Exploring Types of Parent Attachment via the Clustering Modules of a New Free Statistical Software, ROP-R.

The aim of the paper is threefold: (1) to demonstrate the rich repertoire of clustering capabilities of a ROPstat and R-based new and free software, called ROP-R, by illustrating several analyses with real psychological data; (2) to show how well ROP-R works in tandem with ROPstat software in complex classification analyses; and (3) to explore some nontrivial types of parent attachment using the clustering modules of ROP-R. Four modules of ROP-R are available for performing cluster analyses (CAs), with several methods (e.g., divisive hierarchical CA, k-medoids CA, k-medians CA, model-based CA) not found in other user-friendly menu-driven software. In the paper, mother and father attachment data are used from a study with adolescents (Mirnics et al., 2021) to illustrate how the ROP-R software can be used to perform various CAs and evaluate the results using attractive graphs and useful tables. Comparing different clustering methods, it was found that both standard AHCA and k-means CA could discover a 7-type structure, which was also verified by the nonstandard k-medians CA. However, the nonstandard k-medoids CA and MBCA methods were not very effective in identifying a structure with an acceptable overall homogeneity. Nevertheless, they were able to identify some types through extremely homogeneous clusters.

Mental health competencies are stronger determinants of well-being than mental disorder symptoms in both psychiatric and non-clinical samples.

The present study aimed to investigate whether the strength of mental health competencies and the severity of mental disorder symptoms, and their interaction, differ in the strength of their associations with several dimensions of well-being in Hungarian adult psychiatric and non-clinical samples. All respondent in the psychiatric sample (129 patients (44 male, 85 female)) and in the non-clinical community sample (253 adults (43 male, 210 female)) completed the Mental Health Test, six measures of well-being and mental health, and the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised. Including both mental health competencies and mental disorder symptoms in a regression model in both samples can predict patients' well-being even more accurately. Mental health competencies were positively related; mental disorder symptoms were negatively related to subjective well-being. In all models and in both samples, mental health competencies were found to be stronger determinants of well-being than mental disorder symptoms. The interaction of mental health competencies and mental disorder symptoms is no more predictive of well-being in either psychiatric or non-clinical samples than when the effects of each are considered separately. The assessment of mental health competencies has an important predictive value for well-being in the presence of psychopathological symptoms and/or mental disorders.

Preliminary validation of the Mental Health Test in a psychiatric sample.

To assist psychiatrists and clinical psychologists to assess their patients' psychological immune competence-based capacities and resources, depending on the mental health disorder diagnosis and the severity of the symptoms, the present study examined the psychometric properties of the Mental Health Test in a psychiatric sample. The research was carried out in four Hungarian healthcare facilities using a cross-sectional design. A total of 331 patients (140 male, 188 female, and 3 who preferred not to disclose their gender) completed the Mental Health Test, six well-being and mental health measures, and the Symptom Checklist-90. Psychiatrists and clinical psychologists reported the mental disorder status of each participant. Confirmatory factor analysis showed a good fit of the five-factor model to the data for the clinical version of the Mental Health Test (CFI = 0.972, RMSEA = 0.034). High internal consistency coefficients (α: 0.70-0.84; ω: 0.71-0.85) and excellent external and content validity were reported. The test is not sensitive to sociodemographic indicators but is sensitive to the correlates of well-being and to the symptoms of different types of mental disorders. Our preliminary findings suggest that the Mental Health Test is a suitable measure for assessing mental health capacities and resources in psychiatric samples.

Corrigendum: A new complex mental health test in a positive psychological framework.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.775622.].

Association between impulsivity and cognitive capacity decrease is mediated by smartphone addiction, academic procrastination, bedtime procrastination, sleep insufficiency and daytime fatigue among medical students: a path analysis.

BACKGROUND: Medical students are at high risk for sleep disturbance. One possible cause of their sleeping problem is impulsivity. We aim to investigate the possible mediators between medical students' impulsivity and sleep outcomes. Thus, we developed and investigated a model where the predictors were attentional, non-planning, and motor impulsivity subtraits. In the final model, subjective cognitive capacity decrease was the outcome variable. In light of previous findings, academic procrastination, smartphone addiction, and bedtime procrastination were considered important mediators as well as two variables of poor sleep, sleeping insufficiency, and daytime fatigue. METHODS: Medical students (N = 211; ageM = 22.15 years; ageSD = 3.47 years; 71.6% women) were recruited to complete an online survey comprised of demographics (age, gender), self-administered scales (Abbreviated Impulsiveness Scale, Bedtime Procrastination Scale, Abbreviated Impulsiveness Scale, Academic Procrastination Scale-Short Form) and questions on tiredness, daily fatigue and subjective cognitive capacity decrease. Correlation and path analyses were implemented to examine hypothesized relationships between the variables. RESULTS: Both attentional impulsivity (ß = 0.33, p < .001) and non-planning impulsivity (ß = -0.19, p < .01) had a direct relationship with cognitive capacity decrease. Attentional impulsivity was also associated with decreased cognitive capacity with a serial mediation effect via smartphone addiction, academic procrastination, bedtime procrastination, sleep insufficiency and fatigue (estimate = 0.017, p < .01). The indirect link between non-planning impulsivity and cognitive capacity decrease was mediated by academic procrastination, bedtime procrastination, sleep insufficiency and fatigue (estimate = 0.011, p < .01). CONCLUSIONS: Inability to stay focused and plan tasks effectively (directly and indirectly) predicts poor sleep outcomes. This relationship is mediated by excessive smartphone use, academic procrastination, and bedtime procrastination. Our findings are relevant in light of self-regulatory learning, which is crucial in medical education. This is a recursive cycle of planning, emotion regulation, proper strategy selection and self-monitoring. Future interventions addressing attentional and non-planning impulsivity, problematic smartphone use, academic procrastination, and in turn, bedtime procrastination might make this routine more effective. In the conclusion section, practical implications of the results are discussed.

Seeds that bloom on stony ground - Concept paper of the future perspectives of the unexploited capacities of positive clinical psychology in Hungary.

Positive psychology has fully examined the flourishing among healthy people but neglected to understand how "optimal human functioning" can apply to the life experiences of a vulnerable person. Considering methodological issues, this article gives a brief overview on how the conceptualization of mental health and mental disorders affects the consideration of strengths along with the presence of dysfunction with the emergence of positive psychology. First, we summarize the shortcomings of the applicability of clinical positive psychology, focusing especially on Hungarian clinical practice. Second, we discuss the problems with the conceptualization of mental health in positive psychological framework. Third, we propose a model, the Maintainable Positive Mental Health Theory based on capacities and competences. Finally, we conclude with methodological questions and present a research protocol. The key finding of our review is that the opportunity exists for psychiatrists and psychologists to embrace disability as part of human experiences and to show how people with vulnerabilities can be supported to recover. (Neuropsychopharmacol Hung 2022; 24(3): 113-119).

A new complex mental health test in a positive psychological framework.

According to the Maintainable Positive Mental Health Theory (MPMHT), the main pillars of positive mental health are global well-being, efficient coping that enables an individual to maintain positive conditions and functioning, savoring capacity, resilience, and dynamic self-regulation. This study presents the validation of a new five-scale mental health test (MHT), the MHT that operationalizes MPMHT. The methodology comprised two online cross-sectional studies using self-report questionnaires. Participants in Study I (n = 1,736; 448 males, 1,288 females; mean age 51.3 years; SD = 11.6 years) filled in the MHT, the Flow, the Positive emotions, Engagement, Positive Relationship, Meaning, Accomplishment Questionnaire (PERMA-Profiler), and the Flourishing Scale. Participants in Study II (n = 1,083; 233 males, 847 females; mean age 33.9 years; SD = 12.2 years) filled in the MHT, the Shortened Aspiration Index, the short form of the Beck Depression Inventory, the WHO Well-Being Index, the Satisfaction with Life Scale, the Purpose in Life Test, and the Schema Questionnaire-Short Form. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) identified a five-factor structure with 17 items in Study I that was confirmed with excellent fit measures in confirmatory factor analysis in Study II. Both studies indicated a high level of internal consistency (above 0.70). In each subscale, a minimum part of 44% did not overlap with the set of the other subscales. The content validity of the subscales was confirmed by 10 tests of mental health. We found a positive correlation of the self-regulation and resilience subscales with age, while women showed a higher level of savoring than men at all age levels. When Study I was replicated after 2 weeks and again after 11 months, excellent internal consistency and good test-retest correlation values of the MHT scales were found. The MHT can thus be considered a reliable and valid measurement tool for mental health.

How to Use Model-Based Cluster Analysis Efficiently in Person-Oriented Research.

Model-based cluster analysis (MBCA) was created to automatize the often subjective model-selection procedure of traditional explorative clustering methods. It is a type of finite mixture modelling, assuming that the data come from a mixture of different subpopulations following given distributions, typically multivariate normal. In that case cluster analysis is the exploration of the underlying mixture structure. In MBCA finding the possible number of clusters and the best clustering model is a statistical model-selection problem, where the models with differing number and type of component distributions are compared. For fitting a certain model MBCA uses a likelihood based Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) to evaluate its appropriateness and the model with the highest BIC value is accepted as the final solution. The aim of the present study is to investigate the adequacy of automatic model selection in MBCA using BIC, and suggested alternative methods, like the Integrated Completed Likelihood Criterion (ICL), or Baudry's method. An additional aim is to refine these procedures by using so called quality coefficients (QCs), borrowed from methodological advances within the field of exploratory cluster analysis, to help in the choice of an appropriate cluster structure (CLS), and also to compare the efficiency of MBCA in identifying a theoretical CLS with those of various other clustering methods. The analyses are restricted to studying the performance of various procedures of the type described above for two classification situations, typical in person-oriented studies: (1) an example data set characterized by a perfect theoretical CLS with seven types (seven completely homogeneous clusters) was used to generate three data sets with varying degrees of measurement error added to the original values, and (2) three additional data sets based on another perfect theoretical CLS with four types. It was found that the automatic decision rarely led to an optimal solution. However, dropping solutions with irregular BIC curves, and using different QCs as an aid in choosing between different solutions generated by MBCA and by fusing close clusters, optimal solutions were achieved for the two classification situations studied. With this refined procedure the revealed cluster solutions of MBCA often proved to be at least as good as those of different hierarchical and k-center clustering methods. MBCA was definitely superior in identifying four-type CLS models. In identifying seven-type CLS models MBCA performed at a similar level as the best of other clustering methods (such as k-means) only when the reliability level of the input variables was high or moderate, otherwise it was slightly less efficient.

Revitalizing the typological approach: Some methods for finding types.

The purpose is to discuss and exemplify how a typological approach could be designed for studying phenomena believed to be best understood within a person-oriented theoretical framework. The focus is mainly restricted to the case of studying the typological structure of a sample at a single point in time, and restricted to analyzing variable profiles where each variable has a "negative" and "positive" endpoint. An artificial data set and an empirical data set were analyzed using two different methodological approaches, one more explorative (using LICUR, a cluster analysis-based procedure) and one more model-based (using the MCLUST procedure). For the artificial data set, the LICUR procedure was successful in finding the true classification structure but the MCLUST procedure performed surprisingly badly. For the empirical data set, both procedures produced rather similar solutions and they showed moderate validity. However, the LICUR solution appeared to be slightly superior. It was argued that applying a sound classification methodology and carefully validating the resulting classifications are extremely important, even more so in a developmental context. It was also argued that, in a number of situations, a more explorative approach could be more useful than a standard model-based one.

Online and offline video game use in adolescents: measurement invariance and problem severity.

BACKGROUND: Despite the increasing popularity of video game playing, little is known about the similarities and differences between online and offline video game players. OBJECTIVES: The aims of this study were (i) to test the applicability and the measurement invariance of the previously developed Problematic Online Gaming Questionnaire (POGQ) in both online and offline gamers and to (ii) examine the differences in these groups. METHODS: Video game use habits and POGQ were assessed in a sample of 1,964 (71% male) adolescent videogame players. Those gamers who played at least sometimes in an online context were considered "online gamers," while those who played videogames exclusively offline were considered "offline gamers." RESULTS: Confirmatory factor analysis supported the measurement invariance across online and offline videogame players. According to the multiple indicators multiple causes (MIMIC) model, online gamers were more likely to score higher on overuse, interpersonal conflict, and social isolation subscales of the POGQ. CONCLUSION: The results of the present study suggest that online and offline gaming can be assessed using the same psychometric instrument. These findings open the possibility for future research studies concerning problematic video gaming to include participants who exclusively play online or offline games, or both. However, the study also identified important structural features about how online and offline gaming might contribute differently to problematic use. These results provide important information that could be utilized in parental education and the prevention program about the possible detrimental consequences of online vs. offline video gaming.

Enhancement of creative expression and entoptic phenomena as after-effects of repeated ayahuasca ceremonies.

Studying the effect of psychedelic substances on expression of creativity is a challenging problem. Our primary objective was to study the psychometric measures of creativity after a series of ayahuasca ceremonies at a time when the acute effects have subsided. The secondary objective was to investigate how entoptic phenomena emerge during expression of creativity. Forty individuals who were self-motivated participants of ayahuasca rituals in Brazil completed the visual components of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking before and the second day after the end of a two-week long ceremony series. Twenty-one comparison subjects who did not participate in recent psychedelic use also took the Torrance tests twice, two weeks apart. Repeated ingestion of ayahuasca in the ritual setting significantly increased the number of highly original solutions and phosphenic responses. However, participants in the ayahuasca ceremonies exhibited more phosphenic solutions already at the baseline, probably due to the fact that they had more psychedelic experiences within six months prior to the study than the comparison subjects did. This naturalistic study supports the notion that some measures of visual creativity may increase after ritual use of ayahuasca, when the acute psychoactive effects are receded. It also demonstrates an increased entoptic activity after repeated ayahuasca ingestion.

The possible protective role of personality dimensions against premenstrual syndrome.

Previous studies suggest that women with premenstrual syndrome (PMS) differ from those without PMS in personality dimensions, but it is not clear what role personality plays in the background of premenstrual symptomatology. Our purpose was to examine personality dimensions measured by the Tridimensional Character Inventory (TCI) in psychiatrically healthy women not suffering from premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) in relation to the severity of distressing and impairing mental and physical symptoms experienced in the late luteal phase of the menstrual cycle. Forty healthy women completed the prospective record of the Impact and Severity of Menstrual Symptoms (PRISM) calendar every evening through three consecutive menstrual cycles and were assigned into LPS (luteal phase symptom) vs. non-LPS groups. Our grouping did not reflect categorization according to the presence of PMS, since we investigated healthy women. Personality characteristics were evaluated using the TCI. LPS subjects scored significantly higher in subscales associated with novelty seeking (NS), self-directedness (S), cooperation (C) and self-transcendence (ST), and lower in the harm avoidance (HA) scale. Elevated scores of women with higher symptom severity in the late luteal phase in NS, S, ST and C scales and lower HA scores are in contrast with previous results on personality traits associated with PMS. However, we investigated psychiatrically healthy women. Therefore, our results suggest that this personality profile is a protective factor against developing serious psychiatric symptoms when experiencing a distressing and more marked symptomatology associated with the late luteal phase of the reproductive cycle.

[Dream quality, trauma and suicide in in adjustment disorder]. / Alomminoség, trauma és öngyilkosság alkalmazkodási zavarban.

In adjustment disorder (ICD: F43.2) the danger of suicide is greater, and specific dream quality may be characteristic of this state, too. Moreover adjustment disorder, suicide and quality of dream can be related to different types of trauma the patient had during life. Considering these aspects we examined with questionnaires 41 patients with adjustment disorder and 41 control persons with no diagnosed psychiatric disorder. Our results suggest that in adjustment disorder the danger of suicide is significant, nightmare and dreams with negative affect often occur. If these patients went through physical agression, it proved to be more serious than with members of the control panel. Besides, suicide attempt, dream quality, recurring dreams and different traumas also are in relation with each other. From the point of view of clinical practice the result is very important that the risk of suicide and the occurance of nightmares--in accordance with results of other researches--go together strongly. Our study's conclusion is--agreeing with hypothesis of Tanansken et al. 2001--this correlation can occur with the trauma the patient went through.

[Nightmares, dream anxiety and psychopathology: the validation of the Hungarian version of the Van Anxiety Scale]. / Rémálmok, álomszorongás és pszichopatológia: A Van Alomszorongás Skála magyar változatának validálása.

Several research articles have focused on the relationship between nightmares and psychopathology, however a growing number of studies emphasize that nightmare distress may be a better candidate for the prediction of the disturbed mental state, than nightmare frequency itself. At present, validated Hungarian scales measuring nightmare distress are still lacking, therefore are aim was to fill this gap by the psychometric analysis of the Van Dream Anxiety Scale (VDAS), using the data of 140 individuals (70 patients diagnosed with adaptation disorder, and 70 matched controls). The internal consistency of the Scale proved to be considerably good, with the Cronbach-alpha being 0.846 in the control and 0.958 in the clinical group. According to our results the Scale containing 17 items can be reduced to 4 items without loosing relevant information. The patient group reached significantly higher scores on the VDAS than the control one. This could reliably differentiate the two groups. We analyzed the validity of the Scale by correlation analysis with the Dream Recall Scale, the Dream Quality Questionnaire, the Hopelessness Questionnaire, and the Beck Anxiety Questionnaire. Scores of the VDAS showed the predicted correlations with the questionnaires measuring the psychopathological state, and with specific items of the Dream Quality Questionnaire (nightmare frequency and dysphoric dreaming). We consider, that the VDAS is an easily an effectively applicable scale in the fields of clinical and experimental dream research.

The predictive validity of the Leonhardean classification of endogenous psychoses: a 21-33-year follow-up of a prospective study ("BUDAPEST 2000").

To our knowledge, no previous long-term studies of the Leonhardean classification in the whole spectrum of endogenous psychoses have been conducted. This prospective study (n = 276; female patients n = 222; normal control persons n = 54) started in 1967-1976. The same population was followed-up by participation of a "blinded control" psychiatrist in 1997-2002 [patients available at follow-up = 125 (56.3%); available controls = 38 (70.4%)]. Patients for this investigation were selected by two independent diagnosticians from eight nosological groups based on full diagnostic agreement. Diagnostic agreement at follow-up (weighted-kappa) was 0.87. Predictive validity of the diagnostic categories was measured empirically and using a stochastic (Markovian) model, thus combining validity and reliability. Hebephrenias, group of normal persons and of schizophrenias proved to be valid categories, with diagnostic stabilities of 0.94, 0.91, and 0.93, for the three groups, respectively. In addition, bipolar manic-depressive psychoses and cycloid psychoses were also valid (diagnostic stability of 0.77 and 0.76, respectively). Unipolar depression was valid (diagnostic stability = 0.84) only by forming a "nosological family" based on diagnostic stability and on current status and clinical presentation during the period preceding the follow-up with regard to other mood-congruent disorders and outcome-diagnosis "normal control". Validity of systematic paraphrenias (diagnostic stability = 0.69) was in the moderate range. Division of schizophrenias in "systematic versus non-systematic" nosological categories was inconclusive; the categories of affect-laden paraphrenia, periodic catatonia and systematic catatonias could not be confirmed reliably in this study.

Validity of reliability: comparison of interrater reliabilities of psychopathological symptoms.

We have tested the stability of interrater reliability of psychiatric symptoms over a quarter of century using 2 rating scales. Interrater reliabilities of items of 2 psychiatric rating scales employed by 2 consecutive follow-ups were compared. Interrater reliabilites proved to be by and large stable. Interrater reliability depends on the standard deviation of the items scores. In addition to the traditional approach, a new statistical method for unifying the assessments from multiple raters is also presented. Using this method, we demonstrated that probabilities of correct ratings are higher in the absence of manifest symptoms, or in the presence of symptoms, as compared with cases characterized by middle scores. To interpret the relationships revealed in the setting of the experiment, we introduce for its theoretical designation the term "validity of reliability." It is recommended for evaluation of results of rating scales in the context of psychiatric nosology.

Timed action and object naming.

Factors affecting object and action naming were compared in a timed picture-naming paradigm, for drawings of 520 objects and 275 actions, named by adult native speakers of English. Massive differences between object and action naming were observed for all dependent variables, and theoretically relevant differences emerged in the variables that predict retrieval of nouns vs. verbs in this task. Matching object and action items for variables like frequency, age of acquisition, or picture complexity does not result in a match for measures of naming difficulty (name agreement or latency). Conversely, object and action items matched for naming difficulty invariably differ in their other lexical and pictorial properties. A reaction time disadvantage for action naming remains even after controlling for picture properties, target word properties, name agreement itself (reflecting the differential ambiguity of nouns and verbs) as well as a measure of conceptual or psychological complexity based on the number of relevant objects in the scene. Surprisingly, frequency effects run in opposite directions for nouns (higher frequencies yield faster RTs) and verbs (higher frequencies are associated with slower RTs, reflecting a "light verb" strategy that speakers use for difficult items). Implications for method and theory in the study of lexical access are discussed, including relevance to a growing literature on the neurobiology and development of nouns and verbs.

A new on-line resource for psycholinguistic studies.

Picture naming is a widely used technique in psycholinguistic studies. Here, we describe new on-line resources that our project has compiled and made available to researchers on the world wide web at http://crl.ucsd.edu/~aszekely/ipnp/. The website provides access to a wide range of picture stimuli and related norms in seven languages. Picture naming norms, including indices of name agreement and latency, for 520 black-and-white drawings of common objects and 275 concrete transitive and intransitive actions are presented. Norms for age-of-acquisition, word-frequency, familiarity, goodness-of-depiction, and visual complexity are included. An on-line database query system can be used to select a specific range of stimuli, based on parameters of interest for a wide range of studies on healthy and clinical populations, as well as studies of language development.

Possible effect of gender and season on the length of hospitalisation in unipolar major depressives.

BACKGROUND: Seasonal variation as well as gender differences of several phenomena of affective disorders are a common topic of interest. METHODS: The authors analysed the possible effect of season and gender on the length of hospital stay in 529 in-patients with unipolar major depressive episode. RESULTS: Age and menopausal status alone did not influence the length of hospitalisation but there was a statistical tendency (only for females) for the shortest hospital stay in summer, that reached significance in females younger than 50 years. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest a possible seasonal and gender effect on recovery from major depression. LIMITATIONS: Retrospective nature of the study, lack of systematic assessment of clinical response and no data collection about marital status and living conditions, that also can influence the time of discharge.

Comparing several robust tests of stochastic equality with ordinally scaled variables and small to moderate sized samples.

In a comparison of 2 treatments, if outcome scores are denoted by X in 1 condition and by Y in the other, stochastic equality is defined as P(X < Y) = P(X > Y). Tests of stochastic equality can be affected by characteristics of the distributions being compared, such as heterogeneity of variance. Thus, various robust tests of stochastic equality have been proposed and are evaluated here using a Monte Carlo study with sample sizes ranging from 10 to 30. Three robust tests are identified that perform well in Type I error rates and power except when extremely skewed data co-occur with very small n. When tests of stochastic equality might be preferred to tests of means is also considered.