee-ping in relation to time of day and the biological clock.

Previous research has shown that about 30% of adolescent girls and 15% of adolescent boys suffer from disordered eating (DE) which can be defined as problematic eating below criteria for eating disorders according to DSM-V (Hautala et al., 2008; Herpertz-Dahlman et al., 2008). Even sub-clinical unhealthy weight-control behaviors have predicted outcomes related to obesity and eating disorders five years later (Neumark-Sztainer et al., 2006). However, two issues question the validity of DE. First, in contrast to eating disorders, under- or overweight/obesity are not necessary parts of DE. Second, some symptoms and correlates of DE are similar to those of depression. E.g., parent-adolescent relationships seem to play an important role in explaining both DE (Hautala et al., 2011; Berge et al., 2010) and internalizing problems (Soenens et al., 2012). Thus, this study examined associations between DE and a wide range of internalizing and externalizing problems, parent-adolescent relationship characteristics, and food intake and sleep habits in a general population of adolescents. Comparing results with and without controlling for depression reveals whether DE is a specific problem or merely a depressive symptom. This study also explored whether DE and the other variables under study are associated independently of weight status (underweight, overweight/obesity, and normal weight), specific to under- or overweight, or spurious if taking weight status into account.

The study is based on the first wave of an on-going longitudinal study, and all measures are child-reported (N=1,281). Adolescents attending grades 7 to 10 in a Southern Swedish municipality (age 12.5 to 19.3, M = 15.2, SD = 1.2) filled out questionnaires in class.  DE was measured using the SCOFF, a five-item screening scale validated for use in general populations (e.g. Muro-Sans et al., 2008; Noma et al., 2006).

The results of univariate ANOVAs indicate that associations with DE were largely independent of weight status. Moreover, most associations with disordered eating were spurious when controlling for depression. However, some associations remained. Above and beyond depression effects, adolescents with DE reported lower self-esteem, stronger feelings of being over-controlled by their parents and active withholding of information towards them, consumption of fewer meals during the week, and higher levels of daytime sleepiness. Boys with ED slept more hours during the week and ate more fruits and vegetables than boys without ED. In conclusion, despite an overlap between depressive symptoms and disordered eating, this study provides ample evidence that sleep, nutrition habits, self-esteem, and parental control issues distinguish eating disordered adolescents from those suffering from general depressive symptoms.

Previous research has shown that about 30% of adolescent girls and 15% of adolescent boys suffer from disordered eating (DE) which can be defined as problematic eating below criteria for eating disorders according to DSM-V (Hautala et al., 2008; Herpertz-Dahlman et al., 2008). Even sub-clinical unhealthy weight-control behaviors have predicted outcomes related to obesity and eating disorders five years later (Neumark-Sztainer et al., 2006). However, two issues question the validity of DE. First, in contrast to eating disorders, under- or overweight/obesity are not necessary parts of DE. Second, some symptoms and correlates of DE are similar to those of depression. E.g., parent-adolescent relationships seem to play an important role in explaining both DE (Hautala et al., 2011; Berge et al., 2010) and internalizing problems (Soenens et al., 2012). Thus, this study examined associations between DE and a wide range of internalizing and externalizing problems, parent-adolescent relationship characteristics, and food intake and sleep habits in a general population of adolescents. Comparing results with and without controlling for depression reveals whether DE is a specific problem or merely a depressive symptom. This study also explored whether DE and the other variables under study are associated independently of weight status (underweight, overweight/obesity, and normal weight), specific to under- or overweight, or spurious if taking weight status into account.

The study is based on the first wave of an on-going longitudinal study, and all measures are child-reported (N=1,281). Adolescents attending grades 7 to 10 in a Southern Swedish municipality (age 12.5 to 19.3, M = 15.2, SD = 1.2) filled out questionnaires in class.  DE was measured using the SCOFF, a five-item screening scale validated for use in general populations (e.g. Muro-Sans et al., 2008; Noma et al., 2006).

The results of univariate ANOVAs indicate that associations with DE were largely independent of weight status. Moreover, most associations with disordered eating were spurious when controlling for depression. However, some associations remained. Above and beyond depression effects, adolescents with DE reported lower self-esteem, stronger feelings of being over-controlled by their parents and active withholding of information towards them, consumption of fewer meals during the week, and higher levels of daytime sleepiness. Boys with ED slept more hours during the week and ate more fruits and vegetables than boys without ED. In conclusion, despite an overlap between depressive symptoms and disordered eating, this study provides ample evidence that sleep, nutrition habits, self-esteem, and parental control issues distinguish eating disordered adolescents from those suffering from general depressive symptoms.

This study describes and tests an empirical-based theoretical model of rapport in an investigative interview context. Essential in this study is whether rapport, operationalized as the humanitarian interview, in two interviews with a six-month retention interval, had any causal effects on the respective memory performance of 146 and 127 interviewees. Independent-samples t‐tests revealed, on both occasions, that a humanitarian rapport interview led to a larger amount of reported information altogether, with more central and peripheral information, than a dominant non-rapport interview did. Regardless of the interview approach, mixed between-within analysis of variance showed a substantially larger amount of reported information in the first interview than the second. The amount of false information reported in both interviews was statistically invariable, regardless of interviewing style.

The amount and the quality of provided information in a police interview can be seen as the lifeblood of a crime investigation where a Therapeutic Jurisprudential approach may act as a facilitating factor.

The aim of the present experimental study was to investigate the causal relationship between the humanitarian respectively the dominant interviewing approach and interview outcome. Interview outcome means the memory performance and psychological well-being. The experiment comprised three phases where 127 subjects between 17 and 70 years old participated. The first phase was an exposure where the subjects acted against each other in pairs in a computer simulation with a scenario symbolizing a crime event. A week after the exposure phase, the subjects were interviewed in a humanitarian or a dominant style symbolizing a police interview after a crime event. Sex month later, the subjects were interviewed again in the same manner, symbolizing the interview in the court proceeding.

Before and after every phase, the participants completed Antonovsky’s sense of coherence questionnaire and Spielberger’s STAI – the state form. The results from the two interview phases will be discussed in terms of interviewing styles, memory performance, that is the amount and quality of provided information, and psychological well-being.

Significance testing based on p-values is standard in psychological research and teaching. Typically, research articles and textbooks present and use p as a measure of statistical evidence against the null hypothesis (the Fisherian interpretation), although using concepts and tools based on a completely different usage of p as a tool for controlling long-term decision errors (the Neyman-Pearson interpretation). There are four major problems with using p as a measure of evidence and these problems are often overlooked in the domain of psychology. First, p is uniformly distributed under the null hypothesis and can therefore never indicate evidence for the null. Second, p is conditioned solely on the null hypothesis and is therefore unsuited to quantify evidence, because evidence is always relative in the sense of being evidence for or against a hypothesis relative to another hypothesis. Third, p designates probability of obtaining evidence (given the null), rather than strength of evidence. Fourth, p depends on unobserved data and subjective intentions and therefore implies, given the evidential interpretation, that the evidential strength of observed data depends on things that did not happen and subjective intentions. In sum, using p in the Fisherian sense as a measure of statistical evidence is deeply problematic, both statistically and conceptually, while the Neyman-Pearson interpretation is not about evidence at all. In contrast, the likelihood ratio escapes the above problems and is recommended as a tool for psychologists to represent the statistical evidence conveyed by obtained data relative to two hypotheses.

Artificial grammar learning (AGL) has been used extensively to study implicit learning. In this task participants first observe letter sequences generated by a grammar. In a later test phase participants are asked to distinguish new grammatical and ungrammatical sequences. Participants are able to do this, both when the letters instantiating the grammar remain the same (standard AGL) and when the letters are changed between training and test (transfer AGL).

Virtually all models of AGL assume that there is no learning during the test phase. Yet, test learning can occur in AGL and the structural constraints of a grammar can imply useful cues at test as well as at training. For example, grammatical test sequences are often more similar to each other than are ungrammatical test sequences to each other. Similarity to test sequences observed so far can then be used as a cue for classification.

In the current research I used an episodic memory model, Minerva II, in order to simulate a recent study by Hendricks et al. (2013). They found that for standard AGL performing dual tasks at test was more detrimental to performance than dual tasks at training. For transfer AGL performing dual tasks at training reduced performance as much as dual tasks at test. The authors interpreted these results as revealing automatic vs. intentional process in AGL: transfer AGL requires intentional processes at both training and test, whereas standard AGL requires intentional processes at test but only automatic processes at training.

I modelled these experiments using a version of Minerva II extended to learn at test. The model encodes sequences probabilistically into memory based on a learning rate at both training and test. Each test sequence is classified based on the similarity to sequences encoded in memory so far, so that test sequences also influence classification. The model does not distinguish between automatic and intentional processes. The learning rate at training was varied independently of the learning rate at test in order to simulate dual task manipulations in different phases of the task. In order to model transfer AGL I used a simple repetition coding scheme in Minerva II.

For standard AGL the simulations revealed that learning rate at test had a much greater impact on classification than learning rate at training in Minerva II.  In contrast, for transfer AGL the effects of changing learning rates at training was the same as changing learning rate during test. In essence, the empirical data may not reveal automatic vs. intentional processes, but simply effects of a single similarity process. The simulation results and the notion of test learning invites useful avenues for further computational and empirical research in order to establish the processes involved in implicit learning. 

Therapeutic jurisprudence sees the law as a social force; its underlying idea is that legal procedures should promote the psychological well-being (PWB) of individuals involved in juridical actions. In this experimental study, 146 subjects were assigned to one of two groups: one undergoing humanitarian rapport interviews, the other undergoing non-rapport interviews. Each group underwent two interviews separated by a six-month interval. The causal effects of interview style on interviewees’ PWB were measured using sense of coherence and StateTrait Anxiety inventories, both pre and post interview at Interviews I and II. Analysis of covariance of scores from both interviews showed interaction effects between interview style and interviewees’ anxiety and sense of coherence, respectively. At Interview I, a non-rapport approach was related to increased anxiety, that is, decreased PWB when comparing pre- and post-interview testing. At Interview II, a humanitarian rapport approach promoted improved sense of coherence, thus, increased PWB. More empirical research on PWB in relation to therapeutic jurisprudence is needed. The discussion focuses on how PWB should be measured in a therapeutic jurisprudential context of investigative interviews.

Therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ) aims to execute legal procedures in ways that promote the psychological well-being (PWB) of the individuals involved. This experimental study investigates the impact of personality on interviewees’ memory performance and PWB from a TJ perspective. PWB was defined by state anxiety (STAI-S) and sense of coherence (SOC). Interviewees’ personalities were assessed using the 10-item short version of the Big Five Inventory (Rammstedt, B., & John, O. P. (2007). Measuring personality in one minute or less: a 10-item short version of the Big Five Inventory in English and German. Journal of Research in Personality, 41, 203!212) and State!Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-T; Spielberger, C. D., Gorsuch, R., Lushene, P. R. Vagg, P. R., & Jacobs, G. A. (1983). State!Trait Anxiety Inventory for Adults. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press]. Participants (N D 146) were assigned to undergo either humanitarian rapport interviews or non-rapport interviews. Each group underwent one exposure (computer simulation) and two interviews separated by a 6-month interval. Regression analysis showed that neuroticism (N), openness to experience (O) and extraversion (E) predicted interviewees’ memory performance; N and O were moderated by interview style. Moreover, E and agreeableness (A) predicted higher SOC and lower STAI-S, that is, increased PWB, whereas N predicted lower SOC and elevated levels of STAI-S, that is, lower PWB. In Interviews I and II, STAI- T and a non-rapport approach were a stronger predictor of lower SOC. The results are discussed from a TJ perspective.

Aims: This study searches for developmental mechanisms explaining why parents possess less knowledge about their adolescent children, as these get older. Family processes related to adolescents’ striving for and parents’ granting of autonomy, and adolescents’ relations outside the family might be such developmental mechanisms.

Methods: A total of 2,415 Swedish adolescents aged 13 to 18 participated in at least two consecutive waves of a five-year time-sequential survey study with annual assessments. Of a sub-sample of 10-16 year-olds, 1,223 parents filled out questionnaires at Times 1 and/or 3. Multi-level analyses were conducted to test whether family process variables and adolescents’ relations outside the family explained intraindividual residual change of parental knowledge, and whether these effects explained normative age variations of knowledge.

Results: Adolescent-reported parental knowledge declined more and more steeply with age. Adolescents’ reduced disclosure of information and their defiance of parental requests explained about 40 percent of this normative age variation. Other processes such as increasing parental solicitation of information and adolescents’ improved peer relations had an enhancing effect on parental knowledge and thus slowed down the decline of knowledge. Few gender differences occurred.

Conclusions: Adolescents achieve autonomy from parents by managing information they provide to them and by acting against parental requests. These autonomy-related behaviors explain a large portion of the normative age decline of knowledge. However, increased parental solicitation and improved relations outside the family increasingly contribute to parental knowledge, thus limiting its decline. This suggests that family members balance adolescents’ autonomy and their connectedness with the family.

Parents can support their adolescent child’s psychosocial development by a parenting style which is warm and involved, firm and consistent, and which grants psychological autonomy (the freedom to have one’s own thoughts and feelings). Psychological autonomy granting is regarded as particularly beneficial for the prevention of anxiety, depression, or other kinds of internalizing distress (McLeod, et al., 2007; Steinberg, 2001). However, longitudinal research has produced mixed evidence (Birmaher, et al., 2000; Colarossi & Eccles, 2003; Galambos et al., 2003; Steinberg, et al., 1994). Even less is known on long-term effects into young adulthood. Besides parental behaviors, also the parent-adolescent relationship might be important. Teens who feel close to their parents and who communicate frequently with them might experience a “secure base” which protects against depression and fosters the children’s well-being even in the future. Thus, this study examined reciprocal effects between parenting styles (psychological control and affection) and the parent-adolescent relationship (felt closeness to and communication with parents) and emotional, social and psychological well-being, and depression.

This study used the 2002, 2005, and 2007 waves of an ongoing longitudinal study, representative for the USA. Out of 1,319 adolescents aged 11-19 in 2002, 575 young adults, then 18-22 years old were re-interviewed in 2005. By 2007, more adolescents had reached young adulthood, thus, 878 young adults of age 18-24 were re-interviewed in 2007. Also 224 of the originally youngest adolescents were re-interviewed in 2007 as a separate sample. Parenting styles were assessed in the adolescent data collections 2002 and 2007, and parent-child relationships and well-being at all occasions.

Albeit adolescents’ perceptions of mothers’ and fathers’ parenting styles were highly correlated, specific effects on well-being occurred in cross-lagged regression analyses. Maternal psychological control in 2002 predicted lowered levels of emotional and social well-being and elevated levels of depression in 2005 (β’s = -.10, -.08, and .11, resp.). In part, these effects were found even after five years in 2007. Maternal support did not have any significant effects. For fathers, only one effect was found, of psychological control 2002 on depressive symptoms 2007 (β = .08). Measures of the parent-adolescent relationship did not predict well-being, with the exception of communication to mothers in 2002 which predicted emotional well-being in 2005.

In the opposite direction of effects, depression predicted maternal psychological control five years later (β = .18, p = .023), despite the smaller sample of still adolescent respondents. Also some effects of parenting and of well-being on the parent-young adult relationship occurred.

In conclusion, advice to parents might focus on how to avoid psychologically controlling behaviors, especially for mothers were these might conflict most with North-American gender roles. Future research should investigate why such detrimental behaviors occur in response to adolescents’ emotional problems. That parental support as a general style proved unimportant does not mean that support never would be needed: It might be that in key situations of danger or adolescent problems, adolescents need the impression that parents care, and not only abstain from psychological control (Olsson & Wik, 2009).

Barber (e.g., 1996, 2005) has proposed that parental behavioral control has a unique effect on adolescents’ normbreaking, even if psychological control and support are statistically controlled.  Barber uses a scale of parental knowledge as a measure of behavioral control.  However, parental knowledge and normbreaking are more closely associated with adolescents’ free disclosure of information than with behavioral control.  Moreover, disclosure explains part of the association between knowledge and normbreaking, whereas behavioral control does not (Kerr & Stattin, 2000; Stattin & Kerr, 2000).  This makes parental knowledge a questionable measure of behavioral control, and it suggests that family communication and relationship processes affect normbreaking more than behavioral control does.  However, Kerr and Stattin did not specifically test Barber’s theory.  They did not statistically control psychological control and support which might have “cleaned” parental knowledge of its relationship and communication-associated facets and thus might have left a more valid measure of parental control.  Thus, the first aim of this study is to test whether the unique association of parental knowledge with adolescent normbreaking, after controlling psychological control and parental support, can be explained by parental behavioral control—as Barber proposes—or rather by family relationship processes—as Stattin and Kerr suggest.

Given previous empirical findings (e.g., Kerr & Stattin, 2000; Stattin & Kerr, 2000), interpreting parental knowledge as an index of relationship properties or as behavioral control might both be insufficient.  As an alternative, this paper takes an action-theoretical perspective and views parental knowledge as an expectancy in an expectancy-value model.  The extent to which adolescents ascribe knowledge about themselves to their parents can be seen as adolescents’ expectancy that the parents will gain knowledge about their actions.  A value that together with this expectancy might predict less adolescent normbreaking is adolescents’ desire to please and comfort their parents.  According to Individuation Theory (Youniss & Smollar, 1985), this is a common desire among adolescents.  If adolescents expect their parents will be knowledgeable about their activities, and if they do not want to worry them, they might engage in less normbreaking than adolescents who either do not care about their parents’ worries or who expect that the parents will not know about their normbreaking.  The second aim of this study is to test this interaction effect on normbreaking.

A German sample of 968 13- and 16-year-olds filled out questionnaires at school.  Scales for parental knowledge, psychological control, parental support, and normbreaking were identical to Barber’s (2005) study.  Behavioral control was measured with scales for spare-time control (curfew rules, low laissez-faire), school control, and harsh punishments.  Family relationship processes were tapped by scales of parental warmth and openness and of adolescents’ caring for their parents.  The latter measure aimed at assessing family processes similar to those covered by Kerr and Stattin’s scale of free disclosure of information.  Finally, the desire to please and comfort their parents was measured with a newly developed scale.  All measures evinced adequate psychometric properties.

Concerning the first aim of this study, parental knowledge was strongly related to low normbreaking (Model 0), even after controlling psychological control and parental support (Model 1).  Although the various facets of behavioral control were associated with normbreaking (Model 0), only punishments explained a small part of the effect of parental knowledge (Model 2c).  But punishments were inversely related to parental knowledge and predicted more instead of less normbreaking.  Out of the two family relationship process variables, caring for parents explained a small part of the effect of parental knowledge (Model 2e).  In total, however, the largest part of the effect of parental knowledge remained unexplained (Model 3).  Thus, the results do not support Barber’s idea that parental knowledge is an index of behavioral control.  The findings support Stattin and Kerr’s (2000, Kerr & Stattin, 2000) critique of knowledge as a measure of behavioral control.  However, also family relationship processes explained only little of the association between parental knowledge and normbreaking.

The results testing the expectancy-value model of parental knowledge and the desire to please the parents, explaining low normbreaking, were as follows.  Parental knowledge, the desire to please the parents, and their interaction predicted low normbreaking (if latent main effect factors were scaled to SD = 1, beta = –.39, –.22, and ‑.06, resp., all p’s < .05).  The stronger the desire to please the parents, the steeper the decline of normbreaking with increasing parental knowledge.  Most adolescents desired strongly to please their parents.  However, results suggest almost no effect of parental knowledge if adolescents have no desire to please their parents.  In summary, the proposed expectancy-value model is supported by the data.

Barber has described parenting as a unidirectional process.  This description rests on studies using parental knowledge as an index for parental behaviors.  As in previous studies, this interpretation of parental knowledge is not supported.  This paper provides initial support for a new view on parental knowledge:  Adolescents actively decide about what they do, in the light of what they expect the consequences to be and how they evaluate them.

Parental support predicts low levels of depression in teenagers, and psychological control high levels. However, this pattern holds true for cross-sectional research only whereas longitudinal support is mixed at best. Moreover, few studies have investigated long-term effects into young adulthood. This study explores effects of teenagers’ experienced parental support and psychological control on depression and parent-child relationships in young adulthood, three and five years later. It also explores parental behaviors as outcomes of teen depression. Out of 1,319 U.S. American adolescents aged 11-19 in 2002, those who had reached young adulthood by 2005 (n = 575) and 2007 (n = 878), respectively, were re-interviewed. Also the youngest participants, who still were in adolescence, took part in 2007 (n = 224). In cross-lagged panel regressions, maternal psychological control predicted depression and low well-being over time whereas maternal support predicted close parent-child relationships. For the youngest participants, effects on parenting were tested, and depression predicted increased maternal psychological control after five years. Only few effects were found for fathers. These findings suggest that psychological control does not make young adults withdraw from the relationship, despite their increased independence. Instead, they still expose themselves to this parenting behavior, resulting in increased depression. Depression also contributes to psychological control, resulting in a vicious circle of maternal psychological control and youth depression. Parental support in contrast is linked to relationship closeness over time, but largely unrelated to both depression and psychological control. The differential roles of psychological control and support will be discussed further.

Paradoxically, knowledge that parents posses about their adolescent children’s activities declines with age, but low levels of knowledge are associated with externalizing and internalizing problems. Might there only be a small group of adolescents with steeply declining parental knowledge? Or, are interindividual differences in knowledge and its normative decline independent of each other? This study will explore different trajectories of knowledge in order to answer this question.

Second, why is low parental knowledge associated with adolescent problems? Focusing on internalizing problems, does parental knowledge really predict them over time, or do they reduce parental knowledge, for example because a depressed or unconfident adolescent tends to withdraw from conversation? This study will determine the direction of effects.

Third, if parental knowledge predicts internalizing problems, why is this so? Previous studies suggest that both knowledge and internalizing might result from family interaction processes (Kerr & Stattin, 2000), but the same results could also be read as mediation from knowledge via family interactions to internalizing. Furthermore, knowledge was only partly explained by parent-adolescent interaction processes, lending doubt to the interpretation of parental knowledge as a mere expression of them (Barber, 2005). Thus, parental knowledge might either be an indicator of parent-adolescent communication or a causal factor in its own. This study will contribute to clarification. Aversive parental behaviors and adolescent non-disclosure and oppositional behavior were chosen as predictors because they belong to problematic parent-adolescent interactions and because of their links to adolescent internalizing problems.

A representative Swedish community sample of 1,744 adolescents of age 10-14 at T0 was re-assessed at four annual occasions T1-4. Each year, adolescents filled out questionnaires at school.

Using Growth Mixture Modeling, three trajectories of parental knowledge, and two trajectories each of self-esteem and depression were revealed across T1-4. The three knowledge trajectories differed in level, but each trajectory had virtually the same age decline.

In all subsequent analyses, the effects of predictor variables at T0 on T1-4 trajectories of either knowledge or depression, or self-esteem were tested, above and beyond the stability of the respective dependent variable since T0. These analyses revealed effects of parental knowledge on trajectories of depression and self-esteem, but not vice versa.

A conceptual model was concluded from a series of analyses including parent-adolescent interaction variables. If parents exerted aversive behaviors such as being harsh or making fun of their children, these disclosed not much information and behaved oppositional which in turn predicted low levels of parental knowledge. Although knowledge had predicted adolescent depression and low self-esteem when entered in the analyses alone, it did not consistently predict these variables if adolescents’ opposition and non-disclosure were taken into account.

In conclusion, the normative decline of parental knowledge and interindividual differences are two independent phenomena which might have different causes. This study has contributed to an understanding of how parent-adolescent interactions lead to interindividual differences in knowledge. Low levels of knowledge were not a consistent causal factor for adolescent internalizing symptoms, but clearly indicated parent-adolescent problems.

Associations between parenting behaviors of support, behavior control and overcontrol, and psychological control/disrespect with adolescent internalizing and externalizing problems have been studied extensively (Barber et al., 2012; Kerr & Stattin, 2000), and also adolescent behaviors of disclosure and secrecy in the context of these problems (Frijns et al., 2010). However, few studies have assessed how parent and child behaviors might moderate each other’s associations with problems (Keijsers et al., 2009). This study investigates interaction effects of the above-mentioned parent and adolescent behaviors when predicting depression, loneliness, and low self-esteem (internalizing), and delinquency, aggression, and drug/alcohol use (externalizing). Given the variety of behaviors and problems under study, it is hypothesized that various kinds of moderation effects will emerge.

An ethnically diverse sample of 1,281 adolescents attending grades 7 to 10 in a Southern Swedish municipality (age 12.5 to 19.3, M = 15.2, SD = 1.2) filled out questionnaires in class. All scales have been published internationally; however, some items were added to short scales. Each of the internalizing and externalizing problems was regressed on all possible combinations of one of the four parenting variables and one of the two adolescent behaviors under study, resulting in 48 regression analyses.

Confirming previous findings, parent psychological control and overcontrol were associated with internalizing and externalizing problems, and behavior control and insufficient support with internalizing problems. Adolescent disclosure predicted low levels of both kinds of problems and secrecy predicted high levels. Two-way interactions of parent and adolescent behaviors added significantly (p < .05) to the variance in 13 of 48 analyses which is beyond chance level (p < .001). In addition to the inspection of significant effects, t-values across all analyses were analyzed in order to distinguish between more general trends and solitary effects on specific internalizing or externalizing problems only. Confirming the hypothesis, interaction effects varied across the combinations of parent and adolescent behaviors (η² = .26) and were further moderated by the distinction between internalizing and externalizing problems (η² = .38). These effects were grouped into five kinds of interaction effects: In mutually enhancing and mutually exacerbating effects, two positive or two negative, respectively, behaviors increased each other’s associations with problem levels. In protection effects, usually adolescents’ behavior reduced associations between negative parenting and problems. Relationship split effects might reflect an alienated parent-adolescent relationship in which negative behaviors cannot do much additional harm. Finally, maintained relationship/sabotage means that the lowest level of problems occurred if one generation maintained the relationship by a positive behavior and the other generation abstained from “sabotaging” it by a negative behavior. Otherwise, problem behaviors increased sharply without the other generation’s behavior having any large effect any longer.

In conclusion, analyses provide ample evidence that adolescents’ behavior moderates links between parents’ behaviors and adolescents’ internalizing and externalizing problems. Possible causal interpretations include adolescents as “gatekeepers” of parenting efforts, families’ functional and dysfunctional adaptations, and parent and child behavior combinations as consequences of internalizing and externalizing problems.

Is there another way to predict adolescents’ depressive symptoms than by trait-like parenting characteristics, such as affective support (Barber, Stolz, & Olsen, 2005)? Drawing from a systems perspective (Lollis & Kuczynski, 1997) and Social Domain Theory (Smetana & Asquith, 1994), this paper suggests that parental responses in key situations might be important for the development of adolescent depression: (a) adolescent-parent conflict; (b) dangerous situations; (c) need of help with a problem. These three situations require steering adolescents’ behaviors in a responsive way, i.e., combinations of demandingness and responsiveness. Thus, the roles of authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, and indifferent parental responses in these key situations will be rested.

In order to have a standard of comparison, well-established parenting styles (Barber, et al., 2005; Steinberg, 2001) will be evaluated, too. Lack of support has been found to predict depressive symptoms. The prediction by behavior control and the support-by-control interaction will be tested as well, for a better comparability to the test of parental responses in specific situations.

A total of 108 Swedish adolescents aged 14-15 (67 girls, 41 boys) filled out questionnaires at school. For depressive symptoms and parental support, well-established American scales were used. Behavior control was measured by scales tapping parental control and solicitation of information, respectively. 3 (situations) by 4 (parental responses) by 2 (parent genders) scales of parental responses in key situations were newly developed. For each type of situations, the respondents received two typical examples (e.g., having problems with a friend or a girlfriend/boyfriend as an example of a problem) and rated the frequencies of various parental responses. Because all mother and father scales were highly correlated, they were standardized and added (complementary analyses with either mother or father data yielded similar results; so did analyses including adolescent gender).

Parental responses in key situations explained 30% of variance of adolescent depression. Authoritative responses to problems were associated with low levels of depression. Moreover, indifferent responses to all three kinds of situations predicted higher levels of depression.

Main effects of parenting style variables explained 14% of the variance of depression. Adding the interactions between support and parental control and solicitation explained additional 8% of variance. Most of this effect was due to an interaction between acceptance and solicitation. Authoritarian parenting predicted the highest depression levels whereas supportive styles predicted low depression. When entering either reactions in key situation first into the regression equation and parenting styles next, or vice versa, each of them predicted significant portions of variance above and beyond the other. However, reactions in key situations produced the larger increase in explained variance.

Albeit cross-sectional data do not allow for causal conclusions, this study has generated important hypotheses for future studies: If parents constantly bother their adolescent child with requests to talk about something, in combination with low levels of support, the child is likely to show elevated levels of depression. Even more deleterious might be adolescents’ experience to be left alone when they need their parents.

Traditionally, parents’ firm and consistent behavior control has been regarded as effective protection against adolescents’ drug use and delinquency (Steinberg, 2001). However, the validity of findings has been questioned (Stattin & Kerr, 2000; Kerr & Stattin, 2000). The widely-used indicator of behavior control, parental knowledge, appears rather to reflect a trusting relationship (Masche, 2010). However, little is known about which facets of the relationship are most important: Is it more “nasty,” guilt inducing and interfering behavior, i.e. psychological control, which leads to substance use and deviance? Or is it parents’ ability to be “nice” and create close family relations marked by solidarity that prevents these problem behaviors?

A total of 143 adolescents attending grade 9 (age 15-16, 58% male) in two medium-sized Swedish cities filled out questionnaires at school. Scales on alcohol and drug use focused on frequency and intensity of use and on symptoms of substance abuse. The deviance scale ranged from minor delinquency to violent acts. Adolescents answered also scales on their experienced relationship quality to their parents, on parents’ psychological control and behavior control (e.g., needing permission before going out on the evening). Mother and father scales were summed because of their high inter-correlations. Drug consumption was generally low, and several items did not even vary between participants. Still, all scales were sufficiently reliable (α’s ≥ .80). Because 44% of the sample had other than Swedish ethnic background – in most instances were the parents born in the Middle East –, ethnicity, gender, and their interaction were included into the analyses, but did not predict substance use or deviance.

Although alcohol use and deviance were highly correlated, these two problem behaviors were somewhat differently associated with parenting and relationship variables: Adolescents who consumed a lot of alcohol tended to have poor relationships to psychologically controlling parents. However, deviant adolescents reported in the first place psychologically controlling parents and only to a lesser degree also a poor relationship quality. Drug use (which generally was low) was only associated with psychological control. Multiple regression analyses revealed whether each parenting and relationship variable uniquely predicted substance use and deviance. The results were similar to the bivariate correlations, confirming the general importance of psychological control. Relationship quality still predicted low alcohol use, but was not any longer important for deviance when controlled for psychological control. Behavior control did not predict any of these problem behaviors in any analysis.

This study confirms findings questioning the role of behavior control (Kerr & Stattin, 2000; Stattin & Kerr, 2000). It tells what might be important instead. Hostile, guilt-inducing behavior was consistently associated with externalizing problems whereas a close relationship showed more specific associations. To the degree that parents affect adolescents’ externalizing behaviors rather than are affected by them, these findings suggest that parents above all should avoid being “nasty,” i.e. psychologically controlling. Being “nice,” i.e., to contribute to a close companionship with their children, also appears important, but more specifically against alcohol consumption.  

Föräldrar och barn till 962 familjer med elever i årskurserna 2, 4, 6 och 9 fyllde i enkäter om barns cyklande till skolan och till fritidsaktiviteter, i syftet att få kunskap om möjliga bakomliggande faktorer. Förutom lokala förhållanden som återspeglas i skillnader mellan deltagande skolorna hade föräldrars förebild som cyklister och barns egna cykelvanor de starkaste samband med barns cyklande, dessutom i viss mån barns och föräldrars attityder. Artikeln drar slutsatser om möjliga strategier för att öka barns säkra cyklande.

As children grow up, they expand their territorial range (Andrews, 1973). This increasing autonomy allows them for reaching new places of activities, thereby attaining further developmental tasks. However, less is known about what children and adolescents do that makes them familiar with an increasing area. Various means such as walking, riding a bicycle, taking a bus or getting a lift by car differ in the mobility and the knowledge about the environment they provide (Rissotto & Tonucci, 2002) and in the motor, perceptual, and cognitive skills required to use them. Thus, these means of transportation may not only be tools for autonomy development, but becoming able to use them might be a part of autonomy development (Bullens et al., 2010). Thus, the frequencies of walking, riding a bicycle or a bus, and of being given a lift by the parents, will be explored in two domains: transportation to school and to spare-time activities. The former focuses on the use of means of transportation to a mandatory destination whereas the latter explores the twofold autonomy to make use of a means of transportation and to access targets which might change with age.

A total of 715 children (54.4% girls) attending grades 4, 6, and 9 (ages 10, 12, and 15) and 497 parents of children (51.5% girls) attending grades 2, 4, and 6 (ages 8, 10, and 12) filled out questionnaires. Both parents and children indicated on how many days of the week the child walked, cycled, took the bus, and was driven to school and to free-time activities, respectively. Multilevel analyses were used because participants were nested in 16 schools which were nested in 6 municipalities in adjacent regions of Denmark and Southern Sweden. Predictor variables were grade, gender (dummy-coded), and distance to school (four categories, recoded to approximate kilometers). In the next step, country was added into equations, in order to explain part of the variance between municipalities. Finally, theoretically meaningful interactions between grade, gender, and distance from school were added. The final model for each dependent variable was the one with the best fit (AIC, BIC). Variables had been transformed to approach normal distribution.

Walking and riding the bicycle (especially in girls) were mainly used for shorter distances. In contrast, bus and the family car were used for more distant destinations. Danish children used more active, individual ways of transportation whereas Swedish children used public transport. Girls tended to use more passive means such as being driven by car or riding the bus whereas boys, at least at certain ages, walked more or rode their bicycles. Although age effects were similar on a global level, such as that children depended less of their parents’ help to get somewhere, details differed. The youngest children did not any longer need the car ride to school, but it were the oldest ones who did not any longer get lifts to spare-time activities nearby. Thus, age trends in how to get to school did not explain age trends in accessing spare-time activities. On the contrary, when controlling for getting lifts to school, the absence of net age effects in parent-reported car rides turned out to be the sum of the opposite trends towards independence from parents and towards having more destinations to reach.

The results show that children choose varying means of transportation according to their development of needs and skills. The differences between the age trends for the two types of destinations suggest a larger flexibility than known previously. Still, gender and cultural differences affect this facet of autonomy development.

The aim of the present doctoral thesis was to examine to what extent personality traits and approaches to learning contribute to academic performance in upper secondary school (high school), after controlling for the well-known fact that general intelligence accounts for a large part of the variance. The general proposition of the thesis is that personality traits are stable dispositions and therefore predispose an individual to behave or act in a specific manner (Costa & McCrae, 1976). Additionally, another important determinant of academic performance is students’ approaches to learning, the way someone studies and makes sense of a particular school subject (Biggs, 1999). Study I examined how personality traits, divided into facets, predict academic performance in different school subjects. The results from several SEM analyses showed that personality, specifically Conscientiousness, has a positive influence on academic performance. In addition, there was a negative relation between Extraversion and academic performance and a positive relation between Neuroticism and academic performance. There were also interesting findings on the facet levels for all traits. The major conclusion of this study is that personality traits, both on the factor level and on the facet level, are important to academic performance in general, but sometimes more specifically to different school subjects. In Study II, the aim was to investigate the unique contribution of learning approaches to academic performance. A second aim was to explore possible gender differences in learning approaches. It was found that learning approaches contributed uniquely to academic performance, over and above personality and general intelligence. Differences between girls and boys were found, both with respect to the use of learning approaches and the consequences of these learning approaches for performance results. Based on a longitudinal design, the aim of Study III was to explore to what extent personality traits predict academic performance. Conscientiousness, Extraversion and Neuroticism were found to predict overall academic performance. Results suggest that personality traits, as measured at the age of 16, can predict academic performance at the age of 19, and more specifically: the grades of conscientious students improved from age 16 to age 19. This study extends previous work by assessing the relationship between the Big Five and academic performance over a three-year period.

The aim of the present study was to explore the ability of personality to predict academic performance in a longitudinal study of a Swedish upper secondary school sample. Academic performance was assessed throughout a three-year period via final grades from the compulsory school and upper secondary school. The Big Five personality factors (Costa & McCrae, 1992) - particularly Conscientiousness and Neuroticism - were found to predict overall academic performance, after controlling for general intelligence. Results suggest that Conscientiousness, as measured at the age of 16, can explain change in academic performance at the age of 19. The effect of Neuroticism on Conscientiousness indicates that, as regarding getting good grades, it is better to be a bit neurotic than to be stable. The study extends previous work by assessing the relationship between the Big Five and academic performance over a three-year period. The results offer educators avenues for improving educational achievement.

Background and aims: In many countries, the consumption of fruit, berries, and vegetables is about half the recommended. Berries contain bioactive compounds that may affect cognitive functions. School children are often hungry and thirsty during the lectures before lunch and this affects performance. Could a berry-smoothie decrease thirst and hunger, and thereby affect school performance? The aim was to investigate if a cross-over design can be used to study the effects of a smoothie on performance in a school setting.

Methods: Methodological challenges included developing an appetizing berry-smoothie and choosing a suitable experimental design that could be adapted to school conditions.

In the pilot study, 236 Swedish children aged 10–12 years participated in a cross-over design and were administered either a berry-smoothie or a fruit-based placebo after the midmorning break. Both beverages provided 5% of the daily energy intake. Performance was assessed using the d2 Test of Attention measuring attention span and concentration. Statistical analyses were performed using the Wilcoxon signed rank test in StatXact v 10.3.

Results: The consumption of both the smoothie and the placebo increased the attention span and concentration significantly.

Conclusion: The children's performance in the d2 Test of Attention was positively affected by beverage consumption. The effect was attributed to the supplementation of water and energy. In this design, the study did not permit any conclusive results regarding the effect of bioactive compounds on performance. In a coming study, a third group, receiving no beverage, should be included aiming to identify the cause of the effect.

Introduction: Spatial working memory is susceptible to impairment early on in Parkinson’s disease (PD). Later on, the wearing off phenomenon of motor function during dopaminergic treatment seems to carry over into working memory.

Aim: To initialize development of a test capable of capturing the variation in spatial working memory within a patient’s daily functioning.

Methods: The test consisted of 192 instances of n-back, yes/no tasks, with correctness and latency of response automatically recorded. We collected data from two persons, one PD patient and one healthy control, relatively evenly sampled regarding time-of-day. The patient took levodopa once every three hours and performed tests on 70 occasions (the healthy control on 33 occasions). A frequency band containing period lengths from 2 to 4 hours was defined as the region of interest in regard to the medication cycle. The resulting  time  series  were  digitally  band-pass  filtered allowing only the relevant frequencies to pass. Reasoning that filtering would preserve essential information if the time series were periodic, but eradicate it if they were not, we used as our primary outcome measure the correlations between filtered and unfiltered data.

Results: Correlations between the pass-band relating to the levodopa intake schedule and the full data were positive and significantly larger for the patient than for the control. These differences applied to both latency and accuracy.

Conclusion: This supports the hypothesis that the test is able to detect levodopa-dependent variations in spatial working memory.