Consistency and development of prosocial dispositions: a longitudinal study

The issue of whether there is consistency in prosocial dispositions was examined with a longitudinal data set extending from ages 4 to 5 years into early adulthood (N = 32). Spontaneous prosocial behaviors observed in the preschool classroom predicted actual prosocial behavior, other- and self-reported prosocial behavior, self-reported sympathy, and perspective taking in childhood to early adulthood. Prosocial behaviors that were not expected to reflect an other-orientation (i.e., low cost helping and compliant prosocial behavior) generally did not predict later prosocial behavior or sympathy. Sympathy appeared to partially mediate the relation of early spontaneous sharing to later prosocial dispositions. The results support the view that there are stable individual differences in prosocial responding that have their origins in early childhood.

The altruistic personality: In what contexts is it apparent?

Hypotheses concerning the specific contexts in which an altruistic personality might be most apparent were investigated. College students completed questionnaires tapping components of an altruistic personality, emotionality, and social desirability. At a 2nd session, the emotional evocativeness and ease of escape from the helping situation were experimentally manipulated. Ss were exposed to a distressed woman, completed state sympathy and personal distress indexes, and were given an opportunity to assist the woman. High scorers on dispositional altruism were expected to assist most when escape was easy, particularly when the distress cues were obvious. Altruistic and emotionally reactive persons were also expected to help most in a psychologically "weak" environment. Both predictions were supported. The relations between helping and the other predictors were also examined.

A multiplicative model of the dispositional antecedents of a prosocial behavior: predicting more of the people more of the time

Researchers have demonstrated that individual differences in prosocial behavior may be a function of dispositional or person variables. However, the observed empirical relations have been relatively modest, perhaps because researchers have most often examined simple additive or single predictor models. The present investigation examined a multiplicative model of the relation of dispositional variables to a prosocial behavior. Eighty-six children between 6 and 9 years old completed a monetary donation task and measures of the general tendency to understand and reason about the affective state of others, to be sympathetic, and to understand the units and value of money. As expected, children who scored high in affective reasoning, sympathy, and money knowledge donated considerably more than children who scored low in any of these dispositional variables.

Assessment of cellular telephone and other radio frequency exposure for epidemiologic research

Epidemiologists are now embarking on the evaluation of the hypothesis that exposure to radio frequency energy from low-power wireless communication devices, such as portable cellular telephones, causes brain cancer and other adverse health outcomes. Even in the laboratory, exposures from radio frequency sources are difficult to quantify; their measurement in large populations for epidemiologic study is challenging. In this paper, we outline the nature and magnitude of these exposures and discuss the prospects for obtaining useful measures of exposure for epidemiologic research.

Emotional responsivity to others: behavioral correlates and socialization antecedents

We have proposed that how children deal with emotional arousal in social situations affects the quality of their social interactions. More specifically, we have argued that children who can regulate negative emotions so that they are not overly aroused interact in more adaptive ways. Based on these assumptions, we have started to examine the relations of parental characteristics and practices to children's emotional responding and social behavior. Initial research findings provide partial support for the conclusion that parental encouragement of children's expression of their own sadness, distress, and sympathy, as well as parental practices that teach children ways to deal with negative emotion-eliciting situations and their own negative emotions, are associated with sympathetic emotional responding and with adaptive social behavior. These findings suggest that further examination of the ways in which children learn to manage their emotions in social interactions will serve to augment our understanding of the socialization of social competence.

The relations of empathy-related emotions and maternal practices to children's comforting behavior

Examined are the relations of maternal empathy-related characteristics, maternal child-rearing practices, and children's vicarious emotional responding to kindergarteners' and third graders' comforting of a crying infant. Children who exhibited facial personal distress in reaction to the baby cry were less likely to help than were other children. In addition, children's distressed reactions to a different sympathy stimulus (a film) were positively correlated with their distressed reaction to the baby cry; children's self-reported reactions to the sympathy-inducing film also were related to their comforting behavior. For girls, maternal perspective taking was positively related to amount and quality (tone of voice) of comforting behavior. Moreover, maternal use of problem-solving and discussion when their daughters were distressed or anxious were associated with higher levels of girls' helping whereas maternal comforting/affirming in a distressing context was negatively related to helping. The only relation of maternal variables to comforting for boys was a positive correlation between maternal reinforcement and quality of boys' comforting.

Beta endorphin concentrations in human milk

BACKGROUND

The source and regulatory mechanisms that elevate beta-endorphin (beta-EP) approximately twofold higher than circulating plasma levels in the colostrum of lactating mothers are still unknown, and no studies have examined beta-EP availability previously during maturation phases of human milk. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine whether concentrations of beta-EP vary over time between colostrum, transitional, and mature breast-milk and to evaluate whether this depends on the method of delivery.

METHODS

Mothers of healthy full-term and pre-term newborn infants who planned to breast-feed their newborn infants were considered for this study. They were consecutively recruited in one of 3 groups of 14, according to delivery method: group 1, vaginal delivery at term (gestational age 40.2 +/- 0.3 weeks; birth weight, 3.48 +/- 0.09 kg); group 2, preterm vaginal delivery (gestational age, 35.6 +/- 0.3 weeks; birth weight, 2.49 +/- 0.08 kg); and group 3, at-term elective cesarean section (gestational age, 39.0 +/- 0.3 weeks; birth weight, 3.32 +/- 0.14 kg). Three consecutive breast milk samples were obtained on the fourth day after birth, before each mother's discharge, and thereafter on the 10th and 30th postpartum days, close to expression of the colostrum, transitional, and mature milk production phases, respectively, to test beta-EP concentrations (beta-Endorphin 125I RIA; INCSTAR Corporation, Stillwater, MN). Data are presented as mean +/- standard deviation. Statistical comparison of beta-EP concentration among the three lactating mother groups was performed using the Kruskal-Wallis nonparametric test. In addition, to test the hypothesis of a trend toward smaller values with time of beta-EP, the authors computed within each mother group a P value per trend (Kruskal-Wallis test) of beta-EP concentration averages on the 4th, 10th, and 30th days, respectively. Student's t test for independent samples was used for the analysis of the other data. The 0.05 significance level was used in the statistical analysis. All computations were made by computer.

RESULTS

Colostrum beta-EP concentrations on the fourth postpartum day of group 1 and group 2 mothers who were delivered of a neonate vaginally, at term, or prematurely were significantly higher (P < 0.01) than colostrum levels of group 3 mothers who underwent cesarean section. Group 2 mothers who were delivered of a neonate vaginally and prematurely presented the highest beta-EP concentrations (P < 0.05), lasting until the transitional milk phase (10th day). No significant differences were found across all 3 groups of lactating mothers in mature milk (30th day) beta-EP concentrations. In addition, the beta-EP trend toward smaller values with time within each of the three groups on days 4, 10, and 30 was statistically significant (P < 0.01 per trend).

CONCLUSIONS

It is hypothesized that elevated beta-EP concentrations in colostrum and transitional milk of mothers who were vaginally delivered of infants may contribute to postnatal fetal adaptation, to overcoming birth stress of natural labor and delivery, and at the same time to the postnatal development of several related biologic functions of breast-fed infants.

A multiplicative model of the dispositional antecedents of a prosocial behavior: predicting more of the people more of the time

Researchers have demonstrated that individual differences in prosocial behavior may be a function of dispositional or person variables. However, the observed empirical relations have been relatively modest, perhaps because researchers have most often examined simple additive or single predictor models. The present investigation examined a multiplicative model of the relation of dispositional variables to a prosocial behavior. Eighty-six children between 6 and 9 years old completed a monetary donation task and measures of the general tendency to understand and reason about the affective state of others, to be sympathetic, and to understand the units and value of money. As expected, children who scored high in affective reasoning, sympathy, and money knowledge donated considerably more than children who scored low in any of these dispositional variables.

Hierarchical classification and the integration of self-structure in late adolescence

A number of empirical studies have demonstrated that one's self-concept is multi-dimensional in nature, varies according to social context, and shows increased differentiation throughout adolescence. There has been relatively less work, however, examining the integration of multi-dimensional social selves. Rosenberg and Gara's (1985) model of the multidimensional self (a model that utilizes a statistical procedure called "hierarchical classification" or HICLAS) was employed to investigate the integration of social selves during late adolescence. First- and fourth-year college students (n=128) completed a computer program designed to collect data required to construct HICLAS "self-structures". The findings indicated that the social selves of fourth-year college students were more related conceptually and were more differentiated than the social selves of first-year students. The differences between first- and fourth-year students suggested that hierarchical classification procedures could be used to address developmental hypotheses.

Taking advantage of noise in quantum reservoir computing

The biggest challenge that quantum computing and quantum machine learning are currently facing is the presence of noise in quantum devices. As a result, big efforts have been put into correcting or mitigating the induced errors. But, can these two fields benefit from noise? Surprisingly, we demonstrate that under some circumstances, quantum noise can be used to improve the performance of quantum reservoir computing, a prominent and recent quantum machine learning algorithm. Our results show that the amplitude damping noise can be beneficial to machine learning, while the depolarizing and phase damping noises should be prioritized for correction. This critical result sheds new light into the physical mechanisms underlying quantum devices, providing solid practical prescriptions for a successful implementation of quantum information processing in nowadays hardware.

Optimal quantum reservoir computing for the noisy intermediate-scale quantum era

Universal fault-tolerant quantum computers require millions of qubits with low error rates. Since this technology is years ahead, noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) computation is receiving tremendous interest. In this setup, quantum reservoir computing is a relevant machine learning algorithm. Its simplicity of training and implementation allows to perform challenging computations on today's available machines. In this Letter, we provide a criterion to select optimal quantum reservoirs, requiring few and simple gates. Our findings demonstrate that they render better results than other commonly used models with significantly less gates and also provide insight on the theoretical gap between quantum reservoir computing and the theory of quantum states' complexity.

Anemia in Celiac Disease: Prevalence, Associated Clinical and Laboratory Features, and Persistence after Gluten-Free Diet

Anemia is considered to be the most frequent extra-intestinal manifestation of Celiac Disease (CD). We assessed frequency, severity, morphologic features, and pathogenic factors of anemia in patients of the Sicilian Regional Network of Celiac Disease and attempted to identify putative pre-diet factors influencing anemia persistence. We retrospectively analyzed CD patients admitted to three centers between 2016-2020. 159 patients entered the study (129 females). More than half (54.7%) had mild-moderate, hypochromic and microcytic anemia, associated with below normal total serum iron and ferritin, indicative of iron deficiency anemia (IDA). One year after diagnosis, 134 patients were following 'strict' GFD. Hypochromic and microcytic anemia persisted in 46% of subjects who were anemic at diagnosis. Patients with persistent anemia had at diagnosis a higher prevalence of female gender (p = 0.02), lower body mass index (BMI, p = 0.01), higher prevalence of poly/hypermenorrhea (p = 0.02) and atopy (p = 0.04), and lower ferritin levels (p = 0.05) than the whole group of non-anemic ones. IDA is found in more than 50% of CD patients at diagnosis; nevertheless, in a lot of women IDA is not corrected by 'strict' GFD. Low BMI and poly/hypermenorrhea at diagnosis characterize this subgroup, suggesting that IDA might be due to iron loss rather than malabsorption, or to their coexistence/overlap.

The relations of parental characteristics and practices to children's vicarious emotional responding

We examined the relation of parental empathy-related characteristics and emotion-related child-rearing practices to third and sixth graders' vicarious emotional responding. Children's heart rate, skin conductance, facial, and self-reported reactions to a sympathy-inducing film were assessed, as were their dispositional sympathy, empathy, and self-monitoring. Parental sympathy was positively related to low levels of personal distress in same-sex children and, for both parents, with sons' dispositional sympathy or empathy. Parental emphasis on problem-focused coping strategies when their sons were anxious was positively correlated with indexes of sons' situational and dispositional sympathy. Same-sex parental restrictiveness in regard to the control of inappropriate, hurtful emotional displays was associated with sons' and daughters' dispositional and situational sympathy, whereas maternal restrictiveness in regard to emotions that are unlikely to hurt others was correlated with nonverbal indexes of personal distress and self reports of low distress. Parental emphasis on control of the child's own negative emotion was associated with children's self-monitoring.

The relations of children's dispositional prosocial behavior to emotionality, regulation, and social functioning

The purpose of this study was to examine the relations of a measure of children's dispositional prosocial behavior (i.e., peer nominations) to individual differences in children's negative emotionality, regulation, and social functioning. Children with prosocial reputations tended to be high in constructive social skills (i.e., socially appropriate behavior and constructive coping) and attentional regulation, and low in negative emotionality. The relations of children's negative emotionality to prosocial reputation were moderated by level of dispositional attentional regulation. In addition, the relations of prosocial reputation to constructive social skills and parent-reported negative emotionality (for girls) increased with age. Vagal tone, a marker of physiological regulation, was negatively related to girls' prosocial reputation.

[Evaluation of the aggressiveness in a group of adolescents from Puerto Rico]

This study is aimed at analyzing from a phenomenological and descriptive viewpoint, the psychodiagnostic and behaviour validity of the legal categories: "delinquents/non-delinquents" and "violent delinquents/non-violent delinquents", as compared to certain features of their personality which determine a violent behaviour in adolescents. To this end, the Rorschach records and the sketches of three groups of Puerto Rican adolescents, have been analyzed and compared. The results of the projective test, statistically compared, showed some significant differences between delinquent individuals and non-delinquent individuals, while the differences between violent delinquents and non-violent delinquents are not meaningful. These results prove that the psychodiagnostic modality "violence" is a standard feature of the delinquent group and it can be neither considered no included in the legal category of "violent crimes". However, different interpretations are possible and several ways for additional thorough studies and investigations can be envisaged.

Personality and socialization correlates of vicarious emotional responding

The relations of personality and family characteristics to adults' negative vicarious emotional responses to sympathy and distress films were examined. Ss reported more sympathy and less personal distress and exhibited less skin conductance as well as heart rate deceleration when viewing a sympathy-evoking film. Dispositional emotional intensity and fantasy empathy were associated with greater self-reported emotional responding and higher skin conductance. Dispositional perspective taking and personal distress were positively and negatively correlated, respectively, with reported vicarious responding to the sympathy film when Ss were administered instructions to imagine the emotions of those in the films. Family cohesiveness was associated with reported sympathy and sadness in reaction to the sympathy film, whereas the expression of negative subordinate and positive emotional states in the home of origin was associated with women's reported responsivity.

Herbal and Dietary Supplements as Adjunctive Treatment for Mild SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Italy

During the COVID-19 pandemic, several observational studies proved a certain efficacy of nutraceuticals, herbal products, and other dietary supplements as adjuvant therapies used alongside antiviral drugs. Although their use has not been widespread in Italy, according to preliminary evidence, many supplements with demonstrated immunomodulatory effects, such as vitamins C and D, herbal medicines and essential oils, might relieve the respiratory symptoms of COVID-19, since SARS-CoV-2 can activate inflammasome-mediated inflammatory signaling pathways. Other observational studies have shown that herbal treatments, such as Echinacea purpurea and ginseng, help alleviate respiratory symptoms and reduce serum levels of inflammatory cytokines, which are typically overexpressed in both adult and pediatric SARS-CoV-2 patients. Further, vitamins C and D can attenuate the immune response thanks to their cytokine suppression ability and to their known antimicrobial activity and potential to modulate T helper cell response. The strong immune response triggered by SARS-CoV-2 infection is responsible for the severity of the disease. Preliminary data have also shown that L-arginine, an endothelial-derived relaxing factor, is able to modulate endothelial damage, which appears to be one of the main targets of this systemic disease. Finally, some essential oils and their isolated compounds, such as eucalyptol, may be helpful in reducing many of the respiratory symptoms of COVID-19, although others, such as menthol, are not recommended, since it can lead to an undervaluation of the clinical status of a patient. In this narrative review, despite the lack of strong evidence in this field, we aimed to give an overview of the current available literature (mainly observational and cross-sectional studies) regarding herbal products and dietary supplements and their use in the treatment of mild disease from SARS-CoV-2 infection. Obviously, dietary supplements and herbal products do not constitute a standardized treatment for COVID-19 disease, but they could represent an adjunctive and useful treatment when used together with antivirals.

The relations of maternal practices and characteristics to children's vicarious emotional responsiveness

This study examined the relations of maternal vicarious emotional responding and child-rearing practices, as well as familial emotional environment, to 5-6 and 8-9-year-old children's vicarious emotional responding. There were some correspondences between mothers' and children's heart rate, facial, and self-reported reactions to a sympathy-inducing film. Maternal sympathy/perspective taking and reinforcement of sympathy/prosocial behavior, as well as negative subordinate emotion in the home, were associated with markers of girls' sympathy; mothers' personal distress (for girls), restrictiveness regarding displays of hurtful negative emotions (particularly for young girls), and negative dominant emotion in the home (for both sexes) were associated with markers of personal distress. Mothers' linking of the film character's experience to children's own experience was associated with children's responsiveness to the film, and mother's verbalizations during the film concerning her own emotional state and role taking were associated with boys' self-reported sympathy.

Prosocial development in late adolescence: a longitudinal study

Change in prosocial moral reasoning over 15 years, gender differences in prosocial reasoning, and the interrelations of moral reasoning, prosocial behavior, and empathy-related emotional responses were examined with longitudinal data from 17-18- and 19-20-year-olds and data from adolescents interviewed for the first time. Hedonistic reasoning declined in use until adolescence, and then increased somewhat in early adulthood. Needs-oriented and stereotypic reasoning increased until mid-childhood or early adolescence and then declined in use. Direct reciprocity and approval reasoning, which appeared to be on the decline in mid-adolescence in previous follow-ups, showed no decline into early adulthood. Several modes of higher-level reasoning increased in use across adolescence and early adulthood. Females' overall reasoning was higher than males'. Scores on interview and objective measures of prosocial moral reasoning were positively correlated. Consistent with expectations, there was some evidence of relations among prosocial reasoning, prosocial behavior, sympathy, and perspective taking.