Effects of worry and somatic anxiety induction on thoughts, emotion and physiological activity

Thirty-six Ss received Velten (1968) emotion inductions designed to produce either worrisome, somatically anxious, or neutral states. A breathing-focus task assessed the frequency of negative thought intrusions before and after the emotion induction. Worry induction produced the greatest increase in negative intrusions, significantly greater than the neutral condition. Somatic anxiety induction produced some increase in intrusions, nonsignificantly between worry and neutral inductions. Both worry and somatic anxiety inductions generated significant increases in cardiovascular activity relative to the neutral condition, while no effect was observed on gastric myoelectric activity. Worry was characterized by emotions on the Multiple Affect Adjective Checklist that overlap with those of depression and somatic anxiety.     

Sex stereotyping of infants: A review of gender labeling studies

Studies that have addressed the question of whether adults and children respond differently to male and female infants because of actual differences in the infants or because of preconceived sex stereotypes are reviewed, and the overall conclusions from these studies are evaluated. Twenty-three studies were identified in which neutrally clothed infant stimuli were labeled male in some conditions and female in other conditions. The strength and consistency of gender labeling effects on perceptions and behaviors in these studies were appraised. The results indicate that knowledge of an infant's gender is not a consistent determinant of adults' reactions, but more strongly influences young children's reactions. The implications of these findings for research on early sex role socialization are considered.     

Introduction to IARPP Plenary Panel,Toronto, June 2015

These brief remarks introduce the symposium on Power and Authority, with clinical material by Francesca Colzani and discussions by Irwin Hoffman, Susanna Federici Nebbiosi, and Gillian Straker. I am glad we have the opportunity in this symposium to discuss power and authority in the clinical situation, because while this subject has been a center of interest for relational psychoanalysts since the inception of the relational perspective, explicit attention has not been paid to the topic in the recent past. Yet power and authority are always present and always important in our activities—in every clinical session, every supervision session, and every page we write. This symposium is composed of an incisive and moving clinical report by Francesca Colzani, followed by discussions by Irwin Hoffman, Susanna Federici Nebbiosi, and Gill Straker.     

Hypothesis sampling systems among preoperational and concrete operational kindergarten children

Groups of 60 preoperational and 60 concrete operational kindergarten children received stimulus differentiation training either with feedback (experimental groups) or without (control groups), prior to a series of discrimination-learning problems in which a blank-trial probe, used to detect the child's hypothesis, followed each feedback trial. The concrete operational children manifested significantly better performances than the preoperational on seven of eight dependent measures examined. There were also significant differences in favor of the experimental groups on three dependent measures. While the results were generally consistent with predictions derived from Piagetian stage theory, it was suggested that this theory must be elaborated to include a perspective derived from conventional developmental learning theory in order to adequately account for these and other data.     

“Conversational” coupling of gaze behavior in prelinguistic human development

Mathematical regularities in the gross temporal pattern of infant-adult gaze behavior are identical to those found in adult verbal conversations. Both types of interaction conform to a Markov chain model. Such regularities suggest some universal property of human communication which predates the onset of speech. The present infants were 3.5 months old.This research was supported by the Grant Foundation, the Research Foundation for Mental Hygiene, Inc., the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene, and the Federal Work-Study program of the City College of New York.     

Maternal influences on ontogeny of suckling and feeding rhythms in the rat.

To assess the effects of both maternal and endogenous factors on the ontogeny of nocturnal feeding in the rat, day and night weight gain was determined in the sighted or blind litters of sighted or blind litters of sighted or blind dams and in young weaned at 15 days of age. Sighted dams impose a diurnal milk-intake pattern on their young. The nocturnal pattern of solid-food intake begins at 19 days of age. Blind litters also display nocturnal feeding when kept with sighted dams, but only until 35 days of age.