Physical activity (PA) and social interaction (SI) are often challenging for autistic children, especially during recess at school. The aim of this study was to identify the PA levels and social...Show morePhysical activity (PA) and social interaction (SI) are often challenging for autistic children, especially during recess at school. The aim of this study was to identify the PA levels and social interaction and to examine the relationship between the PA levels and SI. Participants included fifty-three children diagnosed with ASD between the ages of 4 and 13 years. Multi-motion receivers measured PA levels and (1) video observations and (2) proximity sensors (RFID) resulted in data for SI. Results showed that, during recess, a significant difference was found between sedentary activity and light-to-moderate and vigorous activity. More time was spent in sedentary activity. Also, according to the proximity sensors, autistic children spent more time in interaction than alone. However, for the video observations, autistic children spent more time alone than in interaction, but this difference was insignificant. A positive correlation was found between vigorous activity and interaction time (RFID). Supporting the notion that PA is positively correlated to SI. Further research is necessary to minimize the limitations and to better understand the needs regarding PA and SA in autistic children during recess.Show less
Psychopaths are known for their lack of empathy and immoral behaviours, and have shown to be unable to distinguish moral from conventional violations. Research demonstrated that morality can be...Show morePsychopaths are known for their lack of empathy and immoral behaviours, and have shown to be unable to distinguish moral from conventional violations. Research demonstrated that morality can be influenced by empathy, as well as developmental changes. The current study therefore aimed to investigate differences in moral decision-making behaviours between healthy males and psychopathic males in the evaluation of complex social situations. A total of 39 participants took part in this study, with 20 healthy male controls and 19 psychopathic males. The participants observed and evaluated pictures depicting various social situations. These included offenders of intentional pain (IP), offenders of accidental pain (AP), victims of IP, and victims of AP. Participants were then instructed to distribute coins between themselves and a random target from the social situation. The results showed that the controls could differentiate between more conditions than the psychopaths. More specifically, the controls and psychopaths both showed most prosocial behaviour towards victims of IP, followed by victims of AP, and showed most punishing behaviour towards offenders of IP, followed by offenders of AP. However, the psychopaths showed less prosocial behaviour than the controls towards victims of IP and AP. No significant differences were found in punishing behaviour between the controls and psychopaths towards offenders of AP. Finally, no significant correlation was found between age and prosocial behaviour in both the controls and psychopaths towards victims. Taken together, these findings further support the notion that psychopaths’ lack of prosocial behaviour stems from an empathy deficiency, rather than an impairment in moral judgement.Show less
Background: It is well established that social contact is related to mental health. Previous research has shown that the quantity and quality of social interactions are associated with the...Show moreBackground: It is well established that social contact is related to mental health. Previous research has shown that the quantity and quality of social interactions are associated with the development, course and severity of mental disorders, such as anxiety and depression. Less is known about the psychological effects of social contact during a pandemic. Method: The current study investigates the dynamic associations among offline social interactions, depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms in undergraduates from a Dutch university (N=79; 75.95% female; MAge =20.37) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) was used for the data collection. A short online questionnaire was prompted via smartphone four times a day for two consecutive weeks. Multilevel vector autoregressive models were used for the network analysis and centrality indices were calculated. Results: We found significant dynamic associations among the duration of offline social contact and depression symptoms only. The absence of pleasure was associated with less offline social interactions, and vice versa. Having nothing to look forward to was predictive of less offline social contact three hours later. Social contact scored the lowest on centrality indices in our sample. Conclusion: Altogether, we found the duration of offline social contact to be partially related to mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results, strengths and limitations are discussed. Examining the dynamic associations among mental health and social contact can provide novel insights into the development and maintenance of mental health issues.Show less
Although it is known that men with Klinefelter syndrome have cognitive and behavioral problems, knowledge about psychological treatments is limited. This study describes the effect of a...Show moreAlthough it is known that men with Klinefelter syndrome have cognitive and behavioral problems, knowledge about psychological treatments is limited. This study describes the effect of a Selfmanagement training on social competence, social interaction and self-understanding. Scores of 23 Klinefelter men on the Social Skills Rating System, the Social Behavior Scale and the Bermond-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire were compared to 41 control men. Both groups were compared on the pretest. The Klinefelter group has had a Selfmanagement training and a posttest after six months. Independent t-test and repeated measures were computed. The Klinefelter group showed significantly more impairments in social competence, social interactions and self-understanding than the control group on the pretest. No significant improvements on social competence, social interaction and self-understanding were found on the posttest for the Klinefelter men, so we looked at the means of the subtest. The means of the repeated measures indicate an improvement in averages after the training for social competence, frequency of social interactions and the emotion dimension of self-understanding. It turned out that the average excitement during social interaction has decreased considerable on the intervention period. It seems that the Selfmanagement training has a positive effect on the Klinefelter men. In the future research with a larger number of Klinefelter men is recommended as well as research on the effects at the long term. Because this is a first psychological training for men with Klinefelter, the small improvement found in the mean is already valuable and an open door for further research.Show less
Maternal sensitivity influences the maternal working model of the way mothers act on their infant’s signals. In the current study we investigated if this working model also influences mother’s...Show moreMaternal sensitivity influences the maternal working model of the way mothers act on their infant’s signals. In the current study we investigated if this working model also influences mother’s monitoring of an animation of social interaction. Forty mothers participated in the study with their twelve-month-old infants. Maternal sensitivity was observed during three episodes, using the Ainsworth’s Scales. Mothers watched animations while their eye-movements were registered by an eye-tracking apparatus. In the animation a mother-infant interaction was shown at an incline, in which a separation took place. The infant figure made crying or laughing sounds and at the end the larger figure either returned to the smaller figure or went uphill. We analysed the duration of fixations at the baby figure and overall fixations during the response segment. No effects for sensitivity were found, but mothers tended to look longer when the larger figure was unresponsive compared to responsive. Mothers also looked significantly longer at the first four movies, compared to the second four movies. The results suggest that mothers’ looking behaviour at the animation is not affected by maternal sensitivity. This could be due to the relatively small sample or the classification of the low- and high sensitive groups. Another possibility is that the working model of sensitivity is not generalized to other interactions. More research in the future is needed on this topic.Show less
