Impulsiveness and venturesomeness in Canadian children

Impulsiveness among Undergraduates from the United Arab Emirates and Jordan: Role of Socio-demographic Variables

BACKGROUND

Some undergraduate students may appear impulsive in their behavior without taking enough time to think, and impulsiveness may vary according to gender, academic specialization, and academic level.

OBJECTIVE

This study investigated the differences in impulsiveness between undergraduates of different gender, academic specializations, and academic years at three private universities in the United Arab Emirates and Jordan.

METHOD

The research design of the study was a survey in nature. The researchers collected data online using a translated Arabic version of the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11) as described in Patton et al..1 A sample of 334 undergraduates was selected using the convenient non-probability sample technique.

RESULTS

To analyze data, the researchers deployed descriptive and inferential statistics and found no significant differences between the students in the subscales of motor impulsiveness, non-planning, attentional impulsiveness, and the total scale score according to gender, academic specializations, and academic years variables.

CONCLUSION

The researchers concluded that undergraduates have a moderate level of impulsiveness; except for attentional impulsiveness, the results indicated that the average student's score on the subscale was low. Motor impulsiveness, non-planning impulsiveness, and attentional impulsiveness were not significantly different between males and females, academic specialization, academic year variables, and their interaction. The limitations and implications of these findings are discussed.

The Psychological Assessment of Impulsivity: A Review

A review of the clinical assessment of impulsivity with common psychological tests is presented. Although the term impulsivity is well known in the field of psychology and psychiatry, there are often misconceptions of the definition of the term and related psychometric aspects on both the empirical and clinical levels. Proposed is a definition that is in agreement with the different perspectives of the concept such that impulsivity is viewed as disordered behavior occurring with little or no premeditation or psychological capacity for delay. The assessment of impulsivity with the Bender Gestalt and Draw-A-Person tests, Wechsler scales, Rorschach, Self-Report, and Behavior Rating Scales cited in Psychological Abstracts and Dissertation Abstracts through 1984 is reviewed. It is concluded that the validity of these tests for assessing impulsivity has yet to be shown due to methodological and conceptual problems.

Sibling relationships and empathy across the transition to adolescence

Although socioemotional competencies have been identified as key components of youths' positive development, most studies on empathy are cross-sectional, and research on the role of the family has focused almost exclusively on parental socialization. This study examined the developmental course of empathy from age 7 to 14 and the within-person associations between sibling warmth and conflict and youths' empathy. On three occasions across 2 years, mothers, fathers, and the two eldest siblings from 201 White, working- and middle-class families provided questionnaire data. Multilevel models revealed that, controlling for youths' pubertal status and parental education, girls' empathy increased during the transition to adolescence and then leveled off, but boys' lower levels of empathy remained relatively unchanged. Moreover, controlling for parental responsiveness and marital love, at times when firstborns and second-borns reported more sibling warmth and less sibling conflict than usual, they also reported more empathy than usual. The within-person association between sibling warmth and empathy also became stronger over time. Findings highlight gender differences in empathy development and the unique role of siblings in shaping each other's socioemotional characteristics during adolescence.

Heritability and longitudinal stability of impulsivity in adolescence

Impulsivity is a multifaceted personality construct that plays an important role throughout the lifespan in psychopathological disorders involving self-regulated behaviors. Its genetic and environmental etiology, however, is not clearly understood during the important developmental period of adolescence. This study investigated the relative influence of genes and environment on self-reported impulsive traits in adolescent twins measured on two separate occasions (waves) between the ages of 11 and 16. An adolescent version of the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS) developed for this study was factored into subscales reflecting inattention, motor impulsivity, and non-planning. Genetic analyses of these BIS subscales showed moderate heritability, ranging from 33-56% at the early wave (age 11-13 years) and 19-44% at the later wave (age 14-16 years). Moreover, genetic influences explained half or more of the variance of a single latent factor common to these subscales within each wave. Genetic effects specific to each subscale also emerged as significant, with the exception of motor impulsivity. Shared twin environment was not significant for either the latent or specific impulsivity factors at either wave. Phenotypic correlations between waves ranged from r = 0.25 to 0.42 for subscales. The stability correlation between the two latent impulsivity factors was r = 0.43, of which 76% was attributable to shared genetic effects, suggesting strong genetic continuity from mid to late adolescence. These results contribute to our understanding of the nature of impulsivity by demonstrating both multidimensionality and genetic specificity to different facets of this complex construct, as well as highlighting the importance of stable genetic influences across adolescence.

Dysfunctional, but not functional, impulsivity is associated with a history of seriously violent behaviour and reduced orbitofrontal and hippocampal volumes in schizophrenia

Aggression and violent acts have been linked with impulsive responding. We investigated whether impulsive personality trait, especially suggestive of dysfunctional impulsivity (i.e. fast and inaccurate responding where this is non-optimal), is associated with a history of seriously violent behaviour and specific brain deficits in schizophrenia. Twenty-four male participants with schizophrenia, of whom 10 had a history of serious physical violence, and 14 healthy male participants were assessed on impulsiveness (dysfunctional impulsivity), venturesomeness (functional impulsivity), and empathy. All participants underwent magnetic resonance imaging. The results revealed that participants with schizophrenia and a history of violence showed elevated impulsiveness but had comparable scores on venturesomeness and empathy dimensions. Impulsiveness scores correlated negatively with reduced orbitofrontal grey matter volume in both the patient and healthy control groups, and with hippocampal volume in the patient group. Our findings suggest that dysfunctional, but not functional, impulsivity is elevated in patients with schizophrenia with a propensity for repetitive violence, and this in turn appears to be associated with reduce volumes of both the orbitofrontal cortex grey matter and the hippocampus. Violence risk prediction and management strategies in schizophrenia may benefit from including specific measures of dysfunctional impulsive traits.

Parallel developmental trajectories of sensation seeking and regular substance use in adolescents

This study applied piecewise latent growth modeling to longitudinal survey data from 2 different samples of adolescents (N=1,002 and N=1,206) to examine the hypothesis that development of sensation seeking in middle school would predict development of substance use (cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana) in middle school and high school. Results showed that sensation seeking had strong predictive value for both concurrent and distal marijuana and alcohol use in both samples; however, initial level of sensation seeking predicted initial level of cigarette use during high school in 1 sample only. White participants scored consistently higher on both initial level and rate of increase in sensation seeking than did participants of other ethnicities. Advantages of this methodology are discussed in the context of substance use research.

Effects of social-cognitive training on students' empathy 1The study is a part of the project “Evaluation of cognitive skills training in the county of Hordaland”. The training program was initiated and funded by the National Education Office of Hordaland County, which also initiated the evaluation. This latter stage has been funded by a grant from the Royal Ministry of Education, Research and Church Affairs in Norway

The study evaluated the effect of a school-based social-cognitive training program on 14- and 15-year-old students'empathy. Two instruments were used, an empathy subscale derived from Gresham and Elliot's Social Skills Rating System and Olweus' Empathic Responsiveness Questionnaire. Significant shifts in the direction of higher empathy were found for students in the training condition but not for students in the comparison condition. No interaction effects between condition (training or comparison) and students' sex were found.