Less attention to emotional faces is associated with low empathy and prosociality in 12-to 20-month old infants.

The development of empathy and prosocial behavior begins in infancy and is likely supported by emotion processing skills. The current study explored whether early emerging deficits in emotion processing are associated with disruptions in the development of empathy and prosociality. We investigated this question in a large, diverse sample of 147, 11- to 20-month-old infants (42% female; 61% Black; 67% low socioeconomic status). Infants completed two observational tasks assessing prosocial helping and one task assessing empathy and prosocial comforting behavior. Infants also completed an eye-tracking task assessing engagement and disengagement with negative emotional faces. Infants who attended less to angry, sad, and fearful faces (i.e., by being slower to look at and/or quicker to look away from negative compared to neutral faces) engaged in fewer helping behaviors, and effect sizes were larger when examining infants' attention toward the eye regions of faces. Additionally, infants who were quicker to look away from the eye regions of angry faces, but not the whole face, displayed less empathy and comforting behaviors. Results suggest that as early as 12 months of age, infants' decreased attention toward negative emotional faces, particularly the eye regions, is associated with less empathy and prosociality during a developmental period in which these abilities are rapidly maturing.

A network analysis of eating disorder symptoms and co-occurring alcohol misuse among heterosexual and sexual minority college women.

Eating disorders and alcohol misuse are common problems among college women. Individually, both have high prevalence rates and are associated with a significant economic burden. Yet eating disorders and alcohol misuse also frequently present simultaneously, which may increase symptom severity and related impairment. These associations are especially important to test in sexual minority populations, as symptoms may present differently, and the prevalence and personal cost of these disorders may be even higher for this group. The present study (N = 1072 undergraduate college women) used network analysis to identify pathways, central symptoms, and bridge symptoms across alcohol misuse and eating disorder symptoms. A network comparison test was used to determine if the network structure differed between heterosexual women (n = 923) and sexual minority women (n = 149). For the overall network, cognitive restraint, excessive exercise, and frequency of binge drinking, were the most central symptoms. Bridge symptoms included drinking in the morning, purging, alcohol-related guilt, and muscle building. Heterosexual and sexual minority women did not differ significantly in network structure or global strength. Regardless of sexual orientation, prevention efforts for eating disorders and alcohol misuse among college women should target central and bridge symptoms.

Latent profile analysis of impulsivity and perfectionism dimensions and associations with psychiatric symptoms.

BACKGROUND: Impulsivity and perfectionism are transdiagnostic personality factors that have been studied extensively and shown to relate to externalizing and internalizing pathology respectively. Typically, these personality factors are antithesized, with impulsivity characterized by lack of control and perfectionism characterized by rigid overcontrol. METHODS: The current study (N = 1,353 undergraduate students) used latent profile analysis to identify subgroups based on impulsivity and perfectionism dimensions and tested the relations of these subgroups with the symptomatology of ten prevalent types of psychopathology (depression, worry, social anxiety, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder inattentive subtype, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder impulsive-hyperactive subtype, alcohol use, obsessive-compulsive disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, restrictive eating pathology, and binge eating pathology). RESULTS: The latent profile analysis identified four meaningful subgroups: high perfectionism, high impulsivity, combined impulsivity and perfectionism, and low impulsivity and perfectionism. The combined group was the most prevalent, comprising almost half of the sample. Further, the perfectionism group had the highest scores for obsessive-compulsive disorder, worry, and restrictive eating pathology, the impulsivity group had the highest scores for alcohol use disorder, and the combined group had the highest or second-highest scores across all types of psychopathology. LIMITATIONS: Limitations include the undergraduate sample, self-report, cross-sectional study design, and high bivariate residuals. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest impulsivity and perfectionism can co-occur. Further, the co-occurrence of these personality traits may heighten risk for psychopathology and help explain comorbidity across internalizing and externalizing disorders. Future research should continue to investigate the presentation, prevalence, and treatment for individuals high in both perfectionism and impulsivity.