Gender, social support, and depression in criminal justice-involved adolescents.

Knowing where criminal justice-involved teens look for support and whether those supports reduce depression has important and possibly gender-specific treatment implications for this vulnerable population. This study examines the relationships between social support and depression in a mixed-gender sample of 198 incarcerated adolescents. Greater support from families and overall and greater satisfaction with supports predicted lower depression for boys and girls. Support from siblings and extended family strongly predicted lower depression; support from parents and from friends was either not related or only weakly related to depression. Girls reported higher levels of depression, more support from friends and extended family, and less support from parents than did boys. Family, sibling, and overall support were stronger predictors of depression for girls than for boys. Results suggest that nonparent family members, especially siblings and extended family, provide important emotional resources for teens in the criminal justice system.

Startle modulation in non-incarcerated men and women with psychopathic traits.

Past research has demonstrated that individuals with psychopathic characteristics are under-responsive to aversive stimuli, however, much of this work has failed to include non-incarcerated samples, or to examine gender differences in this relationship. Additionally, few studies have examined the role of specific personality characteristics, as they relate to both psychopathic behavior and emotional responsiveness. The current study assessed emotional modulation of the startle response in a community sample of 108 men and women (99 with usable startle data) during perception of emotion-laden photographs. Consistent with previous work, men reporting high levels of psychopathy failed to show the typical increase in the startle response when exposed to aversive photographs, but only when responses were elicited relatively early in picture viewing (i.e., 2.0 s as compared to 4.5 s post-photograph onset). Additionally, both genders showed a significant effect of harm avoidance and anxiety on modulation of the startle response, such that individuals reporting low levels of each trait failed to show significant responses to aversive photographs. These results suggest that while deficits in emotional processing extend to non-incarcerated samples, the relationship may be influenced by additional factors including gender, personality, and attributes related to incarceration.

Client predictors of treatment retention and completion in a program for homeless veterans.

This study assessed the value of a specific set of client variables in predicting treatment retention and completion of a rehabilitation program for homeless veterans. Participants were 596 (22 female) military veterans admitted to the Palo Alto, California Veterans Administration domicilary program between 1992 and 1995. Information was collected on a number of demographic and background characteristics previously used to predict treatment retention and outcomes. Results indicated that clients who were younger, female, and currently diagnosed with a depressive disorder, showed the highest rates of treatment retention and completion, whereas a current personality disorder diagnosis or history of psychiatric treatment was related to poorer rates of retention and completion. These results may be informative for identifying ways to modify this and other similar treatments to apply to a larger client population. The study's limitations were noted.

Early-onset alcoholism with conduct disorder: go/no go learning deficits, working memory capacity, and personality.

BACKGROUND: Two studies were conducted to investigate the disinhibitory mechanisms that (1) discriminate early-onset alcoholism (EOA) with conduct disorder (CD; antisocial EOA) from a non-antisocial subtype of EOA and (2) are associated with novelty-seeking and low harm avoidance. METHODS: Young adults with antisocial EOA (n = 96), with non-antisocial EOA (without CD; n = 80), with CD alone (n = 50), and controls (n = 125) were given two go/no go tasks (one with monetary loss and the other with shock punishment), the Digit Span test (working memory capacity), and personality measures of harm avoidance, novelty-seeking/impulsivity, excitement-seeking, and negative affectivity. RESULTS: Study 1 revealed that antisocial EOA subjects had poor behavioral inhibition compared with non-antisocial EOAs and controls on both go/no go tasks and with the CD-alone group on the monetary-loss task. Low Digit Span scores accentuated poor inhibition in antisocial EOAs on the monetary loss, but not the shock task. EOA with low Digit Span was associated with higher hit rates on the shock task. Study 2 revealed that antisocial EOAs had high novelty-seeking/impulsivity and low harm avoidance compared with both non-antisocial EOAs and controls. Low harm avoidance was associated with poor inhibition with shock punishment, and this association was mediated by CD. For subjects with low Digit Span scores, novelty-seeking/impulsivity was associated with poor inhibition to monetary-loss punishment and higher hit rates to shock punishment. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest two disinhibitory mechanisms that distinguish antisocial from non-antisocial EOA: an increased sensitivity to reward in nonaversive contexts associated with novelty-seeking/impulsivity and a decreased sensitivity to punishment in aversive contexts associated with low harm avoidance. Results also suggest that EOA and novelty-seeking/impulsivity are associated with a greater response to rewards in those with low working memory capacity.