Psychosocial Characterization of Physically Abused Children from Low Socioeconomic Households in Comparison to Neglected and Nonmaltreated Children

Research reports on the long-term sequelae of physically abused children have not produced a coherent profile that can be used to identify this population as a distinct diagnostic group. To define the specific combination of symptomatology and personality characteristics of this group, 41 physically abused children, referred by the state Child Protection Officers were interviewed using the Attachment Style Classification Questionnaire, the Children's Depression Inventory, the Trait Anxiety Inventory, and the Child Suicidal Potential Scales. The results were compared with those of 38 neglected children and 35 nonabused, nonneglected children. The physically abused children showed an avoidant attachment style, specific depressive and suicidal symptomatology, high anxiety level, high aggression level, and primitive defense mechanisms. A discriminant data analysis identified 92.8% of the participants in terms of their diagnostic status. Our study suggests that an emotional and behavioural cluster of characteristics may differentiate physically abused children from neglected and nonmaltreated children. This cluster highlights the severity of induced developmental damages in the short and long-term.     

The Ojibwa Vision Quest

Like other Algonkian-speaking groups, the Ojibwa traditionally sought personal relations with guardian spirits whom they encountered in visions, as a rite of passage into status as adults. Visions were sometimes sought as early as age three or four, and were generally accomplished no later than puberty. The procedures for cultivating visions blended practical and ritual elements. The procedures were both explained informally and portrayed in myths and belief-legends. Roheim interpreted vision quests in keeping with Freud's general theory of religion, as evidence of fixated Oedipus complexes; but a pathologizing interpretation is inappropriate. Detailed analyses of both boys' and girls' self-reports readily support diagnoses of healthy genitality, rather than Oedipal fixation. Vision quests are better regarded as manifestations of ego ideals, leading in most cases to improved ego–superego integration.     

Prevalence estimation of school bullying with the Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire

The key aim of the present research was to study the “functionality” of two global variables in the Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire and to examine the appropriateness of different cutoff points of these variables for prevalence estimation. Several empirical and conceptual analyses strongly attested to the functionality of the two selected variables in terms of construct validity and selected measurement properties. Similarly, a number of analyses indicated that (having been bullied/having bullied other students) “2 or 3 times a month” was a reasonable and useful lower‐bound cutoff point. With this cutoff point, “involved” students, victims, and bullies differed very markedly and in clearly different ways from “non‐involved” students in conceptually related variables. Prevalence estimates derived in this way can be conveniently obtained, have a reasonably well‐defined meaning, can be easily understood by users, and can be reproduced unambiguously by different researchers/administrators and at different times. An important background for the article is the fact that several common methods, including peer nominations, are not well suited for prevalence estimation. Prevalence data for victims, bullies, and bully‐victims are also presented. All data were derived from the New Bergen Project Against Bullying, comprising a sample of 5,171 students from 37 schools in the town community of Bergen, Norway. At the time of the data collection, the spring of 1997, the 2,544 girls and 2,627 boys were in grades 5 through 9, with modal ages of 11 through 15 years. Aggr. Behav. 29:239–268, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Predictors of representational aggression in preschool children of low‐income urban African American adolescent mothers

Responses to five doll‐story stems thematically related to attachment experiences with the mother were videotaped in the home and used to evaluate child, maternal, and environmental predictors of representational aggression in 93 preschool children of African American women receiving public assistance who had become pregnant as teenagers. Significant correlations were found between representational aggression and child's gender (male), birth weight, maternal depressive affect, maternal educational attainment, recent employment, mother's historical residence with her own mother, and felt social support, accounting for 40% of the variance in representational aggression. A significant Felt Social Support × Gender interaction effect suggested that girls of mothers who perceive higher levels of felt social support are more likely to represent less aggression in their stories; felt social support was not associated with boys' representational aggression. A significant Felt Social Support × Employment interaction effect suggested that representational aggression is associated with lower levels of felt social support only among employed mothers. Findings suggest that different pathways exist for representational aggression in children of low‐income adolescent mothers, which nevertheless share predictors associated with poverty.     

On the space-time structure of human interlimb co-ordination

In three experiments we show, using behavioural measures of movement outcome, as well as movement trajectory information and resultant kinematic profiles, that there is a strong tendency for the limbs to be co-ordinated as a unitary structure even under conditions where the movements are of disparate difficulty. Environmental constraints (an obstacle placed in the path of one limb, but not in the other) are shown to modulate the space-time behaviour of both limbs (Experiment II). Our results obtain for symmetrical (Experiment I) as well as asymmetrical movements that involve non-homologous muscle groups (Experiment III). These findings suggest that in multi-joint limb movements, the many degrees of freedom are organised to function temporarily as a single coherent unit that is uniquely specific to the task demands placed on it. For movements in general, and two-handed movements in particular, such units are revealed in a partitioning of the relevant force demands for each component (a force scaling characteristic) and a preservation of the internal “topology” of the action, as indexed by the relative timing among components. These features, as well as systematic deviations from perfect synchrony between the limbs can be rationalised by a model that assumes the limbs behave qualitatively like non-linear oscillators.     

The Effect of Practice on the Control of Rapid Aiming Movements: Evidence for an Interdependency Between Programming and Feedback Processing

The purpose of this experiment was to investigate how the control of aiming movements performed as fast and as accurately as possible changes with practice. We examined: (1) the influence of visual feedback on the initial impulse and error correction phases of aiming movements during acquisition; and (2) the effect of removing visual feedback at different levels of practice. Results from the acquisition trials indicated that vision had a major impact on the organization of the initial impulse and error correction phases. Also, consistent with findings from research involving temporally constrained movements, the cost of removing vision was greater after extensive levels than after moderate levels of practice. Collectively, these results denote the importance of visual feedback to the learning of this particular class of aiming movements. Learning appears to be a dual process of improved programming of the initial impulse and increased efficiency of feedback processing. Practice not only acts on programming and feedback processes directly, but also indirectly through a reciprocal interplay between these two processes.     

The Role of Defense in the Life Story

In modern societies, adults typically provide their lives with some sense of unity and purpose by constructing self-defining life stories that serve as their identities. Such stories are told to others and to an internalized audience or listener who serves as an ultimate judge and interpreter of the narrative. Defense mechanisms specify narrative strategies that persons use to shape how their lives are told to others and to their internalized audiences. Life events and experiences are incorporated into a life story to the extent that the internalized audience can make sense of the telling. Defenses function to make some stories more tellable than they might otherwise be and to keep other potentially storied accounts from ever reaching the status of being told.