White Women and the Dark Mother

One of the foremost champions of the ‘Dark Mother’ today is the overwhelmingly white feminist spirituality movement, based in the United States and Europe. Over the past twenty-five years, white spiritual feminists have approached the figure of the Dark Mother, which is borrowed from Hindu, African and Christian sources, with a uniquely fraught mix of longing, envy, hope, fear and guilt. This article first discusses the explicit justifications that white spiritual feminists offer for the incorporation of the Dark Mother into their religiosity, including their analysis of how the concepts of ‘lightness’ and ‘darkness’ are deployed and gendered in patriarchal religions. It then argues that, contrary to spiritual feminist claims, the Dark Mother as such does not exist cross-culturally but is rather the joint creation of the history of religions, Jungian psychology and spiritual feminist ingenuity, and that she is constructed and utilised primarily as a means of working through white racial guilt.     

Prediction of toddlers’ expressive language from maternal sensitivity and toddlers’ anger expressions: A developmental perspective

Despite evidence for the importance of individual differences in expressive language during toddlerhood in predicting later literacy skills, few researchers have examined individual and contextual factors related to language abilities across the toddler years. Furthermore, a gap remains in the literature about the extent to which the relations of negative emotions and parenting to language skills may differ for girls and boys. The purpose of this longitudinal study was to investigate the associations among maternal sensitivity, children's observed anger reactivity, and expressive language when children were 18 (T1; n = 247) and 30 (T2; n = 216) months. At each age, mothers reported on their toddlers’ expressive language, and mothers’ sensitive parenting behavior was observed during an unstructured free-play task. Toddlers’ anger expressions were observed during an emotion-eliciting task. Using path modeling, results showed few relations at T1. At T2, maternal sensitivity was negatively related to anger, and in turn, anger was associated with lower language skills. However, moderation analyses showed that these findings were significant for boys but not for girls. In addition, T1 maternal sensitivity and anger positively predicted expressive language longitudinally for both sexes. Findings suggest that the relations between maternal sensitivity, anger reactivity and expressive language may vary depending on the child's developmental stage and sex.     

Infant temperament and maternal parenting self-efficacy predict child weight outcomes

Relationships between infant negative reactivity and self-regulation, parenting self-efficacy, and child weight outcomes were examined. Greater observed negative reactivity predicted more child weight gain when mothers had lower parenting self-efficacy. Lower mother-reported self-regulation predicted a greater child weight status. Results highlight potential early risk/protective factors.     

Issues in training clinical health psychologists

The author describes general issues in the training of clinical health psychologists and provides an overview of specific content needed in core health psychology and clinical health psychology assessment and intervention. Special attention is given to training in professional, personal, ethical and legal issues of practice.     

Autism characteristics in children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders

Background: Children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) exhibit difficulties in many cognitive and behavioral domains and also have high comorbidity with other disorders such as attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and conduct disorder as well as autism. Although the FASD profile is shown to be distinct from ADHD and conduct disorder, far less is known about the commonalities with autism. The current study used a parent-rated questionnaire containing an autism subscale to explore the autistic-like features that children with FASD exhibit. Methods: Studied were 25 children with FASD (age: M = 10.3 years) and 17 normal controls (NCs; age: M = 10.2 years). As part of a larger study, all parents/caregivers completed the Social Skills Improvement System (SSIS; Gresham & Elliot, 2008), which in addition to evaluating social skills and behavior problems globally, includes an Autism subscale. Results: Between-group comparisons showed the FASD group not only scored significantly lower in social skills and significantly higher in behavior problems than the NC group but children with FASD also scored significantly higher on the Autism subscale. Item analysis revealed they showed the most difficulty in terms of social and communicative functioning and the least in repetitive and restrictive behaviors. Conclusion: Current findings signify that FASD and autism share similarities with regard to social and communicative functioning. These findings, which further our knowledge of the FASD phenotype, may be useful in specifying the particular interventions these children need.     

Origin Stories: Same-Sex Sexuality and Christian Right Politics

In this paper, we examine dominant Christian conservative narratives of the origins of same-sex sexuality. Critics of the Christian right usually focus on a narrative of choice that Christian right organisations and activists use to explain the origins of same-sex sexuality. A choice narrative grounds a range of political positions and, in many contexts, effectively neutralises both claims of discrimination and public support for potential legal remedies. On the other hand, a narrative of development receives less attention from critics of the Christian right. Although it cannot be reduced to its political efficacy, the narrative of development has a political as well as therapeutic function. Indeed, this narrative circulates tacitly through a different set of public debates than those usually associated with the narrative of choice, including debates over programmes geared to eliminate antigay harassment in public schools. The two narratives create tensions within Christian conservative thought that can destabilise antigay social and political projects.     

Heterogeneity in Maltreated and Non‐maltreated Preschool Children's Inhibitory Control: The Interplay Between Parenting Quality and Child Temperament

This study examined the contribution of child temperament, parenting, and their interaction on inhibitory control development in a sample of maltreated and non‐maltreated preschool children. One hundred and eighteen mother–child dyads were drawn from predominantly low‐income, rural communities. Dyads participated in a laboratory session in which maternal warm autonomy support, warm guidance, and strict/hostile control were observationally coded during a joint teaching task. Independent assessments of children's inhibitory control were obtained, and observers rated children's temperament. After relevant covariates, including income, maternal education, and child age and IQ were controlled for, there were no differences between the maltreatment and non‐maltreatment groups in either children's inhibitory control or mothers' behaviours in the laboratory session. Even after much of the variance in children's inhibitory control was accounted for from the covariates, children's temperamental negativity moderated the effects of warm autonomy support on inhibitory control in both maltreatment and non‐maltreatment groups. Temperamentally negative children whose mothers displayed more warm autonomy support showed greater inhibitory control, at levels on par with low‐negative children. Findings suggest that heterogeneity in children's self‐regulation may be due in part to individual differences in sensitivity to caregiver support for children's independence, even among those exposed to maltreatment. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Influence of response time frame on mood assessment

Abstract

Dental anxiety and the related avoidance of dental treatment can result in severe impairment of health. We investigated the influence on avoidance behavior of phobic severity, gender, characteristics related to generalized anxiety and depression, such as dysfunctional cognitions and sensitivity of bodily symptoms, as well as personality traits of self-efficacy and locus of control. Forty-eight dental phobics were given an initial assessment and avoidance behavior was determined by the degree of observance of three subsequent dental appointments. Principal component analysis revealed separate factors for trait and phobic anxiety as well as for avoidance and dysfunctional cognitions. Women showed a higher degree of avoidance than men. Regression analysis revealed a high desire for control over dental treatment combined with a low level of perceived control as the only significant predictor variable of avoidance. The results suggest that avoidance behavior in dental phobia could be reduced by extending patients’ control over treatment conditions.     

Religiosity of young adults: does childhood maltreatment make a difference?

Previous research on the association between maltreatment in childhood and later religious beliefs and behaviours suggests that maltreatment may have either negative or positive influences on religiosity. However, methodological limitations of previous studies may limit their generalisability. The present study attempted to address these limitations. We examined associations between childhood physical, sexual, and emotional abuse and several dimensions of adult religiosity in a large sample of college students (N = 763). Associations between child maltreatment and religiosity were weak (rs ≤ 0.09). After controlling for possible demographic confounds, the only significant association was between childhood emotional abuse and religious questing.