The use of early recollections as a narrative aid in psychotherapy

A narrative framework is put forward for using early recollections as a narrative aid in psychotherapy. According to this framework, early recollections are beginning episodes in the current version of an autobiography or self-narrative which is continuously updated to make sense of current concerns. Inclusion of these episodes in psychotherapy can provide therapists who share an interest in narrative and their clients with a quick way to recognize central themes that are restricting clients’ lives and detect openings to revise them. Revisions regard the form and content of early recollections. Three case examples propose ways of incorporating early recollections in empathic dialogs, including the process of detecting restricting themes and encouraging persons to tell stories in more compassionate voices. Group therapy is proposed as one of the contexts where early recollections can be discussed, but readers are encouraged to extend these ideas to work with individuals and families.     

Narcissism and recollections of early life experiences

Recent studies have found associations between narcissistic personality features and retrospective accounts of early experiences. The current study sought to extend these previous findings by examining whether adaptive and maladaptive features of narcissism were associated with recollections of early life experiences in a non-clinical sample of undergraduate students (N = 334). Results revealed that the Entitlement/Exploitativeness feature of narcissism was associated with low security, high parental discipline, and high threats of separation. Narcissistic Grandiosity was positively associated with peer affectional support and parental discipline, whereas Narcissistic Vulnerability was not uniquely associated with memories of early life experiences. The results provide partial support for models of narcissism in which parents are recalled as failing to provide a secure base while inducing threats of separation and discipline.     

Children's supernatural thinking as a signalling behaviour in early childhood

In this study, we analysed the reaction times of 137 college students when making decisions on pairs of hypothetical children verbalizing different types of vignettes and/or exhibiting different physical appearance (photographs of faces). Vignettes depicted immature and mature versions of both supernatural (e.g., ‘The sun's not out today because it's mad’ vs. ‘The sun's not out today because the clouds are blocking it’) and natural (‘I can remember all 20 cards!’ vs. ‘I can remember 6 or 7 cards’) explanations to ordinary phenomena. Photographs of children's faces were morphed with a physical appearance of approximately 4–7 years old or approximately 8–10 years old. In earlier research, immature supernatural thinking produced positive‐affect reactions from adults and older adolescents (14–18 years old) towards young children, with cognitive cues being more important than physical‐appearance cues in influencing adults’ judgements. Reaction times to make decisions varied for the Supernatural and Natural vignettes and for the immature and mature vignettes/faces, reflecting the differential cognitive effort adults used for making decisions about aspects of children's physical appearance and verbal expressions. The findings were interpreted in terms of the critical role that young children's immature supernatural thinking has on adults’ perception, analogous to the evolved role of immature physical features on adults’ perception of infants.     

Children's early productivity with verbal morphology

Three studies using the intermodal preferential looking paradigm examined onset of productive comprehension of tense/aspect morphology in English. When can toddlers understand these forms with novel verbs and novel events? The first study used familiar verbs and showed that 26–36-month olds correctly matched a past/perfective form (-ed or irregular past) to a completed version of an event and a present/imperfective (is V-ing) to the ongoing version of the same event. The second study used novel verbs and events and found that 33-month olds failed to use tense/aspect morphology to choose between completed and ongoing versions of the same event. The third study also used novel verbs and events but simplified the processing demands of the task in several ways (using initial priming of the events and classes of meaning, using different events within test pairs). This study found that 30-month olds successfully used tense/aspect morphology to choose between ongoing and completed novel events. The results demonstrate that children have productive command of tense/aspect morphology by 30 months and have therefore begun the process of creating an abstract grammar containing this element.     

Children's early understanding of false belief

We investigated 3-year-olds' understanding of the representational capability of the mind by examining whether they would acknowledge that they had entertained a wrong belief. As in previous studies, children very often judged that they had believed a Smarties tube contained pencils when these were revealed as the true content, even though they had stated "Smarties" before the tube had been opened. Under another condition, when the tube was first presented, children mailed a picture into a postbox of what they thought was inside (Smarties). When asked "When you posted your picture, what did you think was in here (the tube)?" the great majority of children answered correctly with "Smarties". Additionally, children nearly always stated that the posted card displayed a picture of Smarties, and that the tube really contained pencils. On the traditional task, children may give the wrong answer because they are biased to make judgments about belief states on the basis of known physical reality. The posting task made it possible for children simultaneously to focus on physical reality and acknowledge false belief.     

Children's Resilience as Assets for Safe Schools

In this article I argue that employing positive psychology conceptions in research allows for a continuum of findings for educational psychology. I illustrate my contention by means of a participatory action research (PAR) survey-based case study in which methodological decisions were informed by an asset-focused resilience conceptual framework. First I provide a rationale, as well as contextual information for the article. Then I explicate asset-focused resilience as a conceptual framework. Subsequently, I present the methodological background of the PAR survey-based case study, after which I align the scope of the findings to the contention of my article. I conclude that the choice of a positive psychology theoretical stance enriched the scope of the findings.     

Towards a model for evaluating spiritual recollections

Spiritual recollections are often evaluated through the effectiveness of delivery, rather than the outcomes of the recollections. Such preference is understandable given the difficulty in defining and quantifying recollection outcomes. To address this gap, the article proposes a framework for evaluating recollection outcomes rather than delivery, and shows how a Filipino Catholic university makes use of this framework for its spiritual recollections. Using data from the university’s Office of Campus Ministry, the study shows how these outcomes were defined and finds that prayer significantly increases the odds of gaining from the recollection while participation in the alternative multifaith group reduces these odds. The article details the changes that were made in response to these results and ends with possible adaptation of this model in other contexts.     

Children's fearfulness as a moderator of parenting in early socialization: Two longitudinal studies

Findings from 2 longitudinal studies replicate and considerably extend past work on child temperament as a moderating link between parenting and successful socialization outcomes. In Study 1 (N = 106 mothers and children), child fearfulness, mother-child positive relationship, and maternal power assertion were assessed at 22 and 33 months; the outcome--children's moral self--was assessed at 56 months. In Study 2 (N = 102 mothers, fathers, and children), child fearfulness and parent-child positive relationship were assessed at 7 and 15 months; parents' power assertion was assessed at 15 months. The outcomes were children's receptive, willing stance toward the parent at 25 months, and rule-compatible conduct without supervision at 38 months. Child fearfulness significantly moderated the impact of parenting: In both studies, for relatively fearless children, mother-child positive relationship predicted future successful socialization outcomes in mother-child dyads. There was no analogous moderation effect in father-child dyads in Study 2. For relatively fearful children, fathers' power assertion in Study 2 predicted poor socialization outcomes. All Temperament x Parenting interactions appeared limited to measures obtained in the 2nd year.     

Early recollections of women preparing for nursing careers

Early recollections of 35 nursing students were significantly different from those of a group of 38 nonnursing majors. Recollections of nursing students suggested more mastery and vigorous physical movements. The settings of the incidents of nursing students were less frequently inside their homes. Recollections of nursing students suggest that their actions are usually the results of their own decisions. If confirmed on cross-validation with larger and varied samples, such indicators might be used with other sources of information for vocational counseling.     

Suicidal Children's and adolescents' responses to early memories test

Early memories were administered to 59 hospitalized suicidal and nonsuicidal children and adolescents. Three groups were formed: Talkers, those who had made serious threats to end their lives; attempters, who acted intentionally to end their lives; and nonsuicidal controls. The early memories were administered by a procedure developed by the author and then rated on a number of variables. Both suicidal groups gave significantly more early memories than the controls. Attempters depicted themselves more often with another person in their earliest early memories. Talkers differed from the other two groups on several variables suggesting higher ego development and better object relationships. The results encouraged further research with early memories as a tool for understanding psychopathology.     

Children's Personal Narratives and Their Mothers' Responsiveness as Covariates of the Children's Compliance

Twenty-six mother–child dyads volunteered to be observed interacting at home, and the children agreed to participate in interviews designed to elicit their personal narratives. Observers coded the children's compliance with mother instructions and the mothers' responsiveness to their children's prosocial behaviors. Other raters coded the children's narratives for coherence of story structure. Correlational analyses of the data sets confirmed hypotheses that mother responsiveness and child coherence scores would account for separate variance in the children's willingness to comply with their mothers' instructions. These results were interpreted within the literature on child–mother synchrony and functional aspects of children's personal narratives.     

How does Sam feel?: Children's labelling and drawing of basic emotions

This study compares the ability of children aged from 6 to 11 to freely produce emotional labels based on detailed scenarios (labelling task), and their ability to depict basic emotions in their human figure drawing (subsequent drawing task). This comparison assesses the relevance of the use of a human figure drawing task in order to test children's comprehension of basic emotions. Such a comparison has never been undertaken up to now, the two tasks being seen as belonging to relatively separate fields of investigation. Results indicate corresponding developmental patterns for both tasks and a clear‐cut gap between simple emotions (happiness and sadness) and complex emotions (anger, fear, and disgust) in the ability to label and to depict basic emotions. These results suggest that a drawing task can be used to assess children's understanding of basic emotions. Results are discussed according to the development of perceptual skills and the development of emotion conceptualization.     

Children's early reading vocabulary: Description and word frequency lists

Background: When constructing stimuli for experimental investigations of cognitive processes in early reading development, researchers have to rely on adult or American children's word frequency counts, as no such counts exist for English children. Aim: The present paper introduces a database of children's early reading vocabulary, for use by researchers and teachers. Sample: Texts from 685 books from reading schemes and story books read by 5‐7 year‐old children were used in the construction of the database. Method: All words from the 685 books were typed or scanned into an Oracle database. Results: The resulting up‐to‐date word frequency list of early print exposure in the UK is available in two forms from a website address given in this paper. This allows access to one list of the words ordered alphabetically and one list of the words ordered by frequency. We also briefly address some fundamental issues underlying early reading vocabulary (e.g., that it is heavily skewed towards low frequencies). Other characteristics of the vocabulary are then discussed. Conclusions: We hope the word frequency lists will be of use to researchers seeking to control word frequency, and to teachers interested in the vocabulary to which young children are exposed in their reading material.     

Children's Cognition as the Foundation of Spirituality

The theory offered in this article articulates the position that the cognitive skills manifested by children are those which are necessary preconditions for spirituality. I argue that psychological theories that posit a hierarchical stage theory of cognition and affect are grounded on premises, which devalue these skills. Theories of children's spirituality have foundered in their ability to appreciate that children's cognition is organized through structures that are quintessential to spirituality, due to their misplaced reliance on these theories. I offer a critique of traditional psychological approaches and an alternative model of children's cognition, which reveals that the cognitive capacities of children are essential to the phenomenology of spirituality.