Young children's attention to dyadic conversation as modified by sociometric status

Forty-eight American children, 12 popular and 12 rejected children from Grades 3 and 6, were paired with same-sex friends and nonfriends on an interactive task. Children were videotaped and their interactions judged for the amount and type of attention each child in the dyad gave to each other and the conversation. Main dependent measures included mutual engagements, acknowledgement of the partner, getting the attention of the partner, attention to the conversation, and social impact of the utterances. Both rejected and popular children attended to the conversation and the partner, but rejected children appeared to overattend in several ways. The interactions of rejected children and their matches involved more mutual engagements, conversational initiators, facilitators, terminators, and nonverbal attention-getting devices. Sex and developmental effects were also found.     

Proximity and hierarchy: orthogonal dimensions of family interconnectedness

The purpose of this research was to develop logical and empirically valid conceptual tools for investigating relationships between family patterns of interconnectedness and psychosocial functioning of children in the family. The family systems concept of boundary was analyzed into two component concepts: Proximity (interpersonal boundaries) and generational Hierarchy (subsystem boundaries). These concepts were operationalized as dimensions, and eight families were assessed by means of interaction coding, interview, and Kinetic Family Drawing to yield empirical verification of these dimensions. Findings indicated that Proximity and Hierarchy are reliable, valid, and independent dimensions of family interconnectedness. Weak generational Hierarchy was associated with increased levels of psychological dysfunction for both identified patients and their siblings. High Proximity was similarly associated with psychological dysfunction, but only for identified patients. The hypothesis that enmeshment is a composite pattern of high Proximity and weak Hierarchy was disconfirmed. Suggestions for future research include systemic analysis of deviation-counteracting and -amplifying relationships between patterns of Proximity and Hierarchy, on the one hand, and psychosocial dysfunction, on the other.     

From General Laws To Singularities

This article comprises several sections. The first is devoted to an explanation of a number of notions stemming from work by Ilya Prigogine and others on open systems far from equilibrium. As a result of this work, I have been able to stand back from the traditional approach employed in family therapy, that of open systems at equilibrium (the theory of Ludwig von Bertalanffy). The second section describes a clinical example based on elements close to Prigogine's theories. In the third part I develop an approach that--although continuing to draw on Prigogine's work--is much more closely linked to the research I have carried out with Félix Guattari over recent years. In this part I attempt to study a level that, in my view, has too often been left outside the field of inquiry: that of couplings between "singularities" of members of the family system and the therapist. A clinical case is presented in which this "semiotic" level, as Guattari terms it, is used together with that of the "intrinsic rules" of the system. Finally, I propose a few avenues of inquiry and research on the basis of the concepts presented.     

Older adolescent females' knowledge of child development norms

This study, the first of three designed to investigate different age groups' knowledge of developmental norms of children, focused on older adolescent female university students. Data were collected from 280 midwestern university students through a questionnaire consisting of 16 items focusing on physical and social development of children from birth to three years of age. Results showed that knowledge of normal development was both over- and underestimated regardless of age of student or year in school. These findings are discussed within the context of the importance of knowledge of developmental norms for future parents.