Catching Up on Multilevel Modeling.

This review focuses on the use of multilevel models in psychology and other social sciences. We target readers who are catching up on current best practices and sources of controversy in the specification of multilevel models. We first describe common use cases for clustered, longitudinal, and cross-classified designs, as well as their combinations. Using examples from both clustered and longitudinal designs, we then address issues of centering for observed predictor variables: its use in creating interpretable fixed and random effects of predictors, its relationship to endogeneity problems (correlations between predictors and model error terms), and its translation into multivariate multilevel models (using latent-centering within multilevel structural equation models). Finally, we describe novel extensions-mixed-effects location-scale models-designed for predicting differential amounts of variability.

A Cross-Cultural Examination of the Role of Youth Emotion Regulation in Mentoring Relationships.

Youth mentoring programs have grown in popularity, both within the United States (U.S.) and abroad, as an intervention to support youth with common behavioral and emotional difficulties. However, it is unclear whether certain dimensions of youth risk may diminish the positive impact of formalized mentoring relationships. The current study therefore examined whether youth emotion regulation, a transdiagnostic risk factor for both externalizing and internalizing behavioral difficulties, predicted mentoring relationship quality and the likelihood of early match closure. Participants included 1,298 randomized mentor-youth dyads from two nationwide mentoring programs, one with chapters across the U.S. (youth: 56% female; 37% White), and another with chapters across Mexico (youth: 49% female; 100% non-Indigenous). At baseline, youth completed the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents (ERQ-CA). At program completion, youth and mentors completed measures of mentoring relationship quality. Multigroup structural equation models of youth outcomes revealed that greater youth use of cognitive reappraisal predicted better mentoring relationship quality in both countries when co-varying for sex, and that this relationship was stronger for mentor-youth pairs in the U.S. compared to those in Mexico. These findings have important implications for understanding the ways in which youth characteristics might shape the quality and impact of mentoring relationships across different cultural settings.

Interactive Effects of Coping Strategies and Emotion Dysregulation on Risk for Peer Victimization.

The aim of the current longitudinal study was to examine the interactive effects of six common coping strategies (i.e., adult support seeking, friend support seeking, problem solving, humor, passive coping, and cognitive distancing) and emotion (i.e., anger and sadness) dysregulation on concurrent levels and subsequent trajectories of peer victimization over a 2-year period. Participants were 287 predominantly Caucasian students (53.7% boys; ages 6-9) from an elementary school located in the Midwestern United States. Self-reported coping strategies and emotion dysregulation were assessed at baseline; children also provided ratings of peer victimization annually over a 2-year period. Results indicated that the effectiveness of particular coping strategies may depend on children's overt, undercontrolled displays of anger and sadness. Consistent with recent recommendations, these findings suggest that some youth may require interventions that focus on both enhancing emotion regulation skills and teaching strategies for responding to peer victimization in a more adaptive manner.

Going the Distance: Technical Assistance to Community Prevention Coalitions and its impact on Prevention Coalitions Over Time.

Prevention Coordinators are the linking agents providing technical assistance between universities and communities in the PROSPER model to support the implementation and sustainability of youth and family programs that have reduced substance abuse in prior research. This study examines the outcomes and trajectory of the frequency of contact of technical assistance (i.e. dosage) with community collaborative prevention coalitions across the three stages of coalition development. After communities were randomized, members of PROSPER coalitions (n=12) provided information about the quality of their operations at five time points across four and one-half years; prevention coordinators reported on the frequency of contact with their community coalitions at 14 intervals across the same period of time. This study only utilizes the intervention communities. Results from correlational models show that levels of dosage relate to the quality of internal coalition processes over time, but that the direction of the relationship changes over time: high frequency of contact early on relates to lower coalition-rated functioning initially. In contrast, early frequency of contact relates to higher levels of coalition functioning at later time points. Furthermore, longitudinal mixed models show that levels of dosage were consistent over time. These results provide empirical support of the importance of a proactive technical assistance model and add further evidence that important distinctions exist among different coalition developmental phases.

Is Receiving Social Support Costly for Those Higher in Subjective Socioeconomic Status?

BACKGROUND: Although social support is generally thought to have positive consequences, this is not always the case. Receiving social support may threaten independence, which research has shown is more highly valued among those higher in socioeconomic status. As a result, support may be less strongly associated with positive outcomes for those higher in socioeconomic status (SES). Conversely, those lower in SES are more interdependent (Kraus, Piff, Mendoza-Denton, Rheinschmidt, & Keltner, 2012; Stephens, Markus, & Phillips, 2014) and may, therefore, be less threatened when receiving social support. This study examined SES as a moderator of how daily received support (within and between persons) predicted both daily psychological stressor appraisals and diurnal cortisol. METHOD: Healthy undergraduate students (N = 128) participated in a 3-day study. Participants completed one or more evening diaries the first day of the study and additional questionnaires upon awakening, throughout the day, and at bedtime during the following 2 days. Support was measured each evening and stressor appraisals and cortisol were measured throughout the day. RESULTS: As expected, for those who reported higher subjective SES, receiving more support than usual (within-person support) was associated with a flatter pattern of diurnal cortisol the next day. Although SES did not moderate the association of either within- or between-person support with stressor appraisals, the receipt of more support on average (between-person support) was associated with higher reported resources to cope. CONCLUSION: The findings demonstrate that there may be physiological costs-but not psychological costs-associated with the receipt of support for those higher in socioeconomic status.

Temperamental Anger and Effortful Control, Teacher-Child Conflict, and Externalizing Behavior Across the Elementary School Years.

This study examined teacher-child conflict as a possible mediator of the effects of temperamental anger and effortful control on subsequent externalizing behavior. Reciprocal influences between teacher-child conflict and externalizing behavior were also examined. Participants were 1,152 children (49% female; 81.6% non-Hispanic White) from the Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. Multivariate growth curve modeling revealed that greater effortful control at age 54 months indirectly predicted lower levels of, and subsequent changes in, externalizing behavior from kindergarten to Grade 6 through reduced teacher-child conflict. An alternative model, in which greater effortful control predicted lower teacher-child conflict through lower externalizing behavior, received less support. Within persons, greater-than-expected teacher-child conflict predicted greater-than-expected teacher-reported externalizing behavior concurrently and over time.

Examining the Highs and Lows of the Collaborative Relationship Between Technical Assistance Providers and Prevention Implementers.

The PROSPER model uses a three-tiered community partnership, university researcher, and Cooperative Extension-based technical assistance system to support the delivery of evidence-based interventions in communities. This study examines the trajectory and predictors of the collaborative relationship between technical assistance providers and community teams across the three phases of organization, implementation, and sustainability. Members of 14 PROmoting School-university-community Partnerships to Enhance Resilience (PROSPER) community teams and directors of local agencies rated communities' levels of readiness and adolescent substance use norms. Technical assistance providers rated their collaborative relationship with their teams at 14 occasions across 4.5 years. Results from mixed models show that levels of collaboration were stable until the sustainability phase, when they increased significantly. Team differences in change were significant during the implementation phase. Community readiness predicted levels of the collaborative relationship over time: high community readiness was associated with a high level of collaboration during organization, but a decline in collaboration during implementation. These results provide a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between technical assistance provision and community prevention teams and lead to recommendations to improve dissemination models to achieve a greater public health impact.

The Power to Detect and Predict Individual Differences in Intra-Individual Variability Using the Mixed-Effects Location-Scale Model.

Our goal is to provide empirical scientists with practical tools and advice with which to test hypotheses related to individual differences in intra-individual variability using the mixed-effects location-scale model. To that end, we evaluate Type I error rates and power to detect and predict individual differences in intra-individual variability using this model and provide empirically-based guidelines for building scale models that include random and/or systematically-varying fixed effects. We also provide two power simulation programs that allow researchers to conduct a priori empirical power analyses. Our results aligned with statistical power theory, in that, greater power was observed for designs with more individuals, more repeated occasions, greater proportions of variance available to be explained, and larger effect sizes. In addition, our results indicated that Type I error rates were acceptable in situations when individual differences in intra-individual variability were not initially detectable as well as when the scale-model individual-level predictor explained all initially detectable individual differences in intra-individual variability. We conclude our paper by providing study design and model building advice for those interested in using the mixed-effects location-scale model in practice.

Reward Seeking and Cognitive Control: Using the Dual Systems Model to Predict Adolescent Sexual Behavior.

Research has provided support for the dual systems model of adolescent risk taking, but the model has rarely been applied to sexual behavior. Using data from the NICHD SECCYD (N = 958; Mage = 15.07, SD = 0.18), this study examined the effects of cognitive control, reward seeking, and their interaction on sexual behavior. Results of structural equation models revealed that performance on behavioral tasks assessing reward seeking and cognitive control uniquely predicted sexual intercourse, but the interaction between them was not significant. For oral sex, only cognitive control was a significant predictor. The findings provide additional support for the dual systems model, and suggest that reward seeking and cognitive control make unique contributions to adolescent sexual behavior.

Measuring individual differences in responses to date-rape vignettes using latent variable models.

Vignette methodology can be a flexible and powerful way to examine individual differences in response to dangerous real-life scenarios. However, most studies underutilize the usefulness of such methodology by analyzing only one outcome, which limits the ability to track event-related changes (e.g., vacillation in risk perception). The current study was designed to illustrate the dynamic influence of risk perception on exit point from a date-rape vignette. Our primary goal was to provide an illustrative example of how to use latent variable models for vignette methodology, including latent growth curve modeling with piecewise slopes, as well as latent variable measurement models. Through the combination of a step-by-step exposition in this text and corresponding model syntax available electronically, we detail an alternative statistical "blueprint" to enhance future violence research efforts using vignette methodology. Aggr. Behav. 43:60-73, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Victim Alcohol Intoxication During a Sexual Assault: Relations With Subsequent PTSD Symptoms.

This study examines associations between women's alcohol intoxication at the time of sexual assault and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Drawing on the dual representation theory (Brewin, Gregory, Lipton, & Burgess, 2010), we hypothesized that intoxication at the time of assault would be positively associated with both overall symptoms of PTSD and PTSD reexperiencing symptoms in particular. A total of 143 community women (ages 18-26 years; 71.3% European American) reporting sexual victimization completed questionnaires assessing severity of coercion involved in the assault, perceived level of intoxication at the time of assault, and current PTSD symptoms. Overall, results suggested that greater alcohol intoxication (but not alcohol use alone) was associated with more severe PTSD symptoms when controlling for severity of coercion. Furthermore, higher levels of victim intoxication at the time of the assault were most predictive of reexperiencing symptoms relative to the other symptom clusters.

Aggregated N-of-1 randomized controlled trials: modern data analytics applied to a clinically valid method of intervention effectiveness.

OBJECTIVE: Aggregated N-of-1 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) combined with multilevel modeling represent a methodological advancement that may help bridge science and practice in pediatric psychology. The purpose of this article is to offer a primer for pediatric psychologists interested in conducting aggregated N-of-1 RCTs. METHODS: An overview of N-of-1 RCT methodology is provided and 2 simulated data sets are analyzed to demonstrate the clinical and research potential of the methodology. RESULTS: The simulated data example demonstrates the utility of aggregated N-of-1 RCTs for understanding the clinical impact of an intervention for a given individual and the modeling of covariates to explain why an intervention worked for one patient and not another. CONCLUSIONS: Aggregated N-of-1 RCTs hold potential for improving the science and practice of pediatric psychology.

Considering between- and within-person relations in auto-regressive cross-lagged panel models for developmental data.

Longitudinal data can provide inferences at both the between-person and within-person levels of analysis, but only to the extent that the statistical models chosen for data analysis are specified to adequately capture these distinct sources of association. The present work focuses on auto-regressive cross-lagged panel models, which have long been used to examine time-lagged reciprocal relations and mediation among multiple variables measured repeatedly over time. Unfortunately, many common implementations of these models fail to distinguish between-person associations among individual differences in the variables' amounts and changes over time, and thus confound between-person and within-person relations either partially or entirely, leading to inaccurate results. Furthermore, in the increasingly complex model variants that continue to be developed, what is not easily appreciated is how substantial differences in interpretation can be created by what appear to be trivial differences in model specification. In the present work, we aimed to (a) help analysts become better acquainted with the some of the more common model variants that fall under this larger umbrella, and (b) explicate what characteristics of one's data and research questions should be considered in selecting a model. Supplementary Materials include annotated model syntax and output using Mplus, lavaan in R, and sem in Stata to help translate these concepts into practice.

Confirmatory measurement modeling and longitudinal invariance of the CompACT-15: A short-form assessment of psychological flexibility.

The Comprehensive Assessment of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Processes (CompACT; Francis et al., 2016) is a recently developed measure of psychological flexibility (PF) possessing several advantages over other measures of PF, including multidimensional assessment and relative brevity. Unfortunately, previous psychometric evaluations of the CompACT have been limited by their use of exploratory factor analysis to assess dimensionality, coefficient α to assess reliability, and a lack of attention to measurement equivalence in assessing change over time. The present study used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and item factor analysis (IFA) to examine the dimensionality, factor-specific reliability, longitudinal measurement invariance, and construct validity of the CompACT items in a longitudinal online sample of U.S. adults (N = 523). Converging evidence across CFA and IFA confirmatory latent variable measurement models provides support for the reduction of the 23-item CompACT to a 15-item short form with a more stable factor structure, acceptable reliability over large ranges of its three latent factors, and measurement equivalence of its items in assessing latent change over time. Results also support the construct validity of the CompACT-15 items based on its relations with theoretically relevant measures. Overall, the CompACT-15 appears to be a psychometrically sound instrument with the potential to contribute to research and intervention efforts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Longitudinal Grammaticality Judgments of Tense Marking in Complex Questions in Children With and Without Specific Language Impairment, Ages 5-18 Years.

PURPOSE: Identification of children with specific language impairment (SLI) can be difficult even though their language can lag that of age peers throughout childhood. A clinical grammar marker featuring tense marking in simple clauses is valid and reliable for young children but is limited by ceiling effects around the age of 8 years. This study evaluated a new, more grammatically challenging complex sentence task in children affected or unaffected with SLI in longitudinal data, ages 5-18 years. METHOD: Four hundred eighty-three children (213 unaffected, 270 affected) between 5 and 18 years of age participated, following a rolling recruitment longitudinal design encompassing a total of 4,148 observations. The new experimental grammaticality judgment task followed linguistic concepts of syntactic sites for finiteness and movement within complex clauses. Growth modeling methods evaluated group differences over time for four different outcomes; three were hypothesized to evaluate optional omissions of overt finiteness forms in authorized sentence sites, and one evaluated an overt error of tense marking. RESULTS: As in earlier studies of younger children, growth models for the SLI group were consistently lower than the unaffected group, although the growth trajectories across groups did not differ. The results replicated across four item types defined by omissions with minor differences for an item with an overt error of tense marking. Covariates of child nonverbal IQ, mother's education, and child sex did not significantly moderate these effects. CONCLUSION: The outcomes support the task as having potential screening value for identification of children with SLI and are consistent with linguistic interpretations of task demands.

Modeling Psychometric Relational Data in Social Networks: Latent Interdependence Models.

In the current paper, we propose a latent interdependence approach to modeling psychometric data in social networks. The idea of latent interdependence is adopted from social relations models (SRMs), which formulate a mutual-rating process by both dyad members' characteristics. Under the framework of the latent interdependence approach, we introduce two psychometric models: The first model includes the main effects of both rating-sender and rating-receiver, and the second model includes a latent distance effect to assess the influence from the dissimilarity between the latent characteristics of both sides. The latent distance effect is quantified by the Euclidean distance between both sides' trait scores. Both models use Bayesian estimation via Markov chain Monte Carlo. How accurately model parameters were estimated was evaluated in a simulation study. Parameter recovery results showed that all parameters were accurately recovered under most of the conditions investigated. As expected, the accuracy of model estimation was significantly improved as network size grew. Also, through analyzing empirical data, we showed how to use the estimates of model parameters to predict the latent weight of connections among group members and rebuild either a univariate or multivariate network at a latent trait level. Finally, we discuss issues regarding model comparison and offer suggestions for future studies.

Examining the influence of task set on eye movements and fixations.

The purpose of the present study was to examine the influence of task set on the spatial and temporal characteristics of eye movements during scene perception. In previous work, when strong control was exerted over the viewing task via specification of a target object (as in visual search), task set biased spatial, rather than temporal, parameters of eye movements. Here, we find that more participant-directed tasks (in which the task establishes general goals of viewing rather than specific objects to fixate) affect not only spatial (e.g., saccade amplitude) but also temporal parameters (e.g., fixation duration). Further, task set influenced the rate of change in fixation duration over the course of viewing but not saccade amplitude, suggesting independent mechanisms for control of these parameters.

Examining variability in the processing of agreement in novice learners: Evidence from event-related potentials.

The present study examines both properties of the language and properties of the learner to better understand variability at the earliest stages of second language (L2) acquisition. We used event-related potentials, an oral production task, and a battery of individual differences measures to examine the processing of number and gender agreement in two groups of low-proficiency English-speaking learners of Spanish who were tested in multiple sessions. The results showed an advantage for number, the feature also instantiated in the native language, as both groups showed a native-like P600 response to subject-verb and noun-adjective number violations across sessions. The more advanced group showed larger effects for number and marginal sensitivity to gender violations. These results suggest that native-like processing of shared features is possible even for novice learners, contrary to proposals suggesting that all morphosyntactic dependencies are initially processed in a non-native manner. Working memory (WM) was a predictor of P600 effects for number and also for gender (where the effect was marginal), suggesting that similar abilities may capture variability in the processing of both shared and unique features despite differences in overall sensitivity. Furthermore, whereas WM predicted performance on online tasks (P600 effects/oral production), verbal aptitude predicted performance on tasks examining morphosyntactic accuracy (grammaticality judgment task/oral production). Our results show that the linguistic properties of the L2, the individual characteristics of the learner, and the nature of the task at hand all play an important role in capturing the variability often observed in the L2 processing of agreement. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Preverbal Communication Complexity in Infants.

The development of prelinguistic communication in typically developing infants is marked by changes in complexity as well as frequency, yet most measures focus on frequency. In the current study we used the Communication Complexity Scale (CCS) to measure prelinguistic complexity of typically developing infants in a cross-sectional sample of 6-, 8-, 10- and 12-month-olds (N = 204) during semi-structured play interaction. For each toy/interactive episode, infants' highest level of communication complexity (ranging from 0 for no response to 12 for multi-word verbalization), for both joint attention (i.e., social) and behavior regulation (e.g., requesting) functions, was scored. In addition, the same interaction was coded for frequency of all prelinguistic communication acts. Results of multivariate models indicated age-related differences in prelinguistic complexity. Measures of prelinguistic complexity and frequency evidenced moderate to strong correlations, with age-related differences by function (joint attention and behavior regulation). Significant associations with parent-report communication questionnaires were observed for both complexity and frequency measures. Results indicate that evaluating complexity of infant preverbal communication skill with the CCS is a valuable approach that can meaningfully index developmental differences in prelinguistic and early linguistic communication.

Heritability of Specific Language Impairment and Nonspecific Language Impairment at Ages 4 and 6 Years Across Phenotypes of Speech, Language, and Nonverbal Cognition.

Purpose Early language and speech acquisition can be delayed in twin children, a twinning effect that diminishes between 4 and 6 years of age in a population-based sample. The purposes of this study were to examine how twinning effects influence the identification of children with language impairments at 4 and 6 years of age, comparing children with specific language impairment (SLI) and nonspecific language impairment (NLI); the likelihood that affectedness will be shared within monozygotic versus dizygotic twin pairs; and estimated levels of heritability for SLI and NLI. Twinning effects are predicted to result in elevated rates of language impairments in twins. Method The population-based twin sample included 1,354 children from 677 twin pairs, 214 monozygotic and 463 dizygotic, enrolled in a longitudinal study. Nine phenotypes from the same comprehensive direct behavioral assessment protocol were investigated at 4 and 6 years of age. Twinning effects were estimated for each phenotype at each age using structural equation models estimated via diagonally weighted least squares. Heritabilities were calculated for SLI and NLI. Results As predicted, the twinning effect increased the percentage of affected children in both groups across multiple language phenotypes, an effect that diminished with age yet was still not aligned to singleton age peers. Substantial heritability estimates replicated across language phenotypes and increased with age, even with the most lenient definition of affectedness, at -1 SD. Patterns of outcomes differed between SLI and NLI groups. Conclusions Nonverbal IQ is not on the same causal pathway as language impairments. Twinning effects on language acquisition affect classification of 4- and 6-year-old children as SLI and NLI, and heritability is most consistent in the SLI group. Clinical practice requires monitoring language acquisition of twins to avoid misdiagnosis when young or a missed diagnosis of language impairments at school entry.